Browse Items (16012 total)

Documents the medieval legal understanding of "trouthe" as an aspect of personal "oathworthiness" rather than of verifiability of facts; argues that this early sense obtains in MLT 2.630 even though it was fast becoming an archaic sense.

CT contains risings and fallings, which occur naturally within the text in a variety of genres, tones and modes. They show Chaucer's shift toward Italian-based humanism and away from the Christian tradition. Wilhelm examines KnT, MilT, MLT, ClT,…

Using the linguistic theories of Charles Pierce, Wimsatt proposes that "the function of rhyme in Chaucer's poetry ... is to help organize the sounds to create a sign independent of a particular verbal sense" (18). Sound in poetry is carried in two…

Identifies characteristic features of the rhymes and rhyme-elements in CT; a prolegomenon to an in-progress "Rhyme Concordance to the Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer."

Argues that rhyme royal was rarely used in Middle English romances because it "mitigates against some of the aims and purposes" of the genre, creating "a self-consciousness about temporality that presses against the fairy-tale temporality of romance"…

Deals with late ME pronunciation shown in rhymes of literary works written mostly in East Anglia and the Southeast Midlands, including London, 1300-1500.

A range of medieval literary portraits derive techniques from rhetorical memory devices and, in turn, shape notions of subjectivity. Mulligan considers Langland's Lady Meed, the Green Knight, Henryson's Cresseid, and various Chaucerian characters,…

The portraits of GP, which depict types, belong to the tradition of rhetorical description, not of satire. Epideictic rhetoric provides for representation of virtue and vice alike and aims at the unity of perspective that we find in the descriptions…

The ethos of the Canterbury preachers reveals Chaucer's distinctive self-consciousness about medieval rhetorical issues. The Pardoner's emphasis on pathos contrasts the Parson's emphasis on logos. NPT is an act of self-display in which the narrator…

Like Boccaccio's "Decameron," CT reveals awareness of medieval principles of game and play articulated by Aristotle, Aquinas, and Albertano of Brescia.

Describes structural devices found in the medieval "artes poeticae," for example, those in treatises by Matthew of Vendome, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, and John of Garland, illustrating them with various literary works, including works by Chaucer. Discusses…

Argues that Lydgate's allusions to HF are part of a larger effort to deny the accessibility of truth through language, which the author describes as a "Chaucerian poetics of ambiguity and skepticism."

Unlike other authors of chivalric romance of his time, Chaucer manipulates medieval theories of rhetoric to reveal how the relations of authority and discourse define both the pilgrim narrators and the characters in their tales. Treats WBPT, KnT,…

Traces the history and theory of vernacular translation to its roots in Latin tradition, exploring classical translation theory as a product of the academic struggle between rhetoric and grammar (or hermeneutics). Medieval translation, a kind of…

Richard Lanham's game ("play") theories contribute to an understanding of FranT and PardT. The study of rhetoric as game emphasizes Chaucer's creative vision rather than a moral vision.

Posits the centrality of the Pardoner (rather than the marginality assumed by many critics) to CT. The "confidence game" of his narration parallels Chaucer's own rhetorical approach and informs those of his critics. Chaucer illustrates the…

When Chaucer looked at old books, he not only saw the decorous verbal projections of medieval rhetorical archetypes, he heard the voice of a man like and unlike himself. The idea/language model which "rhetorica"-turned-"poetria" had generated became…

Verbal action in Chaucer may take the form of a series of verbal encounters, as in BD; or a long monologue, as Dorigen's is and Chauntecleer's may as well be. Chauntecleer talks himself out of fear of dreams; Dorigen talks herself out of suicide;…

Medieval vernacular translation recovered the classical merger of rhetorical theory with hermeneutic practice. Ancient and medieval contexts for translation are traced: the practice of rhetorical theory in translation is illustrated in Chaucer's…

Explores similarities between ambiguity and rhetorical invention in rhetorical tradition from Plato to the twenty-first century. Then discusses three examples of "conscious exploitation of the potential of ambiguity": "Sir Gawain and the Green…

Ballad 285, in praise of Chaucer, draws from Brunetto Latini's definition of philosophy in his "livres dou tresor."

Reviews recent rhetorical analyses of TC, examining how and how much "rhetoric affects the composition" of TC. Kokonis first reviews the "history and evolution of rhetoric"; then shows how rhetoric became part of "medieval aesthetic tradition," and…

Lollard insistence on plain speech brought about a split between plain and literary language that persisted into the sixteenth century. Harris considers the "Pearl" poet and the fifteenth-century reception of Chaucer.

Assesses the styles and rhetorical devices of FranT. Matching rhetoric to meaning, Chaucer's "modulation of style" in FranT helps to characterize the narrator and the major characters of the Tale and to guide readers' understanding of the variable…

The ways these three pilgrims use four rhetorical devices--"occupatio," "brevitas," "digressio," and "descriptio"--reveals their personalities. The Knight's self-conscious narrative stance shows his pretensions: his insensitivity in his use of…