Browse Items (15542 total)

Works such as Pearl, PhyT, PrT, and Lydgate's Siege of Thebes present children as transgressive social agents whom society represses through ill treatment to stabilize traditional hierarchies.

Examines the multiple meanings of "spirit" in SumT as clarified by scriptural and patristic tradition, exposing satire of friars.

Discusses Emelye's role as Prime Mover in KnT, "structurally and thematically central to the tale" and parallel to Saturn's role as mediator among the gods. Central in each of the four parts of the tale, she develops from a chaste maid in the garden…

The cock of NPT, through correct Latin quotations and their English mistranslations, provides three literal interpretations of scripture.

Beyond her concern to remain bodily faithful to her husband, Dorigen also exhibits a commitment to keep faith with her word. But the Tale's denouement suggests that Dorigen's ultimate interest lies less with honoring her promises than with having a…

Argues that "the character paradigm that Chaucer creates...specifically for the lower birds in PF originates from his understanding of the rising social importance of urban culture in England, even though these birds themselves do not come from…

Using Freudian and Lacanian analysis, examines BD, ultimately "suggest[ing] that Chaucer used courtly love and the figure of Fortune to develop a poetics of tragic interiority that was decisive for the artificing of 'life' in subsequent periods."

In the Ricardian period, English poets adopted strategies of indirection and displacement to comment on political power. The rulers' speeches in the KnT and the ClT reveal Chaucer's sense of power.

Argues that in his "Faerie Queene," Edmund Spenser intended his "avowed kinship with Chaucer, and especially with Chaucer's romances, as a paradigm of his relation to the recorded sources of memory." Fused in Spenser's "extension" of SqT, KnT and SqT…

Analytic survey of "herte" and its derivatives when used to mean "endearment" in TC. Follows Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 61.

Assesses the scenes of swearing and oath making in FrT, arguing that the Tale is not only a theological exemplum but also a reflection of "cultural anxiety concerning the nature of changing social and economic relations as mediated by new forms of…

The theme of rumor connects Dicken's Dorrit with HF; Dickens's Miss Wade capitalizes on Wade and his boat of MerT 1424 and TC 3.614; and Amy Dorrit recalls Dorigen of FranT, although Dorrit is not "so reckless."

Afrikaans verse translation of GP, MilT, RvPT, WBP, PardPT, PrPT, Thop, and NPT, with introduction by H. J. Pieterse and notes.

Examines Chaucer's uses of the word namely and argues that, while it is widely assumed that the word functioned only as a particularizer in Chaucer's time, some cases do not exclude the possibility of another function as appositive marker.

Recommends incorporating MilT and WBPT into a sophomore-level survey of early British literature.

In FranT, Chaucer presents a "moral dilemma that might be described as scholastic in its contrived intractability." The "quaestio disputanda" posed at the end of FranT compels readers to confront the Tale's irresolvable legal complexities of…

Gauges the influence of NPT on Edmund Spenser's "Muiopotmos," considering details of plot, tone, and the relative freedom of the protagonists of the two poems. Spenser emphasizes Clarion's freedom more than Chaucer does Chauntecleer's, but the…

The transmission and reception of the "Aeneid" determined the possible meanings and appropriations for medieval and Renaissance writers, as HF makes clear in its skepticism.

Caie argues that modern editions of medieval texts ought to be accompanied by the glosses that accompany them in the manuscripts. He discusses Chaucer's glosses to CT, as well as his use of the humility topos. The glosses to CT may be Chaucer's own,…

SumT represents a genre most expressive of medieval popular concerns, the grotesque or carnivalesque. Andreas applies theories of Bakhtin.

Pakkala-Weckström examines the speech act of promising and the special conditions needed to constitute a binding promise in Middle English, drawing examples from several of Chaucer's works: FranT, ClT, WBT, TC, FrT, and ShT. Certain formulaic words…

Although Chaucer was associated with the aristocratic seigniorial and mercantile classes, in the first eight tales he vigorously asserts the aggressive voice of peasant protest--fully in MilT but reverting to a somewhat more traditional and…

Arguing that Chaucer was more deeply influenced by Dante than is generally accepted, Shoaf demonstrates Chaucer's dependence on Dante in MLT.

Lines 878-81 of WBT have been glossed incorrectly to suggest that while an incubus would get a woman pregnant, a friar would cause only dishonor. In fact, the tradition of the incubus is much darker, for this individual, associated with evil, had…

Assesses the latent anti-Semitism in Wordsworth's "Song for a Wandering Jew," his "A Jewish Family," and his translation of Chaucer's PrT. The translation and contemporary reviews of it reflect nineteenth-century understanding of Chaucer.