Browse Items (16012 total)

A report of the main papers read both at the Fourth International Chaucer Congress in York, England (1984), and at the Fourteenth International Arthurian Congress in Rennes, France (1984).

Burger explores how MerT scrutinizes developments in class and gender identities and valuations of marital love and subjectivity that grew out of twelfth-century Gregorian Reform. In direct contrast to WBPT (and in response to ClT), the Merchant…

Argues that the "horizon of expectations" (a concept derived from Hans Jauss) of FranT is never fulfilled by the narrative. Although the Franklin strives to meet social and generic expectations, he leaves his Tale open-ended--Chaucer's means of…

Wallace contemplates and reconstructs historical understanding of several locations, using visual and verbal texts to recapture perspectives of medieval and early modern witnesses or visitors.

Maintains that MLT represents cultural and textual transmission through a network of premodern media: voices, texts, bodies, culture, human actions, and nonhuman forces---media which represent an alternative to the hegemonic, institutional, and…

The Prioress's synthesis of elements from the legends of the martyred schoolboy suggests that she is complying with papal bulls that prohibit accusing Jews of kidnapping and ritual murders, but muances of PrT, and association with Hugh of Lincoln,…

Not mere ornament, the "effictio,"or physical and spiritual portrait, had become a fixed literary convention by the time of Geoffrey of Vinsauf. Bice analyzes Chaucerian characters from GP, KnT, NPT, and MilT, as well as from "Sir Gawain and the…

Frames an assessment of literary theory with opening and closing comments on TC, claiming that, at the end of the poem, "Chaucer, in effect, is doing theory" and, by doing so, "converts his text into something residual and emergent, pleasurable and…

Offers a "brief history" of Japanese translations of CT and focuses on the versions--complete and selected--by Kenji Kaneko, first published in 1917, revised and rereleased in 1923 and 1946. Explores the historical cultural conditions of Kaneko’s…

A series of stand-alone studies, most reprinted in revised form from earlier publications. Includes a newly edited and translated Cistercian sermon and a new essay, "Langland and Preaching." Also includes, among other revisions, "Chaucer's Norfolk…

References to medieval treatises and exegetical tradition suggest that the Pardoner's connection with ale, dove, and tree indicates that, through avarice, he is too literal to preach God's word. The Old Man, taken literally by the Pardoner,…

Explores the relationship between the lyric and late-medieval preaching, the sermon context, Latin manuscripts of sermons,the Latin hymn tradition, Friar John de Grimestone, preaching verse styles, oral traditions, and homiletic use of verse, with…

This illustrated collection of twelve essays on Pre-Raphaelite art and literature and their medieval heritage includes an introduction by the editor and a bibliography. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Pre-Raphaelitism and…

Addresses issues of the order of CT and, following the discussion of Charles A. Owen, Jr. (1977), argues that ParsT was once intended to complete the work. However, Chaucer revised his plan when he "evolved a new and impossibly grandiose scheme for…

Argues that concern with Providence is a major factor in the "high seriousness" of Chaucer's poetry, exploring relations between theological and poetic formulations of Providence before Chaucer and in a variety of his works.

The record of surviving manuscripts shows three patterns in the production of collections of CT: the gathering in of examplars for the specific occasion; the use as exemplar of an already written manuscript of CT; and the use of a collection of…

Argues that Chaucer's interpretation of Boethius, as shown in two key passages in TC, his translation of Bo, and a significant Bo manuscript, "enables him to present Troilus as a genuinely Boethian hero who channels philosophical insight into…

Heffernan considers the clergeon's devotion to Mary's image in relation to historical medieval religious images and the "affective piety" they were produced to evoke among the unlearned.

Compared with their Boccaccian originals, the prayers in Chaucer's KnT are more symmetrical and more concerned with promises to perform duty or to offer sacrifice.

Discusses prayer in various contexts. Chaucer depicts prayer as a means to explore "thorny issues of theology" and often places his prayers in "pagan contexts."

Schooler examines WBPT, KnT, and TC, using speech-act theory to reveal Chaucer's attitudes toward prayer as personal utterance rather than rote activity.

Variants among pragmatic markers-"items which add to the feel of the line or to the organization of the text rather than directly to the sense of the passage"-in the manuscripts of WBP indicate that scribes changed them freely, even subconsciously.…

Investigates how medieval English literature "encouraged women to safeguard their honour by cultivating hypervigilance against the possibility of sexual shame." Includes discussion of women’s virtue and honor during Chaucer's time, with particular…

Summarizes Aristotelian affiliations of women with matter (rather than form) and, following Bourdieu, explores how this affiliation and its "practices" are enacted in Middle English literature. Chaucer engages "contemporary historical practices about…

Examines fiction's role in shaping readers' ethics: the transformation of the narrator encourages and mirrors the transformation of the reader (protrepsis). Discusses medieval texts that theorize themselves and teach the reader how to read, positing…