Browse Items (16035 total)

In MLT, Chaucer transforms medieval concepts of divine and human time "to formulate a powerful expression regarding the positive use of time in this world." Harry Bailly's introductory focus on time is significant; "Custance's story illustrates a…

Critically regarded as a failure, MLT may be seen in better light if we look at its overriding theme: the efficacy of God's will at work in the world. But while the tale succeeds in explicating that theme, it fails in its portrayal of Constance,…

In MLT, Chaucer exploited "contemporary taste for stories of beleaguered and pathetic heroines," simultaneously appropriating conventions from his sources and manipulating them to evoke stronger than usual emotional and intellectual responses.

The tale of Custance is related to medieval lives of sainted women but is opposed to them in its concentration on the secular relations of an ordinary woman. Through this tale, the Man of Law seeks to reconcile the conflicting claims of the divine…

By emending Constance's plea to the constable from "The lyf out of hir body for to twynne" to "The lyf not of hir body for to twynne," an emendation that has no support from the variant readings of the manuscripts, we can bring the line into harmony…

Noting that MLT has often been apologized for or ignored, Edwards surveys critical approaches to the tale: the date of its composition, its place in the Canterbury sequence, source study, biography, narrative voice, the problem of Constance,…

Examines dialect and hypocrisy in RvT.

Examines "the different use to which Chaucer and Boccaccio have put certain raw narrative material belonging to the tradition of popular comic literature" of their cultural heritage--i.e., Chaucer's use of sources in RvT as opposed to Boccaccio's in…

The wife's attack upon her husband Symkyn at the end of RvT is not an accident as commonly believed. Rather, the action is a deliberate attempt to conceal her adultery.

The epithet "joly" or "jolif," used seven times to characterize Absolon in MilT, is inadequately translated as "jolly." Chaucer makes use of many Middle English meanings of the word to portray Absolon as "happy and light-hearted, amorous, a…

RvT is a denunciation of the university system and its participants. The two clerks abandon their learning and stoop to the anti-intellectual level of the miller.

Medieval convention and iconography support the view that the rebec is associated with the female voice (and thus suited to Absolon's effeminate character). It is implied that Absolon neither sings nor plays very well.

Wetherbee examines the literary history of KnT in classical epic, Statius, Dante, and Boccaccio to demonstrate (1) how, in a "deliberate, political" move, the Knight attempts to suppress psychological and historical reality to produce an "optimistic…

The feminist film criticism theory of the "male gaze" articulates the "triangulated" male-female relationship of KnT and MilT as they arise in response to Boccaccio's elucidation of the gaze in his "Teseida" and in relation to two classical…

Chaucer prepares for Arcite's Samsonlike vow to cut his hair by drawing on the traditions of Samson as a fool for love and by reworking and adding details to the story of Boccaccio's "Teseida." Samson was commonly paired with Hercules as biblical…

An understanding of legal terminology and of legal history clarifies two passages in KnT.

Proposes that KnT has a "two-fold focus: one centering on theories of human nature--Franciscan, Dominican, and Chaucerian; the other centering on theories of valid language use, whether literal alone or figurative as well." Allegory is not the right…

While critics have recently emphasized classicizing influences, KnT's portrayal of courtship, its enigmatic heroine's resistance to courtship, and the marvels in Diana's temple should be understood in light of romance conventions. Chaucer's…

Studies images of youth and adolescence in eleven major authors, including Chaucer, showing that adolescence is portrayed as a time of "turbulence, excess, and passion." Chaucer's GP Squire fits the pattern.

Chaucer's GP actively encourages the adoption of a "disenchanted perspective" on society, on the pilgrims, and on discourse itself by constructing traditional estates-satire classifications. The narrator successively adopts and then discards first a…

Describes the characteristic foods and methods of public and private food service in London during eight historical periods, deriving much of the information from literary sources and presenting the information in association with literary figures…

Chaucer's descripiton of the Franklin as a "vavasour" (GP 360) reflects his acquaintance with the Vavasour family. Like Chaucer, Sir William Vavasour testified in the Scrope-Grosvenor controversy; other Vavasours held offices similar to the…

Examines several mythological winds and traces the use of Zephirus as a "revivifying wind" in Isidore, Bersuire, and Boethius. Chaucer uses the myth of Zephirus and Flora in BD to suggest psychological healing; in TC 5.10, for ironic effect; in…

CT contains risings and fallings, which occur naturally within the text in a variety of genres, tones and modes. They show Chaucer's shift toward Italian-based humanism and away from the Christian tradition. Wilhelm examines KnT, MilT, MLT, ClT,…

Medieval texts and medieval societies imagine themselves self-regulated through structures essential to both social formation and destruction.