5,161 research outputs found

    When Poetry and Humor Get Hitched

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    Through humor, poetry explores the imagination and the mind just as it does through other means of expression. Comic poetry finds the truth in the illogical and in the absurd; it finds what unsettles us through its use of surprise; it finds delight and play in the unknown and uncertain. By its very nature, comic poetry clings to the edges of what we know, so pinpointing its characteristics is tricky. But the shared characteristic of all comic poetry is the permission the poet grants herself to disobey boundaries. The poet chooses not to fit her works within the reader’s expectations, the reader’s sense of logic, or the reader’s definitions of things in the world. Some of the boundaries crossed come out of breaking out of poetic custom. Many poems break boundaries of thought and expression; a comic poet uses one or more of these techniques to bring her funny poems to profound places. The result is always the exploration of unexplored or underexplored territory

    Codes and Hypertext: the Intertextuality of International and Comparative Law

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    The field of information studies reveals gaps in the literature of international and comparative law as part of interdisciplinary and textual studies. To illustrate the kind of theoretical and text-based work that could be done, this essay provides an example of such a study. Religious law texts, civil law codes, treaties and constitutional texts may provide a means to reveal the nature of hypertext as the new format for commentary. Margins used to be used for commentary, and now this can be done with hypertext and links in footnotes. Scholarly communication in general is now intertextual, and texts derive value and meaning from being related to other texts. This paper draws upon examples chosen after observing relationships between text presentation and hypertext as well as detailing similar observations by scholars to date. However, this essay attempts to go beyond a descriptive level to argue that this intertextuality, and the hypertext nature of the web, bring together texts and traditions in a manner conducive to the study of legal systems and their points of convergence

    John Upton's Notes on the Fairy Queen : in four volumes

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    Narcissus in Queer Time

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    Queer temporality has been studied in relation to the Middle Ages as a means of questioning the prevailing historiography for other modes of connection to the past, such as embodied or affective. Conversely, the other branch of queer temporality has been primarily interested in how queer lifestyles today disrupt the heteronormative plan laid out by society. Joining these modes, Gower’s revision of Narcissus questions our notions of historiography through showing us an example of a queer, transgender character and his struggles with heteronormative expectations—demonstrating that the medieval is not so disconnected from the modern

    Rhetoric and performing anger : Proserpina\u27s gift and Chaucer\u27s Merchant\u27s tale.

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    Although scholars have historically minimized the relationship between medieval grammatical and rhetorical traditions and Chaucer\u27s poetics, Proserpina\u27s angry speech in the Merchant\u27s Tale represents the intersection of medieval classroom grammar exercises, Geoffrey of Vinsauf\u27s theory of delivery, and poetics. Proserpina\u27s angry speech reveals that her rhetoric is calculated to subvert the masculine power structures that surround her. Such a focus on Chaucer\u27s depiction of women\u27s persuasive tactics helps to highlight Chaucer\u27s deep engagement with rhetoric beginning in the 1380\u27s. Moreover, this investigation asks for increased attention to the overlap between classroom grammatical traditions, rhetorical theory, and medieval poetics

    The development of twentieth century criticisms of The Canterbury tales

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    It will be the purpose of this thesis to survey and to evaluate twentieth-century criticisms of Chaucer\u27s Canterbury Tales. Because the topic is so broad, it is necessary to find methods of limiting the subject so that it· may be adequately covered herein. This paper will be limited primarily to books published on the topic under consideration. To cover all the work in periodical literature would go beyond the scope of this study. Perhaps that task can be covered by someone else

    The Anti-Crusade Voice of Chaucer\u27s Canterbury Tales

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    This study reads some Middle English poetry in terms of crusading, and it argues that the most prominent English poets, namely Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, and John Gower, were against the later crusades regardless of their target. However, since the anti-crusade voice of Gower and Langland has been discussed by many other scholars, this study focuses on Chaucer\u27s poems and their implicit opposition of crusading. I argue that despite Chaucer\u27s apparent neutrality to crusading as well as other sociopolitical and cultural matters of England, his poetry can hardly be read but as an indirect critique of war in general and crusading in particular. Thus, to prove such a claim, this study consists of five main chapters. The first chapter discusses the dominance as well as nature of crusading in fourteenth-century England. The second chapter reads Gower\u27s Confessio Amantis and Langland\u27s Piers Plowman as anti-crusade poems. The third chapter reads Chaucer\u27s poems written before the Canterbury Tales as a critique of crusading. The fourth chapter argues that one of the central themes of the Canterbury Tales is to indirectly denounce crusading and mock crusaders. The fifth chapter revisits Chaucer\u27s bibliography and uses it to explain why his critique of crusading is indirect. Finally, this study concludes that Chaucer is an anti-crusade poet, but his heavy reliance on the English court as a main source of power, prestige, and income explains the main reason of his indirect opposition of crusading

    Global Chaucers: Reflections on Collaboration and Digital Futures

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    Global Chaucers, our multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-year project, intends to locate, catalog, translate, archive, and analyze non-Anglophone appropriations and translations of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Since its founding in 2012, this project has rapidly changed in response to scholars’ diverse interests and our expanding discoveries. Almost all these changes were prompted and made possible by our online presence (including a blog and Facebook group), and digital media comprises our primary means for gathering information, disseminating our findings, advertising conferences and events, and promoting the resource to other scholars. Because digital media can help disparate people traverse geographical and linguistic barriers, Global Chaucershas been able to exceed its initial intent to create an archive by developing a network of scholars, translators, and students seeking to engage in manifold ways with non-Anglophone reworkings of Chaucerian material from around the world. Reflecting on our project undertakings to date, this discussion presents some of the practical challenges we face and future directions our efforts might take, and we hope this discussion will help serve others who seek to launch group endeavors that traverse academic and nonacademic communities

    Teaching de raptu meo: Chaucer, Chaumpaigne, and Consent in the Classroom

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