Browse Items (16330 total)

In an effort to rehabilitate the medieval romance, argues that Th, when read through the prism of the Auchinleck MS, shows more affection for the form than is generally believed.

Edited oral dialogue.

Examines to what extent Chaucer's promise in GP to describe each pilgrim "so as it semed" to him is fulfilled. Character portrayals are not illustrative, like Langland's, but representative.

Focuses on Chaucer's storytelling style, which combines fiction, invention of literary characters that bring in "details and personalities from 'life,' " and metafictive narrative elements.

Chaucer's interest throughout HF in the nature of phantoms--from dreams to spirits of the dead--ultimately reflects a single "immediate concern: the survival of his rehearsal of the dream in script, that is, the translation of his voice into our…

Allusions in MilT and WBP help date the mystery plays. Despite the paucity of archival records, Chaucer's allusions clarify contemporary familiarity with the plays and their production.

The Reeve's four burning coals ("Avauntyng, liying, anger, covetise" (CT 1.3884) are taken from the description of the spiritual old man in Ephesians 4:22-28.

Examines RvT, considering such matters as its construction and function as a Tale, its moral, and its sources.

Despite belittling remarks by some of his characters about the matter of composing in English, there is no evidence that Chaucer himself is embarrassed to use English as his medium of composition.

Explores the humor and "tonal delights" of LGW, examining the poem as a script for oral performance; argues that the F version was written for oral presentation; the G version, a revision, for manuscript publication.

Posits that "different ages or cultures do not so much misread a great text (from a different time or place) as make from it special abstractions, acutely suited to their particular concerns." At midcentury, the twentieth-century reception of…

Modern discussions of Chaucer and Spark deemphasize the clear religious strains in their fictions. The grotesque, the absurd, and the aberrant are present in both as worldly flaws requiring divine transcendence.

As early as the fifteenth century, two views of CT prevailed: (1) the entire CT is a religious work, and (2) only ClT, PrT, MLT, MkT, ParsT, and SNT are religious. In arguing the first position, Knight addresses difficulties arising from the Hengwrt…

Asserts that details of astrology, astronomy, and mythology in BD, TC, and CT evince Chaucer's confused and skeptical views of Christianity, commenting on passages from LGW and CT. Available at http://nobleworld.biz/images/Mohammed_Raji.pdf (last…

Fourteen essays by various hands. For individual essays, of volume.

Chaucer's religious tales (Mel, ParsT, ClT, MLT, PrT, SNT, PhyT, MkT) are "predicated upon the assumption that the significance of human life is the transcending of its secular limitation through Christian faith." The only tales in CT not written in…

Comments on the sentimental charm of PrT that conflicts with its narrator's "hatred of the Jews," and upon the combination of "touching sentiment" and "mechanical" rhetoric in MLT. Then considers the "poignant emotion" and pathos of ClT as they help…

The unadorned, unironic ParsT is what Chaucer wanted for the ending to CT. The Ricardian pattern of sickness, pilgrimage, and penitence shows why Thomas Gascoigne's narrative of Chaucer's deathbed retraction of his writings is a likely story, or not…

Lancashire uses computer-assisted analysis to tabulate recurring words and phrases in Chaucer's writings. The frequency and patterns of repeated words and their collocations identify Chaucer's preoccupations, distinctive features of his writing and…

Favorable descriptions of persons in heroic writings generally emphasize gross size, erect posture, and directness in approach, whereas courtly texts, such as Chaucer's, represent largeness as unattractive or unrefined. The latter clearly value…

Describes Chaucer's reputation among critics, editors, modernizers, and linguists between 1660 and 1800.

Compares MLP to its source in Innocent III's "De miseria condicionis humane" and to "Purse" to argue that MLP was originally written for Chaucer to read before a group of merchants to ask for payment.

Reticence shapes the relations between narrator and audience in the Merchant's portrait in GP, where the importance of the unexpressed first surfaces, and in MerT. The rhetorical figure of reticence depends on the reader's cooperation.

Distinguishes medieval and modern notions of "seemliness"--a sociological concern distinct from legality and morality--and clarifies medieval ideas of linguistic, sartorial, aesthetic, and marital propriety in CT, observing a "gap" between what is…

Argues that a "shift to extreme piety" in ParsPT and Ret had "nothing to do with" Chaucer's "general plan" for CT, which the poet considered to be "a nearly complete work." Considers evidence of changes in Chaucer's plan and justifies them largely in…