Browse Items (16035 total)

Shows that in his writing and public persona, Earle Birney "engages in a conscious and self-conscious effort to make himself a public poet for Canada, using Chaucer's role as the father of English poetry as a model" and echoing Chaucer’s stylistic…

Includes comments on Earle Birney's use of Chaucerian motifs in his poetry and his writing about Chaucer's irony.

Introductory commentary on British poetry from Anglo-Saxon poetry to the works of John Keats, focusing on canonical works and writers. Chapter 2 (pp. 21-30) summarizes Chaucer's life and describes his iambic meter, explicating Truth (original and…

In BD, Chaucer relies on Latin "artes poeticae" and French courtly poetry for sources and models. "Amplificatio" is prominent: "expolitio," "circumlocutio," "collatio," "apostrophatio," "prosopopeia," "digressio," "descriptio," and "oppositio." …

On location in England, Gallagher recites passages from Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, comparing and contrasting their phonologies, morphologies, and vocabularies. The emphasis is on "Beowulf," but includes a passage from FranT…

Explains the value of variant type faces in establishing the process and sequence of composition in Caxton's Westminster print house, focusing particularly on the two compositors of the first edition of CT and on evidence of their involvement in…

Anthology of early English fiction including excerpts from Wace, Marie de France, Chaucer, and others.

Surveys a wide range of occurrences and developments for [kn], a cluster with a number of uncommon properties. Examination of the lexical and phonetic idiosyncrasies demonstrates that observed figural representation in is not at odds with a rational…

Argues that "the increasing alterity of Middle English texts in the early modern period compelled editorial interventions designed to make the texts accessible as well as to identify, to emphasize, or to establish the texts/ relevance to contemporary…

Maintains that "The Plowman's Tale" and "Jack Upland" may have contributed to how Chaucer was received by "anti-Catholic cultures of the sixteenth century."

Examines a diverse range of authors from the fourteenth to the early eighteenth centuries for their political, philosophical, and scientific perspectives in order to map a movement away from a trust in collective experience and toward a focus on the…

Catalogues Chaucer resources at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin and focuses on Aitken as collector.

A study of the "traditions of lyric publication on which Tottel built" his 1557 collection, Tottel's Miscellany. Discusses early English printers' "Chaucerian anthologies"--Caxton's quarto volumes among them--that combine Chaucer's lyrics and longer…

Explores relations between Franklin--the tale-telling character of "Arden of Faversham"--and Chaucer’s Franklin as narrator of FranT, concentrating on scenes in the play attributed to Shakespeare, and focusing on the "subject matter and literary…

A close reading of selected tales and passages of CT, concentrating on the interpenetration of sexual nuances and theological resonances as a source of unity. Reads the tales "palimsestically," i.e., as a series of intratextual allusions and images…

Examines Chaucer's use of contemporary oral material and traditions of play in CT, especially by the churls. In part 1, Lindahl examines the "shapes of play and society": community of players, role of the pilgrim, shape of performance, and…

An eclectic anthology of poetry in English that includes (pp. 6-9) a selection from NPT (7.3331-446) in rhymed pentameter couplets, lightly modernized and including stresses for meter.

An edited epistolary exchange between medievalist Cohen and physical scientist Elkins-Tanton, exploring humanist and scientific perspectives on epistemology, point of view, temporality, beauty, and human comprehension of the earth and the cosmos.…

Olsen argues that TC is an effort to "use poetry as a spiritual instrument," specifically in an attempt to link "celestial and earthly loves."

Contrasts the "tone, circumstance and result" of the Ceyx and Alcyone story and the grief of the Black Knight in BD, suggesting that the contrasts in the heart/herte hunt emphasize the consolation of Chaucer's poem.

Explores the possible oriental analogues of SqT.

Demonstrates Adam Easton's "detailed engagement" with Dante's "Monarchia" (especially Book 3) in his "Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis," and suggests that Easton and Chaucer "might well have known about each other’s work." Includes comments on…

Assesses Griselda of ClT in light of the folkloric tradition of the "Chichevache," said to have eaten ideal wives in medieval Europe. Includes visual representations of the legendary beast and describes the relations of ClT to its sources.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the English laity became increasingly literate, in part because readers consumed religious literature to increase their devotion and to achieve personal relationship with God. PrT and SNT, among other…

Argues that the Wife of Bath is a distant source (not necessarily intentional) for the characterization of Molly Bloom in James Joyce's "Ulysses." Both characters are sensual, hedonistic, heterodox, touched by despair, shrewish, and unfaithful--part…