Browse Items (16012 total)

Ovid is an important source for Gower's "Confessio" and for LGW. However, there is evidence that both authors also made first-hand use of Livy.

Argues that Chaucer employs Livy's and Augustine's stories of Lucretia as a way to hold up feminine virtue, rather than repeating their negative attributes exhibited in the source material.

Notes (on pp. 65-67) a BBC One production of six tales in CT that aims to present the Wife of Bath as "a wonderful, feisty, bawdy, independent woman who is very much alive and living in the 21st century"; a Canadian (Baba Brinkman) who has…

Examines the views that accept Chaucer's nationalism as a given and those that focus on his international or European identity and vision. Draws on concepts of sovereignty and domesticity appearing "primarily in romantic and household contexts," and…

In the chapter "Becoming Woman in Chaucer: 'On ne naît pas femme, on le devient en mourant'," Gilbert reads BD and LGW through the lenses of Robert Hertz's and Jacques Lacan's theories, respectively. BD represents a response to death that follows a…

Contemplates Chaucer's concern with and depictions of therapeutic "intersubjectvity" in light of modern cognitive theory and evolutionary psychology, particularly as expressed by Brian Boyd. Chaucer's "clinical sensibility" (50) is evident in his…

Surveys major British and American writers from Chaucer to Dylan Thomas. Praises Chaucer for his lively characterizations and his "variety and vitality" of narration, with particular attention to CT, but including commentary on the poet's life and…

A history of international English poetry, with recurrent attention to the history of the language, verse forms and style, political contours, and the anxieties of influence. The structure is chronological until the twentieth century, when Schmidt…

Kendrick compares GP to the vernacular compilations of lives of the troubadours in fourteenth-century songbooks. A revised version of "Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales and the 'Lives' of the Troubadours," published in 2001.

The liturgy is omnipresent in the texts of medieval writers, including lay writers, although its influence is often indirect.

Tabulates liturgical references within CT and argues that the poem depicts the secularization of liturgy and its appropriation for social control, while also presenting a carnivalesque celebration of the reversal of social hierarchy.

Focuses on the story of the martyred child, Hugh of Lincoln, said to have been murdered by Jews for religious purposes. Jacobs traces the story through history, songs, and legend. Considers the prayer at the end of PrT.

Reads SqT as Chaucer's exploration of the "double-face of newness." Cambyuskan's encounter with the brass steed is counterpointed by Canacee's communication with the falcon, posing an ambiguous pairing of "creative rationality" and "enchanted…

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…

Surveys medieval and early modern study of alchemy and writing about alchemy, with particular attention to its obscurities of language and limited potential for progress. A section called "Playing with Obscurity: Chaucer's Manipulation of the 'Tabula…

Explores interrelations between literary and logical/mathematical texts in late-fourteenth century England, focusing on how "sophismata" (relatively standardized, imagistic, absurd logical puzzles) underlie late-medieval literary texts. Explains the…

Seeks to describe and negotiate the variety of "cultural codes" that serve as the contexts for the "language of literature" between Chaucer and Alan Garner. The section on Chaucer and Gower (pp. 24-30) focuses on their "syntagmatic" emphasis within…

Explores literary allusions used in the courts of law in Britain and Ireland, revealing how literature conceptually informs practical life. Osborough briefly mentions Chaucer when discussing etymology in a nineteenth-century case involving…

Presents two scripts for "teaching through performance": 1) an adaptation of scenes from several of Shakespeare's plays, presented as a single playscript ("Shakespeare's Mirror"); and 2) a fusion of reduced, modernized versions of MilT, PrT, WBPT,…

Surveys 115 books threatened with censorship in the United States because of objections to their social (rather than political, religious, or sexual) depictions. Arranged alphabetically by title of the work, each entry includes a plot summary, a…

Essays by various hands on fourteenth-century poetry, secular drama, songs, and lyrics. For individual essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Literature in Fourteenth-Century England under Alternative Title.

A traditional literary history of Britain from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons until 1500, introducing major writers (including Chaucer) and works, with summaries and brief quotations.

Later medieval medical theories and ethical commentaries recognized the benefits of literary pleasure. Olson's aim is "to redress an imbalance in modern scholarship that fosters, intentionally or not, the notion that medieval literary thought had…

Coss surveys Continental and English historical and literary uses of the term "vavasour" to demonstrate its varying meanings. Applied to Chaucer's Franklin, the term might convey an "old-fashioned air," but such connotations must be drawn from…

Contrasts the climactic love scenes in Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" and in TC, considering details, omissions, emphases, and narrative perspectives to argue that Chaucer makes the scene "emotionally, and indeed sexually, more intense" without being…