Browse Items (16035 total)

In Chaucer's age, the image of the butterfly primarily suggested the self-destructive nature of human sinfulness. This aspect of butterfly symbolism occurs in MkT (B2.3978-81), MerT (E.303-04), and possibly ShT (B2.1360-61).

Chaucer uses Wycliffite discourse sympathetically in order to "satirize church corruption which the Pardoner represents," particularly the literal understanding of Scripture and allegories. The Pardoner's treatment of Scripture aligns with the views…

Reads WBPT (with attention to the GP description of the Wife) as a "crucial example" of the way Chaucer "sees the relation between deception and self-deception" and a "median" among the Canterbury pilgrims as a gauge of hypocrisy. Balanced between…

Argues that the Yeoman attends the Knight rather than the Squire in GP, considering evidence of dress and character, and adducing William Caxton's "The Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry."

Focuses on the Yeoman of GP, suggesting that the figure may have been based on Richard II's archers of the crown. Examines the life of Thomas Forster of Drybek, one of these archers, catalogues biographical information about him, and suggests he is a…

The presence and function of the Knight's Yeoman have been neglected: to a contemporary audience he would represent a retainer of great authority and responsibility; hence the Knight's status is high indeed.

Proposes that Cicero's "De Inventione" is the source of TC 4.407-13; the subsequent reference (4.414-15) to "Zanzis" is Chaucer's corruption of "Zeuxis."

Examines several mythological winds and traces the use of Zephirus as a "revivifying wind" in Isidore, Bersuire, and Boethius. Chaucer uses the myth of Zephirus and Flora in BD to suggest psychological healing; in TC 5.10, for ironic effect; in…

Argues that CT reflects "astrological schema" and traces the evidence of a single cycle of the twelve signs in GP (Aries and Taurus), KnT (Gemini), MilT (Cancer), RvT (Leo), CkT (Virgo), MLT (Libra), WBPT (Scorpio), FrT (Sagittarius), SumT…

Analyzes the songs and letters embedded in TC as lyric forms that function "in several senses such as means of self-expression of characters--their bliss or afflictions, fundamental communication tools of characters, mediums that assure secrecy in…

Provides background on Chaucer and CT and emphasizes how each tale in CT addresses the particulars of the literary genre to which it is related. In Japanese.

Treats the concerns of “faith, miracle, and conversion” in SNT, separating the tale from its "putative and absent narrator" and emphasizing its orthodoxy in the relation between faith and understanding, sexuality and marriage, and female…

Presents a new interpretation of the historical basis of the canon from "Pars secunda" of CYT, while emphasizing Chaucer’s own historical context of being at
the center of a network of connections at court and elsewhere.

Outlines the "critical myth" that Chaucer, despite his assumed or constructed urbanity, lived in an age that was less sophisticated than the critic's own. Interrogates the history of this myth, exploring progressivist and devolutionary biases in…

Finds Chaucer turning in MilT from classical sources and subject matter in works such as TC, LGW, and KnT, to biblical resources throughout CT. Like the Miller and Nicholas, Chaucer draws on "the cultural authority of the Bible by means of its…

Juxtaposes modern pedagogical views of critical thinking and the Thomastic contrast between "studiositas" and "curositas" as background to discussing how SumT can "be used to help students to think critically about the nature of their own critical…

Explores the recursive demands of grammatical emendation ("emendatio") and penitential reform--the accumulative and ongoing need for correction of error that creates or prompts more need for correction--as the aesthetic that underlies Mel, and CT…

Tallies 1,060 entries that identify references to, allusions to, and echoes of Chaucer and his works in books published from 1641 through 1700, with an appendix of 131 references and allusions from 1475 through 1640, all in addition to or expansions…

Facing-page translation of GP into modern English iambic decasyllables; features illustrations of the pilgrims--reproductions of Caxton’s woodcuts paired with original woodcut portraits--and an extensive glossary.

Examines how the Jailer's Daughter of Shakespeare and Fletcher's play, a character not found in KnT, reflects a complex form of influence derived not only from KnT, but from MilT and RvT as well. Considers water imagery and liquidity, and "madness,…

Identifies various ways Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" influenced Langland's "Piers Plowman" formally and thematically, and suggests in conclusion that, unlike other late medieval English writers, Langland and Chaucer "are interested in…

Introduces elements of the English language that are particularly useful for teaching English, following the ordinary division of the language's development into five stages: Old English, Middle English, early modern English, late modern English, and…

Attributes Chaucer's assertion of St. Augustine's "gret compassioun" for Lucrece as a rape victim (LGW, 1691) to the poets' unmediated first-hand knowledge of Book I of the "City of God," clarifying Augustine's sympathy for rape victims, arguing that…

Reviews J. A. W. Bennett's 1957 book "The Parlement of Foules: An Interpretation," exploring the weaknesses and strengths of his critical methodology and application.

Reviews critical studies that offer, accept, or defend arguments that Chaucer knew and was influenced by William Langland's "Piers Plowman," challenging them on the grounds of weak logic, uncertain assumptions, lack of evidence, and/or the…