Browse Items (15544 total)

Studies the rhetorical topos of exemplary lists of famous antique figures in BD, in comparison with contemporary uses of the device. Chaucer's lists are more than simply didactic or conventional, affirming "chivalric and regal identity" and thus…

Shows how the "relationship between voice and identity" is a preoccupation of both BD and one of its chief sources, Machaut's "Dit de la fonteinne amoureuse." Highlights the formative influence of the composite "Roman de la Rose"--particularly its…

Highlights the thematic centrality of memorialization, tombs, and inscription in the Ceyx and Alcyone story from Ovid to Chaucer to Spenser. The intertextual relations among these versions is predicated not on the principle of genealogical succession…

Examines the "metafictional import of sleep," as distinct from dreaming, in BD. Influenced by Machaut's "Livre de la fonteinne amoreuse," BD aligns sleep, as an embodied process, with the "werk" of elegy.

Considers how technologies of memory inform reflections on composition, literary relationships, and the elegiac project in BD, engendering a "focused commentary" on the "work of recollection." In this, BD participates in a discursive field shared by…

Outlines the numerous problems surrounding BD's dating, occasion, early transmission history, title, and text. Because of the small number and lateness of manuscript witnesses, BD evinces significant "textual uncertainty"; consequently, literary…

Considers the relations between BD and fourteenth-century devotional texts, particularly "Cursor mundi," that disparage "fable" as a form of idleness. Rejecting the popular association between consuming fiction and playing idle games, BD reclaims…

Includes nine essays, plus a response, by various authors, with an index and an introduction by the editor. Argues for a reassessment of the critical relevance of BD, which has often been marginalized, as a work that is simultaneously "multilingual"…

Argues that Chaucer anticipates readings of Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" as centrally devotional rather than philosophical. Chaucer's word choices in Bo bring this emphasis to the fore, especially of the concluding lines of the work.…

Explores the meaning of Chaucer's astrolabe and reflects upon medieval England and the English language.

Considers the astrolabe as an instrument and Chaucer's Astr as a translation, correlating their "transmedial" features, which provoke "alternate angles of view on instrumentality" and interrogate relations between human and nonhuman epistemologies.…

Argues that Anel "proffers lessons about memory and progress" that can help survivors of modern cancer victims to achieve "intergenerational" memory, an ethical and therapeutic notion that derives from Paul Davies's contested theory that cancer cells…

Argues that not just TC but also Anel has an important function in Henryson's "Testament." Echoes of this poem affect judgment of Cresseid and Troilus, and the question of what constitutes "truth," for lover, narrator, or reader. The notion of…

Identifies possible analogues to CYPT and constructs stemmata of narrative motifs to explore the relations between Chaucer's work and the others, showing that the ninth chapter of the "Kitah al-mukhtar fı kashf al-asrar" of thirteenth-century Syrian…

Demonstrates that in his remarks on distilling mercury, the Canon's Yeoman draws from Arnald Villanova's "De secretis" rather than from the "Rosarium," as the Yeoman claims (CYT 8.1028-29). Claims that Chaucer's misidentification plausibly springs…

Shows how NPT, FranT, and Ret reveal the rigor of Chaucer's philosophy, comparing matter-form distinctions underlying these works with the positions of a wide range of notable philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle to Jacques Lacan and François…

Explores the connection between animals and poetry, arguing for an emphasis on poetry that describes animals. Maintains that poetry's openness to experimentation with language mirrors its depiction of a blurred boundary between the human and the…

Analyzes the "quotidian vocality of the medieval chicken yard" in John Lydgate's and Robert Henryson's versions of the "cock and jewel" fable, focusing on how avian vocality draws attention to the pace and meaning of the rhyme-royal verse form of the…

Argues that San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 64538, a short Middle English defense of women attributed to Solomon, appears to derive from Chaucer's Mel, specifically Mel, 1103-9. Suggests that "scholars ought to continue thinking about the…

Argues that the scheme of "diminution" penetrates every dimension of Th and discusses how the meanings are generated and complicated through combination of different dimensions. In Japanese.

Drawing on the superflat movement in Japanese contemporary art, argues that cuteness in Th effects a compression of the text's narrative layers and semiotic networks. Mirroring the horizontal, non-linear organization of the poem's layout in medieval…

Reads Th as a "brilliant joke at the Host's expense": not a satire or parody of tail-rhyme romances but a repudiation of the Host's "crude homosocial bantering," his "puerile tastes," and his "pretensions" as a literary critic. Includes comments on…

Describes the "religiös motivierte Xenophobien" (religiously motivated xenophobia) of PrT and comments on the degree to which it may be considered satirical.

Provides a comprehensive view of how "race" is defined in the premodern world and addresses the process of "race-making" within and outside the European context. In particular, discusses how Jews in England were "racialized" and analyzes the "sensory…

Interprets the Pardoner as an intersex person, taking his sexuality literally rather than figuratively, a matter of variation rather than lack. Clarifies these concepts in the history of science and the history of Chaucer criticism, and compares the…