Book project

Chaucer’s Thing of Things argues that the practice of translation underlies Chaucer’s other, creative poems and adaptations. Consequently translation—particularly Chaucer’s translation of Boethius—holds a central place in Chaucer’s writing throughout his career. By analyzing seven variations on a passage from Boethius across Chaucer’s oeuvre, I show a previously unavailable view of Chaucer’s translation theory, one that demonstrates how the inherent instability of translation allows Chaucer to produce vernacular texts that at once sustain and efface the authority of his source text, of his “auctor” Boethius. By looking across genres of Chaucer’s work in an atypical way—one determined by Chaucer’s engagement with a preeminent medieval authority—my project argues that translation for Chaucer is the source of a productive activity, one that from other critical viewpoints remains concealed.

Articles and essays

“Caxton’s ‘Voyde Wordes’ and Chaucer’s Fame.” (Work in progress).

“Doing Chaucer Out Loud.” (Work in progress).

“Prompt Compassion Using a Verse-Writing Exercise.” MLA’s Approaches to Teaching Emotions in World Literature. (Forthcoming).

“Chivalric Feats and Fiascos: An Approach to a Lower-Division Survey Course.” Arthuriana. (Winter 2023).

“Closure and Caxton’s Malory.” Arthuriana 27.4. (Winter 2017).

“Chaucer’s Enigmatic Thing in Parliament of Fowls.” Studies in Philology. (Summer 2016).

“Sisters Are Sisters: Identity In An Anonymous Middle English Poem.” Papers On Language and Literature. (Fall 2015).