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The manipulation of gender in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is utterly opaque. While "The Knight's Tale" potentially entices readers to think that Chaucer defines a woman regarding her relationship to man, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" suggests that the poet views a woman as an independent figure whose identity has nothing to do with man. This apparently controversial portrait of gender causes some critics to read Chaucer as a pro‐woman individual; simultaneously, it inspires other critics to view the poet as anti‐feminist. Such debate may cause readers to misjudge Chaucer's multifaceted approach towards gender as well as other hypersensitive topics, thus adding to the atmosphere of complexity and lack of clarity that dominates The Tales. Accordingly, this paper revisits Chaucer's gender‐oriented philosophy in The Tales sieving what is conjectured by the poem's critics from what is said by the poet himself regarding gender. The paper concludes that Chaucer has never had the choice to overtly be or not to be the friend of woman but has always adopted a fence‐sitting strategy concerning the question of gender due to his sociopolitical status. The paper confirms that Chaucer's viewpoint of women is neither feminist nor anti‐feminist but a realistic amalgamation that mirrors the opaque gender culture of England in the fourteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The episode of Chauntecleer's dream found in Chaucer's "The Nun's Priest's Tale" is a controversial topic for Chaucer critics. Some critics argue that the downfall‐escape experience of Chauntecleer is worthy of investigation because animal figures in fables symbolize people (Finlayson, 2005, 495) and thus their rise and downfall sometimes allude to certain theological or philosophical issues such as the original Fall of Adam and Eve (Payne, 1976, 211–112). Other critics propose, on the contrary, that the episode of Chauntecleer is a "joke" and therefore should not be overestimated (Eliason, 1972, 172). These two opposing perspectives have their own rationale; nevertheless, the centrality of Chauntecleer's dream to the narrative of "The Nun's Priest's Tale" is hard to ignore. Considering the philosophical reverberations of the tale concerning the medieval concepts of destiny and free will, this paper argues that the Chauntecleer episode is not a "joke" but a philosophical exemplar that proposes the absence of any demarcating lines between destiny and free will, bearing in mind that destiny refers to the many options decreed by the deity to be available in every single situation for each individual, while free will refers to humans' freedom to decide what to say and do. The paper contends that Chauntecleer's dream shows how free will and destiny—though they are "inconsistent" forces (Boethius, 1785, 195)—mysteriously connive together to form what can be called conditional free will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The higher frequency of auxiliary do in poetry than in prose in Middle English (1150-1500) is one of the puzzles of the history of this construction. Previous studies have argued that the role of auxiliary do in poems was to place the infinitive at the end of the verse to make rhyme easier. The aim of this article is to examine to what extent auxiliary do was used for rhyme purposes and, furthermore, to determine whether it had other functions. On the basis of a conditional inference tree and random forests, this paper shows that auxiliary do was indeed used as a metrical tool to place the infinitive at the end of the verse to facilitate rhyme, although the degree to which poets used auxiliary do varied from dialect to dialect. The statistical analysis reveals that the auxiliary construction served also other functions, particularly in the Eastern Midlands and Northern dialects, where do favored the integration of verbs of foreign origin and ensured the metricality of the verse by maintaining a regular distribution of the beats in the line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the cultural and economic context of the references to German luxury trade goods, German legend, and German political power in the late fourteenth-century/early fifteenth-century Middle English poem Sir Degrevant. All of the German references in the poem pertain to the Rhineland, which formed the western branch of Hanseatic trade throughout this period, the branch that conducted trade with England and Scotland. I argue that these German references form part of a pattern, seen throughout the poem, whereby the northern English poet recreates the international politics surrounding the Scottish Wars of Independence, which dominated northern English life throughout the fourteenth century, and in which German merchants played a controversial role. All of the poem's references to German goods and culture center in the enemy earl's household exclusively, casting the aggressive earl of the poem as a Scottish-style Border lord. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the more striking episodes in the Middle English poem Of Author and of Merlin is an invasion of England by, amongst others, an army of gigantic Irish pagans. Adapted from the French Estoire de Merlin, the English poem's depiction of the Irish represents one of the more intriguing points of divergence between the two versions. Of Author and of Merlin paints the Irish in a highly negative light and repeatedly refers to them as 'Saracens'. The French text, by contrast, depicts the Irish as gigantic, but it does not suggest that they are ignoble or pagan. Although, the term 'Saracen' was sometimes applied to non-Islamic enemies of England, such as the Vikings, this appears to be its only application to a historically Christian people dwelling west of England. This paper armies that the depiction of the Irish in the poem reflects a complex of ideas about Ireland in circulation in England in the period. In particular, the influential writings of Gerald of Whales lay great emphasis on supposed Irish heterodoxy and repeatedly link the Irish Occident with the Orient as the furthest extremities of the world, abounding in marvels but rendered barbaric by their isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper offers the first comprehensive survey of the combination of a third person singular pronoun and the demonstrative pronounthis, which is assumed to be peculiar to Middle English. Through a close analysis of the data extracted from the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, particular attention is paid to how far this usage is attributable to direct Latin influence, as has been previously suggested. A detailed study of theWycliffite Bibleexamines how often Latin demonstrative pronouns which refer to persons in the Vulgate (e.g.hic,iste) are translated ashe/she this. It will be demonstrated that, other than such translation effects, the pronominal combination is also subject to several conditioning factors such as the Northern dialect, metrical requirements and the set of contexts where a special emphasis is very likely to be intended on the person in question. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of Norse loanwords in Old English poetry seems to be restricted to historical poems in praise of prominent contemporaries. It is demonstrated that the few Norse loans in these poems neither contribute to the laudatory character of such texts nor serve as new, additional means of stylistic enrichment. Instead, the Norse loans in these late Old English historical poems can be shown to have been used to add factual plausibility to such poems as historical texts. This contrasts with the use of Norse loanwords in Middle English poems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most criticism of the Tale of Beryn deals principally with the 'continuities' between the text and Chaucer's work. Contrary to this position, the present paper concentrates on the points at which Beryn departs from Chaucer, signalling how the later poet engages with and even challenges his predecessor in productive ways. In particular it focuses on the different attitudes to adolescence put forward by the two poets. It is found that the later writer exploits latent discrepancies in Chaucer's text to initiate a debate on youth, sensing a greater level of danger in adolescence than his forebear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dame Sirith is often discussed as the earliest Middle English comic narrative. I argue that this designation is misleading: Dame Sirith is better considered as a distinct representative of a well-developed multilingual tale tradition. This tradition descends from an exemplum in Petrus Alfonsi's Disciplina clericalis. When considered in the context of its French and Latin analogues, Dame Sirith shows consistent features that recast its central tensions as an opposition between ecclesiastical and mercantile values. In the poem's use of the rich Middle English term "wis," the Dame Sirith-poet emphasizes this tension between church and market in a manner consistent with fabliau verbal play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents a transcription of the anonymous Middle English poem "Short Charter of Christ." He discusses the discovery of the poem in MS Rowlinson poet. 26 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, the theme of redemption, and the textual transmission of the poem.

