Applies Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of "work-utterance" to Chaucer's influence on Shakespeare, focusing on how Chaucerian (and other medieval) narratives are involved in Shakespeare's "generic innovations" in "Troilus and Cressida," "Pericles," and "Two…
Giaccherini, Enrico.
Fausto Ciompi, ed. One of Us: Studi Inglesi e Conradiani Offerti a Mario Curreli (Pisa, Italy: ETS, 2009), pp. 155-66.
Distinguishes between "anti-Judaism" and "anti-Semitism," and reads the former as a motif that combines with other devices to produce the excessive pathos of PrT, a form of late-medieval emotional intensity.
Gellert, Anamaria.
Textus: English Studies in Italy 22.3 (2009): 573-98.
Examines the Ellesmere illustration of the Prioress and early woodcut representations (Caxton, de Worde, and Pynson) of her and of the gathering of the pilgrims, arguing that the Prioress is represented as a courtly lady in Caxton's group portrait…
Foster, Michael.
Sabine Coelsch-Foisner and Wolfgang Görtschacher, eds. Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' in English Poetry (Heidelberg: Winter, 2009), pp. 51-67.
Argues that Chaucer's use of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" in BD is closer to that of Guillaume de Machaut than that of Jean de Meun, and compares and contrasts Chaucer's version of the Ceyx and Alcyone story with those of Machaut and Ovid.
Reads the Wife of Bath as "Chaucer's construction of the . . . female body as a literal and metaphoric text," and explores how depictions of the Wife in modern films respond to her critical reception as well as his original creation.
Davis, Carmel Brendon.
Estela Valverde, ed. A Universal Argentine: Jorge Luis Borges, English Literature and Other Inquisitions (Sydney: Southern Highlands Press, 2009), pp. 105-14.
Investigates the validity of Jorge Louis Borges' claim (1949) that Chaucer effected or recorded the "definitive shift from allegory to novel" when translating a line from Boccaccio's "Teseida" in his KnT. Davis focuses on the "slipperiness of…
Cornelius, Michael G.
Blake Hobby, ed. Human Sexuality (New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009), pp. 95-104.
Introduces MilT as a fabliau, contrasts it with KnT, and comments on the "punishment" received by each of the major characters, including Alisoun, who is victimized by being a wife and through whom Chaucer critiques marriage.
A book "about the different aspects of words" (etymology, morphology, language acquisition, language and cognition, etc.), designed for a popular audience and arranged as a series of 121 topical pieces of varying lengths. Item 54 ("Chaucer's Words,"…
A series of twenty-four lectures (each 30 minutes) about the topography and social conditions of London. Lectures 4 and 5, entitled "Economic Life in Chaucer's London" and "Politics and Religion in Chaucer's London" describe the physical, economic,…
Boro, Joyce.
Mary Ellen Lamb and Valerie Wayne, eds. Staging Early Modern Romance: Prose Fiction, Dramatic Romance, and Shakespeare (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 188-202.
Includes comments on Fletcher's sources for his "Women Pleased": WBT and "Grisel y Mirabella" by Juan de Flores.
Interactive audio/video presentations on a series of historical and literary topics that relate to Chaucer, designed for classroom use. Includes nine presentations: "Interview with Chaucer," "Medieval London," "Chaucer Abroad: France," "Chaucer…
A novel in poetry that opens with direct reference to CT, and proceeds as a series of tales by various kinds of people: historical tales, migrants' tales, artists' tales, etc. The volume includes a Preface by John Kinsella in which he reports that…
Vásquez, Nila.
Variants: The Journal of the European Society for Textual Scholarship 7 (2008): 119-37.
Vásquez describes her assumptions and practices in producing a scholarly edition of "The Tale of Gamelyn," an outlaw narrative assigned to Chaucer's Cook in a number of manuscripts.
Traces Chaucer's interest in three concerns that are related to the development of English as a vernacular language: "the nature of translation, the construction of textual memory, and the relationship between reading and ethics." Assesses literal…
Shore, Rachel.
Young Scholars in Writing: Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric 5 (2008): 98-106 [Electronic Publication].
Chaucer uses his naïve narrator to achieve an effective balance among the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos in CT. Also, this narrator's view of the Prioress overwhelms her appeal to ethos in PrPT and her heavy emphasis on pathos also…
Ruszkiewicz, Dominika.
Romanian Journal of English Studies 23 (2008): 85-96.
Interprets Troilus's failure to take action to keep Criseyde in Troy as a lack of "mesure," a courtly quality praised by troubadour poets. His lack, however, evinces the depth of his love and he, at times, "takes on the role a troubadour" by seeking…
Russell, J. Stephen.
Medieval Perspectives 23 (2008 [2011]): 85-96.
Gauges what "old age" may have meant to Chaucer and his contemporaries, especially as it relates to memory and the humours. Then comments on several old men in Chaucer's works: January in MerT, the Old Man of PardT, old men in Mel, and Egeus of TC.
Parkinson, Judy.
London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2008.
Gift-book of historical information about Britain, arranged chronologically. The entry for Chaucer, entitled "Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 1387" (p. 63), summarizes his literary career, focuses on CT, and labels him "the greatest English poet…
Laam, Kevin.
Early Modern Literary Studies 14.1 (2008): n. p. [Electronic publication]
Influenced by courtly Chaucerian conventions earlier in his career, George Gascoigne emulated Chaucerian penitential seriousness in "The Grief of Joye." Laam comments on Gascoigne's and George Puttenham's uses of Chaucer, and briefly explores the…
Studies the "lordship economics" of late fourteenth-century England, especially as represented in the literature of John Gower, but providing historical and political backgrounds, and commenting on similar concerns in Chaucer and other writers.…
Keller, Wolfram R.
Klaus Stierstorfer, ed. Anglistentag 2007 Münster: Proceedings (Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008), pp. 385-99.
Examines John Lydgate's sources for his "Troy Book," including HF and TC, arguing that Lydgate re-invents "Britain's Trojan origins," calling into question Lancastrian imperialism and offering a "Chaucerian counter-nationhood," anchored in individual…
Györi, Zsolt.
Agnes Pethö, ed. Words and Images on the Screen Language Literature, Moving Pictures (Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 284-99.
Assesses the politics and cultural work of British wartime cinema, including assessment of Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's "A Canterbury Tale" of 1944 as "one of the first 'heritage films'," one that capitalizes on the status of CT as the…
Greene, Logan Dale.
Literatura em Debate 2.3 (2008): n. p. [Electronic publication]
Examines the "archetype, or mytheme," of the loathly lady in WBT and related stories, considering the implications that the story derives from "ancient Celtic myth with its archetypal patterns of masculine development." In Portuguese and English.
