Browse Items (15427 total)

Aside from questions of direct borrowings, "Romeo and Juliet" has much in common with TC. Resemblances include handling of characters, attitudes toward love and death, the use of comedy within the tragedy, imagery, and the overall shape of the…

The wording of MerT has many echoes, some heretofore unidentified, of medieval marriage services. Suggestions of the Christian ideal are thus juxtaposed to the characters' perverse misunderstandings of marriage throughout the tale, providing an…

The observable final total of pilgrims is 33, a symbolically significant sum. The Pilgrim Chaucer's two tales may have been meant as a center-point signifying a shift from game to earnest. The initial statement that there were 29 may demonstrate…

In MLT, Chaucer uses the case of Custance's Latin being understood by Northumbrians - an instance of xenoglossia, more characteristic of the saint's life genre - to focus on translation in various genres and to make Custance, "subtly active," an "apt…

Argues that the scriptural glosses found in Thomas Godfray's 1535 publication of "The Ploughman’s Tale" are similar to Langland's techniques in "Piers Plowman," as are the "poem’s anticlericism and alliteration"; when Godfray republished the tale in…

Argues that aural reading--the reading aloud of a written text--lasted much longer in English tradition than is normally assumed.

Surveys interrelations between speech and writing in the history of English, drawing on KnT and RvT to illustrate features of late-medieval lexis and syntax. Features of KnT may reflect "oral residue," while dialect features of RvT are better seen…

Comments on scribal habits reflected in late-medieval English manuscripts and assesses the utility of electronic hypertext to record variations, using examples from Chaucer and other Middle English authors.

Challenges various assumptions about fundamental differences between oral and literate composition, assessing various features of folktale, drama, and narrative in early English culture. Cites MilT as an example where "legend" becomes a short story,…

FranT is a rhetorical . . . completion" of SqT, which should itself be read with "rhetorical and lyrical" rather than narrative models in mind. The literate mode of Dorigen's complaint and Aurelius's two speeches to her contrasts with the oral mode…

In ClT and especially MLT, Chaucer examines the problem of undeserved suffering. He combines embodiments of patience with realism, producing not exempla but "semi-allegorical" narratives which set out "universal positions."

In MilT, Nicholas's character and action may allude to medieval tales about a diabolical angel-imposter associated parodically with the Annunciation. John's final humiliation may echo tales of Ham and his sexual humiliation of his father, Noah.

In TC 3, Chaucer evokes the geography and atmosphere of Dante's "Inferno," while in Pandarus's actions he evokes Virgil's role as guide through hell. These associations provide a context for "judging Troilus's position at the poem's centre" and…

Discusses various topoi of the lark (including its etymology in Latin) to explore and explain details in a variety of medieval and Renaissance poems, including KnT where the lark is "bisy" and a welcomer of dawn (1.1491-92).

Revises and adds to Henry Bradshaw's discussion of the origins of the "Plowman's Tale," examining chronological and regional features of vocabulary, allusions to contemporary fashion and events, and Lollard ideology to argue that the poem was written…

Traces the artistic development of the Constance story from its roots in the accused queen legend through Trevet's adaptation, Gower's version, and MLT, arguing that only in Chaucer does the narrative achieve "comprehensive artistic unity" of…

TC has fifty-six developed lyric passages. The frequent ballade-like sequences of stanzas in these passages and the rhyme-royal form adapted from the ballade, together with Chaucer's uses of Machaut's "Remede de Fortune," show that TC has an…

Extrinsic models for twelfth-century audiences of chivalric romances (Duly, Bezzola, Legge) should be complemented by indirect evidence that defines such audiences as literary virtuosos, humanists able to evaluate romances to discover the poet and…

Reviews recent rhetorical analyses of TC, examining how and how much "rhetoric affects the composition" of TC. Kokonis first reviews the "history and evolution of rhetoric"; then shows how rhetoric became part of "medieval aesthetic tradition," and…

Surveys presentations of Venus in medieval letters, including mention of the figure in WBP, TC, KnT, and PF.

Explores difficulties of translating Virgil's "Aeneid," opening with commentary on HF 143-44 as "Chaucer's witty little critical essay on the problem."

Contemplates relations between Ernst Curtius' imperial understanding of medieval literature with modern theories of postcoloniality, analyzing passages from Marie de France, Dante, and Chaucer to show what they can tell us about the "cultural…

Examines ClT and Maria Edgeworth's "The Modern Griselda" in light of their respective contemporaneous conduct manuals for women, arguing that the protagonist of each narrative becomes "monstrous" in "fulfilling too completely the ideals of womanhood…

Includes comments on Earle Birney's use of Chaucerian motifs in his poetry and his writing about Chaucer's irony.

Explores in BD Chaucer's attitudes toward language and its (in)ability to communicate successfully. The skepticism or nominalism of BD is modified by indications of the power of "extra-linguistic" symbols and signs, providing some "rescue from…