Browse Items (16012 total)

Contextualizes the barnyard chase scene of NPT alongside late medieval hunting treatises, and questions the juxtaposition between the chase and the medieval noble hunt. The parody of this hunt offers multiple layers of meaning, from criticism of the…

The gardens of MerT and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" are not idyllic "gardens of love" but "gardens of vanity," the setting for human deceit, folly, and cruelty.

Close reading of several GP descriptions (including the Knight, Monk, Clerk, Sergeant at Law, and Summoner) shows how Chaucer's shifting tones produce ironic implications.

Alongside January's outright parody of "Canticum Canticorum," a web of allusions thereto sets up an ironic juxtaposition of May and the Virgin Mary, reinforcing the bitterness permeating MerT; these subtle allusions also reflect the Merchant's desire…

Surveys the kinds of irony and humor in PardPT for the ways they characterize the Pardoner.

Shifts of tone and tension between ironies of fatal necessity and fateful will create balance between appreciation of the lovers' nobility and pessimism about their frailty. The oxymoron functions thematically and modally: religious passion…

The narrator of BD, who sees in the tale of Ceyx and Alcyone an exemplum of the loss of their "golden age" love, realizes that the love of the knight is an analogue of the happy fulfillment of the couple's love. Thus, the actual consolation of the…

LGW satirizes the narrator's perspective on women rather than examining feminine virtue. Obvious distortions of the legends reveal the deficiency of the narrator's attitude: he idealizes women in passivity, irrationality, and stupidity.

Just as the themes of liberality and magnificence are treated ironically in Decameron 10, particularly in the tale of Griselda (10.10), so ClT is as "poetically and morally suspect" as are WBT and FranT. Both poets use multiple narrators and…

Demonstrates the presence of three kinds of irony in MerT: verbal irony in the Merchant's double entendres and introductory comments on marriage, rhetorical irony in the deflation of courtly ideals by means of distorted or exaggerated figures and…

Argues that "there is an ironically complex relationship of the speaker to what he says" in CYPT, particularly in the way that the Yeoman's simplistic understanding of alchemy leads him to abandon the evils of alchemy while the Canon's intelligent…

Identifies various instances of irony in MerT, arguing that its "persistent irony" distinguishes the tale from Chaucer's comic fabliaux and aligns it with the "moral fable" of PardT. A poem of "clarity, critical observation, and disgust," MerT also…

Examines various Continental and English works, including TC.

Treats WBT as an "expression of her personality," focusing on the "matter-of-fact" tone of the tale, its humor, and its "tolerant sexual irony." However, Chaucer undercuts "her views and reactions" ironically, particularly in the pillow lecture of…

Observes a variety of astrological and sexual puns, allusions, and emphases in Troilus's address to Criseyde's house ("paraclausithyron"), distancing the reader from Troilus's grief and emphasizing sensual love.

Shows that Chaucer uses "rhetorical figures . . . [to] produce imagery," analyzing the "use of imagery" in FrT, RvT, ShT, MerT, and MilT—in comparison with sources, where available—and focusing on how he uses imagery to create ironic effects…

Suggests that two allusions to Matthew's gospel in the GP description of the Prioress contribute to the "ironic stance" of the description, despite the narrator's "calculated evasiveness."

Nicholson asserts that critics' "willingness to detect irony at every turn" is appropriate in Chaucer studies, but not in Gower studies, arguing that paradox is a recurrent and sustained mode of thought and expression in Gower's "Confessio." Surveys…

In the course of examining relational aspects of author and audience, discusses humor in CT, particularly in MilT.

Discusses how PF, "The Assembly of Ladies," and "The Owl and the Nightingale" reflect late medieval court proceedings, gender issues, and eschatology.

Connects Chaucer's views in Astr with a scientific and philosophic tradition of the "Physis" that started in ancient Greece.

Th is told between PrT and Mel, two stories that feature violence. While Th is often read as an innocent parody of romance, there are suggestions of potential violence. In his encounter with the elf queen. Sir Thopas represents the threat against the…

HF 2.935-49 contains references to the uprising of 1381, the attack on the Temple, and the burning of the Savoy.

Akahori analyzes characteristics of May in MerT, focusing on her presence in January's garden and nuances of the adjective "fressh." Exploring instances of the word throughout CT, the author shows that its use in MerT is sarcastic.

The Hengwrt manuscript omits CYT and CYP, whose authenticity must be determined on critical, not paleographical, evidence.