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Bernard Silvestris (Silvester)
(fl. 1130–50) Master at the Tours cathedral school.His Cosmographia, a mythologized creation story in prose and verse, is an innovative manifestation of Chartrian Neoplatonism. Bernard also wrote the ...
Canon of Chaucer's Works
(see also entries for individual works). It is not always easy to establish the authentic works of a medieval writer. They often exist in MSS copied after the author's death ...
Canterbury Tales
Late 14th‐cent. unfinished masterpiece by Chaucer. The General Prologue presents portraits of diverse pilgrims congregated at the Tabard inn (Southwark), including a battle‐worn Knight, sweetly ...
Ceys
Son of the morning star and husband of Alcyone. His story is told in The Book of the Duchess (62–220). (See Alcione.)
chronology of Chaucer's works
Because of the paucity of clear contemporary references and the absence of external evidence, the dating of the works is only approximate (for fuller details, see the individual titles). Even ...
Clerk's Tale
Is the first tale in Fragment IV of the Canterbury Tales, and is followed immediately by the Merchant's Tale. In the Prologue (in couplets) the Clerk is asked to tell ...
Confessio Amantis
The major English work of John Gower. It is a poem of over 30,000 lines in eight books. As the title implies, the framework is a confession, of a lover ...
Danyel
The Old Testament prophet, famous in the Middle Ages as an apocalyptic writer and an authority on dreams, and as an example of the way in which God cares for ...
devil
The word diabolos is used in the LXX to translate Hebrew Satan, and ‘devil’ is an English alternative used in the NT (e.g. in the temptation narrative, Matt. 4: 1) as an equivalent of ‘Satan’. The ...
dialogue
Is extensively used by Chaucer to give a sense of vivid actuality. It can range from formal debate to familiar conversation, covering all kinds of emotional situations and encounters. He ...
Dianira
Daughter of Oeneus of Calydon, and wife of Hercules (Ercules). She had been told by Nessus, a dying Centaur, that his blood would regain the affection of her husband if ...
diversity
The Miller's Tale meets with a slightly mixed reception from the Pilgrims: ‘Diverse folk diversely they seyde, | But for the moore part they loughe [laughed] and pleyde’ (I.3857–8). Chaucer ...
document
N.Something that records or transmits information, typically in writing on paper. For the purposes of providing evidence to a court, documents include books, maps, plans, drawings, photographs, ...
drunkenness
Intoxication resulting from imbibing an excess of alcohol. It is an offence contrary to s 12 of the Licensing Act 1872 to be drunk in a public place.
Elf-queene
In Sir Thopas (VII.788, 795) a creature of magical beauty whom the hero hopes to make his mistress; the ‘queene of Fayerye’ mentioned a few lines later seems to be ...
Epilogues (to Tales)
The title given by critics to passages which occur at the end of some of the surviving fragments of The Canterbury Tales. These are sometimes called ‘Endlinks’. (Within the fragments ...
Episteles (of Ovyde)
(‘Letters of Heroines’) of Ovid, a series of letters in elegiacs supposedly addressed by the heroines of ancient legend to their lovers or husbands (and in three cases by the ...
eye
n. the organ of sight: a three-layered roughly spherical structure specialized for receiving and responding to light. The outer fibrous coat consists of the sclera and the transparent cornea; the ...
