Browse Items (16107 total)

Wadiak considers how Middle English romances focus on "giving and spending" as a questioning of the emergent capitalistic system, examining romances from "King Horn" through KnT and arguing that these works simultaneously shape and reflect the move…

A classroom anthology of sixteen examples of the literary mode of romance, including FranT in Nevill Coghill's modern poetic translation. The volume describes the mode of romance, offers brief biographies of the writers included, and lists discussion…

Argues that many late Middle English romances appeal to the gentry by coded references to the practice of "distraint," whereby gentry landowners were forced to take up knighthood or to pay fines. Concludes by comparing the attitudes expressed in…

Argues that "repetition should be included among the family resemblances that trigger the imaginative response that signals 'romance'." " Includes discussion of MLT and the analogous accounts in Nicholas Trevet's "Chronicles" and John Gower's…

Collection of essays on medieval romance that contains recurrent references to FranT, KnT, MLT, MilT, PhyT, and Th. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search for Romance Reading on the Book under Alternative Title.

Yu examines the changing roles of literary rhetoric and dialectic, poesy and logic, from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Chaucer is cited as a writer whose use of irony reflects changes in the understanding of logic.

Papers read at the first meeting (1988) of the Society for the Study of Medieval Romance, ranging in chronological concern from the twelfth to the fiftennth centuries. Included are general discussions of MS Ashmole 61 and the Percy Folio. …

Examines eleven texts, dating from the late fourteenth to the early seventeenth century, that are related to the metrical romance by their metatextual commentary on one or more romance characteristics. Includes discussion of CT, particularly KnT,…

Comments on the importance of love as a topic in Chaucer's works, with particular attention to TC, SqT, and PF.

Wetherbee examines the literary history of KnT in classical epic, Statius, Dante, and Boccaccio to demonstrate (1) how, in a "deliberate, political" move, the Knight attempts to suppress psychological and historical reality to produce an "optimistic…

A general discussion of the popular character of Middle English romances. The Theseus story in KnT and the Gawain material in WBT show Chaucer relying on audience familiarity with the material. Juxtaposing courtliness and bawdy, the structure of CT…

Meanings of the words "women," "authority," and "language" change throughout Chaucer's works, depending on the complex and shifting relationships of speaker, persona, scribe, and audience, plus pervasive irony. Treats TC, LGW, ClT, FranT, and SNT.

Explores connections between authority and production/distribution in Bodley 861. Briefly compares the Bodley scribe and scribe B in the Hengwrt CT, discusses Chaucer's shorter poems and their dependence on external evidence, and discusses John…

The three main characters of TC "embody three widely different ways of handling the roles they want to be judged by": total identification (Troilus), total detachment (Pandarus), and acceptance with reservations (Criseyde). Although Chaucer could not…

Assesses the characterization and culinary skills of the Cook, commenting on details of GP, CkP, and ManP, and commending his variety of cooking techniques. Includes recipes for "Chicken with the Marrowbones" and "Mortreux" (GP, 380, 384).

Cites Roger Bacon's "Tractatus brevis . . . in libro Secreti Secretorum Aristotilis" as possible justification for emending "convers" to "convex" in the reference to the eighth sphere in TC 5.1910, despite the lack of textual support.

An illustrated analysis of moral and aesthetic issues raised by Chaucer. The rocks, garden, and study that form the loci of FranT carry iconographic meaning suggesting a true poetics of illusion.

Wein examines and appreciates the ways Kent's illustrations of the Canterbury pilgrims broke with formal and interpretive traditions. The essay focuses on the aesthetic impact of the lavish 1930 limited edition (published by Covici-Friede), later…

Studies MilT for its "intersecting strands of linguistic coding" and contrasts Robertsonian character typing with Bakhtin's "dialogic imagination," semantic open-endedness. The stock character type of the Miller is "quited" by his tale. Bakhtin's…

Horror fiction in rhymed pentameter couplets, presented as the "Monk's Second Tale," with Prologue and Epilogue.

Critiques--pro and con--Robertsonian criticism, also known as exegetical, Augustinian, or historical criticism, describing its theoretical and practical strengths and limitations, and exploring its possibilities for further illuminating medieval…

Explains Root's dependence on William Symington McCormick's theory of Chaucer's seriatim revisions of TC, and castigates the "illogical rationalism" of Root's editorial methods, especially his treatment of scribal error. Root's "longing for an…

Both in his emphasis on particular Christian issues and in his stereotyping of Jews, Dominican writer Robert Holcot reflects the lack of Jews in England. Holcot may have influenced Chaucer's understanding of Jews.

Reads Henryson's pastoral "Robene and Makyne" as a burlesque, attributing its generic variety to the poet's attempt to emulate Chaucer's "virtuosity," and exploring several instances where Henryson follows Chaucer's steps more closely, treating most…

Edits a selection of Robert Henryson's poetry, with appended critical notes and glosses, an Introduction, a Biographical and Textual Note, and a series of Appreciations by literary historians. The Introduction (pp. vii-xv) focuses on how and to what…