This article uses two controversial late medieval women--Eleanor Cobham, duchess of Gloucester (ca. 1400-1452), and Queen Margaret of Anjou (1430-1482)--to explore trends in popular history in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Working within the de casibus tradition, writers in England, France, Burgundy, and Italy apply Giovanni Boccaccio's exemplary model to Eleanor and Margaret, depicting them as powerful speakers whose rhetorical skills contribute to both their rise and fall. Over roughly a century and a half, these complementary but not necessarily contemporaneous narratives become entangled, culminating in the anachronistic rivalry between the women in William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II in the 1590s. The use of these tropes in texts written while both women were still alive, furthermore, illustrates the versatility of de casibus narratives during this time, applicable not only to historical figures long dead, but also to those still living, breathing, and most importantly, speaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some sixteen so-called "fragments" of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde still survive in addition to its major (though sometimes incomplete) textual witnesses. These fragments have, not without cause, been largely ignored as valueless. Yet, actual perusal of these odd bits as physical evidence of the poem's circulation discloses a variety of interpretive protocols practiced by Chaucer's earliest readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of the words seide and quod in the poem "Piers Plowman" by poet William Langland. Topics include the uses of the words in marking direct speech, the levels of narrative used in the poem, and the use of tense in Middle English syntax such as Langland's poem. The historical present tense is addressed.

