The Criyng and the Soun: Chaucer Audio Files
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 Institute.
Chaucer's English
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 recognition.
Caxton's Chaucer
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.
Chaucer
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 by questions to stimulate thought and discussion.
Chaucer and the Mystical Marriage in Medieval Political Thought.
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] theory of political marriage." Comments on Irish analogues to the WBT and focuses on "four elements" of the Tale that indicate it is political "propaganda" addressed to Richard II: the rape motif, the "dual nature of the hag-wife," the "marriage compact" between knight and loathly lady, and the conferral of sovereignty through God's grace.
A Guide to Chaucer's Pronunciation.
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 simplified phonetics: GP 1-42, 118-62, 285-308, 477-500; WBP 453-80; WBT 857-881; PrT 516-50; HF1-52; and TC 1.1-35. First published in Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell; New Haven, Conn.: Whitlock 1954. Reprinted in Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1978.
Chaucer's Narrative Art in "The Canterbury Tales."
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 characterizations of KnT, MilT as farce, MerT as arch irony, and ManT as a critique of court. Also comments on Chaucer's extensive use the "Possessive Demonstrative" (e.g., "this Palamon") as a device for engaging his audience.
Geoffrey Chaucer
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 trends, the sources that underlie the works, and reactions from later tradition. Includes a bibliography.
Recurrently reprinted; with light revisions and updated bibliography in various reference volumes, sometimes under the title "Chaucer, Geoffrey (ca. 1340-1400)": British Writers and Their Work, no. 1 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963); British Writers, Volume 1, edited by Ian Scott-Kilvert (New York: Scribner, 1979), pp. 19-47; Poets: American and British, 3 vols., edited by Ian Scott-Kilvert (New York: Scribner, 1998), 1:315-46; Gale Virtual Reference Library (e-book).
Dante En Angleterre: Chaucer.
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 also considers LGW and CT, addressing echoes in MLT, PrP, FrT, MerT, and SqT, along with more sustained resonances in MkT (Hugolino), WBT, and SNP. Includes discussion of Gent and comments on Dante's "Canzone" and "Convivio" as well as his "Comedy."
Chanticleer and the Fox
NPT, adapted and illustrated for juvenile audience.
Kapriolen der Liebe: 33 Nicht Ganz Sittsame Geschichten.
Includes MilT in German poetic couplets (pp. 56-71), slightly abridged from Wilhelm Hertzberg's translation of 1866.
Shakespeare's Reading in Chaucer.
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 thirty years old. Dissuades arguments that Shakespeare used Chaucer's plots.
Middle English: Chaucer.
A discursive review of Chaucerian scholarship and research published in 1957.
Daun Piers, Monk and Business Administrator.
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 GP narrator, based on medieval monastic prohibitions, to show how the details might have been revealed in a way that, ironically, encouraged the narrator to approve of the Monk's opinions.
The Concept of Order in the "Franklin's Tale."
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 Arveragus.
Chaucer's Point of View as Narrator in the Love Poems.
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, Guillaume de Machaut, and others, and arguing that Chaucer deeply appreciated the world and love in the world, even though he accepted their subordination to divine standards which requires humans to strive beyond their limitations.
Chaucer's General Prologue, A 163.
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.
"After His Ymage": The Central Ironies of the "Friar's Tale."
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 characterization and stylistic irony, particularly dramatic irony, and a "pervasive duality of phrasing" and imagery.
The Franklin's "Sop in Wyn."
Clarifies the Franklin's "morning dish" of a "wine-sop," suggesting dietary or medicinal implications necessary to compensate for his culinary excesses.
Chaucer and Two Elizabethan Pseudo-Sciences.
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.
Lyrics of the Middle Ages.
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 three samples from Chaucer (ballade from LGWP, rondel from PF, and Pity) are in Middle English, with sidebar glosses.
Chaucer and the Horse.
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 b&w reproductions of thirteen of the pilgrim-portraits from the Ellesmere manuscript, interleaved and unpaginated, with commentary on these portraits in an Appendix.
The Changing English Language, Illustrated by Translations of the Bible, and Changing Literary Style, Illustrated by the Arthurian Legend: Readings in Old, Middle, and Modern English.
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).
Chaucer’s Worste Shrewe: The Pardoner.
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 wide variety of the Pardoner's sins of commission and omission, using the seven deadly sins as a structural guide, and exploring the opinions of the other pilgrims and of Chaucer toward the Pardoner.
A Biblical Allusion in "Troilus and Criseyde."
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.