Browse Items (15544 total)

Experience, here defined in the context of feminist criticism, gives women the capacity to differentiate themselves from others as well as to identify with them. Gendered experience is examined in the works of many authors from antiquity to the…

Distinguishes between "the Aesopic and the Reynardian" fable traditions, their uses in the sermon tradition, and their impact on various medieval and Renaissance English literary works, including NPT.

Argues that the five "additional" passages of WBP (44a-f, 575-84, 609-12, 619-26, and 717-20) and the renumbering of the Wife's five husbands are scribal changes marked by "clerical misogyny and misogamy." These attitudes are elsewhere evident in the…

The marriage of Richard II to Isabel in 1396 explains the revision of LGW prologue; Chaucer's likely understanding of and distantly prudent attitude toward Richard accounts for the new tone.

Summarizes R. K. Root's theory of three classes of TC manuscripts, and analyzes several variants to argue for the superiority of those found in Root's "beta" class. Treats "beta" variants as authorial revisions.

A defense of Margery Kempe's religious visions, with extended discussions of other medieval devotional and mystical works,including the writings of Julian of Norwich, Richard Rolle,and Margaret Porete as well as devotional prayers recorded in MS…

Describes what it meant to be a reeve in terms of social status, day-to-day life, and relations with people of other professions, especially clerks. The viciousness of the Reeve of GP and RvT is consistent with what medieval people expected of…

Morris's effort to alter romance to the art of the community evokes the image of Chaucer as a forerunner. The envoy sends the book forth to meet its public and its master, Chaucer.

Because of oral anti-Jewish tales of blood libel, PrT, in attitude and some details, was for Chaucer's audience a familiar account. PrT and the ballad "The Jew's Daughter" (first recorded in the eighteenth century) indicate how literary and oral…

The artistic purpose of SNT is clarified by examining the tale in the thematic and dramatic context of CT. The saint's legend of Cecilia broadens the themes of the Marriage Group, contrasting secular with spiritual union; together with CYT, it also…

In medieval tradition Esther is admirable and virtuous. She is invoked twice in MerT for the ironic comparison she offers to May, not as an undoer of men.

Discusses Criseyde in "English, French, Latin, and some Italian literature between the middle of the twelfth and the end of the fifteenth century," establishing that she was "a type of the fickle woman long before" Chaucer wrote TC.

Details the early, negative reputation of Criseyde in Chaucer's sources for TC, and discusses how Chaucer capitalizes upon this reputation in tension with the narrator's positive view of her in his poem in order to engage his audience. Also discusses…

Chaucer's lyrics were known to readers at an early date, even before they appeared in print in the early fifteenth century. Earlier references are apparently lists, but the emulation of Chaucer's rhetorical strategies, rhymes, and phrasing suggests…

Compares the ways narratives deal with interiority before and after the year 1500, noting an increase in the use of metaphorical language and allegories of the characters' emotions.

Evaluation of the characteristics of genuine, spontaneous conversation supports the conclusion that CT provides realistic evidence of English speech in the late fourteenth century. Chaucerian conversation is affected by the need of speech to reflect…

Considers issues of gender, identity, and sexuality in depictions of clothing in poetry by Chaucer (Rom), Marlowe, Donne, Samuel Butler, and Milton. Through dress, Rom depicts the richness of desire and the roles of art and culture in both seduction…

In KnT, Theseus is "devoted to chivalry" and yet ineffectual in his attempts to achieve order. Through him, the Knight indicates the need for chivalry to undergo reform.

Includes biographies of thirteen artists and three writers, designed for juvenile audience. The Chaucer material (pp. 84-87) includes basic information and a magnified color detail of William Bell Scott's portrait of Chaucer in from "A Four Leaf…

In arguing that a genuine study of Renaissance works is impossible without examining their literary and historical context, Hamilton briefly cites Chaucer's importance in the formation of the English canon that initiated the English literary…

Focuses on Elizabethan versions of the Griselda story but includes discussion of how the context of CT dislocates both allegorical and literal readings of ClT. Efforts to resolve this dislocation prompt Elizabethan and later versions.

On Chaucer's fifteenth- and sixteenth-century reputation as magus and master of alchemy.

The medieval Chaucer developed by a process of accretion and transformation into "England's Homer." Metamorphoses occur in the language, text, and image of the poet. The history of TC is the metamorphosis of a beautiful idea into an ugly one. …

Describes various features of Thomas Becket's shrine at Canterbury as recorded in Erasmus's satiric "Peregrinatio Religionis Ergo," focusing on its account of Becket's "hair breeches" and suggesting that this relic underlies the Host's…

Comments on examples of ecclesiastical satire in CT and "The Decameron," arguing that Chaucer viewed contemporary abuses as comic, through Boccaccio's ironies are "slyer."