Comments on HF and TC in chapter 2, "Medieval Literature: Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland" (pp. 47-86). Compares the three buildings that the dreamer visits in HF--the temple in the desert, the palace of Fame, and the twirling house of…
Cañadas, Ivan.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 18.1 (2010): 57-79.
Chaucer's depiction of the statues of Virgil and Ovid in HF comments ironically on Virgil's political support of Augustus Caesar and on Augustan notions of authority--evidence of Chaucer's skeptical attitude toward literary and political authority.
In HF, Chaucer's depictions of Venus's temple, the desert surrounding it, and the foundation of Fame's palace offer a vision of vernacular poetry that resembles glass. Like glass, such poetry is produced by transformation and translation of…
Gertz, SunHee Kim.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Gertz reads HF in light of modern semiotic theory (Maria Corti, Umberto Eco, and Roman Jakobson) and medieval traditions of "fürstenspiegel" (mirror of princes), with particular attention to visual signs and codes. Contrasts Chaucer's techniques of…
Pietka, Rachel.
Sigma Tau Delta Review 7 (2010): 86-95.
Through its "aversion to binary opposites," NPT promulgates "an inclusive perspective that avoids fixed interpretations" of notions of poverty, gender, free will, and authenticity.
Staley, Lynn.
Brian Cummings and James Simpson, eds. Cultural Reformations: Medieval and Renaissance in Literary History (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 113-33.
Explores the trope of England as an idealized garden/island in imagery of homes in various medieval and Renaissance works, including NPT.
Travis, Peter W.
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.
Reads NPT as Chaucer's self-reflexive "ars poetica," a Menippean parody of the complexities of engaging with language and literature. Through subtle play with the traditional liberal arts education, especially the trivium, NPT explores imitation,…
Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Blair Sullivan, ed. The Echo of Music: Essays in Honor of Marie Louise Göllner (Warren, Mich.: Harmonie Park Press, 2004), pp. 3-18.
Kelly traces Cecilia's entry into hagiographic tradition and compares details of various versions of the saint's legend, including the original "passio" and the versions by Jacobus a Voragine, Chaucer (SNT), Osbern Bokenham, and John Dryden. Also…
Pangilinan, Maria Cristina Santos.
DAI A70.10 (2010): n.p.
Various Middle English authors succeeded in making London an urban, laicized intellectual center that balanced the clerical legacies of Cambridge and Oxford. These authors explored various academic disciplines (e.g., alchemy for Chaucer) in a manner…
Through its "nostalgic" recollection of an idealized "bygone era," CYPT "casts a shadow" on the reformist thinking of SNT. Like many advocates of ecclesiastical reform, the Nun idealizes the primitive Church, but the Canon's Yeoman's performance…
Jones, Timothy S.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Studies the depiction and reception of historical and literary outlaws in England from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, focusing on how borders of various sorts--legal, ethnic, political, social, and religious--define the outlaw identity. Jones…
Phillips explores the proverbial and biblical background to ManT, identifying links between its plot and its teller, an untrustworthy servant. In popular tradition, crows were regarded as unfaithful servants and unreliable messengers, an association…
Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Abigail Firey, ed. A New History of Penance. Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition, no. 14 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), pp. 239-317.
Describes two late medieval penitential treatises--John Burough's "Pupilla oculi" (late fourteenth century) and William Lyndwood's "Provinciale "(early fifteenth century)--discussing their influence on Chaucer's understanding of the sacrament in…
McCormack, Frances.
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and John Flood, eds. Heresy and Orthodoxy in Early English Literature, 1350-1680. Dublin Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, no. 3. (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), pp. 39-48.
Ambiguous depictions of the Parson and Pardoner reflect contemporary debate regarding false prophets. The Pardoner's negligence, hypocrisy, and language suggest heresy, but he is not accused. The Parson is orthodox, but in his rejection of oaths,…
Julius, Anthony.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Julius defines anti-Semitism and describes its history and politics in England. Literary anti-Semitism has "distinct tropes and themes, deployed without respect for genre boundaries." The "master trope" of "a well intentioned Christian place in peril…
Assesses the Prioress in light of "A Revelation of Purgatory by an Unknown, Fifteenth-Century Woman Visionary" (1422), arguing that the later work provides evidence that Chaucer's character would have been found "culpable" for her worldliness.
Wallace, David.
Brian Cummings and James Simpson, eds. Cultural Reformations: Medieval and Renaissance in Literary History (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 502-23.
Wallace explores "degrees of enclosure" for nuns and surveys representations of nuns in medieval and Renaissance literature and art. Comments on Chaucer's depictions of the Prioress and the Second Nun: Chaucer "tells us much about one of his nuns and…
Considers patronage and the developing status of the poet in the role of "court maker" in late medieval England, aligning the change with the influence of Italian culture. In his response to Th, the Host represents a courtly "negative feedback loop,"…
Cannon, Christopher.
Textual Practice 24 (2010): 407-34.
Explores medieval definitions and aesthetic responses to proverbs by examining "The Proverbs of Alfred" and Mel, exploring how each depends upon "acts of recognition that are produced by the repetition of well-worn truths." Both works are examples of…
Jimura, Akiyuki.
Shizuya Tara, Mayumi Sawada, and Larry Walker, eds. Language and Beyond: Festschrift for Hiroshi Yonekura on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (Tokyo: Eichosha, 2007), pp. 265-83.
Discusses Chaucer's proverbial wisdom in Mel. In Japanese
Tani, Akinobu.
Osamu Imahayashi, Yoshiyuki Nakao, and Michiko Ogura, eds. Aspects of the History of the English Language and Literature: Selected Papers Read at SHELL 2009, Hiroshima (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 101-13.
Evidence from variants in manuscripts of Mel indicates that Chaucer's contemporaries accepted his use of doublets in "curial style." The variants reinforce affiliations between Hg and El and between Corpus Christi College 198 and Lansdowne 851,…
Considers Mel as an allegory of translation, proposing that Chaucer applies legal theory drawn from Henry de Bracton's "De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae" to questions of ownership. In MelP, Chaucer uses "thyng" as a legal term pertaining to an…
Grimes, Jodi.
Carmina Philosophiae 19 (2010): 49-68.
MkT reflects Boethian epistemology and demonstrates the limits of human reason. The Monk presents Fortune as in Books 1 and 2 of the "Consolation," but he lacks the faith necessary to understand the divine, while the mocking Knight and Host…
Reads NPT as a political commentary, with Chauntecleer and Pertelote as Richard and Anne and the fox as Henry Derby (later Henry IV), one of the appellants. Lindeboom comments on May 3, the dreams as Richard's anxieties, dating and astrological…
Lee, B. S.
Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 36 (2010): 47-67.
Lee assesses FranT as a "sequel" to SqT that repudiates its magic, replaces its stasis with moral development in the idea of "gentilesse," and provides a missing Christian subtext--a "Christmas miniature" that precedes the apparent disappearance of…
