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In Search Of A Female Self : The Masculinization Of May In Chaucer's Merchant's Tale, Kimberly Diane Whitley
In Search Of A Female Self : The Masculinization Of May In Chaucer's Merchant's Tale, Kimberly Diane Whitley
Master's Theses
This examination of Chaucer's Merchant's Tale was undertaken as a response to existing scholarship. While criticism in the past tended toward a literal reading of the text, viewing it as a misogynist Merchant's story attesting to the innate depravity of women, more recent feminist criticism has leaned toward a reading which endeavors to defend the actions of May, claiming an evolvement on her part towards autonomy and self-knowledge. This thesis, taking its cue from French feminist theoretical assertions concerning self, refutes both of these readings. While it acknowledges the subversive nature of May's actions, it is unable to recognize any …
Chaucer's Ecclesiastics In The Canterbury Tales, Helen Lee Coleman
Chaucer's Ecclesiastics In The Canterbury Tales, Helen Lee Coleman
Master's Theses
It is thought that Chaucer began composing The Canterbury Tales as a dramatic whole around 1387. This is his last and by f ar his best known work. In this final. masterpiece Chaucer undertakes the tremendous task or presenting in poetic form a whole society. However, he does not merely explore society in general; he also develops the theme or the individual's relation to the community and the integral part that each person plays in making up the whole. The Canterbury Tales is, as George Lyman Kittredge so aptly puts it, "a micro cosmography" or a little image of a …
Chaucer's Pandarus : A Character Study, Phillip Valentine Daffron
Chaucer's Pandarus : A Character Study, Phillip Valentine Daffron
Master's Theses
Chaucer 's Pandarus has been an intriguing character for me ever since my first exposure, as an undergraduate, to Troilus and Criseyde. Pandarus interests me because he is true to human nature in that he is not consistently one way all of the time. Like most human beings, Pandarus has many facets to his nature; therefore, I find it distressing that many critics and students of Chaucer will not acknowledge this complexity but rather tend to want to stereotype him. If Pandarus were a simple, transparent character, then his rank in English literature would be considerably less significant. It is …
A Study Of Chaucer's Influence On English Literature Through Dryden, Elder Blair Apperson
A Study Of Chaucer's Influence On English Literature Through Dryden, Elder Blair Apperson
Master's Theses
Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the greatest poets of our English literature. If Shakespeare stands apart as our greatest, then it is John Milton who must dispute with Chaucer the honor of second place. Milton undoubtedly surpasses Chaucer in the grandeur of his imagination and the sublimity or his poetic style; but "he cannot equal him in the range and variety of his art." On one hand we have Chaucer, the grave and serious poet.always keenly conscious that "our human life is a shifting quicksand of mutability, that lasting happiness can never be our earthly portion;" whereas we have but …