Browse Items (16110 total)

Comments on the comic and aural effects of the allusions to Hasdrubales's wife and to Nero in NPT (7.3362-73), focusing on Pertelote and the other female chickens.

Reads the NPT as a reflection of its narrator's moral sentiment, suggesting that the Nun's Priest is an intellectual, neither a stern moralist nor a modern relativist; he is a man content with "aesthetic contemplation" of the "world's failings."

Reproduction of holographic musical score, with lyrics and performance instructions, copyrighted in 1965 by Henmar Press. Headnote: "Commissioned for the Hopkins Center 'Congregation of the Arts' at Dartmouth College by Mario di Bonaventura, Musical…

Explains that Chauntecleer is motivated by lust when he flies down from the beam after his dream of danger.

Reports two oral accounts of analogues of the Old Man in the PardT--one from the southwest U.S. and one from Guatemala.

Gauges what "old age" may have meant to Chaucer and his contemporaries, especially as it relates to memory and the humours. Then comments on several old men in Chaucer's works: January in MerT, the Old Man of PardT, old men in Mel, and Egeus of TC.

Lenz considers the collision/juxtaposition of dreams and medical knowledge in BD, HF, PF, TC and NPT. Argues that this confluence offers a previously neglected dimension of Chaucer's work.

Lists forty-eight onomatopoeic words used by Chaucer. Examines some of these words' auditory, as well as visual, effects within their literary context. In Japanese.

Argues that all of Chaucer's major works "play with medieval concepts of closure" and that the inconclusiveness of these works self-consciously indicates that readers generate their own meanings.

Argues that R. K. Root's groupings of manuscript variants in TC (alpha, beta, and gamma) evince Chaucer's developments in his characterizations of Pandarus, Troilus, and, especially, Criseyde; the characterizations also help to balance tragedy and…

Contends that the beating in RvT alludes to an incident in the life of St. Oswald the Bishop, arguing that the allusion enhances the Reeve's attack on the Miller and creates a sense of irony, as the Reeve suffers in comparison with his priestly…

Surveys critical and historical treatments of Philippa Chaucer, showing both the ahistorical nature of much of this work and the common, negative approach in her characterization. Emphasizes that gender plays a significant role in how these judgments…

Translations into modern English prose of BD, HF, Anel, PF, Bo, TC, LGW, the "Shorter Poems," and Rom.

Examines Chaucer's uses of Ovid, assessing the former's perception of the ancient poet, tracing Ovidian reception in the Middle Ages, and exploring Chaucer's reflection of Ovid's stuggles with life and art.

Certain details of PardT, a story of "brotherhood and betrayal," suggest old stories of Judas Iscariot, the consummate betrayer.

In Brasdefer's "Pamphile et Galatee" appears Houdee, a professional go-between. Possibly Chaucer used Houdee as a basis for his Pandarus in TC, thus providing the earthy undercurrent beneath the Boccaccio source.

Surveys medieval ideals of friendship and their classical and biblical roots, arguing that Chaucer presents a double view in his presentation of Pandarus's friendship for Troilus: "both the world's notion of what a friend is and the moralist's notion…

Friar Lawrence of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet echoes Pandarus of TC. As rhetors, both are fond of apothegms; dramatically, each acts as a go-between; thematically, each reflects how truth escapes human efforts to capture it in fiction.

Pandarus is a persuader, not a philosopher; so he sees before him not existential problems so much as materials to be shaped to a happy resolution. An earthly maker, at points an imitation of the Divine Creator, he tries but fails to achieve a human…

Deals with poetic structure and morality.

Analyzes the rhetoric of Pandarus's speeches in TC, exploring how they align with Chaucer's changes to Boccaccio's Pandaro and how they reflect the emphases and concerns of medieval rhetoricians. Explores the different techniques of persuasion…

The semantic range of "proverbs," and Chaucer's emphasis on the word, indicates that Mel is a series of parables, or allegorical narratives.

Rhetorical style of ParsT emphasizes parallelisms, paired words, and tautologies for powerful effect.

Reads the GP description of the Prioress as an ironic frame for PrT, concluding that they combine as an "exercise in depicting and ridiculing popular anti-Semitism rather than condoning it."