Browse Items (15544 total)

Using the Riverside edition, translates LGW, ABC, Pity, Lady, Mars, Ven, Ros, Adam, Purse, Wom Unc, Compl d’Am, and MercB into Japanese, with introductory and supplementary notes. Includes brief timeline and description of Chaucer’s life. In…

Reprints seventeen critical studies of LGW published between 1904 and 2003, several excerpted from larger works. The introduction by Hartwell summarizes the plot of LGW, with little commentary on LGWP, and comments on the plots and sources of the…

Argues that PF offers an "innovative model of species uncertainty" that aligns with posthumanist rejection of human specialness. The poem evokes and challenges the dualism of Scipio's dream, offering alternatives in the animism of the tree catalogue…

Offers a "step by step" reading of MilT "as it unfolds its argument.: Focuses on the crafting of the fabliau that refers to common elements of the genre and to Chaucer’s specific context. Argues that the "artful carelessness of the Miller" is an…

Presents a novel modeled on CT that emulates Chaucer's frame-narrative collection of stories, "reinventing" his setting at a modern murder trial, and using a variety of narrative forms to represent the tales of the jury. The accompanying analysis…

Argues that the various parts of NPT, an "expanded fable," are unified by a thematic exploration of true and false knowledge, then identifies instances where the tale mirrors "some elements of theme, structure, and style" of other parts of CT.

Identifies three aspects of NPT that differ from those found in its analogues ("Roman du Renart" and "Reinhart Fuch"), arguing that Chaunticleer' s belief in dreams, the frugal poverty of the widow, and the limited role of the fox produce a "shifting…

Reviews seventeenth-century lexicographical interest in Scots dialect, and includes information about the extent to which Junius used Gavin Douglas's "Eneados" to understand Chaucer's vocabulary.

Argues from internal and external evidence "that there is the strong possibility" that Chaucer's dream visions (BD, HF, PF, and LGWP) influenced five early works by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The Offshore Pirate" (1920), "The Ice Palace (1920), "The…

Argues that Shakespeare's works have more often been adapted to the screen than Chaucer's works because the latter have widely been considered to be "guarded by experts." Comments on the Troilus frontispiece, Jonathan Myerson's animated adaptation of…

Using concepts derived from Roland Barthes, argues that PF is both a "text of pleasure with its reflection of courtly culture" and a "text of bliss with its unconcluded conclusion."

Compares and contrasts the uses of northern dialectical words and forms in the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscript versions of RvT, assessing J. R. R. Tolkien's evaluations of them (1934), and extending the discussion beyond northern forms to…

Assesses the "aesthetic status" of RvT, gauging its "crude vulgarity" in relation to its "moral coherence" where social/sexual pretentions are punished commensurately. Argues that Malyne is "notably pathetic," that the parson is the "evil genius of…

Facing-page edition of Rom (based on Thynne's edition) and its sources passage in the "Roman de la Rose," with the text of the latter drawn from various manuscripts that provide readings closest to Rom. Includes textual notes and an Introduction…

Compares ShT with Boccaccio's "Decameron" 8.1 and 8.2 in order to "see the two writers more minutely for what they are," arguing for Chaucer's "clear, almost measurable superiority" in matters of atmosphere, vitality, characterization, and moral…

One scribe included the "Tale of Beryn" in his copy of CT. The Prologue presents Chaucer's pilgrims after they arrive at Canterbury, and the tale is appropriate to its teller, a merchant. Argues that the "Beryn" author was "an intelligent and…

Approaches Mel as a mirror for princes, concerned with the power of lordship and the value and function of proverbs and didactic literature. Includes several classroom projects and questions for discussion.

Distinguishes between Chaucer the poet and Chaucer the pilgrim, and considers the "singularities" of Mel as clues to the "author's intention," reading the Tale as a self-aware "travesty" of Chaucer's relation with his wife, Philippa.

The stanzas known as "The Tongue" in the Findern manuscript use source material from Lydgate's "Fall of Princes" and Chaucer's TC to create a coherent poem that is consistent with the manuscript's broader themes and is indebted to the literary legacy…

Describes the "functional similarity" between medieval exempla of obedience and WBT and Gower's Tale of Florent, illustrating the similarity by discussing fair/foul transformation and inversion motifs in various exempla, and arguing that the…

Surveys historical and literary evidence that deer were kept as pets in the Middle Ages, including discussion of deer parks and Nature's garden in PF, which "Chaucer's audience would almost certainly have understood as a deer park."

Notes that Chaucer "uses musical references and metaphors in his poetry in order to discuss the art of writing poetry itself," and argues that in HF--and even in PF--Chaucer advances a "poetics of noise." Summarizes the "reception of the…

Considers KnT alongside didactic texts of the period to clarify how chivalric loyalty controls and ties men together.

Argues--with qualifications--that the Reformation did not have "any direct, significant influence on the changes in the discourse on female vices and virtues" in the early modern period. Focuses on social conditions, conduct literature, and fiction,…

Focuses on the tension in TC between the "two dimensions of human experience: the temporal and the eternal," examining the "paradoxical position" of humans as they seek to "discover and affirm" a stable and permanent world while existing as creatures…