Browse Items (16035 total)

Examines the complexity of anticlericalism. Clerical figures are prominent in the works of both Boccaccio and Chaucer, but CT redirects the potential disruption of anticlerical complaint away from dissent and toward self-evaluation. Georgianna gives…

The depiction of women in CT stems from the medieval presentation of four main female archetypes. Chaucer employs and experiments with these types, occasionally seeming sympathetic to women. Nonetheless, the women in the tales perpetuate the…

"Arthur and Gorlagon" and WBPT share numerous misogynist topoi as well as the plot element of a mission to understand women. The Latin romance is thus "a more significant analogue for the combined Prologue and Tale . . . than has been recognized."

Reads Antigone's song (TC 2.827-75) as a "reply to Criseyde's objections to love" which precedes it in the narrative. Much of the song derives from Guillaume de Machaut's "Paradis d'Amour," but its sequence and several ideas mirror Criseyde's earlier…

Studies the development of mercantile practice in the late Middle Ages and depictions of merchants in English literature, from early satires to greater acceptability. Includes sections on merchants in Langland's "Piers Plowman," Gower's "Mirour de…

Throughout MerT synonyms for the Boethian values of true bliss and sorrow are juxtaposed to develop the theme of the woe that is in marriage--parallel to the "contemptus mundi" theme of the "Consolation." The protagonist of MerT uses Boethian…

Cites Dibdin's views on the authenticity of Chaucer's Ret to illustrate the former's development as a critical bibliographer.

In the earliest Troilus myths, Troilus is "not primarily a character but a 'function'": his murder early in the Trojan War is an "omen" of Troy's impending fall. In later works, Troilus's character is more fully developed, and his death--late in…

Opens with an account of teaching PrT in comparison with Patience Agbabi's adaptation of it in "Telling Tales" (2015), helping to introduce the goal of the entire volume: promoting resistance to racist, xenophobic, and homophobic distortions and…

Responds to two critical analyses of PrT by Aranye Fradenburg and Lee Patterson, which highlight "methodological and ethical concerns" with historical analysis of the Tale. Promotes the need to "theorize and historicize" in order to gain deeper…

Antithesis is the major source of PF's aesthetic unity. It arranges the poem's structural levels in a pattern of oppositions: antithetical word pairs are joined by antithetical arrangements of style, description, characterization, plot, narrative,…

Analyzes Chaucer and Wittenwiler from the "perspective of anxiety at the table." Explores how "food- and drink-conveyed class anxieties are used as plot devices" to develop action in MlT, RvT, and "Der Ring." Also mentions possible connections…

Argues that, rooted in "animality" that is "carefully performed and constructed," the humor of MilT "functions to erect a conception of humanity over and against the ostracized and inferior semi-human." The Miller performs his animality, and,…

The feminist film criticism theory of the "male gaze" articulates the "triangulated" male-female relationship of KnT and MilT as they arise in response to Boccaccio's elucidation of the gaze in his "Teseida" and in relation to two classical…

Considers BD and Pearl as case studies in the search for "an appropriate, adequate language of commemoration," as opposed to prior models of elegiac language.

Considers relationships among apocalypse, history, and literary closure in Dante's Paradiso, Chaucer's BD, and Pearl. Dante brings apocalypse into history, while the other two poets use it to contrast human temporality.

Argues that the "study of the apocalyptic in the English literature of the late fourteenth cannot boil down simply to the tracing of sources or to historicist (New and otherwise) readings of contemporary texts and artifacts," and pursues, instead,…

Traces the developments and distortions of the classical myth of Apollo's service to Admetus and its association with love; includes discussion of the allusion in TC 1.659-65.

Parallels between Chaucer's treatment of Phebus [Apollo] and the treatments in Dante's "Paradiso" and Alain de Lille suggest that ManT reflects the literary tradition of Apollonian ineptitude and prepares the way for the Parson's Christian…

Lee assesses FranT as a "sequel" to SqT that repudiates its magic, replaces its stasis with moral development in the idea of "gentilesse," and provides a missing Christian subtext--a "Christmas miniature" that precedes the apparent disappearance of…

Troilus's reference to Apollo speaking "out of a tree" (TC 3.543) is likely not a reflection of Chaucer's misunderstanding Ovid. Numerous authors Chaucer may have read, including Bartholomaeus Anglicus, provide grounds for the conclusion that the…

Documents and discusses the development, influence, and literary relations of the story of Apollonius to 1609, assessing its formal characteristics and reception. Occasional mention of Chaucer, particularly MLT.

Though there are elements of courtly love in TC, the poem does not evaluate Criseyde by courtly standards. Instead, it shows her choosing the "lesser harm" of being unfaithful rather than endangered.

In medieval narrative theory, "aporia" is set forth as a way of examining the moment when the ironic process begins. BD relies on a withdrawal from literal statement which brings the author's intention to the reader through the process of irony.

Considers "shared speech" to be a theme and a device in PrPT, focusing on apostrophe, prayer, Christian devotion, and anti-Semitic sentiment as means to and expressions of rhetorical community. Describes the place of apostrophe in medieval rhetorical…