The Middle English Romances are somewhat difficult to study as a group. In order to examine these works accurately, one must take into consideration other literature produced at the same tirne, as well as that which preceded it.
Mi Suete Leuedi, Her Mi Béne: The Power and Patronage of the Heroine in Middle English Romance
February 10, 2013 By
Lay Writers and the Politics of Theology in Medieval England From the Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries
January 3, 2013 By
My intention is not to continue the discourse on such practices but to analyze narrative content in relation to the politics of theology that had an impact on lay writers and their artistic creativity concerning the search for selfhood from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.
An Ecoritical Approach to Chaucer. Representations of the Natural World in the English Literature of the Middle Ages
December 15, 2012 By
The choice to write and present a study of nature in medieval English literature from an ecological perspective has been originated by a personal interest in the urgency of the deep environmental crisis we are faced with and by the drive to expand the eco- oriented study of representations of nature in literature to chronological and spatial areas well beyond those originally typical of ecological criticism.
The Wife of Bath: a Tragic Caricature of Women
November 21, 2012 By
The Wife is characterized by a preoccupation with sex, which she uses to manipulate her husbands, of which she has had five, into acquiescing their land and money to her control.
“My trouthe for to holde—allas, allas!”: Dorigen and Honor in “The Franklin’s Tale”
November 18, 2012 By
We can see from the beginning of the Franklin’s Tale that honor as pub- lic esteem is an overriding concern for Arveragus, who qualifies his exceedingly courtly marriage vow, swearing always to remain Dorigen’s servant in love, with the condition that he retain the public appearance of lordly husband, “That wolde he have for shame of his degree”.
‘In the Beginning’: The London Medieval Graduate Network Inaugural Conference
November 13, 2012 By
This is a summary of the The London Medieval Graduate Network Inaugural Conference by Rachel Scott. The conference was held on November 2nd at King’s College London.
Medieval Book History Week Lecture: “Practical Latin and Formal English in the 14th-15th Centuries”
November 13, 2012 By
This lecture is part of Medieval Book History Week. Renown Professor Jeremy Catto spoke about literacy and language in England during the later Middle Ages at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto.
Chaucer’s costume rhetoric in his portrait of the Prioress
October 10, 2012 By
No critic has ever discussed costume signs in order to reveal to what extent the Prioress does or does not conform in her costume to the fourteenth century norm, with consideration given, simultaneously, to the historical records, literature and visual arts of the period that form and inform the signs from the many traditions Chaucer in corporates in his portrait of the Prioress.
Two University of Chicago Humanists and a Landmark Edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
October 8, 2012 By
Partly thanks to their experience as code-breakers in World War I, theirs was the first edition to take account of all 83 medieval witnesses to parts or the whole of the Tales.
Mandeville’s Intolerance: The Contest for Souls and Sacred Sites in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
October 3, 2012 By
While Chaucer‟s knight has traveled to and fought in Spain, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia Minor, Sir John claims to have visited the entire known world from Constantinople and the Holy Land to the farthest reaches of Asia.
The Fox: A Medieval View, and Its Legacy in Modern Chldren’s Literature
September 27, 2012 By
In the medieval bestiaries, which were considered to be authorities on zoological truths, the fox was described as a fraudulent and ingenious animal.
Historical imagination in/and literary consciousness: The afterlife of the Anglo-Saxons in Middle English literature
September 25, 2012 By
The long-held belief that the Norman Conquest represented a cultural apocalypse has been challenged by scholars who have emphasized continuity and gradual change as opposed to the agonistic model that formerly placed a crisp border between the AngloSaxon period and the arrival of the Normans.
Draumkvedet and the Medieval English Dream Vision: A Study of Genre
September 23, 2012 By
The Medieval English dream vision evidence influences from a variety of earlier vision literature, notably the apocalyptic vision and narrative dream.
Monstrous transformations: loyalty and community in four medieval poems
September 23, 2012 By
I will examine two forms of transformation, the werewolf transformation and the monstrous human transformation, both of which feature shape shifters who presumably cannot be trusted
Angelic Demons: Witchcraft and Sorcery in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
September 20, 2012 By
In Chaucer’s tales regarding magic and sorcery, three stand out in particular: The Franklin’s Tale, the Wife of Bath’s Tale and the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale.
Monastic Vernacularities – Syon Abbey Society session at the International Congress on Medieval Studies
September 17, 2012 By
Video of three papers given at the International Congress on Medieval Studies
The Virtuous Pagan in Middle English Literature
September 14, 2012 By
From the first through the fourteenth centuries, a succession of solutions to the problem of these virtuous pagans evolved. For the Early Church, an attractive solution was that Christ descended into Hell to convert the souls he found there.
The True Characters of Criseyde and of Diomede in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde: A Restoration of the Reputations of Two Misunderstood Characters Unjustly Maligned in Literary Criticism
September 8, 2012 By
This is a defence of the characters of Criseyde and of Diomede based, inter alia, on a close textual analysis.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – Politically Corrected
September 3, 2012 By
Most literary studies examine what an author wrote. This essay examines what Geoffrey Chaucer did not write.
A Feminist of the Medieval Times: Chaucer’s Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales
August 23, 2012 By
Chaucer’s characters take part in a story-telling contest while going on the pilgrimage. Among them, the Wife of Bath is an outstanding woman who seems not to be a typical figure in the medieval times.
Chaucerian Ekphrasis: Power, Place and Image in the Knight’s Tale
August 22, 2012 By
We first glimpse Chaucer’s Knight in a portrait-like description of him that Chaucer the narrator relays in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales.
Towards a Context for Ibn Umayl, Known to Chaucer as the Alchemist ‘Senior’
August 18, 2012 By
his article will present what we know of the life and times of an important alchemist, Ibn Umayl.
Madness and Gender in Late-Medieval English Literature
July 24, 2012 By
Madness has been long misrepresented in medieval studies. Assertions that conceptions of mental illness were unknown to medieval people, or that all madmen were assumed to be possessed by the devil, were at one time common in accounts of medieval society.
“Be waar, Hoccleue, I rede thee”: Intertextual Subjectivity in Thomas Hoccleve’s Petitioning Poetry
July 20, 2012 By
The way these operate can be seen in the section of La Male Regle from which I excerpted my paper’s title. It comes about three-quarters of the way through the poem when the narrator relates a first-hand account of how he and his Privy-Seal Office colleagues handle a night of drinking.
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