Browse Items (13779 total)

Provides links to online samples of Chaucer's works, "read by professors" and intended to "help students improve their pronunciation of Chaucer's Middle English." Includes passages from CT, TC, and other works. Formerly hosted at Virginia Military…

Four connected webpages that introduce Chaucer's language by focusing on the pronunciation and vocabulary of the GP descriptions of the Cook and Shipman, with an audio link, an image from Caxton's first edition, and exercises in vocabulary…

Digital reproduction of William Caxton's two editions of CT that enables onscreen comparison of them, with links to background information on Caxton and print history.

Pedagogical website that focuses on CT but includes internal links to descriptions of Chaucer's other works and to background information. Individual webpages provide descriptions of the Tales that comment on themes and critical issues, accompanied…

Describes Chaucer's rhetoric and style in CT, exploring his orchestration of narrative economy, climax, pace (especially in relation to rhyme and meter), and verisimilitude, Identifies "flaws" in SumT and PhyT, and admires the symbolic…

Influential biographical discussion of Chaucer as the "first poet" of England "in the high culture of Europe," and the "most courteous to those who read or listen to him." Considers Chaucer's individual works in light of his life, medieval literary…

NPT, adapted and illustrated for juvenile audience.

Textbook edition of FranPT and the GP description of the Franklin, with text in Middle English, notes and glossary, and discussion of the Franklin's character, possible sources of FranT, and Chaucer's "inventiveness." Includes several appendixes:…

An edition of PF with scholarly notes and glossary. The introduction considers matters of date, genre, theme, sources, social context, rhetoric, meter, and textual matters. Re-issued in 1972 by Manchester University Press and by Barnes & Noble.

Item not seen; the WorldCat records indicate that this is a reading by Piehler of HF in Middle English, with Kerrigan Prescott in Books 1 and 2 (1963); Piehler reads Book 3 alone (1980).

Examines how Chaucer's early poems (i.e., those written before 1380) engage the conventional forms, techniques, and themes of French and Italian models, enriching them via "humour and realism" and applying them to "new uses." His innovative…

Describes principles of aesthetic appreciation evident in Elizabethan architecture, painting, sculpture, music, and literature, including a section entitled "The Elizabethan Appreciation of Chaucer" (pp. 223-30) which emphasizes admiration of Chaucer…

Observes a variety of astrological and sexual puns, allusions, and emphases in Troilus's address to Criseyde's house ("paraclausithyron"), distancing the reader from Troilus's grief and emphasizing sensual love.

A teaching edition that includes BD, HF, PF, TC, LGWP-F and the legend of Cleopatra, CT (without Mel or ParsT), and eight short lyrics (Ros, Adam, Gent, Truth, Sted, Scog, Buk, and Purse), with bottom-of-page notes and glosses, and a glossarial…

Reviews studies of Criseyde's character by G. L. Kittredge, George Mizener, and C. S. Lewis, and argues that she is "the finger pointing in accusation against the code of courtly love." She shows us that "we mortals are fools to think that by our…

Argues that in his "mature work" and in "the service of greater realism," Chaucer used rhetoric "dramatically rather than ornamentally." Then gauges the degree of appropriateness of tales to tellers in light of the percentage of rhetoric in a given…

Examines the statement about alliterative verse in ParsP 10.42-46, arguing that the "rum, ram, ruf" sequence has its source in French and helps to constitute a "meaningful . . . and technically adroit comment on alliterative poetry."

Comments on the ambiguity of the phrase "a finch eek koude he pulle," a detail in the GP description of the Summoner (CT 1.652).

Compares and contrasts John of MilT with January of MerT as "ridiculous figures" and "gulls of courtly love," the first "senex amans" naïve, the second lascivious. Both men violate "an existing societal order" and the ideals of "sexual propriety and…

Argues that the "artistic unity" of NPT is evident in "light of the [Nun's] Priest's personality," a man who is dissatisfied with "his position in life as a servant to a group of women." Differences between NPT and its source in the "Renart"…

Summarizes the "antagonistic and contradictory views on women" held by the medieval Church, and explores Chaucer's views of women by examining his uses of the motifs of sovereignty and obedience in marriage from BD through CT, focusing on three…

Clarifies references to St. Neot, St. Frideswide, and St. Thomas in MilT; provides historical and topographical information about Oseney Abbey and Oxford as setting for the tale; and explores Absolon's habit of not wearing a tonsure, despite the…

Compares TC with Boccaccio's "Filostrato," and explores Chaucer's "controlled use of the gods and the Christian God" as they "function ambiguously and symbolically" in contributing to the "ultimate meaning of the poem."

Assesses the transitions in BD as devices Chaucer uses to "direct the reader toward the hard statements [the poem] makes about deprivation, consolation, the hazards of fortune and the consequences of decision." Divisions in the conversation between…

Reads George Meredith's novel "The Tragic Comedians" as "a modern version" of TC, an "adaptation of Princess Helen von Racowitza's 'Autobiography,' overshadowed by Chaucer's great work," particularly influenced by his characterization of Criseyde.