Browse Items (16012 total)

Appreciative commentary on Chaucer’s life and works, considering what can and cannot be determined from his life-records and literature, why he may not have completed several works, why (though a civil servant) he did not comment on political…

Augments Baum's earlier dictionary of puns (PMLA 71 [1956]), with nearly 30 more examples noticed by Baum and by readers of his earlier listing, exemplifying and explaining each.

A discursive review of Chaucerian scholarship and research published in 1956.

Argues that the correct reading of TC 5.1809 is the eighth sphere (not seventh as in some manuscripts), and that Chaucer's "making use consciously or unconsciously of an old tradition, placed his hero for all eternity in the sphere of the fixed…

Transcribes (with modern punctuation, capitalization, and commentary) a 26-line compilation of proverbial misogynistic sentiment from London, British Library MS Harley 7333, fol. 121v-122r, attributed there to "Impingham," identified by Manly and…

Argues that "[c]ompression and inversion direct Shakespeare's use of" TC in "Troilus and Cressida," particularly, "the clear inversion of every idealistic feeling save those of Troilus is so relentless that a 'mirror image' emerges." Shakespeare…

Proposes that an error of transmission in Chaucer's source (Frère Renaud de Louens' "Livre de Mellibee et Prudence") accounts for the inaccurate claim in Mel: that Ovid says a weasel can slay a bull. The proposed error confuses Ovid's "viper"…

Surveys the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French tradition of short love-visions, observes similarities between PF and Oton de Grandson's "Le Songe Saint Valentin," and emphasizes that Chaucer's originality most evident in two ways: his…

Identifies a cut-down single-page portion of Book 1 of TC ("Cecil" manuscript), found attached to the cover of a rent book in Hatfield House. Provides a facsimile, transcription, table of variants, and commentary.

Suggests that "don thyn hood" in TC 3.954 may have the literal meaning of "put on your nightcap" or, more likely, the figurative meaning of "restrain yourself," the latter drawn from the practice of hooding a hawk.

Locates a previously unnoticed allusion to MilT 1.3638-39 in Samuel Harsnet's "A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures" (1603), perhaps recalled from memory.

Locates an allusion to "Chaucers Bootes" (see Bo 4m5) in line 17 of Nathaniel Ward's "commendatory poem" written for Anne Bradstreet's "Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America . . ." (1650).

Edits the majority of Chaucer's verse (no prose included) in normalized spelling and modern punctuation, with bottom-of-page glosses and occasional brief notes. Omits Book 3 of HF, the legends of LGW (but LGWP-G included), several lyrics, and…

Lists Chaucer's works in chronological order, summarizes his career as a civil servant and poet, and offers a brief list of bibliographical references.

Suggests two unattested emendations to SqT: pluralizing "Cambalus" in 5.656 (to mean two brothers), and changing "hewe" to "shewe" in 5.640.

Shows that in his "Cambus Khan" Leigh Hunt is indebted to Edmund Spenser (and others who followed him) in modernizing Part I of SqT "almost as much as he is to Chaucer."

Explains the Host's reference to "gentil Roger" in GP 1.4353 as a possible play on "Roger Knyght de Ware, Cook," found by Edith Rickert in a 1384-85 plea of debt and reported in the "Times Literary Supplement," October 20, 1932, p. 761.

Historical novel for juvenile readers, set in London in 1381. Follows the growing romantic friendship between Kate, serving maid to Chaucer in his Aldgate residence, and a young commoner, Adam, who chooses to remain in London after the Uprising…

Suggests that Aristotle is the "most likely" referent for "the philosopher" in ParsT 10.484.

Argues from the evidence of life-records that Chaucer might well have accompanied Prince Lionel to Milan in 1368 when the latter wedded Violanta Visconti. Presents this in support of Ethel Seaton's discussion of PF (Medium Aevum 25.3 [1956]: 168-74)…

Analyzes the narrator of TC as a "dramatic" character—one who is known "by what he says rather than what is said about him"--whose shifting perspectives in the poem inflect readers' opinions of the other characters and their actions. The shifts…

Observes an inconsistency in Emily's address to Diana in KnT 1.2349-52 that results from Chaucer's change in the sequence of the three protagonists' addresses to deities, altering his source in Boccaccio's "Teseida." Suggests that Chaucer was…

Shows that evidence from a twelfth-century bestiary may indicate that the comparison of Alison to a swallow in MilT 1.3257-58 ironically anticipates later events of the plot--her "departure" from John and his fall from the roof beam.

Describes the fabliau features of ShT, comments on its likely (though unknown) source, observes that its "personal generalizations" are unusual in the genre, and assesses its treatment of women and its stylistic features as evidence that its original…

Identifies the "tregetoures" of FranT 4.1141, not as jugglers or magicians, but as the "actors, craftsmen, 'artisans mécaniques'" who produced spectacular entertainments such as the ones recorded by chroniclers to have taken place at the Royal…