Browse Items (16087 total)

Although the narrator's intention in LGW is to praise his heroines for their "trouthe in love," his naiveté leads to an ironic representation of feminine ideals and, ultimately, an underlying antifeminism.

Commerce in automatons, mechanical contrivances, and other marvels or mirabilia in late-medieval Europe diminished the wonder of such objects and encouraged scepticism. Chaucer's FranT and SqT rationalize the marvels they present in ways that…

Contends that in SNT Cecilia's "sense of incongruity between inner self and social definition" is directed to a pious lay audience. Argues that the Second Nun's use of the word "bisynesse obfuscates" what the tale has to convey to her lay audience

Although Chaucer was not a "painterly" poet, he was, like most other serious writers of the time, an iconographic poet. Examines a number of medieval images appropriate to Chaucer's life of Saint Cecilia and includes twenty reproductions in black…

Although SNT has been considered a straightforward account of St. Cecilia, apocalyptic techniques make it more complex. Engaging apocalyptic imagination, Chaucer focuses on "eschatology, renovation, and the collapse of time."

In TC, Diomede, rather than Troilus, functions as the second Hector, and Diomede is the only hero who escapes the cycle of Theban and Trojan violence. At a dangerous time in English history, Chaucer desires a healing ideology for England; his turn…

Pushes back on assumptions that have been made about Adam Pinkhurst and homes in on narratives constructed by scholars such as Linne Mooney. By analyzing idiomatic and vernacular trends, responds to the cult of Pinkhurst as "Chaucer's Scribe" by…

Mooney surveys the manuscripts and life records of Adam Pinkhurst, identified as the scribe addressed in Chaucer's Adam and as the scribe of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts, among others. Includes a chronology of manuscripts Pinkhurst is known…

Compares Scog and Henry Scogan's "Moral Ballade," arguing that the two works reflect aspects of Ricardian and Lancastrian culture, respectively--Chaucer serves in a "benignly neglectful court culture," and Scogan heralds an "age of politicized…

Examines Chaucer's use of "sad" in his works. The manuscript reading in ROM A211 makes it clear that he probably did not bear in mind the modern meaning of "sorrowful" or "mourning."

Examines exegetical interpretations of and allusions to the story of Ruth. Chaucer's allusion to Ruth in LGWP expresses alienation and belatedness and asserts poetic privilege and the interpretive creativity of marginality.

Demonstrates the need for a reexamination of the physical description and linguistic analysis of University of Glasgow, MS Hunter 409 (MS V.3.7) of Rom. Manuscript study reveals the "canard" that a northerner translated Fragment B. Refutes the…

Traces backgrounds to the coral beads held by the Prioress (GP 1.158-59), both as an amulet against evil and a charm for earthly love, also found in John Donne's "Sonnet. The Token," lines 10-12.

A Japanese prose translation of Rom, based on The Riverside Chaucer. Includes notes.

Chaucer transcended and transgressed the commonly accepted conventions of "romance": Th parodies the genre, while BD elevates its status by associating romance with classical works. Th, KnT, SqT, FranT, and WBT reflect a variety of approaches to…

Considers Chaucer's two tales set in ancient Rome--PhyT and SNT--maintaining that each is "particularly concerned with political corruption"; "the depravity of those who wield the state's power has quite undermined it." Hirsh notes a possible…

Chaucer's poetry should be declaimed or at least heard with the "mind's ear." His decasyllabic couplets, once dismissed by critics as "riding rhyme" and even confused with the doggerel of Th, are "eminently playable," offering a variety of…

By his choice of stanza Chaucer invites us to compare four tales: SNT, PrT, MLT, ClT, each an elevated tale of saintly suffering involving impingement of secularism upon the saintly ideal. Completed earlier, PhyT is not in rhyme royal.

Traces "gendered protocols of violence that have been inherited through literary interpretive practices as they are represented in Chaucer's corpus." Argues that "acts of reading, writing, and translation can function as forms of violence in medieval…

Apparent artistic infelicities and a concern with surface style reflect the Squire's immature mind, unformed tastes, and youthful impatience. SqT is not badly written or unfinished.

Compares the original (F) version with the revised (G) version of LGWP, commenting on stages of transmission of G--from its composition to the extant manuscript Cambridge University Library Gg 4.27. Hypothesizes that Chaucer revised LGWP as a…

R. K. Root's theory of how the text of TC underwent authorial revision, thus resulting in a number of significant variants between the manuscript groups, has been challenged by Barry A. Windeatt (1984) and Ralph Hanna (1986).

Although the prevailing code of honor was belligerent, Chaucer's dissatisfaction with this aggressive style is subtly indicated in Truth, Mars, Th, and KnT by presentation of "heroic" actions and martial "worshippe" as slightly ridiculous. In Mel,…

Explores the significance of Chaucer's travels through Kent. Claims that HF resonates with the cult and Church of St. Leonard in Kent.

Surveys critics' attempts to correlate Ret with Chaucer's poetic accomplishments, commenting on biographical surmises, textual issues, and thematic concerns such as the putative waning of Chaucer's acuity, clerical influence, the firm linking of Ret…