Browse Items (16035 total)

Surveys courtly virtues in Chaucer ("courtoisie," "franchise," "gentillesse," "honour," "joie," "pitie," etc.) and the vices which are grounded in pride and the pursuits of fortune. Focuses on KnT when examining the virtues and on the fabliaux for…

Intended for an upper-class public, MilT has high literary value owing to its structure, motivation, style, and place in CT (especially the contrast with the preceding KnT), consistency with the Miller's personality, and also characterization,…

Identifies in NPT echoes of the "Roman de la Rose," particularly in the characterizations of Chaunticler and Pertelote.

Exemplifies how several features of the characterization of Chaunticleer in NPT are "firmly grounded in medieval natural history," particularly his "uxoriousness, regal pride, and choleric temperament," as well as his connections with preaching, all…

Attributes the reference to Taurus in NPT 7.3194-95 to the medico-astrological tradition of associating Taurus with necks and throats, part of a pattern of imagery in the Tale that may reflect the influence of Bartholomeus Anglicanus's "De…

The rhetorical devices disavowed by the eagle in HF are NPT's substance which mocks badly used rhetoric: misapplied or mechanical or out of place. This mockery lies behind the Nun's Priest's anti-feminism, induced by the airs and graces of the…

Suggests that the comparison between Chauntecleer's and mermaid's singing in NPT (7.3269-72) is an "ironic joke" as well as being an "ironic anticipation" of the rooster's fate, connected with the theme of predestination in the Tale.

Describes how, as protagonist of NPT, Chauntecleer is the "mock-hero" of Chaucer's burlesque, engaging in three "battles" and failing because of his own vanity, the target of Chaucer's satire. His "avisioun" was no vision at all, a result of…

Argues that the allusions in NPT to mermaids as sirens and to Burnel the ass help to indicate Chauntecleer's own culpability in his temporary downfall as well as contributing comedy to the Tale.

Evidence from several sources indicates that "susters" in NPT 7.4057 may be a triple-entendre: sibling sisters, nuns, and paramours. This heightens the implied parallel between Chauntecleer and the Nun's Priest.

Argues that when Chauntecleer "purposely mistranslates" the proverb about women being man's "confusio" (NPT, 7.3163-65), he puns on "the two possible connotations of the word . . . and mischievously discard[s] the negative one."

Observes that Chauntecleer's description of laxatives as "venymous" [var. "venymes"] in NPT 7.3155 parallels a similar connection in Roger Bacon, and suggests that Chaucer's use carries "antifeminist irony."

Etymological puns reveal MkT, NPT, and SNT to be a trilogy concerned with the common themes of marriage, sexuality, and decline of the church. The tales dramatize a confrontation among the three pilgrims in which the Priest discloses the Monk's…

Identifies patterns, details, images, and wording in NPT that direct the "reader's attention not only to basic biblical narrative of Adam and Eve, but also to the theological commentary on the Fall." The overall moral of the Tale is the universality…

Argues that Chauntecleer's character in NPT "reflects not only the victims in the Monk's tragedies but the Monk himself," focusing on "echoes and parallels" between NPT and MkT, their concern with fortune, and the Nun's Priest's warning to the Monk.

Processions and spectacles were attempts to contain rivalries between and within the official and unofficial hierarchies of late medieval London (city and crown, wards, crafts, and trades). Recurrently depicting a stable city, Chaucer also depicts…

Korean translation of Barbara Cooney's "Chanticleer and the Fox" (1958), with her original illustrations.

The "remedia" for the Black Knight's loss is achieved in two parts: the "reshaping" of the Black Knight's imaginative metaphor (chess representing the art of love) and the sounding of the castle bell, which awakens the poet and "ends both hunt and…

Several references to Chesterton's "Chaucer" but no direct references to Chaucer or his poetry.

Comments on amplification as a factor in the "powerful dramatic force" of TC and explores, book by book, the poem's themes of "sight and blindness, the words 'bind' and 'bridle'," references to "sea and ships as opposed to references to fishing," and…

Because Chaucer's "children's tales" deal with "extreme violence which the children suffer as innocent victims," these narratives "tend toward despair." Yet, they provoke compassion and thereby suggest that compassion is the proper response to…

Argues that children in Chaucer's works are generally depicted with "tender pity," discussing narratives in which children have relatively prominent roles: MLT, MkT, ClT, PhyT, and PrT.

Posits a "Children's Cluster" of tales in CT (including all of fragments 6 and 7) wherein a "child has a central place" in each tale. Then argues that Virginia's voice and the tensions and "digressions" in PhyT encourage an ethical interpretation of…

Studies the currents and cross-currents of pedagogy, moral didacticism, and entertainment in children's literature, exploring how trends in reading and interpretation recur as the subject matter of the stories and help to define their historical…

Looks at how Bossewell's "Workes of Armorie" uses LGW, WBT, and BD in exploration of the construction of masculine identity.