Browse Items (15542 total)

In TC, Deiphebus serves as an important foil to Troilus. He exposes Troilus not only as weak and inadequate but also as human, something Hector is not.

According to Virgil (Aeneid, VI) Deiphobus became the husband of Helen after Paris' death. Perhaps Pandarus reveals a covert knowledge of this burgeoning romance when, in TC II, he confidently sends Helen and Deiphobus into the garden for an hour,…

The rich Virgilian background of TC brings into focus Hector and Deiphoebus--bound to Troilus by brotherly love and manipulated by Pandarus--and the parallel perfidies of Helen and Criseyde. In TC, the betrayal of Deiphoebus is "a feminist…

Lawler argues that Chaucer privileged simplicity and disapproved of decadence and over-refinement. Lexical examination demonstrates Chaucer's preference for "delicacy," evident most clearly in Griselda of ClT and supported by evidence from KnT and…

Explores relations between the reception of Chaucer and the "study of the history of emotion," focusing on the "symbolic capital" of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's brief comments on Chaucer in "Table Talk," the "social context" in which the comments were…

May's final answer is the culmination of "an incongruence between words and truth that is manifest throughout the entire poem." The preamble of antifeminist material is glossed by an old man's fantasy. The Merchant's "inability" to gloss allows him…

Examines relations between theology and economics in FrPT and SumPT (with glances at WBP and PardPT), focusing on the polysemous implications of debt, and suggesting that these tales are “key source texts” for modern “economic theology” (Weber to…

Nicknames for geometric propositions occur in TC ("dulcarnon," "flemyng of wrecches") and one seems to be at play at the end of SumT ("figura demonis"), where the squire's "natural" solution to the problem of dividing the fart opposes the…

Examines features of CT that make it difficult to fit the work into the modern “frame” of teleological development, medieval to modern. Focuses on "postmodern" features of the work, its tensions between allegory and realism, and its game-like…

Examines the use of whiteness in a variety of medieval works, arguing that being "white" is a mark not merely of ethnicity but also of Christianity, "beauty," and rank. Examples include mystery plays, "Pearl," and BD.

Traces the "fall of the mighty" (or "fall of princes") motif in "de casibus" narratives and its intersections with tragedy in works by Boccaccio and Chaucer and in the sixteenth-century "Mirror for Magistrates," with particular attention to Adam and…

Bauer compares examples of anti-Jewish discourse in the "Ludus Coventriae" ("deicide"), PrT ("ritual murder"), and the Croxton Play of the Sacrament ("desecration of the host"). All three texts criminalize, victimize, and dehumanize Jews,…

Stemmler assesses representations of the Uprising of 1381 in several contexts: the "Anonimalle Chronicle," Henry Knighton's "Chronicon," Thomas Walsingham's "Historia Anglicana," Jean Froissart's "Chroniques," John Gower's "Vox Clamantis," Chaucer's…

An annotated bibliography of thirty German translations of Chaucer's works published between 1826 and 1992, with additional commentary that notes patterns of reception.

Analyzes narrative aspects of CT and the readers' role in understanding the functions and significance of various structural features, the pilgrimage frame, and point of view; uses late-medieval illustrations to explore and illuminate reader…

FranT mirrors contemporary contradictory beliefs about marriage, criticizing standards and legal constraints that force paradoxical and confusing demands on married partners,and exposing the predicament of three moral characters who fall short with…

Reflects on the significance of Brewer's early writings on Chaucer and his importance as a "critic and literary and cultural historian." Discussion of Brewer's exploration of the "Gothic" in connection with CT.

In translating Bo from the original Latin and a French translation, Chaucer often adapts a word from the latter to create new concepts, especially with English gerunds.

Chaucer freely coins derivations, such as the Summoner's "preambulacion" from "preamble" (D837), for the sake of rhyme, rhythm, economy, and forcefulness.

Considers the cat in MilT as a device of demarcation between the domesticity of John's house and the privacy of Nicholas's "elite" study, observing links between this use of an animal as a device with Derrida's contemplations on his cat. Also…

Contrary to earlier critical opinion, the "Ballade to Chaucer" demonstrates very little about Chaucer's renown outside court circles in southern England; it cannot necessarily be read as a sincere expression of Deschamp's opinion of Chaucer the poet.

Describes the "literary attitudes" evident in Eustace Deschamps' "L'Art de Dictier," focusing on its concern with the "natural music" of lyric poetry, a concern also found among troubadour poets and in Chaucer's ballades and complaints, even though…

Contrasts Chaucer's Wife of Bath with Belle, who is constructed from the tradition of masculine discourse on feminine attractiveness.

Examines how Deschamps's balade 285 is a surprisingly generous recognition and glorification of Chaucer as a pioneering translator from Latin and French into English, and as an "illuminator" or enlightener of his native England. Reveals how this…

Places CT in the transitional period from oral to literal culture, and argues that the change of vocabulary from "herken" in Th's initial sections to "listen" in its third fitt indicates different functions of these sections in Chaucer's parody of…