Browse Items (15544 total)

Argues for an ironic reading of "The Kingis Quair," interpreting Minerva as an ally of Venus. TC influenced the author's view of Minerva, and the protagonist's decision to follow his will rather than reason places him in sinful subjection to…

This Bakhtinian discussion of KnT argues that the "flaws" perceived by earlier critics result from misguided efforts at finding homogeneity in the poem. As a product of a complex literary culture, KnT reflects the culture's "heteroglossia" and…

These lines state the knight's code of honor and are closely adapted from the sixth book of the "Aeneid," lines 851-53.

Most studies of the vernacular used in religious writing of the late-fourteenth century focus on clerical authors. Clanvowe, a layperson and chamber knight of Richard II, uses the vernacular to discuss Lollardy covertly. Otey examines works of…

In his analyses of the TC narrator as a character in his own right--most notably in "The Ending of Chaucer's Troilus" and "Criseide and Her Narrator"--E. Talbot Donaldson "created the most clear-cut paradigm shift in twentieth-century readings of the…

Human experience explodes the reductive and stereotypical distinctions between good and bad and between women and men posed in LGW, undercutting the title of the poem, rendering the narrator's task pointless, and encouraging the reader to reject the…

Despite totally different tone and purpose, Chaucer's LGWP parallels Dante's "Purgatorio" significantly: both poets present their narrators as undergoing penance; both Alceste and Beatrice, allegorically garbed and attended, serve as spiritual…

The narrator of PrT desires to transcend the particularities of language and history, echoing patterns of medieval Jewish martyrdom connected to the "kiddush ha-Shem," which may have been known in Chaucer's England. Complex textual and historical…

The prefaces to Spenser's "Shepheardes Calendar" (1579) and to Thomas Speght's "Workes of Chaucer" (1598) share similarities with Lydgate's" Fall of Princes" and thus belie the claims made for a break in continuity with the past in sixteenth-century…

Advocates the use of translation and translation exercises in teaching Chaucer's works in surveys of British literature. Criticizes major anthologies for promoting original-language study only and offers a syllabus, description of in-class…

Argues that Ret elevates Chaucer's status as author, and creates the "illusion of Chaucer's presence and agency" for the reader of CT. Connects Chaucer's use of Ret to French literary culture, which helped define Chaucer's own sense of authorship.

In ClT and especially MLT, Chaucer examines the problem of undeserved suffering. He combines embodiments of patience with realism, producing not exempla but "semi-allegorical" narratives which set out "universal positions."

Critically regarded as a failure, MLT may be seen in better light if we look at its overriding theme: the efficacy of God's will at work in the world. But while the tale succeeds in explicating that theme, it fails in its portrayal of Constance,…

In MLT and ClT scenes are juxtaposed and time spatialized. Dramatic moments never occur. In both tales, the shaping of expectations underscores the artifice of the poet.

As the Manciple uses his tale to warn the Cook not to accuse him, so Chaucer uses ManT to warn his audience to be careful of the stories they tell.

Japanese prose translation with notes.

Surveys earlier responses to MerT and argues that the problems they identify cannot be solved; the "moral vacuum" of the tale leaves no criteria for moral evaluation. MerT is Chaucer's "bleakest" view of the relationship between poetry and morality.

MerT is about limits and trangressions. January violates a limit marrying May; May violates moral limits; modes of parody and irony raze barriers between tragic and comic, making the tale its own anti-tale. The explicit cynicism and "realism" of…

Attends to the details and imagery of old age in MerT in order to clarify the "precision and complexity" of Chaucer's art, commenting on January's name, age (60 years), physical condition, sexual prowess, attitude toward counsel, etc., and exploring…

Beauty and cynicism co-exist in MerT: we feel the characters capable of tenderness and right self-affirmation as well as nastiness; January's abandoning the knowledge his recovery brings shows that we see more truly by rejecting "knowing" on the…

Argues that the primary concern of MerT is January's foolish lechery, that the tone of the Tale is not mordant, and that its various parts cohere as a harmonious whole. Challenges the idea that the Tale is essentially a contribution to the Marriage…

Provides examples of medieval English stereotyping of Pavia as a "city of delight," helping to connect January of MerT with the vice of sensuality.

Crossing tendencies characterize the "cosmopolitanism" of the late Middle Ages, and the story of Troy is the "paradigmatic cosmopolitan narrative." Edwards comments on Lydgate's "Troy Book" and addresses the mysterious pagan judge of "Saint…

Impressionistic commentary on the levels of narration in MilT, its self-conscious concern with auditory and visual perspective, its mockery of the Bible, and the process of its humor. The reader's point of view is that of a panopticon that turns out…

Examines the lexicographical records of "child" in Middle English and suggests that like Thopas, Absolon may be a Narcissistic figure, influenced by the "Roman de la Rose."