Browse Items (15976 total)

Demonstrates that PF reflects a movement from natural law to a more subjective interpretation of individual rights and ties this transition to the crisis of "commonalty" in the late fourteenth century.

Contrasts medieval and modern ideas of authorship, focusing on how Chaucer "treated old authorities in developing his own reputation and what strategies he employed to establish a harmony among the multiple authorial voices" in PF. Proposes that, for…

Describes the background to and representations of the harmony of the spheres in PF and in HF, arguing that both poems depict the "three ventricles of the brain"--imagination, logic, and memory--and that, through parody and/or inversion, each depicts…

Focuses on Jason in LGW and other sexually predatory men, examines a number of motifs in Chaucer's version of Jason, and highlights the danger of men such as Jason who hide their behavior behind gentility.

Briefly summarizes LGWP and assesses in detail each of the legends, arguing that, generally, Chaucer's anti-misogynistic effort fails. Although his "primary goal is to speak of good women as examples for the society and equal to men," his selection…

Contrasts Chaucer's and Gower's Philomela stories, focusing on differences between the nuances and implications of weaving in LGW and embroidery in "Confessio Amantis," and arguing that Chaucer's version aligns better with modern understanding of…

Argues that, rooted in "medieval theory of mediated perception" and concerned with perceptual distortion, HF shows how a "sensing body" participates in an "ambient mediascape"--one that includes environmental media (air, water, architecture) as well…

Shows how Legh uses the dream vision structure from HF but employs a frame of memory and "argues against Chaucer's position that fame is unrelated to deserving."

Contrasts the hermeneutics of ekphrastic scenes in "Purgatorio" and HF: the viewing by Dante's viator of bas-reliefs in the first cornice of Purgatory (X.25ff.) encourages emotional detachment when searching for truth in art; Geffrey’s compassion…

Examines the "embodiment of language" in HF and argues that it displays epistemological "confidence in the ability of the textual word/body to communicate accurately to the reader's imagination in a synesthetic experience." Focuses on how Chaucer…

Argues that the eagle in HF "represents poetry," manifest in its "uncanny perception," its ability to "uplift" the narrator, and its concern with sound and transformative power.

Argues that HF depicts a journey through the mental operation of using traditional classical material to generate new literature (tidings) and, in doing so, reflects aspects of late medieval understanding of psychology and economics. Crucial to the…

Considers possibilities of assessing material archeology in medieval literature and offers a case study concerning HF, observing connections between the brass-tablet account of Aeneas in the poem (lines 140ff.) and monumental brasses, hypothesizing…

Argues that in his reworking of HF as "The Temple of Fame," Alexander Pope "comprehensively repudiates the inconclusiveness" of Chaucer's work. Where Chaucer suggests "the contradictions and confusions" of literary tradition and authority, Pope…

Identifies which folios of Cambridge, Peterhouse, MS 75.I are included (photostatic copies) in the Tolkien archive of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tolkien VC 277, using the copies to assess Tolkien's possible assistance to Derek J. Price and R. M.…

Includes photostats of Cambridge, Peterhouse, MS 75.I (Equat) among several additions to "Section A" of Oronzo Cilli's "Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist" (Edinburgh: Luna Press, 2019), and comments on Tolkien's concern with scribal…

Challenges the applicability of modern narratology to medieval narratives, examining the narrating position in "King Horn" as popular romance and in BD as adaptation of a French "dit," and showing that novel-based notions of narrator-as-character do…

Examines geographical and literary backgrounds to Chaucer's use of "Carrenare" in BD, 1029, identifying it with "Caramoran" (especially as found in Marco Polo and Mandeville), and suggesting it helps to separate Blanche from the vanities of the…

Examines auditory cognition in BD, PF, and HF, attending particularly to “janglynge” and related concepts. BD illustrates differences between hearing and listening, while PF records a "paradigm shift" from seeing to listening, and HF reflects…

Analyzes the text of BD found in the 1807 collected edition "The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer," showing "that it is fair to consider the work a new edition," based on John Urry’s 1721 edition of BD and loosely following Thomas Tyrwhitt's…

Surveys medical and literary backgrounds and representations of sleep, naps, dreams, nightmares, and sleep-scapes in various Middle English genres and works. Chapter 4, "The Hermeneutics of Sleep in Chaucer's Dream Poems," focuses on dreams,…

Personal reflections on having multiple sclerosis during the COVID-19 pandemic, describing changes that these conditions brought to (re)reading BD.

Highlights that BD conveys the inevitability and incomprehensibility of death, offering a reading of the poem that moves beyond consolation of poetry and memory.

Includes discussion of the reference to Boetes (the constellation Boötes) in Bo, IV, met. 5, explaining the astronomy underlying the "puzzle" found in Boethius's original reference and in Chaucer's translation.

Claims that although the prologue to Astr is addressed to Chaucer's son "little Lewis," it is structurally and rhetorically complex, appealing to sophisticated Latinists as well as to young English speakers. Argues that the prologue imitates Latin…