Browse Items (16319 total)

Summarizes the development of Morris's Kelmscott Press and describes the achievement of his aesthetic ideals in the Kelmscott Chaucer.

Focuses on Troilus's love letters in TC, and on Absolon''sin MilT and Damyan's in MerT, reading them in light of courtly conventions and placing them "in dialogue with the impact of love missives as recorded in manuscripts that circulated in 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,…

Explores how the 2003 BBC adaptation of MLT and Patience Agbabi's "Telling Tales" (2004) "respond to the xenophobic and imperialist ideology of the original," challenging the relationship that MLT "posits between familial and national loyalties,"…

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…

Argues that as a mirror for princes Mel offers an "implicit critical view of Richard II," especially when read in the context of CT, which elsewhere provides a "complex analysis of advisers, advice, and the handling of counsel." Comments on the…

Links the characterizations of Nicholas and John in MilT to the genre fluidity of medieval literature and the interdependence of reading and performance. Focuses on Nicholas's "hyperliterate status," the "theatrical props of his learning implements,"…

Exemplifies the "Scandinavian influence" on Middle English, offering morphological, syntactical, and lexical samples of this influence on CT.

Argues "that Chaucer's treatment of devils, damnation, and hell" in CT "resonates" in "Doctor Faustus," focusing on the yeoman-devil and "the force and binding implications of illocutionary acts" in FrT, as well as on "interesting parallels" between…

Argues that "Petrarch's Stoicization of Boccaccio's" story of Griselda "constucts an ideal of apatheia predicated on the forcible interruption of the . . . internal process of assent," and that Chaucer's re-vernacularization of the tale "uses the…

Describes the cultural landscape that underlies John's exhortation to Nicholas in MilT to "Awak, and thenk on Cristes passioun!" (1.3478 ff.), showing that John's extended and naïve address resonates with the "affective piety" encouraged in the…

Offers evidence from Rom that "tidings" in HF means "tales" rather than "news."

Argues that the polyphonies of John Keats's poetry (as identified by Helen Vendler) are attributable to his engagements with Chaucer's works and Chaucerian apocrypha, reflecting a particular kind of "Englishness," underpinned by travel and encounters…

Invokes the medieval ideal (exemplified by "Ancrene Wisse") of establishing self-identity and authority by memorizing and performing texts. The Prioress does this by "over-identifying" with the clergeon. Briefly considering the anti-Semitism of the…

Traces the Jewish and Christian understandings of crucifixion, arguing that the image underlies the "didactic nature" of PhyT where "repeated images of injustice" are "placed in dialogue with the symbolism of the cross," reminding the reader of…

Considers the addition of medical terminology to the lexicons of medieval laypeople, with particular regard to its use in metaphor. Authors under consideration include Chaucer, Henryson, Rolle, and Kempe.

Explains Criseyde's comment about Troilus in TC 3.88 in light of the Feast of Fools, suggesting that it means she considers him neither a fool nor "too bold or irreverent."

Assesses January's praise-of-marriage speech (encomium) as a "classical' thesis' as it appeared in the later Middle Ages." The speech engages the WBP through common source material and follows the topic and structuring of the thesis genre found in…

Tabulates and analyzes the "gender-based" nouns used of the marital couple in MerT, compared with uses elsewhere in CT, focusing on uses of "wyf" and "housbonde" (61 versus 4 uses in MerT), and on the locution of "taking" a wife. Such usages connect…

Views CT as one of several works that provide examples of the definition and theorization of the captive in late medieval and early modern texts.

Explores the Boethian themes, imagery, and conventions of the "Kingis Quair," and comments on similarities and differences between its uses of these devices and those in BD, PF, TC, and KnT.

Argues that in "Troilus and Cressida" Shakespeare "does not seem to have used" TC "as his main or direct source," adducing differences in theme, plot, and characterization.