Browse Items (15540 total)

Suggests that the "gate-metaphor" of PardT 6.729 derives from a Spanish proverb fused with Maximianus's "Elegy" I.

Examines the syntax, rhetoric, and emphases of GP 1.280 in comparison with similar locutions elsewhere in Chaucer (especially ShT) to argue that it means, emphatically, " If he [the Merchant] was in debt, the spectator would certainly never know it!"

Describes an "experiment in the use of oral reading as a means of teaching" TC that increased students' "critical appreciation" of the poem and Chaucer's art.

Considers Mars "as an exercise in describing human action and emotion in terms of a supposed astronomical event," with the planet/pagan god representing John of Gaunt in his affair with Katharine Swynford (Venus), Mercury representing Chaucer…

A facsimile reprint of the 1896 Kelmscott Chaucer, with Winterich's Introduction that summarizes the lives of Chaucer and of William Morris, the production of the original book, and its place in the history of Kelmscott publications. Includes a…

Identifies the rhetorical question in MilT 1.3747-49--unusual in low style--as a parody of those found in KnT 1.1414-16, 1970-71, and 2652-53.

Includes MilT in German poetic couplets (pp. 56-71), slightly abridged from Wilhelm Hertzberg's translation of 1866.

Tallies a number of images, expressions, and "notional similarities" that evince Chaucer's influence on Shakespeare, reviewing previous scholarship, adding several examples, and arguing that the influence is strongest when Shakespeare was about…

A discursive review of Chaucerian scholarship and research published in 1957.

Argues that the "key fact" in Chaucer's satiric GP description of the Monk is that he is an "outrider," allowing leeway for suggestive details about diet, hunting, and other worldly concerns. Fabricates a fictional dialogue between the Monk and the…

Attributes the disruption of order in the plot of FranT to Dorigen's pride and "indecisiveness" and to Aurelius's "moral flaw" and use of "unlawful" magic. Order is reinstated by means of seriatim "self-sacrifice" triggered by the "manly firmness" of…

Traces developments in Chaucer's "attitude to love" as reflected in his narrative personae in BD, LGWP, PF, HF, and TC, assessing this attitude in light of the courtly, Chartrian, and neo-Platonic standards of works by Alain de Lille, Jean de Meun,…

Explicates GP 1.673 (not 1.163, as in title), adding depth to the multiple, generally sexual innuendoes of the "stif burdoun" borne by the Summoner to accompany the Pardoner's song.

Reads FrT as "one of Chaucer's more carefully worked and closely unified poems, and, . . . one of his most dramatic." Focuses on the poem's "Faustian situation," its '"unusual withholding of the denouement," and "its moral implication," exploring…

Clarifies the Franklin's "morning dish" of a "wine-sop," suggesting dietary or medicinal implications necessary to compensate for his culinary excesses.

Identifies an early modern allusion to Chaucer and CYT (by Hugh Platt) and one on dreams and, possibly, NPT (by William Vaughan), neither previously noted.

Anthologizes samples of Greek, Latin, Provençal, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Welsh, Irish, Norse, Danish, Dutch, German, and Old and Middle English verse--generally in modern English translation--from the fifth to the fifteenth century. The…

Investigates the "equestrian vocabulary" used by Chaucer, with particular attention to GP, but including his other references to horses, their tackle, colors, names, conditions, movements, etc., clarifying the denotations of the terminology. Includes…

Includes various readings by Dunn that illustrate changes in the English language and English literary style, among them, a reading of Book III.m9 of Bo (Side 1, band 9; 41 sec.). Text from F. N. Robinson's edition of Chaucer complete works (1957).

Examines the characterization of the Pardoner as the "wretchedest and vilest of the ecclesiastical sinners" among Chaucer's pilgrims in CT, arguing that "not covetousness, but wrath against the Divine was the Pardoner’s prime motivation." Tallies a…

Explicates the "striking instance of Chaucer's use of word-play and Scriptural allusion" in TC 4.1585 to "enrich his presentation of the lovers' predicament" and emphasize differences between earthly and divine happiness.

Introduces literary acrostics and anagrams as examples of "unkeyed" transposition ciphers, clarifying some terminology of cryptography, and applying technical analysis to invalidate Ethel Seaton's claims (1957) about "so-called double acrostic…

Includes a modern English translation (pp. 294-95) of the opening of Astr, lines 1-64

Describes how, as protagonist of NPT, Chauntecleer is the "mock-hero" of Chaucer's burlesque, engaging in three "battles" and failing because of his own vanity, the target of Chaucer's satire. His "avisioun" was no vision at all, a result of…

Examines the "apparent momentary tenderness between Aleyn and Malyne" in RvT 1. 4234-48, reading the passage as a parody of the "dawn-song," variously known as the "aube," "aude," "aubade," or "tageliet," an "established form in the medieval poetry…