The article explores the literary value of the Middle English poem titled "Pearl." Topics discussed include the manifold singularity of the poem provided by the fact that only one copy exists, which gives rise to different forms of interpretation of the poem by readers, the ways in which the manifold singularity of the poem adds to its literary value and the reasons why the relationship between uniqueness and value is important in reading the poem.

Chaucer's Book of the Duchess explores the essential relationship between language and memory. When language appears inadequate or contrived, as it is for the Black Knight, then memory falters. However, by modeling Ovid, Chaucer uses language to transform painful memories, such as death or unrequited love, into an aesthetic experience that is emotionally and physically restorative. Emphasizing the therapeutic potential of language on memory, the Book of the Duchess foreshadows Freud's psychoanalytic method; for both the doctor and the poet, language's metaphorical capacity can productively redefine memories that are traumatic and psychically destructive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on two Middle English medical charms in verse that appear in the British Library MS (manuscript) Sloane 2187. Details are presented on the metrical and rhyming patterns of the charms, referred to as Longinus and Job. The article goes on to discuss the popularity of charms in later-medieval England.

This article brings together evidence from three disciplines to support a new and more detailed analysis of Chaucers pentameter line. First, it draws upon linguistics, explaining the concepts and terms introduced by American scholars working in the field of generative metrics. Second, it embraces the use of statistical techniques in the analysis of poetic meter, first pioneered by Russian metrists. Third, it examines textual evidence from European literary history of how poets before Chaucer versified in France, Italy, and England. This combination of data suggests that Chaucers pentameter owes more to the Italian endecasillabo than the French vers de dix, and confirms that Chaucer molded Middle English words and phrases to meet the iambic norm of the Modern English long-line canon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literary practice may be more deeply shaped by basic literacy training than we have noticed. This is particularly true for English writers of the late fourteenth century, when the constant movement out of Latin into English in schoolrooms both ensured that translation exercises became a method for making vernacular poetry and demonstrated that English had a grammar of its own. As the most basic grammatical concepts and the simplest exercises of literacy training evolved into resources for literary technique, the style of writers such as Chaucer, Langland, and Gower became "grammaticalized." For this reason, a more detailed understanding of the forms of pedagogy employed in grammar schools can be equivalent to a genealogy of the important elements of a style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marks on the Maiden's skin in the Middle English poem Pearl have been taken to indicate that she died of plague. Because outbreaks of plague in fourteenth-century England can be dated, this suggests that Pearl may date from the early 1390s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fourteenth-century romance The Erle of Tolous stands out among the corpus of tried-heroine narratives from medieval England, best known to modern readers in the form of Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale. In nearly all cases, the protagonist of these stories is an emblem of purity and piety. By contrast, the married heroine of The Erle grants an audience and one of her rings to the nobleman who loves her. After she is framed with adultery, he undertakes an ordeal to vindicate her and the two are finally wed upon the death of her husband, the Emperor of Almayn. Weaving together the account of this tender affection with the drama of the Empress' false accusation and, furthermore, the territorial disputes between the Earl and the Emperor, the romance continually shifts its perspective on these characters, their mutual dealings, and the values that inform them. By analyzing the twists and turns of its plot and comparing it with analogous narratives of calumny, in particular Susanna and the Elders (Daniel 13 in the Vulgate numbering), I argue that The Erle replaces their conception of virtue as God-sanctioned righteousness with a pragmatic ethics that stresses the importance of fostering benevolent relations among human beings in changing circumstances. Whereas this romance departs significantly from the worldview of the biblical story, their close thematic and structural parallels suggest deliberate revision. The Erle is therefore a chapter in the largely uncharted reception history of Susanna and the Elders in the late Middle Ages.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism is presented of the Middle English romance poem "Sir Isumbras," focusing on the historical context of the poem and references to the British crusades against Islam and the Turks in the Holy Lands of Jerusalem. The depiction of Saracens, Christianity, and infidels in the poem are discussed, as well as the circulation of manuscripts that feature the poem, popes such as Clement V and Boniface IX's calls for money for crusades, and the character Isumbras' pilgrimage.

