Browse Items (16035 total)

The story of Constance is not especially appropriate to the Man of Law. Chaucer was attracted to it because it is a good piece of fiction and because it gave him the perfect opportunity to set forth and justify his belief in astrology. The story…

The pattern of sustained allusion to Gower's "Confessio Amantis" provides an important index to the purpose of MLT. Gower communicates the horror of a moral void; the Man of Law inveighs against Canacee's sinfulness. Chaucer's tale ultimately…

Constance is that rarity, a romance "heroine," who, like the more familiar hero, learns through trials and difficulties. The tale is thus perhaps one of those narratives that marks the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in European culture. …

Regards the detail of covering the child's eyes in MLT 2.840-41 as a "homely touch" of pathos, perhaps drawn from child-care advice found in Bartholomaeus Anglicus, "De Proprietatibus Rerum."

Reads MLT and CYT as opposed tales. Custance of MLT is a "worthy victim" of the broken promises of others and someone who "steadfastly" keeps her own. CYPT, on the other hand, is "marked by changeability, mutability, and vacillation"; its characters…

The Man of Law in his Prologue, in his characterization of Custance, and in his concept of Christ's "prudent purveiaunce" consistently revises his sources, especially Nicholas Trevet, into the materialistic terms of the world governed by Fortune. …

Examines the allusion to Constantinus Africanus's "De Coitu" in MerT 4.1810-11, suggesting that knowledge of the treatise helps us to understand that January's consumption of aphrodisiacs is "manically compulsive" and sinful.

A modern English translation (with brief notes) of Constantinus Africanus's treatise "De Coitu," cited with scorn in MerT (4.1810-11).

Zonneveld examines factors associated with iambic stress in the octosyllabic Dutch poem "Het Leven van St. Lutgart" [Life of St. Lutgart], comparing them with conditions in early English. Considers the "uncertain status of schwa syllables" in…

Examines the "construction of parenthood" in medieval literature and criticism, focusing on Chaucer's role as "father" of English literature, which lacks a parallel "mother" figure.

The Second Nun's voice is undefined by Chaucer, yet it is intriguing since it probes the nature of "agency, voice, and reappropriation." The voice of the Nun becomes more clear as her character develops, and SNT "becomes a product of the voice."

Knutson argues that fifteenth-century imitators of Chaucer identified themselves as descendants of Chaucer, whom they constructed as father, to promote a conservative agenda, simultaneously antifeminist, hierarchical, and heteronormative.

Gust seeks to "reenergize persona theory" for future Chaucer scholarship, arguing that Chaucer's "autofictional" persona should be regarded as the central topic not only of Chaucer's works but also of studies of his reception and literary history at…

Examines the "many ways in which the I-speaker has been deployed by both Chaucer and Chaucerians," considering concepts of the persona, influences from Chaucer's biographies, and representations of the poet in his short poems and CT.

Includes comments on MLT, arguing that it "demonstrates the belief that not everyone can become a true Christian and that true Christianity can only be acquired by the right kind of pagans, such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings," but not Muslims.

Assesses how the sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer by Thynne and Speght helped to create and monumentalize a view of the writer. Renaissance notions of authors, evident in Speght's Chaucer, Holland's Livy, and Harrington's Ariosto, are not the…

Argues that Gg is the earliest surviving effort to create a corpus of Chaucer's poetry and that codicological analysis of the manuscript reveals much about the reception of Chaucer in the fifteenth century.

Eleven essays by various authors and an introduction by the editors. Topics include depictions of virginity, widowhood, and their intersections in medieval romance, hagiography, and drama, with recurrent references to other literary genres and…

Seventeen essays by various authors. The book is divided into three sections: Sexual/Textual Consumption; Monstrous Bodies; and Consuming Genders, Races, and Nations. Includes an introduction by the editors, a select bibliography, and an index. For…

Kerr argues that the sixth canto of Dante's Inferno was the model for Chaucer's use of gluttony and alimentary metaphors in PF, particularly the latter's concern with literary transmission and the birds' debate.

Focuses on two texts that feature violence against women to examine how the violated woman functions as a tool for political change. Both Chaucer and Gower foreground the suffering that men experience in response to the violated female body, leading…

Investigates notions of contagion, melancholy, and reader response in BD, Gower's "Confessio Amantis," Sidney's "Old Arcadia," Shakespeare's "As You Like It," and four early modern "self-help" texts.

Animals figure prominently in BD but are more than mere symbols. Ceyx's dead body is also an "unnatural animal." The birds, horse, whelp, and hart invite, but also resist, interpretation. The juxtaposition of death and animalistic vitality evokes…

Fourteen essays by various authors and an introduction by the editors, all inspired by or in response to the critical studies of Stephanie Trigg. The introduction describes the "affective" criticism underlying Trigg’s "Congenial Souls," "Shame and…

Surveys major works of Chaucer criticism, focusing on works published between ca.1960-1970 and identifying trends. The bibliography lists some 40 works.