Browse Items (15544 total)

Suggests that the miller's name in RvT, Simkin, puns on Latin "simus," meaning "snub-nosed," offering classical examples of similar wordplay and identifying characters with similar names in classical comedy.

Offers evidence that "goddes boteler" was a "conventional epithet for Ganymede" and that the "most probable source" for Chaucer's of the phrase in HF and for his use of "stellifye" in the same context is Petrus Berchorius's moralization of Ovid.

Considers the eagle of HF "in the light of medieval expositions of the soaring eagle as an image of the flight of thought," focusing on the bird as an "intellectual symbol" and its flight as an "act of contemplation" as seen in Gregory's "Moralia in…

Identifies three references in the correspondence and diary of Reverend Stukeley to a portrait (or portraits) of Chaucer and to a proposed edition of the poet's works.

Locates comic irony in several religious references and allusions in MilT, especially as they help to characterize Alison, Nicholas, and Absolon; the "final irony" is that the Miller is himself unaware of this irony.

Reprints two poems about Chaucer (by e. e. cummings and Henry Wordsworth Longfellow) and fifteen twentieth-century essays or excerpts on CT by various authors, plus one previously unpublished essay: Paul E. Beichner's "Characterization in the…

Argues that the Cleopatra legend in LGW is the source of details in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra." Also argues that Chaucer derived information about Cleopatra's marriage to her brother(s) from Vincent of Beauvais' "Speculum Historiale," not…

Argues that medieval connections between stories of the sieges of Thebes and of Troy make the reference to Thebes at TC 2.83-84 a "masterstroke of supreme irony": directed at both Criseyde and Pandarus, the irony complicates aspects of predestination…

Identifies a citation of Chaucer's Friar and confession in Book 5.15 of Samuel Purchas's "Puchas His Pilgrimage" (1613).

Suggests that the year-long delay in marriages at the end of Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost" may have been influenced by the similar delay in PF.

Adduces an historical account from 1862 concerning a drinking game that involves turning over cups to suggest that "turne coppes" at RvT 1.3928 may indicate Symkyn caroused in similar fashion.

Considers "some unnoticed passages" that shed light on Chaucer's references to "Trophee" and the Pillars of Hercules (MkT 7.2117-18), identifying no specific source but showing that parallel information was available in medieval accounts such as the…

Suggests that Shakespeare's knot-image may be related to the five fingers of the devil commented upon in ParsT 10.852-60.

Explores the events of a single day in the first half of Book 2 of TC, particularly changes Chaucer made to Boccaccio "Filostrato," showing how this section helps to characterize Pandarus and Criseyde. Argues that the "muted contrast" between the…

Offers examples from the "Roman de la Rose" and Deschamps' "Ballade" that the word "bourdan" had the meaning "phallus," showing that the sense would have been familiar to Chaucer when he used "stif burdoun" to describe the Summoner's singing with the…

Justifies accepting PF 99-105 as the more likely immediate source of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" 1.4.70-88 than Claudian's "De Sextu Consultat Honorii Augusti," Preface, 3-10, the ultimate source of both English texts.

Recommends showing students how digressive, "extra-narrative passages" in NPT "are the essence of Chaucer's intention, not obstructions." Includes discussion of contrasts between NPT and the Cock and Fox fable of Marie de France, focusing on…

Describes and assesses Chaucer's depictions of the expressions and psychology of love in TC, attending to diction, tone, style, and various uses and developments of the conventions of French and Italian love poetry. Focuses on the poet's successful…

Acknowledging NPT to be "a rhetorical tour de force," assesses implications of its status as a "fable," surveying medieval commentaries on the genre, particularly its ability to teach and/or delight, and commenting on the morality the Nun's Priest…

Argues that "to see Chaucer the pilgrim as anyone other than a marvelously alert, ironic, facetious master of every situation is to misread" CT. Particularly in his views of churchmen and uses of superlatives, the narrator is best understood as "a…

A chronological and thematic anthology of literary parodies that opens with Pr-ThL, Th, and a section of Th-MelL in Middle English as examples of parody of romance, followed by an "Imitation of Chaucer" by Alexander Pope and "A Clerk Ther Was of…

Quotes PrT 7.684-86 at the beginning of a report about a "new version" of the information plaque at the tomb of Hugh at Lincoln Cathedral, one that castigates "Trumped up stories of 'ritual murders' of Christian boys by Jewish communities."

Argues that Daniel 13.20 is a source of or influence on details of MerT 5.2138-48, and suggests that pictorial representations of Susannah and the Elders and details from the alliterative poem "Susannah" reveal ironic dimensions in Chaucer's scene of…

Traces from Jerome to Frère Lorens's "Somme le Roi" the legacy of commentary on Isaiah 40 which links spiritual ascent and contempt for the world, discussing Lorens's "Somme" as the source for the rise of Arcite in Boccaccio's "Teseida" and as a…

Suggests that Chaucer's self-characterization in Pr-ThL 7.695-97 derives from Dante's "Purgatorio" 19.52 and that the one follows the other in using the "dual first-person singular" and in separating Poet and Pilgrim as a narrative technique.