An essay is presented about a hypothetical argument in favor of attributing the poem "Piers Plowman" to Medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer instead of poet William Langland, based on 16th century literary critic John Leland's book "De uiris illustribus." The apocryphal Chaucer story "The Plowman's Tale" is mentioned, as well as 18th century critic Humfrey Wanley, Medieval English manuscripts, and 18th century atheist Joseph Ritson.

The Middle English poem Cleanness is regularly marked off into four-line units in its sole surviving manuscript, British Library Cotton Nero A.x, and I argue that reading Cleanness with attention to these divisions helps the poem emerge as a more complex piece of verbal and homiletic art. By suggesting reading strategies for the lines that they mark off, the stanza marks evoke the interpenetration of the visual and the verbal that the poem proposes more broadly. The author's words and the scribe's activity thus combine to shape the poem's interpretive potential. The crucial issue is therefore not whether Cleanness was intended by its author to be written or read in stanzas, but rather the fact that the poem's uniquely surviving physical form encourages us to consider whether it is so, and what that might mean for our engagement with its content--how we should go about finding, in short, the literary, codicological, and homiletic forms of Cleanness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of Sheila Delany's studies some years ago, the fifteenth-century poet-friar Osbern Bokenham has long been considered a partisan of Richard, duke of York. Delany's and other studies, how-ever, had not fully considered the role that ecclesiastical clientage and Bokenham's role as an Augustinian Friar played in his Yorkist writings. Richard was the hereditary patron of Clare Priory, Bokenham's house, and this article reconsiders the evidence for the relationship between poet and ecclesiastical patron, reading Bokenham's pro-Yorkist writings as an attempt to improve Clare's economic and social position by attracting benefactions from an otherwise-distant hereditary patron and in turn enhancing Clare Priory's spiritual and social prestige. Key to this reassessment are not only Bokenham's well known poetry but also the Clare "Dialogue at the Grave," priory charters, Bokenham's Mappula Angliae, and his Abbotsford Legendary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism is presented which discusses two cruxes in the "Clerk's Tale," a story in the "Canterbury Tales" by the medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. More specifically, the author argues that the early scribes of the "Canterbury Tales" had a better knowledge of the complexities of Middle English than any non-native speaker, and that at least one of them had enough experience to evaluate a textual puzzle better than the Chaucerian editorial tradition. The work of several Chaucer editors is discussed including Adam Pinkhurst, Simon Horobin and Linne R. Mooney.

The article presents a brief profile of English poet Joseph Beaumont starting from study with Richard Crawshaw and his ejection from University of Cambridge. It mentions his verses of his poetry in which he describes about sexual temptations of Satan and the guardian angel named Phylax. It states that his poem was divided into 20 cantos including the Temptation, the Traytor and the Banquet. It discusses the triumph of martyrs and ancient saints and examines the imaging of mediative piety.

The article discusses the identification of a verse by poet John Lydgate at Holy Trinity Church at Long Melford in Suffolk, England. The author describes stanzas by Lydgate painted on the chantry chapel's cornice, beams, and walls and their transcription by 19th-century antiquary David Elisha Davy. The author suggests that some stanzas on the church's walls come from Lydgate's poem "Balade at the Reverence of Our Lady," and analyzes manuscripts containing the poem. The chantry chapel was built by John Clopton between 1487 and 1494, and the author explores how Clopton knew the text for the chapel's decoration.

This article discusses the theological sophistication in many Middle English religious lyric. It explores the "A Companion to the Middle English Lyric" by Thomas G. Duncan and "The Middle English Lyric and Short Poem" by Rosemary Greentree which have played a part in the cultural production in the medieval period. It also notes the use of structure for theological purposes and the chasm between amplified didactic, narrative texts and the abbreviated forms of Middle English religious lyrics.

