Browse Items (16012 total)

Analyzes the semantics of the use of the present tense in the narrative parts of TC using V.176-96 as an example and applying the "four-layered semantic structures (referential, textual, expressive and metalinguistic)" proposed by Fleischman (1990).…

Associates the liquidity of emotions in medieval literature with the Galenic theory of humours, exploring "the different uses of liquidity to represent emotions in Chaucer’s work," especially TC, where emotions such as sorrow and joy can be…

Explores the "temporal perspectives" of futurity in TC, combining an Augustinian conceptualization of time with Michel de Certeau's spatial notion of "strategy," looking closely at three perspectives that are posed in the poem and undermined in Book…

Explores tragic fate and the genre of tragedy in TC, arguing that the "double sorwe" of the opening of the poem (I.1) anticipates the "tragedye" mentioned at the end (V.1786) and that each applies to Criseyde as well as to Troilus. Includes…

Identifies liturgical echoes in Chaucer's reworking of Dante at the end of Book V of TC, arguing that it exemplifies David Lawton's theory of voice and "public
interiorities."

Examines the contexts of Criseyde's tears in an antifeminist tradition, to which Chaucer and TC respond, and engages with the revisions to depictions of Criseyde's weeping in TC. Uses insights from sociology and behavioral psychology to argue that…

Reexamines theories of Auerbach and Spitzer through the lens of issues of translatability and untranslatability in medieval lyrics. Argues that medieval lyric poetry "shows the power of untranslatability to disrupt and re-make literary history."…

Demonstrates the need for a reexamination of the physical description and linguistic analysis of University of Glasgow, MS Hunter 409 (MS V.3.7) of Rom. Manuscript study reveals the "canard" that a northerner translated Fragment B. Refutes the…

Argues that PF--a poem {about which voices do and do not count"--"magines the potential for translatability between species." Engages scholastic discussions about the nature of "vox," and raises questions about phonetic and semantic translation,…

Notes that Chaucer's treatment of the daisy in LGW differs from his typical use of flower imagery. Recognizes parallels between the daisy in LGW and its narrator Geffrey, notes differences between the narrator(s) of the F prologue and the G prologue,…

Treats Boccaccio's "Famous Women," LGW, and Christine de Pizan's "The Book of the City of Ladies," reading Chaucer's "faithful women" in LGW "as metaphors [of] the relationship between authorship and readership, trying to define his own position [as]…

Unpacks allegorical aspects of "domus" (household, community, regulation, tradition, order) and "lingua" (speech, noise, murmuring, poetry, vernacularity) in Gower's "Vox clamantis" and in HF, using Fredric Jameson's notion of "national allegory" to…

Argues that "late medieval dream poets viewed writing as a serious means of therapy, capable of healing both psychological and physiological ailments." Includes discussion of HF where Chaucer combines "performative humor" and "strong sensory imagery"…

Clarifies the late medieval shift from household economics to usurious commerce, and argues that HF, John Lydgate's "Temple of Glass," and Gavin Douglas's "Palice of Honour" depict the "dissolution" of traditional households entailed in this shift.…

Argues that fourteenth-and fifteenth-century dream visions "challenged routine modes of thinking about and being in the world." Chapter 4 includes discussion of stained glass in HF and John Lydgate's "Temple of Glass."

Considers the "floral atmosphere" of the House of Rumor in HF and sees it as a "place of production [that] appears as entwining, encircling vegetation."

Assesses the characterizations of Dido in HF, LGW, and William Caxton's "Eneydos," analyzing their direct discourse and representations of mental state as examples of how premodern authors present well-known figures from the literary past.…

Considers the “authoritative weight" of dreams and visions in literature, focusing on their connections with other forms of prophetic or revelatory texts and offering a taxonomy of varieties. Includes chapters on the biblical Book of Daniel,…

Discusses nominalism, realism, and idealism in "Pearl," "Piers Plowman," and HF, arguing that in the latter nominalism leads to realism.

Explores the language and operation of confession--especially the importance of remembered transgressions--in Chaucer's depictions of love in TC, BD, and MLT, with Troilus, the Black Knight, and Alla as transgressors, and Pandarus, the BD narrator,…

Treats the connections between "mind, body and affect" in BD, KnT, TC, MLT, LGW, and elsewhere, describing classical and medieval theories of breathing, sighing, and swooning as physiological movements of vital spirits. Playing a key role in…

Explores how genre conventions and expectations vary between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century and produce different views of history. Includes discussion of BD and KnT for the ways that Chaucer reshapes their conventional genres (dream…

Clarifies how students' experiences with grief or loss can be useful in overcoming modern resistance to reading "Pearl," and suggests comparative study of the poem with other texts in Middle English, including BD. Offers discussion questions for…

Examines "how Middle English poets deployed the dream vision genre and the elegiac mode to explore the limitations of language and interrogate the art of poetry." Includes discussion of how in BD the Black Knight's "move from the closed circle of…

Describes "the concept of immersion as seen from cognitive narratology" and the "concept of defamiliarization as seen from unnatural narratology,” applying these theoretical constructs to BD, Jorge Luis Borges's "The Circular Ruin," and Franz…