Browse Items (15542 total)

Gossip, its meaning shifting from idle woman to idle talk, was treated as sinful and suspect in much clerical literature, including ParsT. Gossip in HF, WBP, and ShT provided Chaucer not only narrative techniques but also a method of experimentation…

Exemplifies a variety of "inconsistencies and discontinuities" in Chaucer's works, particularly CT, presenting them as typical of the poet's "Gothic" aesthetics and consistent with contemporaneous art and the "complex cultural pluralism" of his age,"…

Analyzes three types of pleats or folds in CT: graceful or classical drapings of the cloak of the Prioress; artificial folds "pynched" on her wimple, characteristic of Gothic art; and "wyndynge," which the Parson reproaches as a waste of cloth and…

Gothic aesthetic combines opposing propensities for regularity and embellishment. These features are manifest in Dante's Commedia, while CT is more irregular and improvisatory.

Describes and illustrates the "visual arts as a whole" in late medieval England. The index records some twenty references to Chaucer, including a section on HF (pp. 345–48) that shows that "the two largest passages of writing about architecture at…

PhyT treats appearance and reality, fraud and honesty at the individual, familial, political, and cosmic levels of governance. Virginius' pardon of Claudius can be seen as an act that, on the cosmic level, affirms God's charitable governance and…

By adding forty-five lines in "quasi-Langlandian" alliterative personification allegory to CkT, the Bodley scribe creates a second distinctive narrative voice that competes with Chaucer's own. The deliberate moral ending "governs" both Perykn and…

Argues that Gower was "emulous and rivalrous," and eager to better the work of Ovid, Chaucer, and even his own early poetry. Compares Chaucer's use of the Ovidian tale of Ceyx and Alcyone, in BD and HF, with Gower's use of the same material in the…

Offers recommendations for teaching Gower in relation to Chaucer's CT.

Unlike their biblical source, Chaucer's and Gower's allusions to Jephthah's daughter indicate concern with pain and emotional suffering. Also considers the illustration in Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.126 that accompanies Gower's tale of Virginia in…

Briefly surveys uses of Ovid in late-medieval England, and compares Chaucer's and John Gower's engagements with Ovid's works and moralized version of them. Focuses on creative uses of Ovid in Gower's "Vox Clamantis" (Book 1), in the Pyramus and…

Describes four aspects of the critical tradition of exploring relations between Gower's and Chaucer's poetry--"biography, common literary sources and analogues [especially in WBT, MLT, and Philomela in LGW], thematic issues, and…

Describes "the marked incongruity in the sheer quality of styles" in Tho and Mel, commenting on them as "burlesque," and using them to support an argument that Shakespeare intentionally employed mediocre, archaized poetry in the first two acts of…

Assesses "incongruity in the sheer quality of style" in Pericles, especially the Gower passages, suggesting that Shakespeare was inspired by Thopas--Chaucer's experiment in incongruity produced from the "inferior art" of an earlier tradition.

Discusses John Gower's "Visio Anglie" as a departure from his usual compositional style and from his other treatments of the Revolt. Argues that specific depictions carry out a mimetic reenactment of the Revolt, rejecting the notion that Chaucer's…

Comparative essay that includes commentary on Chaucer's "volatile response" to the story of Philomela in his LGW, suggesting that Chaucer's account may reflect anxiety about Gower's influence.

Edwards comments on several features of Takamiya MS 32, which "provides the only significant narrative conjunction of the works of Chaucer and Gower": quire numbering and arrangement of materials indicate that the Gower material was "selected by the…

Item not seen; reported in Encomia 32-33 (2010-2011): 206, with an abstract in French by Isabel de Barros Dias.

Dr. Johnson called Gower "Chaucer's master." But who is creditor and who is debtor? The two poets allude to each other's work and appear to be mutually indebted; also, they share a large body of common stories, themes, and forms in their works. …

Greene uses Chaucer and Gower to represent licentious comedy and moral literature, respectively. In manipulating the debate between the medieval authors, Greene displays subtle awareness not only of his own literary persona but also of the authorial…

Both Gower and Chaucer limit their use of Arthurian material to brief allusions, although Gower's allusions are more numerous, specific, and morally serious than are Chaucer's. Chaucer's allusions in WBT, PF, HF, LGW, SqT, Th, NPT, and Ros suggest…

In his rhyme-royal poetry, Gower adapted Chaucerian techniques as well as techniques from his own French seven-line poetry. Dean reviews Cinkante balades, Traitie pour essampler les amantz marietz, In Praise of Peace, and Amans's "supplicacioun" from…

Compares Genius of Gower's "Confessio Amantis" with Chaucer’s Parson of CT in order to disclose Gower's "views concerning priests," arguing that both characters are idealized models of "proper pastoral care" and, perhaps, the result of conversations…

Examines classical sources for HF, LGW.

Argues that "alone of the three ‘fathers of English poesy [Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate],' Gower openly grapples with an acute awareness of the cultural centrality of a concept that extends from a betrayal of love's intimacy to social, political, and…