The article discusses annotations and marginalia within 15th century English poetry manuscripts that were written by scribes. The author is broadly concerned with the history of reading and writing, and the interconnected nature of these two activities. Emphasis is given to proleptic reading instructions, the possible misreading of instructive annotations and notes, and the origin and authorship of these annotations. English poets discussed include Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, and Thomas Hoccleve.

The article discusses the appearance of a Middle English proverb in the late 14th-century manuscript MS Digby 99 held in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. Topics include features of the handwriting of the proverb, the possible relation of the proverb to the poem "The Prick of Conscience," and the presence of the same text in a commonplace book by 16th-century author Richard Hill.

The article discusses the medieval cultural life and 15th century English gentlewoman Lady Sibylle Boys' literary patronage of poet John Lydgate. The author argues that Boys and poems associated with her should be seen as representing mainstream cultural life. The article discusses the nature of text commissioned by Boys.

A literary criticism of Thomas Hoccleve's "Series" is presented. The article examines the cultural politics of England when "Series" was written and ties the text to particular events and other literature, including the works of author Geoffrey Chaucer. The article discusses how the book is intended to be used by the reader.

The article discusses medieval poetry designed to teach the art of swordsmanship. It focuses on two poems from the 14th century, one in Middle English by an anonymous author, and one in Middle High German by the armed combat instructor Johannes Liechtenauer. It is noted that the rhyming structure of the information is useful as a mnemonic device. Some of the technical terms related to combat techniques are not well understood, as the teachers and students of such arts used jargon to prevent their specialized training from becoming widely available.

Presents literary criticism which offers an analysis of structural coherence in the "Book of the Duchess" by Geoffrey Chaucer. The author argues that the parallel between the beginning of the dream and the man in black's autobiography is the key to understanding the images in the chamber and complements critic Helen Phillips' idea of the triptych model of coherence for the book. Literary echoes of French sources within the book are also discussed.

The article presents an analysis of the English sonnet between 1560 and 1580. An in-depth exploration into the form and content of the mid-Tudor era literary form is given, highlighting structural variances from the typical styles and the prominence of love as the central theme. Further discourse analysis is given regarding the use of love to point to deeper social constructions rather than dwell on the emotion itself.

Discusses the shared engagement on the part of the English poets William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer with the status of poetry as illusion and conjuring act. Similarities between Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" and Chaucer's poem "Franklin's Tale"; Evidence that Shakespeare was influenced by Chaucer; Impression of fiction dissolving into real life and the voice of the narrator becoming the voice of the poet.

An essay is presented in which the author critiques the anachronistic literary trend of applying monolingual, New Historicist assumptions to older literature, and offers examples of 15th century poems in French, English and Latin. Poets such as Charles d'Orléans and Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy are mentioned, as well as poems from personal letters and love poems.

Focuses on the poem `A Woman's Reply to Her Lover,' and four other love lyrics in a Medieval manuscript. Analysis of the structure and content of the poems; Texts of the lyrics.

Presents an analysis of MS Digby 86, a version of the poem `The Names of a Hare in English,' dated to the last quarter of the thirteenth century. Details on the different kinds of hare names; Rhyme scheme of the poem; Readings that should be revised.

Presents an analysis of the poem `Resignation B,' found in the tenth-century book `Exeter Book.' Problems of interpretation; Clue leading to the speaker of `Resignation B'; Link of `Resignation B' to both penitential poetry and elegy.

Discusses the text and meaning of the Middle English poem `South English Legendary' Life of Aethelwold. Edition by Michael Lapidge and Michael Winterbottom of Wulfstan of Winchester's `Life of St Aethelwold'; Interpretation of the word `churchedras'; Problem of idiom raised by a prayer at the end of the poem.

Focuses on poetic accounts of the appearance of Saint George in the air above the English troops during the battle at Agincourt in 1415. Modern studies of Henry V and the Agincourt campaign mentioning that some warriors saw the phenomenon; `The Brut, or the Chronicle of England'; `The Battle of Agincourt'; `The Batayll of Egyncourte'.