Browse Items (16089 total)

The allegory of ParsPT assumes that literature can somehow represent truth, while the theology of ParsPT emphasizes the impossibility of humanity's comprehending such truth. Ret espouses a mediating negative allegory that indicates divine…

Reads Mel as a "moral allegory," identifying where (in relative degrees) Chaucer and his sources encourage peaceable Christian humility and reliance upon on God's aid rather than self-assertive militancy in resisting the world, the flesh, and the…

Claims that William Dunbar's debt to Chaucer (WBPT) in his "Tua Meriit Wemen and the Wedo, "although "important and considerable, is often exaggerated beyond helpfulness." The poem owes a great deal to earlier alliterative poetry, in particular…

The large amount of alliteration in narrative and lyric poetry of the courtly tradition, including Chaucer's poetry, is derived from certain veins of devotional prose of the thirteenth century.

Manuscript evidence indicates that only after Chaucer's death did editors assemble copies of individual tales and links to arrange the fragments (reflecting various stages of development in Chaucer's plan) into their differing ideas of a coherent…

Examines the "highly contrived" allegory of Hans Holbein's painting, "The Ambassadors" (1533), assessing its religious theme as conveyed through evocations of "astronomy and geometry, optics and various occult arts." Also argues that the painting…

Nakao assesses the use of "as she that" as it is applied to Criseyde, identifying the unusually high frequency of the phrase in TC, its various functions and semantic range, and the way that Chaucer exploits this variety "to hold in balance his…

Investigates various characterizations of Greeks in Old French and Middle English, including that of Diomede in TC, a depiction "informed by classical ideas and Chaucer's depictions of Jews and Saracens in other works." Troilus, in contrast, is…

Adjustments to the traditional narrative in ClT compel us to read Walter, Griselda, and the "peple" as complex characters, rich in ambiguity, in a setting that "moves between an ideal and real world" (27). These complications enrich the simple…

Explores the combination of religion and secularity in ClT, discussing its fusion of ideals and practical realities as Chaucer's means to increase the ambivalences of his sources. The tension between the Clerk's moralization of the Tale and its…

Transmission of ancient Greek and Roman culture through Ovid to later tradition affected romance and shaped attitudes in popular literature. Heyworth discusses works by Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, Chaucer (with emphasis on politics in the…

Medieval allegory "prefigures cinematic consciousness." In Wegener's film "Der Golem," "Judaeo-Christian figural allegory, coupled with the narratology and the phenomenology of film," shifts "the deep past into the present in centrifugal, shocking,…

The Basata people of Zaire have a tale called "Mesapo" that strongly resembles PardT although it was not influenced by Chaucer's work.

Charts the development of the dreamer in BD from concern with abstract grief to concern with real grief and from selfishness to concern for others; this progress effects "a detailed anatomy of compassion" that encourages compassion in Chaucer's…

Dawkins uses the frame-and-tale structure of CT to organize a series of excurses on evolution and the development of biological life. Recurrent references to Chaucer and CT, with brief discussion on evolutionary biology as a model in the Canterbury…

Brook suggests that Sir Paon de Ruet may have been "a cadet of the family of the Lords of Roeulx" and part of the entourage of Philippa of Hainaut. He was probably born about 1309.

Demonstrates that John Lydgate's modifications of his sources in his "Troy Book" result in a "convincing picture of the ancient world," although Lydgate did not achieve the superior historical texture that Chaucer produced in KnT.

Edits and translates a hitherto unknown Anglo-Norman analogue to PrT. The "Hugo de Lincolnia" is the only vernacular version of the story of Little St. Hugh of Lincoln produced contemporaneously with Chaucer's hagiographical tale.

For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Anglo-Scottish Border and the Shaping of Identity under Alternative Title.

Argues that the category of "allegorical animal poems" disguises the fact that such poems "simultaneously hide and reveal the contested nature of the boundary between humans and animals." Comments on fable tradition, the nature of allegory, and…

Explores the "double-contextual development" of characters and their actions in beast tales and beast fables, investigating double meanings (animal and human) in such narratives. Includes discussion of how NPT follows the Renart tradition in this…

Tallies Chaucer's depictions of hunting in BD, LGW, and FranT, and argues that these, in contrast with other works in Middle English, show a "marked lack of sympathy for animals as quarries."

Explores human affiliations with the "non-power" of animals in four Chaucerian images: capons in PardT, mouse in WBP (in contrast with lioness), stags in KnT, and carrion in ClT. Contrasts these with the brass steed as an image of power in SqT.

Questions why "The Assembly of Ladies" has been in print for so long and explores the role of its anonymity in its publishing history. Addresses its attribution to Chaucer, affiliations with the corpus of his works, and surmises about female…

Argues that along with works by Langland and Gower, Chaucer's writings, especially CT, may be read as an indirect critique of crusading.