Browse Items (16012 total)

An automaton "who is both theologically and in ordinary human terms...dead," the Pardoner, whose sexuality emphasizes his deadness, may yet be redeemed in the words of the Old Man.

Chaucer's Pardoner is the ultimate "confidence man," a mask layered over the persona of the character and the authorial voice. Yet, his very distance from the other pilgrims provides him a kind of opennes. For purposes of contrast, and to emphasize…

Matches Augustine's "("De mendacio") moral distinctions among kinds of utterance with Anselm's logical distinctions among kinds of predication; discovers that Augustine refuses to recognize the possibility of "beneficent lying." Argues that Chaucer…

A comprehensive annotated bibliography of scholarly and critical discussion of The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, subdivided into the following categories: editions (126 items); bibliographies, indexes, and textual studies (56 items); sources,…

Suggests that Jerome's "Ad Rusticum Monachum" (125:11) is the ultimate source of the linking of "baskettes" and the apostles in PardP 6.444-47, and aligns the Pardoner with the Wife of Bath through their shared anti-asceticism.

Considers how editorial and critical assumptions have retroactively made the manuscript records of PF conform to post-print expectations about narrative poetry.

Examines how dialectal evidence can shed light on the textual affiliation of PF in MS Tanner 346.

Treats parody as a technique that expresses the inadequacies of a given topic but also evokes its ideals, exemplifying how Chaucer achieves this dual perspective in BD, PF, TC, and Part 1 of CT.

Supports a reading of "complyn" (variant "coupling") at RvT 1.4171, identifying parodic echoes of the prayer from the Holy Office in the language and action of the end of the Tale. The parody "brightens" the comic irony and morality of the Tale.

Explores the life of Edmund Gonville--cleric, shrewd land agent, and man of affairs--and Chaucer's depiction of the Parson. Despite his considerable financial successes, Gonville was like the Parson in that he did not rent out his benefice.

Assesses the Parson in the context of historical records and medieval handbooks for priests, showing him to be a success of the system of patronage, education, and benefice. Identifies the social and economic advantages of his status and summarizes…

In GP the Parson and the Plowman are polysemic figures that emerge from the expression of conflicting, dialogic voices--not idealized role models. Free indirect speech in the Parson's description allows the audience to suspect that he is a whitened…

Argues that ParsT fits its teller. Seen in relation to its sources, the Tale reflects a particular and individualized kind of spirituality--a spirituality averse to physical pleasure, critical of inappropriate taxation, and ambivalent about…

Chaucer changed the order of the five steps to sin of Peraldus's "Summa de vitiis" and followed Ovid's "Metamorphoses" (10.343-44) instead. Glowka speculates on implications of change.

ParsPT and the GP description of the Parson reflect "concerns over the limits of late-medieval pastoral language." While the GP Parson suggests Wycliffite emphasis on Scripture, one finds a more orthodox view in ParsPT, with its focus on…

Offers in parallel columns passages from ParsT, the "Moralium Dogma Philosophorum," and the French translation of the Latin text to argue that the "Moralium" is the ultimate source of portions of ParsT (especially the "Remedia" of the vices), even…

By assigning his English translation of Raymund of Pennaforte's "orthodox" yet "contritionist" "Summa de poenitentia" to the Parson, Chaucer subtly resists the emphasis on oral confession to priests that characterized the doctrine of penance of his…

ParsT makes use of a tradition of penitential mediation (cf. ParsP 55 and 69) on the virtues and vices. In the plan of CT, ParsT abandons the emotive fiction and fables of the earlier tales for the solid ground of meditation, transforming an earthly…

By endowing ParsP with a number of rhetorical and dramatic devices, Chaucer gives the tale a significance that sets it apart and precludes an ironic or perspectivist reading.

Considers the relationship between Chaucer's position in courtly society and his attitude toward his female audience through the examination of his creation of female characters, especially those in TC, LGW, Mel, and WBP.

Pairing three legends from LGW with three of the CT results in useful categories of Chaucer's pathos: Lucrece, PrT--naive portrayal of saintlike stereotype; Philomena, MLT--stock romantic figure of lady in distress; Hypermnestra, PhyT--pathetic, but…

Comments generally on Chaucer's knowledge of Patristic writings by way of handbooks and florilegia, and characterizes Chaucer's outlook as distinctly Augustinian and Boethian, especially his sense of order and beauty and his pervasive "Christian…

Combines literary history with linguistic and statistical analysis to demonstrate how Chaucer's pentameter verse is closer to the Italian "endecasillabo" than to the French "vers de dix."

Frames and analyzes the pilgrims of CT in terms of the social contexts surrounding their professions in Chaucer's lifetime and the antecedent few decades, interestingly moving directly against perceived social ordering to do so. Begins with the rural…

"Peple" and "folk" are marked terms in Chaucer's usage. In particular, "peple" is nearly always negative; "folk" is either neutral or positive. In Chaucer's translations (e.g., Bo), "folk" normally translates as "gens" or its cognates, while "peple"…