Browse Items (15150 total)

Clarifies the reference to Christ catching Peter as he sailed in GP 1.696-98, focusing on the figurative meaning of "hente" and its implications regarding the Pardoner's faux relic, Peter's sail-cloth.

Explores details, emphases, ironies, and double ironies in the GP description of the Manciple and in ManPT, characterizing him as "shrewd," "smug," and "indiscrete"--a "successful rascal" who aspires to "gentil" status, is "insecure," and overly…

Explores the diction and imagery of MilT, focusing on oral and olfactory instances for the ways that they ironically anticipate details of the plot, particularly the misdirected kiss received by Absolon and colter-burn he directs at Nicholas.

Explores the GP description of the Yeoman, affiliating him with the Squire rather than with the Knight, and concentrating on details of his dress and equipage that contribute to a "sense of gay holiday panoply" associated with the Squire.

Identifies several sixteenth-century statements of censorship of romances (one that mentions TC) and describes several early modern "justifications" for the "perennial itch to censor."

Adduces details and emphases in Virgil's "Aeneid" to suggest that Chaucer used it directly in composing his Dido legend in LGW, though perhaps in combination with parallel sources.

An edition of PF based on University of Cambridge Library MS Gg.4.27, with end-of-text textual and explanatory notes, modern punctuation, and original spelling. The Introduction (pp. 1-68) presents the poem as the "best of Chaucer's shorter poems,"…

Engages several critical approaches to Chaucer works and incorporates them into appreciative commentaries, with particular attention to the poet's "habit of working" or process of composition, his narrative techniques (not inorganic, but…

Offers impressionistic appreciation of ways that Chaucer "naturalized and made his own the continental traditions," with particular attention to the conventions of courtly love. Comments on a range of short poems: ABC, Mars, Ros, FormAge, Scog, Buk,…

Revises slightly the author's 1926 study of the same title (Oxford University Press), here adding two essays, also previously published: "Destiny in Troilus and Criseyde" (1930) and "Arcite's Intellect" (1930). The enlarged edition also updates the…

Describes Chaucer as the "brilliant culmination of Middle English literature," commending his "metrical craftsmanship" in English, his "European consciousness," and his "relaxed, quizzical attitude that let him contemplate the varieties of human…

Comments on stylistic and tonal aspects of GP 1.1-18, focusing on their harmonious energy and "generalized vocabulary." Also comments Chaucer's sympathetic irony elsewhere in GP.

Examines "ironic foreshadowings, ambiguities and reversals" in SumT, arguing that they give it "a subtle and satisfying unity." Focuses on overturned expectations, dramatic ironies, and poetic justice in the plot, in the friar's lecture to Thomas,…

Discusses unity in PrP, PrT, and the GP description of the Prioress, focusing on their liturgical references and allusions: the canonical hours, the Prioress's "service dyvyne" (1.122), and the plea for aid from Hugh of Lincoln at the end of the tale…

Examines HF as a literary satire, a comic send-up of the love vision genre, evident in the naiveté of the narrator and his failure to attain love or information about it. The poem's "central structural idea" is "comic disillusionment," underscored by…

Textbook anthology of "theories and examples of the comic" that includes John Dryden's adaptation of NPT under the title "The Cock and the Fox or, The Tale of the Nun's Priest," attributing it to Chaucer.

Considering grammar, context, and manuscript evidence, argues that "hors" is singular in the GP description of the Knight (GP 1.74).

Suggests that "Philosophre" at ParsT 10.536 refers to Seneca and his "De Ira."

Offers historical, onomastic, and contextualizing evidence to support the argument that Philippa Paon (or "Panetto," abbreviated "Pan⸱" in the documents) married Chaucer, tracing their affiliations with English royalty, particularly Queen Philippa;…

Comments on previous scholarship that seeks to clarify the GP description of the Guildsmen (1.361-78) and describes the possible political, economic, and religious affiliations among individuals of such professions as Chaucer assigns to them. Shows…

Provides historical background to the characterization of the Squire in GP 1.85-88, focusing on the economics, politics, and tactics of the so-called "Crusade of 1383" (or "Despenser's Crusade"), the implications of the word "chivachie," and ways…

Surveys the intellectual and social backgrounds of medieval understandings of nobility and "gentilesse," and analyzes noble birth and noble action in TC and CT, especially the ironies of failed "noble potential" in TC, the framing noble ideals of the…

Surveys critical opinion about the relation of the palinode in TC to the body of the poem, and then focuses on the characters' various views of love and the narrator's "ironic mask." In contrast with the "pragmatic limitations" of Pandarus's view of…

Considers aspects of Th that are "burlesque," commenting on diction, meter, details, various rhetorical figures, and rhymes that convey irony and comedy. Poses many of these examples in contrast with parallels elsewhere in CT.

Reinforces studies of structural and thematic order in KnT, identifying a threefold pattern of ordering principles: a backdrop natural order of cycles, rituals, folk customs; the noble social ordering of chivalry and tournament; and the universal,…