Browse Items (15544 total)

Includes discussion of the setting of "Eger and Grime" in the "Land of Beame," i.e., Bohemia, and provides background for understanding the popularity and influence of Anne of Bohemia and Bohemian fashion at the English court after her arrival in…

Surveys uses of primary and secondary interjections (i.e., exclamations and oaths) in Anglo-Saxon through modern English, exploring how the "inventive ability is more marked in some centuries than in others." Comments on oaths based in religion (God,…

Studies the uses, meanings, and nuances of the concept of magnanimity in the English Middle Ages and Renaissance, including discussion of Chaucer, who, although "he makes no full-scale attempt to portray the magnanimous man in his wholeness,"…

Introduces "Social and Religious Backgrounds" to Old English and to Middle English literatures in separate chapters, along with one chapter each on developments in the medieval English language, "Popular Christian Doctrine" of the era, and the…

A classroom anthology of twelve examples of the literary mode of comedy, including MerT in Nevill Coghill's modern poetic translation. The volume describes the mode of comedy, offers brief biographies of the writers included, and lists discussion…

A classroom anthology of sixteen examples of the literary mode of romance, including FranT in Nevill Coghill's modern poetic translation. The volume describes the mode of romance, offers brief biographies of the writers included, and lists discussion…

An introduction to poetry for classroom use, with an anthology that includes MercB, Ros, Truth, and Purse, with notes and glosses, based on the edition of F. N. Robinson.

An introduction to the study of literature for classroom use, arranged by literary mode and focused thematically on social, religious, and literary controversies. Includes a section titled "Medieval and Modern Chaucer" (pp. 457-81) that raises…

An anthology of English poetry, arranged chronologically, with a brief introduction on "The Experience of a Poem" and a glossary of poetic terminology. The selections from Old and Middle English poetry are generally given in modern verse translation,…

Treats Chaucer's major narrative poems as "oral script(s)" presented to a "small and courtly audience," offering sustained readings that reflect the poems' tensions between authority and experience (or "pref") and address concerns of poetic freedom…

Includes a modernized poetic translation of ManT 9.163-80, under the title "Take Any Bird," accompanied by a pen drawing of a caged bird.

Includes a modern prose translation of PardT in an anthology of twenty-two short stories of crime fiction by authors not usually associated with the genre.

This study of madness in Middle English literature generally mentions Chaucer only in passing, but includes a brief discussion of a "pedestrian and highly traditional account of Nebuchadnezzer" in MkT. Clearly based on the Book of Daniel, the account…

Comments on the limitations of Lydgate's "Siege of Thebes" and the Prologue to the "Tale of Beryn" as imitations of Chaucer, and discusses at greater length how his fabliaux are superior to "Dame Sirith" and to later English comic tales such as "The…

Opens a discussion of hare-hunting as parody in the Middle High German fabliau "Das Häslein" with comments on Chaucer's Monk (GP 191-92 and MkP 7.1945-48) and, with reference to medieval hunting practice, shows that the German work is farcical.

Argues that the seven clerical pilgrims described in GP (Prioress, Monk, Friar, Clerk, Parson, Summoner, and Pardoner) are "partially or wholly defined by their sexual propensities," constituting a thematic pattern of "caritas" in tension with "amor"…

Argues that PF is "much more critical of human life than has been thought [and] that it finally adopts and orthodox Christian Position." Explores how the structure, details, and style of the poem undermine the narrator's views and work "to suggest,…

Resists impulses to denigrate the artistry of MLT and argues that the rhetorical passages--including several of the narrator's apostrophes--achieve "genuinely intense emotion" rather than mere sentimentality.

Characterizes the Canon's Yeoman as "a clever young man, almost too clever for his own good," a comic figure whose renunciation of the Canon and of alchemy is marked by shifting identities and ambiguities which indicate ironically the Yeoman's own…

Includes comments on "wanhope" and "accidia" in ParsT as examples of the "straight homiletic approach" to condemning religious despair.

Comments on the vocabulary of NPT and on Chaucer's "virtuosity" in exploiting Anglo-Saxon, French, and Latinate variety to create tone and effective characterization.

Surveys medieval and early modern literary references to Julius Caesar, including description and assessment of Chaucer's allusions and references to Caesar in Astr, KnT, MLT, and, at greatest length, MkT, commenting on sources and analogues,…

Identifies similarities and differences between marginal illustrations in the Smithfield Decretals (British Museum Royal MS. 10 E.iv) and narrative motifs in versions of the "Roman de Renart," commenting briefly on the presence of the distaff in the…

Interprets the GP description of the Prioress as a satire of an institution rather than a critique of an individual, offering the reading as a prolegomenon to a comparative discussion of the challenges of teaching English and teaching foreign…

Identifies and assesses various motifs in medieval literary and visual renderings of the barnyard chase of the fox, including those found in NPT. Argues that in several instances Chaucer's story may have influenced later depictions or mediated…