Merlo, Carolyn.
College Language Association Journal 25 (1981): 225-26.
The symbolic meaning of the color brown in Chaucer's works depends on the context in which the word is used. Examples can be noted in TC, BD, Rom, HF, and CT.
Owen, Charles A.,Jr.
Chaucer Review 16 (1981): 60-75.
Chaucer shows keen awareness of children--they are not merely miniature adults--and their relationship to their parents, as is clear in GP, FranT, ManT, PrT, SumT, MkT, WBT, PhyT, ClT, and especially Astr.
Reiss, Edmund.
Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1981): 209-26.
Although lacking the modern consciousness of irony, the Middle Ages was ironic both in its Christian view of the world and in its literary expression. Examines the "concordantia oppositorum" in art and literature. "The constant possibility of…
Passages from ShT and MLT suggest that men have a right to beat their wives; furthermore, MilT and passages from Mel and WBT (in the wife's marriage to Jankin) seem to suggest masochism in female characters. MkP suggests that women are naturally…
Fineman, Joel.
Stephen J. Greenblatt, ed. Allegory and Representation. Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1979-80, n.s. 05 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 26-60.
Chaucer deals with the ways allegories begin and the ends toward which they tend. The pilgrimage is advanced by the allegory in the tales.
Lemos, Brunilda Reichmann.
Revista Letras 30 (1981): 7-16.
Departures from Boccaccio's tale of Griselda are examined to prove that Chaucer had been familiar with three other versions, those of Petrarch, MS 1165, and Mezieres. Chaucer used differences in detail to add delicacy to enhance the emotional…
Rudat, Wolfgang E. H.
Annuale Mediaevale 21 (1981): 111-20.
The idea of sex as hard work and the portrait of January as lover draws on Augustinian theories of pre- and postlapsarian sexuality, also important in WBT and MkT; nevertheless, bawdy treatments of Christian theories are "harmoniously absorbed by the…
Wurtele, Douglas. J.
Annuale Mediaevale 21 (1981): 91-110.
Proceeding by "oblique allusions and undertones," the treatment of the Virgin in MerT is "mordantly ironic," leading up to January's "brazen parody of the 'Canticum Canticorum'." This blasphemy is appropriate to the Merchant's bitter cynicism.
Fisher, John H., and others.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 189-259.
Based on the "MLA 1979 International Bibliography," plus additions, including 232 books, articles, and reviews, compiled by an international team of contributors.
Leland, Virgina E.,with John L. leland.
Michigan Academician 14 (1981): 71-79.
Chaucer's work as commissioner in the marshes between Greenwich and Woolwich may have suggested images for RvT. Fellow commissioners may have influenced GP portraits.
Benson, C. David,and David Rollman.
Modern Philology 78 (1981): 275-77.
The three anonymous stanzas that Wynkyn printed at the end of his 1517 edition of the poem suggest that neither the sympathy for Criseyde felt by moderns nor the poet's view of TC as a religious work would have been found in an early reader. Wynkyn…
Blake, N. F.
Donald M. Rose, ed. New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism (Norman Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1981), pp. 223-40.
Studies based uncritically upon the Robinson text may have produced questionable readings in CT: KnT, ParsT and Prol, ClT, ShT, GP, RvT, MilT, NPT. The Hengwrt MS, currently being used for the "Variorum Chaucer" and by Blake, is the earliest…
Blake, N. F.
P. L. Heyworth, ed. Medieval Studies for J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 101-19.
Most if not all early scribes used Hg, which avoided editorial tampering--i. e., introduction of new tales and links, revision of order of tales, "corrections" of lines, words, spellings. "The best an editor can do is follow Hg closely."
Nothing in the textual tradition of the three MSS of BD supports a thesis of differing exemplars. The lines of BD that are found in Thynne's edition but not in the MSS--lines 31-96, 288,480, 886--should be considered spurious until convincingly…
Brewer, Derek.
P. L. Heyworth, ed. Medieval Studies for J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 121-38.
Emends three readings of the Corpus ms. of TC (1.502, 1.458, 1.89) and notes that evidence does not support the theory of extensive authorial revisions.
Caie, Graham D.
Stig Johansson and Bjorn Tysdahl, eds. Papers from the First Nordic Conference for English Studies. Oslo, 17-19 September, 1980 (Oslo: University of Oslo, Institute of English Studies, 1981), pp. 25-34.
CT glosses often act as commentary and provide source of quotation; they are not mere insertions by scribes or mere source reference.
Cowen, Janet M.
Notes and Queries 226 (1981): 392-93.
British Libreary NMS Additional 12524 was owned successively by Samuel Smith, Ralph Thoresby, and Horace Walpole. British Library MS Additional 9832, owned by Morell Thurston and them by Joseph Haselwood, was used by Urry for his edition. Both…
Driver, Martha Westcott.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1981): 4391A.
Previous investigators of the sixteen extant TC MSS assumed three "parent" forms, presumed to represent Chaucer's recensions. Two MSS before 1400 may be the work of Chaucer's scribe.
