Browse Items (16087 total)

Includes discussion of "Chaucer's use of the bestiary to create his character of the Pardoner," relying on "the reader's association of animal features with morality to convey its meaning" and structuring PardPT to incorporate "the generic components…

Assesses the "textual landscapes and ecological details" in various late-medieval British romances, including discussion of seaside and shipwreck in MLT and in Gower's analogous Tale of Constance "as a simultaneously inviting and threatening space…

Argues that humor and multiple points of view make Chaucer's work essential reading in the "polemical atmosphere" of the present time. Contends that readers must pay careful attention when interpreting Chaucer's frequent ambiguities, reversals, and…

If reading is a transformative act, then Griselda's unwavering "reading" of Walter as a loving husband ultimately transforms him so that Walter's will conforms with hers. Thus, her association with the Clerk (especially as aligned against the…

Reads PhyT as a conflict between Jewish literal hermeneutics and a more metaphorical Christian reading of faith.

Abridged version of a portion of Dinshaw's Chaucer's Sexual Politics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), pp. 28-64.

Explores the "potential value and pitfalls of reading the literature and drama of this period 'historically.'" Chapter 6 addresses Chaucer and argues that Absolon "defies categorization," but seems to have origins in popular religion and medieval…

While attempting to locate courtesy literature in a larger literary milieu, examines Machaut and BD on the way to an examination of Langland.

Twenty essays by various authors and a bibliography of Hanning's publications. The essays are divided into three sections: history and romance, Chaucer's works, and Italian contexts. For nine essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Reading…

A survey of Middle English literature, designed to accompany the author's anthology "A Book of Middle English" (with J. A. Burrow; 3rd ed., 2005). Treats six topics: the English language; manuscripts, scribes, and audiences; literature and society,…

Examines how rape narratives explore relationships between literary conventions and the erotic, especially female erotic masochism, homosocial attraction, and the nexus of desire and abject sexuality.

Responding to the growing custom of reading silently, Chaucer focuses on the dilemma that there can be no interpretation without will but that the use of will can lead to prejudiced, subjective interpretations. The birds cannot communicate, but the…

Examines "the paratextual, literary, historical, and physical ways print books serve as brokers of authority," including discussion of how William Caxton, in his editions of Chaucer, "inaugurates the printer as a necessary intermediary between the…

Explores the "creative power of literary tradition" in medieval and contemporary works. Includes a chapter on TC and Boccaccio's "Il filostrato."

Summarizes performance features of WBP (echoes of preaching, animal imagery, range of emotion, entertainment value) appropriate to fourteenth-century encounters with the text as an aural experience.

The dreamer/narrator's account of the Black Knight and Lady White in BD textualizes their discursive performances, revealing them to be institutionalized discourses desired by the narrator and his audience. The work provides interpretive closure…

Warburton explores historical and literary connections between notions of female "goodness" and ability to be raped, examining the discourse of Cecily Chaumpaigne's accusation of rape and the tales of Lucretia and Philomela in LGW. The afterword,…

Reviews scholarship on the case of Chaucer and Cecilia Chaumpaigne, focusing on the meaning of raptus. Discusses recent treatments of rape as trope and explores its social and legal implications in medieval texts.

Analyzes how GP and the dramatic links in CT affect reader interest and narrative. Suggests that the Clerk misreads allegory for mimesis and critiques Petrachan poetics and the narrowness of the moral, exemplary tales.

Analyzes MilT "using a theory of narrative analogous with transformational grammar," which assumes not merely a "grammar of narrative" but also "narrative competence," or ability of the reader or hearer to understand. Edden explores the function of…

Analyzes how readers respond to PardT, using a theory of "narrative competence" that has its roots in transformational grammar.

Examines manuscript circulation of PrT showing Chaucer's reception as a Marian poet. This tale was not only used in devotional texts but was responded to in this register by Lydgate and Hoccleve.

Anderson considers intertextuality to be both a result of authorial intent and an inevitability of language, assessing various kinds of influence, imitation, allusion, and citation. Allegory is a "process of thinking," a kind of metaphor that is…

Reads Form Age as a "document of hope"; its lamentation of present ills recalls the Golden Age of the past but does so to provide a blueprint for a perfect and enduring future.

Cites E. Talbot Donaldson's appreciation of May in MerT as an example of "iconologia," sexualized analysis or penetration of art or literature. Sexual titillation in reading is evident in medieval manuscripts and in modern responses to medieval…