Browse Items (15227 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…

Traces in biblical, classical, and political sources the development of the idea that the Pope and other rulers gain sovereignty through "mystical marriage" to their respective institutions, arguing that WBT "bears a striking similarity to [this]…

Introduces pronunciation of Chaucer's English, offering a series of general rules, explained in relationship to Modern English, both "British and American" and designed for "teachers and students." Also includes transcriptions of nine passages in…

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…

The first two in a series of essays Dédéyan published on Dante in England in Les Lettres Romanes, volumes 12-15 (1958-1961). The first surveys references, allusions, and uses of Dante in TC, PF, and HF. The second continues the discussion of HF, and…

NPT, adapted and illustrated for juvenile audience.

Includes MilT in German poetic couplets (pp. 56-71), slightly abridged from Wilhelm Hertzberg's translation of 1866.

Tallies a number of images, expressions, and "notional similarities" that evince Chaucer's influence on Shakespeare, reviewing previous scholarship, adding several examples, and arguing that the influence is strongest when Shakespeare was about…

A discursive review of Chaucerian scholarship and research published in 1957.

Argues that the "key fact" in Chaucer's satiric GP description of the Monk is that he is an "outrider," allowing leeway for suggestive details about diet, hunting, and other worldly concerns. Fabricates a fictional dialogue between the Monk and the…

Attributes the disruption of order in the plot of FranT to Dorigen's pride and "indecisiveness" and to Aurelius's "moral flaw" and use of "unlawful" magic. Order is reinstated by means of seriatim "self-sacrifice" triggered by the "manly firmness" of…

Traces developments in Chaucer's "attitude to love" as reflected in his narrative personae in BD, LGWP, PF, HF, and TC, assessing this attitude in light of the courtly, Chartrian, and neo-Platonic standards of works by Alain de Lille, Jean de Meun,…

Explicates GP 1.673 (not 1.163, as in title), adding depth to the multiple, generally sexual innuendoes of the "stif burdoun" borne by the Summoner to accompany the Pardoner's song.

Reads FrT as "one of Chaucer's more carefully worked and closely unified poems, and, . . . one of his most dramatic." Focuses on the poem's "Faustian situation," its '"unusual withholding of the denouement," and "its moral implication," exploring…

Clarifies the Franklin's "morning dish" of a "wine-sop," suggesting dietary or medicinal implications necessary to compensate for his culinary excesses.

Identifies an early modern allusion to Chaucer and CYT (by Hugh Platt) and one on dreams and, possibly, NPT (by William Vaughan), neither previously noted.

Anthologizes samples of Greek, Latin, Provençal, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Welsh, Irish, Norse, Danish, Dutch, German, and Old and Middle English verse--generally in modern English translation--from the fifth to the fifteenth century. The…

Investigates the "equestrian vocabulary" used by Chaucer, with particular attention to GP, but including his other references to horses, their tackle, colors, names, conditions, movements, etc., clarifying the denotations of the terminology. Includes…

Includes various readings by Dunn that illustrate changes in the English language and English literary style, among them, a reading of Book III.m9 of Bo (Side 1, band 9; 41 sec.). Text from F. N. Robinson's edition of Chaucer complete works (1957).

Examines the characterization of the Pardoner as the "wretchedest and vilest of the ecclesiastical sinners" among Chaucer's pilgrims in CT, arguing that "not covetousness, but wrath against the Divine was the Pardoner’s prime motivation." Tallies a…

Explicates the "striking instance of Chaucer's use of word-play and Scriptural allusion" in TC 4.1585 to "enrich his presentation of the lovers' predicament" and emphasize differences between earthly and divine happiness.