Browse Items (16012 total)

Explores the "shock of contrast" between the rejection of worldly love at the end of TC and the celebration of love found in earlier sections of the poem. The address to "yonge, fresshe folks" (5.1835) is consistent with the protagonists' youthful…

Assesses the "tenderness" of Chaucer's own feelings by examining his adaptations of the genre of consolation in BD and his techniques for evoking "consolatory feeling" in TC.

In response to Gower's words to Chaucer at the end of "Confessio Amantis" (8.2941-57), Chaucer first revised LGWP and then completely restructured the plan for CT (e.g., taking Mel away from the Man of Law and giving him a "Gower" tale instead).

Studies based uncritically upon the Robinson text may have produced questionable readings in CT: KnT, ParsT and Prol, ClT, ShT, GP, RvT, MilT, NPT. The Hengwrt MS, currently being used for the "Variorum Chaucer" and by Blake, is the earliest…

An introduction to CT designed for student use, with questions for discussion, research suggestions, and a review at the end of several topical sections: (1) biography and socioliterary setting; (2) language, style, and form; (3) reading CT; (4)…

Introduces CT as the "epitome" of Chaucer's "literary experimentation," commenting on his social range, the unfinished nature of the work, and, especially, its generic variety--"romance, fabliau, beast-fable, saint's life, miracle story, sermon,…

Fifteen volumes comprise this reading of CT in Middle English: 1) MilT, 2) GP and RvT; 3) GP and PardPT; 4) WBPT; 5) FranPT; 6) MerPT; 7) NPT, ShT, and PrPT; 8) FrPT, SumPT, and Thop; 9) ClT and PhyT; 10) KnT [two cassettes]; 11) MLT, CkT, and ManT;…

CkT echoes important elements of Genesis, including the themes of disobedience and banishment, the seeking of pleasure, and post-Fall moratlity.

Item not seen. Online information indicates that this volume addresses questions about why Chaucer included his legend of Cleopatra in LGW, his sources for the account, and its success as a poem.

Suggests that the phrase "right of hooly chirche" in MerT 4.1662 refers to a funeral rights, rather than a marriage blessing.

A dicing pun in PardT 6.696 foreshadows death.

In PardT, the youngest thief's use of "capouns" rather than "hennes" or "coks" functions both realistically, as an indicator of the value of the chickens, and symbolically, as a reminder of the sterility of the Pardoner.

Observes sexual associations of the names "Thopas" and "Olifaunt" and in this light glosses "drasty" (7.923 and 930) as "filthy."

Symbolic details in Chaucer may also be thematic, e.g., the five etymologies of Saint Cecilia's name in SNT, and certain features of GP, MerT, FranT, others of the CT, and TC. Words and phrases also are often thematic.

HF 782-834 displays an uncanny foreknowlege of details of the modern theory of sound and wave motion, especially in lines 809-13, where, in a great creative leap of scientific imagination, the motion of water waves is transferred to the propagation…

Although it is uncertain whether Chaucer knew Plutarch's "Life" of Theseus, in KnT the character is a mixture of the two traditions of the interpretation of Theseus: an Apollonian rationalist in Statius (the source in Anel) and a fickle lover in…

Whereas Chauntecleer was caught by the fox on the third of May,Arcite's escape from prison and Pandarus's first visit to Criseyde took place on the fourth. These differences in date have different meanings according to medieval "lunaria,"…

Suggests that the number of participants in Chaucer's CT pilgrimage--"Wel nyne and twenty" (GP 1.24) plus the narrator--can be seen to signify the "active life," consisting "essentially of penitence and good works." Offers evidence that thirty…

Pandarus, the Pardoner, and the Poet Chaucer are all three creative artists and experience the frustations of the unloved. The Poet created Pandarus and the Pardoner as representation of deep impulses within himself.

Though the dating of NPT to thirty-two days "syn March bigan" is generally emended to bring the tale date to May 3, the unemended text makes literal sense if treated as a reference to "frame story time." The dating thus "should be read in two…

Manuscript evidence indicates that Chaucer intended the title of his longest work to be "The Tales of Caunterbury." During the fifteenth century, however, the work became known popularly as "The Canterbury Tales."

Reburial is always a political act. Richard II had started having his fatihful servants buried in Westminster Abbey, and Chaucer may have become an Abbey tenant in 1399 to be buried there.

Spec. issue on the sexcentenary of Chaucer's death. Suggests a new date-June 2, 1400-for Chaucer's death, based on John Bale's Index Brittaniae Scriptorium (1902 ed.), and surveys the historical background of Chaucer's tomb(s).

Contends that the characterizations of Arveragus, Dorigen, and Aurelius in FranT suffer from inconsistency or incompletion--touches of psychological realism unfulfilled--and suggests that these seemingly faulty characterizations can best be…