Browse Items (15542 total)

Interprets the allusion to Pygmalion in PhyT (6.7-18) as an indication of Apius's "concupiscence," drawing on depictions of Pygmalion in Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and Jean de Meun's "Roman de la Rose."

Two essays: 1) "The Place of Philology" argues that the MLE is Chaucer's late and revised addition to CT and that it is properly followed by WBP; Patterson confronts the manuscript evidence and suggests several structural and thematic continuities…

Observes the lack of "narratorial interactivity" (teller/tale relations) in the BBC adaptations of CT and explores several other "markedly un-Chaucerian" aspects of the television version of MilT, remarking that the series "does little to promote"…

Assesses the inclusion in the mid-1500s of "The Plowman's Tale" in Chaucer's "Workes" and its effects in reading reception and influence on beast fable throughout the sixteenth century.

The metaphor in Eph. 4:22-24 of putting off old clothes and donning new ones influenced the use of this image in PardT, "King Lear," "Gulliver's Travels," and "The Brothers Karamazov." As the Pardoner's alter ego and a representation of human…

Uses the metropolitan scribe of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts as a benchmark to assess corrections to Langlandian manuscripts.

Discusses the silence of Chaucer on the life of Boethius in Bo, then moves to examine a fifteenth-century translation of Boethius, based on Bo, that expands and adds to Chaucer's text, including material focused on Boethius himself. Traces and…

A collection of essays on the production, reception, and editing of medieval English manuscripts. For an essay on Chaucer, search for Pursuing Middle English Manuscripts and Their Texts under Alternative Title

Revised versions of fourteen essays by Hanna, plus an introduction and two new essays: "On Stemmatics" and "On the Versions of 'Piers Plowman'."

Readings and musical performances of 36 pieces that pertain to cats, including a reading of a brief selection from ManT (9.175-80) in normalized English by Edward Crafts, accompanied by Noel Lester on piano.

Minnis explores medieval attempts to "explain the difficult and dangerous relationship" between "material and spiritual economies" underlying pardons or indulgences, commenting on the explanations of Albert the Great, Aquinas, and Bonaventure and…

The likelihood that Chaucer in ShT was consciously punning on "cousin"/"cozen" is increased by the appearance of such a pun in a "ronde" which belongs to a special subgroup of "chansons de mal marie(e)."

Examines the use of the virgule in Hengwrt and Ellesmere in the context of historical usage; the "virgule placement is highly regular" in these manuscripts, suggesting that the virgule is scribal rather than part of the Chaucer text.

Examines literacy or bookish qualities of sermons and the art of making oral presentation successuful.

Offers evidence from Thomas Dekker's "The Bel-man of London" (1608) that supports reading "to pull a finch" as "having to do with extortion based upon a trumped-up charge of fornication," hence an accusation against the Summoner (GP 1.652) for…

Contextualizes FranT using Hannah Arendt's "The Human Condition," and argues that the tale represents another moment in CT where journeys end abruptly before the destination is reached. Considers how the tale functions as "a parable of how household…

Argues that public reading was popular because people enjoyed listening to books in company. Aural audiences included literate upper-middle-class and upper-class readers well into the Renaissance, when aural reading changed. Elite audiences…

Theorizes "public interiorities" in terms of literary voice, Augustinian self-awareness, and Jürgen Habermus's conceptualization of the "public sphere," discussing them as expressions or perceptions of stances or outlooks that are neither universal…

Because violated virginity must be read as a violation of social cohesion, the so-called digressions on guardianship in PhyT are central to the theme of guarding the public good.

Compares relations between cosmology and psychology in medieval and modern understandings of poetry, emphasizing the concentric and expanding perspectives prompted by Middle English imagery and world views, exemplified in several lyrics. Includes…

To understand Chaucer as a political court poet and a philosophical poet, we must read his prose as well as his poetry. Wong considers variations between Bo and its Boethian source, Mel as a model for how Chaucer treats his sources, Astr as a source…

Examines "the role rape plays in the formation of Criseyde's character," contrasting Criseyde with Helen of Troy and Lucretia. Criseyde is a "choosing subject," and the language of rape helps to define the ambiguities of choice she faces.

Matthews focuses on Thomas Speght's 1598 and 1602 editions of Chaucer and their role in re-imagining Chaucer as an Early Modern rather than a medieval author. The prefatory poem, "The Reader to Geffrey Chaucer," suggests that early editions had…

Allegorical elements of BD are closely connected with the theory of melancholy in the late-medieval period. Emphasizes parallelism between mental diseases (melancholy) and the creative mind.

Examines the "unconscious content" of RvT through a number of Chaucer's own "identifications": with Sir Edmund de la Pole, owner of the mill at Trumpington and brother of Sir Roger de la Pole; with Symkyn and the exorbitance of his social…