Browse Items (16035 total)

Discusses hostility toward fiction within ascetic cultures of the Middle Ages; brief references to ParsT, NPT, and MilT.

The Dantean aspects of HF, especially its invocations, not only recall the "Divine Comedy" but also reflect contemporary Italian reception and performance of Dante's masterpiece.

A non-Augustinian, antifeminist English tradition of the devil's mousetrap interprets it as a symbol for temptation and entrapment of the soul. The Prioress's distress in GP 143-45 therefore need not signify her sinfulness, as argued by Stephen…

Item not seen; reported in WorldCat. A comparison of PF with "The Conference of Birds" by the medieval Persian Sufi poet Attar of Nishapur (aka Farid ud-Din Attar). In Persian.

Chaucer's reference to a sow eating a baby "right in the cradle" (CT I.2019) may evince Chaucer's knowledge of "just such an occurrence in the Norman town of Falaise" in 1385, later memorialized in paint on the walls of a Falaise church. This detail…

Considers the acceptance of "spousal homicide" in ManT and the "perfunctory dismissal" of the Tale in ParsP, arguing that the shift from legal to penitential concerns eludes indictment for the murder.

A murder mystery that incorporates details from Chaucer's life and from CT, featuring Chaucer in the role of detective seeking to solve three murders on the pilgrimage to Canterbury, with the aid of John of Gaunt.

Although PhyT and PardT may seem to bear little relationship to each other, a thematic unity rooted in the "Roman de la Rose" links the two tales. Raison's exemplum contains ideas and images of sexual violence and natural generation that Chaucer…

Eleven articles by various hands. For individual essays that pertain to Chaucer, of this volume.

Collects twenty-six essays by various hands. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Multiple Worlds, Multiple Words under Alternative Title.

Thirteen essays on the interactions of English, French, Latin, and Welsh in late-medieval English records-literary, mercantile, religious, and governmental. One essay pertains to Chaucer: William Rothwell, "Aspects of Lexical and Morphosyntactical…

Examines relations between ekphrasis and inventory lists in Form Age. Reflects on "relationship between material things and the categories that classify them in multilingual England."

A "center-free analysis" of MLT discloses that Donegild is "an embodiment of a folklore motif," while the Sowdanesse (Sultaness) is a hostile ideological construct.

Reviews the language used in schools and universities. French was the usual language of instruction until 1350, and perhaps later in universities.

Reads the manuscript glosses to TC in Cambridge, St. John's College, MS L.i and Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.IV.27 as an "experimental early step toward the more elaborate marginal apparatus" in CT manuscripts. The TC glosses reflect a…

"Wyn ape" in ManT (9.44) should be taken as "fool's wine." The Manciple had drugged the Cook in order to prevent him from betraying his (the Manciple's) chicanery, and in the Headlink, he serves him with an antidote.

Verbal echoes, connections of character, and other allusive possibilities suggest relationships between Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, and TC and parts of CT.

A miscellany of verse (mostly secular) in Middle English, including PF, LGW, Pity, and MkT. Provides evidence of various scribal practices.

Treats contents and history of the volume bequeathed to Magdalene College by Samuel Pepys. The first of the two manuscripts in the volume preserves texts of LGW, ABC, HF, Mars, Ven, For, PF, and several non-Chaucerian works.

The Harley scribe preserved the structure of Chaucer's original, revealing Chaucer's intent to structure CT according to a numerical series that the thirteenth-century Lombard mathematician Fibonacci used to describe the geometrical increase of a…

Explores whether there is a distinctive Lollard vocabulary. While the usual method is to identify words in Lollard writings that would not be used in orthodox literature, the author highlights the absence of some orthodox words and sees what words…

Discusses the fusion of the root and epistemic senses of modal auxiliaries such as "mot" / "moste," "may" / "myghte," "shal" / "sholde," and "wol" / "wolde" in TC.

Studies "male bereavement in medieval literature," particularly "the authenticity and affective nature of grief among aristocratic males" in Chretién's "Yvain," "Trewe Man," "Sir Orfeo," "Pearl," and BD. In the latter, Chaucer expresses "not…

Studies the history and hagiography of St. Cecilia, plus her status as patron saint of music.

Explores the motives for pilgrimage implied in Beryn and CT, comparing them with the urge to "darshan" ("seek the deity") in Hindu tradition. The motives of the fictional pilgrims are more genuinely spiritual than has been argued by some critics.