Browse Items (16041 total)

In his modernization of WBT, John Dryden diminishes the "egalitarian" views of Chaucer's original and presents an outlook that is distinctly less feminist.

Explores the "powerlessness of the voiceless" in ManPT, focusing on Phebus's wife, who has no voice in the Tale, in contrast with the speaking crow whose voice is taken from him and the ventriloquized mother of the Manciple. Designed for pedagogical…

Revised version of "The Second Nun's Tale," first published in C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: Brewer, 1990).

Examines depictions of masculine attractiveness in medieval romances, including TC. Influenced by rhetorical and courtly traditions, such depictions (and parallel cautions against seduction) emphasize moral and social qualities rather than personal…

WBT, PrT, and SNT all confront the masculine authority of books, the nature of love and marriage, and the nature of feminine authority--issues of female identity and agency. They assert a feminine response to masculine discourse in CT, culminating in…

Sixteen essays by various authors. For six essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Feminea Medievalia I under Alternative Title.

Includes a brief summary of KnT and posits that the petitioning of Theseus by the Theban women may have inspired the "final act" of suffragette Emily Wilding Davison when she reached "towards the king's horse" at the Epsom Derby of 1913. Also notes…

The Wife of Bath has served as an example of a medieval feminist. However, it would be more accurate to describe her as an androgyne--a person possessing both male and female characteristics. While it can be argued that she has liberated herself…

Examines admonitory treatises on female sexual behavior and actual women's accounts. Refers to Prioress, Wife of Bath.

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…

Describes depictions of affective female friendship in works by Chaucer (TC and FranT), John Gower (Albinus and Rosamund in the "Confessio Amantis"), and Thomas Malory (portions of "Le Morte Darthur"), contrasting them with source materials and…

Discusses LGW alongside Middle English romance and an "hermeneutic tradition stretching from Jerome and Alan of Lille." Argues through these intersections for a mode of interpretation that centers on female desires, including silenced narratives of…

Offers pedagogical strategies for confronting "literary representations of sexual violence" in a range of medieval romances and novelle within story collections, including KnT; FranT; and works by Malory, Boccaccio, Gower, and Marguerite de Navarre.…

Studies "the literary, religious, and legal histories of felony procedure," focusing on literary depictions of felony, including those in ParsT and MLT.

Comprehensive study of over 500 manuscripts containing Lollard writings from 1375 to 1530. Analyzes textual culture associated with Lollard movement. Brief references to MLT, PardT, PhyT, and TC.

Uses CT and PF, among other texts, to examine the development and contemporary understanding of the concept of English Parliament.

Includes sixty trans lyric poems, presented in a “transliteration of English—Chaucerian in affect, but revolutionary in effect,” with spelling reminiscent of Middle English.

Assesses Jos Charles's "transpoetics" in "feeld" (2018), showing how the collection of poems capitalizes on the "historical ruptures" and other constitutive features of Middle English, mimicking its "malleability and fluidity." Also suggests that…

Describes the specific appearance of vellum, the types of quills used in creating a medieval manuscript, and animal-inflicted damage to manuscripts by mice, bugs, etc. Intersperses discussion of NPT with regard to Chauntecleer's appearance and…

Although Chaucer criticism divides into prefeminist, feminist, and postfeminist eras, postfeminist criticism often lapses into prefeminist exclusion of female readers and critics by assuming transhistorical categories of the masculine and feminine…

Etymological and semantic exploration of "fear" and related words that indicates nuances lost in translation between early English and modern editions and adaptations; discusses two uses of "no fere" in TC (3.583 and 1144) and an emendation of "thys…

Chauntecleer's responses to the fox in his dream and in his initial sighting of the beast are rooted in Aristotelian traditions of psychology and natural antipathy, here traced from their classical roots through their medieval adaptations. The…

Reexamines antimendicancy in Jean de Meun's "Roman de la Rose" and in CT, suggesting that Jean's portraits of friars should be seen primarily as portraits of hypocrisy and that Chaucer's portrayals of friars (especially in SumT) are mediated by the…

Studies the incest motif in Confessio Amantis as a "fundamental element" in Gower's explorations of father-daughter relationships and the relationships of authority. In this context, Bullón-Fernández considers Chaucer's MLT and PhyT as analogues…

Examines the role of paternal authority and the figure of the father and their use and depiction in CT. Interrogates the construction of "Father Chaucer" to show how widespread this motif of paternal authority is in discussions of Chaucer and his…