Browse Items (15544 total)

Focuses on marvels in medieval literature, and argues that medieval readers appreciated indeterminacy of the marvelous. Some attention to FranT.

Describes "premodern theories of affect rooted in humoral theory and faculty psychology," and explores the affects of wonder and shame in FranT as well as its queered futurity, focusing on Aurelius's brother, who occupies "the position of the…

Traces the struggles of Dorigen in FranT as a kind of conduct literature for wives, as Dorigen's pain in Arveragus's absence is linked to "two contemporary French conduct texts--'Le Livre du chevalier de la Tour Landry' (1371) and 'Le Mesnagier de…

Traces Chaucer's uses of purses and other cavities in PardPT as sites of queer reproduction. Throughout, "locates the ‘purs’ as a gendered, sexualized, and economized site of social exchange."

Reassesses the role and value of the falcon and the mechanical horse in SqT. Demonstrates through these depictions that SqT creates "interspecies and intrasexual relationships of care outside of the gendered human norms of chivalric romance."

Observes how the "tension between control and release" in premodern falconry is "salient for feminist approaches to representations of gender when birds stand in for women's sexual bodies," exploring the implications of associations between women and…

Argues that the "bond" between Canacee and the falcon in SqT is "grounded in the theme of female friendship" although seen from the "avian perspective"--an "intersectional" approach that "interprets Canacee as avian, rather than the falcon as…

Shows how late medieval "anxieties over the corruption of chivalry" and criticism of the morals, motives, and conduct of crusaders" are reflected in the pairing of the GP descriptions of the Squire and Knight, and in KnT and SqT. Argues that…

Gathers secular and religious travel narratives of England
and France. The volume is divided into three sections: critical essays; twenty-six texts, or excerpts, from narratives, including SqT; and supporting bibliographies.

Clarifies the life and tradition of St. Omobono as a "merchant saint" and "patron of businesspeople and entrepreneurs," incorporating discussion of "early literary representation of the merchant character in Chaucer and Shakespeare." Includes…

Promotional materials indicate that this essay analyzes a cryptic mystery of the encomium on marriage in MerT (1267ff.), considers previous critical studies, and discloses a new interpretation.

Includes commentary on the “figure of Pluto” in MerT.

Analyzes the depiction of old age in MerT from a philosophical perspective, with particular emphasis on Epicureanism as it was understood during the Middle Ages. In Catalan.

Describes treatments of the Griselda story from Boccaccio's "Decameron" to Joan Timoneda's "El patrañuelo" (1567), tracing its transformation from a story intended to present Griselda as a model for humankind to a "manual for wives-to-be," including…

Observes that ClT sets its view of marriage in opposition to WBPT, suggesting that this reflects Chaucer's familiarity with Boccaccio's "Decameron" and inspired "the reversal of Griselda’s gender" in two early modern English plays, analyzed here:…

Draws on debates about slow cinema to suggest how ClT evokes a "slow eco-aesthetics" with an ethical impact. Based on the notion that medieval pilgrimage texts evoke a slow aesthetic, the strategies of slowness and patience in the tale of Patient…

Uses "lessons from trauma studies concerning silence, as well as new materialist and ecocritical approaches," to explore the resistance of Griselda's patient silence. "[T]hrough a preponderant use of negative words"--a "poetics of negation"--Griselda…

Explores how medieval romances convey stereotypes that "often appear as a feature of tales of identity in which the male subject position of active self-affirmation is partly developed in relation to female figures" of vulnerability. Includes…

Extends discussions of ClT as a "political fable," focusing on the theme of common profit and on the Clerk as a philosopher, assessing both in light of Bo as an "account of the philosopher's duty to the common profit." Rejects the "Griseldean values…

Juxtaposes modern pedagogical views of critical thinking and the Thomastic contrast between "studiositas" and "curositas" as background to discussing how SumT can "be used to help students to think critically about the nature of their own critical…

Argues that Dante in Canto XIX of his "Inferno," and Chaucer in SumT, "show essentially the same pervasive effects of simony in essentially the same manner," using similar "images of and parodic allusions to" the sin. However, the poets differ in…

Identifies several previously unnoticed biblical allusions in SumT: "narratives of divine wrath against false prophets, gift giving in apostolic ministry, and miraculous healing, all of which enrich the tale's comic irony and sharpen the satiric…

Surveys the "literary context" of FrT and shows that in his discussion of demons (1447–1522) Chaucer uses Vincent of Beauvais, Thomas Aquinas, and "the broad cultural sediments of local revenant belief." Also suggests that the possibility that the…

Describes hay as a symbol of ephemerality, materiality, and avarice in FrT and argues that "the summoner's urging his companion (a fiend) to seize a cart of hay . . . draws him closer to the very substance that symbolizes his own sinful propensities…

Argues that the Wife’s non-congenital deafness signifies not spiritual deafness, but damage done to her by the contents of Jankyn's book, which she, ironically, destroys. Compares Alison's interpretations of Scripture in WBP with those of Jerome in…