Suggests that when she refers to her "dame" at lines 3.576 and 583 the Wife of Bath is recalling her gossip, dame Alys, identified at 530, 544, and 548.
Winny, James, ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
Middle English edition of WBPT, with end-of-text notes and glossary. The Introduction (pp. 1-28) discusses sources, the relation of WBP to WBT, themes, etc., with additional comments on the text and Chaucer's usage. Includes Chaucer's Gent and a…
Winny, James, ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965
A textbook edition of GP, with text (following Robinson's 1957 edition), end-of-text notes and glossary, introduction, and commentary on Chaucer's language and the arrangement of the Tales. The Introduction (pp.1-42) focuses on tale-teller…
Wilson, Robert C.
Explicator 24.4 (1965): item no. 32.
Suggests that the name "John" links RvT with MilT, claiming that the Reeve "repays the Miller with a tale in which he himself plays a leading part--that of carpenter John.
Williams, George.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1965.
Detects flaws in previous critical approaches to Chaucer and, as an alternative, reads his works as expressions of his "interest in actual persons," especially John of Gaunt and his circle. In this view, BD, Mars, TC, PF, HF, and most portions of CT…
White, Gertrude M.
Philological Quarterly 44 (1965): 397-404.
Assesses the "chilling savagery" of the Merchant's attitude toward January in MerT as well as January's materialism, sensualism, and self-delusion, arguing that the character generates a kind of pathos that verges on the tragic.
Explores "the complex thematic and structural functions" of the Pluto-Proserpina episode in MerT, treating it as a fit denouement in the traditional pear-tree plot, and arguing that it deepens the unifying thematic dimensions of the Tale by…
Turner, W, Arthur.
English Language Notes 3.2 (1965): 92-95.
Observes similarities in the parallel lists of Biblical women in MerT 4.1362-74 and Mel 7.1098-1101, and argues that their presence is "ironical" in the former but not the latter: "by the time" Chaucer wrote MerT he saw "both sides to the characters…
A parody of GP in faux Middle English, rhymed in iambic pentameter couplets. Includes twenty characters, such as the Model, the Astronaut, the Beatnik, the Psychoanalyst, etc.
Steadman, John.
English Language Notes 3.1 (1965): 4-7.
Suggests that the "fatal treasure" of PardT gains ironic dimension when seen in light of the theory of the "treasury of merits," used to explain or justify the sale of indulgences.
Translates TC into modern English, in rhyme royal stanzas, with end-of-text notes and three appendices: a) the "domestic background" of the poem, b) courtly love, and c) a chronology of Chaucer's life. The notes emphasize social and literary…
Stanley-Wrench, Margaret.
Schachner, Erwin, illus.
New York: Hawthorn Books, 1965.
A biography of Chaucer designed for juvenile or young adult readers, including imagined scenes from his childhood, marriage, travels, and professional life, as well as commentary on his literary works. Includes a chronology of "Dates and Events," an…
Silvia, Daniel S., Jr.
Studies in Philology 62 (1965): 28-39.
Argues that Chaucer himself is the "most reasonable choice" for author of the glosses to CT manuscripts that derive from St. Jerome's "Epistola Adversus Jovinianum." Discusses how the glosses to WBP indicate "Chaucer as glossator" and how two…
Rumble, Thomas C., ed.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1965.
Presents eight Breton lays in Middle English, each with bottom-of-page glosses, a facsimile manuscript page, a bibliography, and a general Introduction (pp. xiii-xxx) that describes the nature of the genre, its history, and French sources of the…
Ruggiers, Paul G.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965.
Describes the aesthetic and moral principles and practices, overt and covert, of the CT, acclaiming the vitality of the "framing structure" of the links and the complex ironies of the narrator (especially in Ret) for the ways that they enable and…
Surveys Chaucer's references to dogs, showing that his depictions of the animal are generally "pejorative," following a tradition of denunciation by satirists, homilists, and the writers of romances. Argues that the whelp in BD 389ff. is not…
Contends that the WB's reference to grinding at a mill (WBP 3.389) capitalizes on traditional sexual associations of mills with women, anticipated at her reference to "barly-breed" (WBP 3.144).
Robertson, D. W., Jr.
John Mahoney and John Esten Keller, eds. Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Urban Tigner Holmes, Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965), pp. 165-95.
Assesses BD as a late-medieval "public funerary poem" rather than a portrait of psychological grief, interpreting the Black Knight as a generic, Boethian figure deprived by fortune, rather than as John of Gaunt, and discussing the character Blanche…
Roache, Joel.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 64 (1965): 1-6.
Documents "legal aspects" of discovered treasure in late-medieval England, identifying similarities in lexicon and imagery between legal records concerning found hoards and the rioters' descriptions of their treasure in PardT. The similarities…
Ridley, Florence H.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.
Surveys critical approaches to PrT, distinguishing between "hard critics" of the Tale who read it as an indictment of the teller's anti-Semitism, and "historical" approaches that consider it in light of late-medieval attitudes and practices. Argues…
Argues that "imagery and narrative detail" in ShT subtly undercut the Tale's "relish for quick-witted deception" and its "philosophy of money," typical of the fabliau genre. Several image clusters and their points of occurrence in the Tale evoke "the…
