Browse Items (16012 total)

Considers the theme of common profit in PF and Chaucer's treatment of source material, drawing examples from his uses of Dante and Boccaccio to evince that Chaucer is never an "arido tradittore" (dry translator) but an original poet.

Emends three readings of the Corpus ms. of TC (1.502, 1.458, 1.89) and notes that evidence does not support the theory of extensive authorial revisions.

Analyzes the "structural sections" of the Hengwrt manuscript (Hg) to describe the complex process of its copying and construction, concentrating on such matters as hands, inks, running titles, quiring, and the abrupt ending of CkT, and suggesting…

A "premodern conceptual history" of obscurity in literature, with emphasis on rhetorical traditions, philosophy, and exegesis. Includes comments on Mel and Th as literary examples of the "vices of narration" described in rhetorical handbooks.

Chaucer's intentional contrasting of the language of the Knight and that of the Miller challenges his readers' openmindedness. The Miller's obscene language is cleverly applied and should on no account be censored from prudishness.

Examines late medieval British literary texts (lyrics, pastourelles, flytings, "alewife poems," "schoolroom texts," etc.) for their use of obscene language and imagery to shape and convey attitudes toward gender and sexuality, both positive and…

Discusses Chaucer's thematic thread of accessibility of legal rights to women in FranT and PhyT. Dorigen, in FranT, and Virginia, in PhyT, are women trapped as objects of medieval law, or as properties whose control or outright ownership is the…

Explores the agency of objects in medieval understanding, focusing on this concern in books of hours, Margery Kempe, the Tale of Albinus and Rosemund in Gower's "Confessio Amantis," and the stone idol in SNT.

Describes the "ironic associations" of the summoner's oaths in FrT, particularly those that invoke St. James and St, Anne.

Argues that CT is a major source for O'Connor's story, evident in their shared motifs of pilgrimage and storytelling, the name Bailly/Bailey, and specific echoes of PardT

The Host's use of "tredefowel" in MkT and NPE suggests that he may have been aware of "cock" as an obscenity (as well as a symbol for priest), a meaning supported by evidence from other languages, literature, and iconography.

Discusses links among eros, melancholia, and acedia as well as the tragic psychological dilemma of love in Petrarchan sonnets, Dante, and TC, especially in Chaucer's use of the Petrarchan sonnet "S'amor non e." The "oxymoronic essence" of TC allows…

TC is best understood in terms of the tradition of "discordia concors," the harmonization of opposites, which Chaucer saw exemplified in the "school of Chartres" and Jean de Meun. Chaucer's profound philosophical insight, which linked the perfection…

Halfim summarizes social conditions of Jews in early English society and assesses the depiction of Jews in PrT (pp. 22-34), Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta," and Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." The authors of all three works reiterate Christian…

Item not seen; reported in Encomia 32-33 (2010-2011): 201, with an abstract in French by Isabel de Barros Dias that indicates attention to MerT.

Galler studies the theme of death in Middle English literature and argues against the "pessimistic" dictum that the people and works of the late Middle Ages were primarily concerned with the transience of life, the dominant approach on this subject…

Fictional autobiography of Chaucer in which he recounts the arrival of a thirty-first Canterbury pilgrim, a woman who narrates how she has been impregnated by an extraterrestrial being. Illustrated by Giselda Leirner. In Portuguese.

Compares and contrasts the images of medieval nuns as represented in Chaucer's Prioress and Second Nun.

Wallace explores "degrees of enclosure" for nuns and surveys representations of nuns in medieval and Renaissance literature and art. Comments on Chaucer's depictions of the Prioress and the Second Nun: Chaucer "tells us much about one of his nuns and…

Outlines medieval number theory and its applications to literary composition and interpretation, describing the significances of seven and five. Then explores how and where numerological significance is evident in TC: in its five-part structure,…

Argues that the intensive use of "wel" in "wel nyne and twenty" (GP 24) helps account for the apparent discrepancy between the phrase and the number of pilgrims in CT.

Exemplifies how Chaucer "has a great deal of fun with the coalescence of medieval arithmetic, geometry and logic into a single discipline more recognizable today as mathematics," exploring the "proto-probabilistic" dicing and poison-bottle selection…

Analyzes the symbolic import of the numbers used in lines 1-12 of ParsP (29, 4, 11, and 6), considering them in light of medieval number theory, time-telling, and the astrological sign of Libra. Together, the numbers "suggest the approaching…

Describes the "metaphysical associations" that numbers had in medieval imagination, and explores Chaucer's uses of number symbolism in his verse forms, the dates and astronomical calculations within his works, numbers associated with his characters,…

Includes brief comments (pp. 168-69) on Chaucer's use of the number 29 in GP and ParsP, and, in BD, on the use of 8 (Octovyen) and references to Argus (the "Arab mathematician Al-Kwārizm") and number symbolism.