Browse Items (16154 total)

Treats the Old Man of PardT as a figure of the Wandering Jew, exploring relations between the figure and the transtemporal materiality of relics, and linking it with "other explicit and implicit references to Jews" in the depiction of the Pardoner…

Examines the "distorted reflection or negative image" of the Christian mass in PardPT and in the GP description of the Pardoner, showing how the language, imagery, and details of the liturgy of the mass run throughout the Pardoner's materials,…

Surveys and summarizes critical assessments of Chaucer's Pardoner and PardPT from ca. 1940-1970, observing trends and emphases. Then offers a reading of the Pardoner as an extravagant "put-on" who deliberately creates an outrageous personality for…

Contrasts medieval and modern charitable giving, indulgence granting, and false relics, and assesses the Pardoner as a "professional collector," and "high-pressure fund raiser," reading PardPT as "an exposition" of the Pardoner's "fund-raising…

The Pardoner is not a male homosexual but a cross-dressed female through whom Chaucer reveals the constricting gender roles available to women of his time. PardPT metaphorizes the social relations forced on a female trapped in the ambivalence of…

Emphasizes the oral and dramatic nature of Chaucer's art as illustrated by the Pardoner, against the "socioeconomically based individualism" of the fourteenth century.

A critique of psychoanalytic approaches to medieval literature--based on the "fatal flaws" of "Freudian methods of inquiry"-and a rejection of psychoanalytic approaches to Chaucer's Pardoner, including Patterson's previous work. Patterson suggests an…

Friedman argues that French comic "trade" literature is source material for PardP, identifying parallels in details and in the hucksterish rhetoric of the works. He suggests that the Pardoner's sexuality may have been influenced by discussion of the…

Follows W. C. Curry (1926) in understanding the Pardoner to be a eunuch, and explores the Biblical and exegetical implications of this characterization, reinforced by animal imagery, and associated with the Pauline "vetus homo" (Old Man), arguing…

The Pardoner should be read not as a real person but as an allegorical figure. Modern discussions overemphasize the Pardoner's sexuality and distort the fact that hints about his sexuality prepare for the more important concern with his…

Summarizes some medieval semantic theories that are helpful as an approach to the literature and suggests that the Pardoner by his transgressions calls attention both to the semiotics and to the ethics of truth-making processes in fourteenth-century…

Psychoanalyzes the oral imagery in PardPT (food, drink, swearing, the Eucharist, "taking in," aggressive speech, phallic tongues, kissing), arguing that it indicates the Pardoner's unconscious search for pardon.

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…

Explores the implications of reading the Pardoner as a cross-dressing female, arguing that Chaucer leaves "her" characterization ambiguous, plays on "cultural associations of cross-dressing," and "legitimiz[es] the rhetorical power of female…

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…