Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Proefschrift--Utrecht--Universiteit, 1996. / Mention parallèle de titre ou de responsabilité : The @polyphonic songs in Dutch of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Résumé en anglais. Bibliogr. p. [646]-674. Index.

Langland's use of moral distichs from the medieval text known as the Disticha Catonis has been noted but never critically examined as a whole. The figure of 'Cato' and the distichs attributed to him stand out in Piers Plowman. I will begin by placing both Piers and the Disticha in their medieval literary context. Questions of audience and literacy have always been central to Piers, and I will look at the way in which Langland's use of Latin quotations from the Disticha relates to these issues. I will also examine the role of ' Cato' and the distichs in Piers in order to dispell the prevailing critical view that 'Cato' represented a pagan authority. The medieval Christian commentaries which accompanied the Disticha illuminate Piers as well. Critics have often wondered why Langland choose to write in a mixture of languages. 'Cato' and the Disticha are part of the answer. / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The medieval planctus is a Latin lament, composed in great numbers on Biblical themes as well as for the death of political figures or the destruction of cities. It appeared in both monophonic and polyphonic form, and had counterparts in a number of vernacular languages. The manuscript Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana Pluteo 29.1, known as the Florence manuscript, contains eight monophonic planctus in the memory of well-known public figures of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. This thesis will examine these compositions as a collection. The monophonic repertoire of the middle ages has been examined in a relatively limited fashion; the florid Latin repertoire, which includes these planctus, has been studied hardly at all. This thesis will provide a musical analysis based upon the text, to prove that the underlying compositional basis for these widely disparate pieces was the same. The planctus span a period of seventy years, and differ greatly in length, textual structure, and musical form. However, as this work will demonstrate, despite their differences, they follow essentially the same inner logic. The analyses contained in the thesis are based upon study of both the syntax and poetry of the text, and seek to discover the relationship of the music to these textual aspects. Various facets of the music (cadence structure, melodic outline, ambitus, and mode) are included in the study. In the process of this study, other facts about the planctus also come to light: the importance of pitches grouped into melodic phrases; mode as an expressive tool rather than a restrictive set of parameters; and the presence of various forms of descriptive composition, or word-painting, often considered not to exist in medieval music. The thesis draws conclusions regarding these aspects of the music, and how they are all used to the greater expression of the texts. The results of this analysis conclude that the eight planctus, while differing in surface characteristics, are the outcome of a single compositional approach, that of the text as a departure point for the music.

No description available.

E. R. Curtius' European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages demonstrated the extent to which medieval literature may be fruitfully examined in terms of the classical and Scriptural topoi which flourished in the poetry of the Middle Ages. His study, however, argued the continuity of these topoi so emphatically that he tended to slight the innovative treatment of the familiar models. It is generally acknowledged that Chaucer's use of bird imagery is derived for the most part from traditional sources which extend from Plato and Aristotle to the Bible and the patristic fathers, and from Ovid and Virgil to Jean de Meun and Dante. Furthermore, it is also recognized that Chaucer's use of conventional imagery produces startling and remarkably unconventional responses in his audience's imagination. This dissertation studies the conventions of bird imagery and Chaucer's artistic adaptation of these paradigms so as to understand how the poet poured new wine into old wineskins to create the successful combination of aging, body, and freshness. / Chapter One investigates the philosophical and literary backgrounds to the medieval conventions of bird imagery. The topoi of birds representing bestial human nature, or avian society as a model for, or parallel to, human society lead to the convention of the bird fable. The bird/human double perspective in this convention offers the audience the opportunity to witness birds acting as humans and to therefore ridicule the behaviour of humans who have abused their rational faculties. On the other hand, the audience is also tempted to laugh at the birds who, acting as supposedly rational human beings, fall into intellectual and physical traps because they are not acting on instincts derived from natural grace. The recognition of the birds' higher perspective on earthly affairs, the belief that they mediate between the divine and the human, and that they reveal the mysteries of Christianity as "through a glass darkly" lead to the convention of birds as intellectual signs. This convention is clearly an extension of the classical use of the bird as a symbol of the deity; here, however, the emphasis is on "how" and "why" the birds' natural habits illustrate and explain mystical truths. Consequently, this convention provides a contemplative dimension to bird imagery, and it gradually moves from primarily Christian semiology to a broader philosophical language of signs. The final image pattern, the convention of birds-and-love, is a complex web of traditions which derives its emotional and intellectual power from all of the above themes. As the poet usually develops some aspect of the contrast between human and bird society or the contrast between the birds' earthly and aerial activities, the convention encompasses themes as diverse as frustration and celebration, alienation and reconciliation, and eros and caritas. / Chapters Two, Three and Four follow the same format. Each provides a provenance for a convention up to the fourteenth century by discussing important poems which make significant contributions to the convention. Chaucer's poetry is then examined in the light of major themes within each convention. Although considerable attention is paid to bird imagery generally in the Chaucer canon, most of the emphasis will be on the House of Fame, the "Nun's Priest's Tale", and the Parlement of Foules. These "bird poems", I argue, are best approached in terms of conventions of bird imagery; by focusing on one convention at a time, one notes the ways in which Chaucer invests established patterns of imagery with fresh content, and, in particular, that he extends the bird imagery to express philosophical truth by developing the element of perspective, point of view, and analogy. An awareness of Chaucer's adaptation of conventional imagery provides a fresh perspective on both his "art" and his poems.

Witnesses believed that the Black Death and subsequent fourteenth-century plagues threatened profound social change. However, Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400) does not appear to accord the plague a place of any importance in his works. This is especially surprising in the case of the Canterbury Tales , which presents a complex portrait of plague-era society. Chaucer's silence on the plague is reinforced by critical positions that deemphasize the effects of the plague and emphasize Chaucer's supposed lack of interest in his world. This thesis contends that the plague is in fact present in the Canterbury Tales in the guise of the changes that it threatened. By situating the Canterbury Tales in a network of literary and non-literary responses to the plague, I demonstrate that Chaucer participated in a discourse that attempted to restore order to a world that was seen to have been disordered---morally, socially, and physically---by the plague.