Browse Items (16354 total)

Collection of essays in French and English that examine factual and fictive female pilgrims, focusing on their representation in spiritual and courtly literature. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Femmes et pèlerinages under…

The warnings in ParsT against contraceptive methods are literary evidence that women successfully limited fertility in the late Middle Ages.

Describes aspects of late medieval celebrations--focusing on feasting--to provide context for celebratory scenes in Middle English literature: "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" compared with "Cleanness"; Chaucer's KnT, WBT, SqT, the GP description of…

Reviews, by way of the anthropological studies of Turner and van Gennep, the effects of pilgrimage on the social behavior of the pilgrims in CT. Pilgrimage removes them from the center of normative social behavior: it homogenizes social rank, blurs…

Assesses "iterations of sadomasochistic historophilia"--a term coined term here--in Chaucer's "use of Trojan and Theban history" in TC, examining the "role of Statius's "Thebaid," the place of Criseyde's collar-like Theban brooch, and the narrator's…

Legal terminology pertaining to land law is dense in fragments 1 and 2 of CT and in TC. Chaucer used the terms in informed ways and expected his audience to be familiar with their implications.

Explores the strategies and effects of Chaucer's self-aware affirmations in CT of the work's "status as fiction," commenting on the first-person narrator's functions (in contrast with those in Dante) and tracing the ironies generated by tensions…

Howard compares TC with Il Filostrato and CT with Decameron, focusing on how Chaucer adapts Boccaccio's uses of conventions to engage his audience. In Boccaccio, fiction enables the audience to escape from a contemptible world, whereas Chaucer--more…

Eleven Japanese essays, three English essays, and one translation in Japanese. Focusing on literary and philological traditions, the essays contribute to study of Chaucer, Langland, and Gower. The Japanese translation is of De descriptione temporum,…

Explores how "false confessions and sermons" in late medieval literature "investigat[e] the boundaries between truthfulness and falsehood, literature and reality, the profane and the sacred." Includes discussion of PardPT.

Arranged in districts; includes brief references to Chaucer and his works, e.g., Cheapside (CkT), south of the Thames (CT), Aldgate (Chaucer's residence), etc.

Discusses how authors, from Chaucer to C. S. Lewis, are influenced by the "flexible tradition" of religious stories. Chapter 1 analyzes how Chaucer reveals understanding of Christian doctrine in WBT.

TC is used (along with later works) to draw conclusions about authorial self-consciousness. There are applications to the "persona" and the author's fictionalization of his audience.

The various fictional levels in CT result in a dialectic relationship between voice and genre, especially pronounced in Fragment D.

Considers TC, MLT, and LGW in the larger context of the idea of "raptus" (rape or abduction) and its implications for national and other borders and for female status.

Outlines the mixture of authorial deference and criticism within a mostly English mirror-for-princes tradition, from the "Secretum secretorum" to Machiavelli. Historicizes the works of James Yonge, John Gower, and Thomas Hoccleve within particular…

As in the worlds of Sidney's "Arcadia" and Milton's "Paradise Lost," the fictive world of TC is grounded in a key ethical concept. According to Bergquist, "Kynde or nature is the making and undoing of both Criseyde and the fiction that contains her."

Chapter two, "Selling on a Grand Scale, Playing to an Image-Conscious Society" (pp. 35-59), includes discussion of the Merchant as a "self-made man" who relies on his image of success. Assesses the GP description and compares the character to Horatio…

Argues that Chaucer's critique of "curiositas" as "the prevailing failure and motivation of medieval travel" is "successfully negotiated" by several late medieval travel authors. Concentrates on readings from travel accounts by Simon Simeonis and…

Focuses on devotional and legal "witnessing practices" of the late Middle Ages. Chapter 2, "The Face of a Saint and the Seal of a King," reveals how the Man of Law presents "episodes of false witness" in MLT.

Contrasts Custance of MLT with her source in Trevet's "Cronicles," exploring the depictions of the sea in the two poems as well, arguing that women and water are tamed by "providential control" in Chaucer, especially when seen in light of Alatiel of…

Studies the manuscripts of John Gower's "Confessio Amantis" as evidence of his status and role in the production of Lancastrian literature and propaganda, challenging long-held assessments of the dates and sequence of the manuscripts and what they…

Piano and vocal score for opera in nine voices, with alternating scenes based on the plots of MilT and RvT; libretto by Gwen Harwood.

Explores nuances in the tradition of attributing paternal authority to Chaucer as a poet, focusing on Thoreau, Hoccleve, and Lydgate, and disclosing differing ways in which they represent his authority and appropriate it to assert their own…

Clarifies why "The Flower and the Leaf," "The Assembly of Ladies," "La Belle Dame sans Mercy" and "The Isle of Ladies" are described as "Chaucerian," noting their attribution to Chaucer in manuscripts and early printed editions, describing their…