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.

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Though much has been made of Chaucer's saintly characters, relatively little has been made of Chaucer's approach to hagiography. While strictly speaking Chaucer produced only one true saint's life (the Second Nun's Tale), he was repeatedly intrigued and challenged by exemplary literature. The few studies of Chaucer's use of hagiography have tended to claim either his complete orthodoxy as hagiographer, or his outright parody of the genre. My study mediates the orthodoxy/parody split by viewing Chaucer as a serious, but self-conscious, hagiographer, one who experimented with the possibilities of exemplary narrative and explored the rhetorical tensions intrinsic to the genre, namely the tensions between transcendence and imminence, reverence and identification, and epideictic deliberative discourse.