Meier, Hans H.
Caroline Macafee and Iseabail Macleod, eds. The Nuttis Schell: Essays on Scots Language Presented to A. J. Aitken (Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Press, 1987), pp. 116-23.
Describes several literary representations of Older Scots language; includes RvT because Older Scots and Northern English "are not generally considered as distinct" in the late medieval period. Commends Chaucer for his comprehensive "imitation of…
This appreciative biography uses "Chaucer Knight" as the title of chapter sixteen, deriving the appellation from a memorial in the "Cambridge Review" on the occasion of Lewis' death.
Facing-page translation (Middle English verse/German prose) of selections from the CT, with introductions, commentaries, and bibliographies. Includes GP, KnT, MilT, WBPT, FranT, PardPT, and NPT. Translations by Bergner, Waltraud Böttcher, Günter…
Surveys the presence of Arabic culture in CT, focusing on the plots and sources of SqT and PardT, the frame-tale structure of CT, allusions to Arabic personages, and uses of words that derive from Arabic.
Lorenz, Lee.
Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981.
Bowdlerized version of MilT, adapted and illustrated by Lorenz for children. Carpenter John is Alison's grandfather in this version, and Nicholas connives to steal money. Absolon is eliminated.
Abbreviated prose adaptations of selections from CT, interspersed among modernizations in verse of the descriptions of the pilgrims in GP and following the GP order (with slight adjustments). Included are KnT, NPT, ClT, ShT, MLT, FranT, WBT, ManT,…
Neto, Jonatas Batista.
São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, 1977.
Investigates Chaucer's biographical and literary "travels" to Italy, with chapters dedicated to 1) English travel to Italy; 2) Chaucer and the "Italian wedding" of Prince Lionel; 3) Chaucer and Petrarch; 4) Chaucer in Milan; and 5) the influence of…
Bishop, Ian.
Boris Ford, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, Volume 1, Part 1: Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition (New York and Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1982), pp. 174-87.
Treats TC and KnT together because each derives from a source by Boccaccio and because each includes Boethian thought; also considers the Shakespearean analogues of each and compares each with opera, Books 1-3 of TC correspond to the "medieval…
Mann, Jill.
Boris Ford, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, Volume 1, Part 1: Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition (New York and Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1982), pp. 133-53.
Reads FranT as an epitome of the CT to the extent that both are concerned with the "ideal of patience and the problems of time and change," emphasizing the universality of these concerns and their appearances throughout the CT. As in Marie de…
Brewer, Derek.
Boris Ford, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, Volume 1, Part 1: Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition (New York and Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1982), pp. 15-39.
Describes the major social institutions and social practices of late-medieval England, identifying their roots, indicating their later developments, and illustrating their features from Middle English literary sources, especially the works of…
Capacious anatomy of Middle English literature, with a variety of essays by individual authors; a selection of lyrics, narrative poems, and dramas; suggestions for further readings, and comprehensive index. The selection includes no works by…
Wilson, Janet.
Sandra J. McEntire, ed. Margery Kempe: A Book of Essays. Garland Medieval Casebooks (New York: Garland, 1992), pp. 223-37.
Treats Margery Kempe and the Wife of Bath as carnivalesque female figures, although each is "mediated and hence vindicated by a masculine consciousness"--Margery's scribe and Chaucer. Both narrators are characterized by "grotesque realism,"…
Wheatley, Thomas Edward.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1992): 805A-06A.
The "forms of allegory" found in Walter of England's Latin "Fabulae," as well as its "structure and vocabulary of scholastic presentation, profoundly influenced the fables of Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, and Robert Henryson." Discusses NPT,…
Regards Henryson's changes to Chaucer's TC in "The Testament of Cresseid" as evidence of Henryson's assertion of "his own authority." In changing Chaucer's plot, he remakes his poetic antecedent and emulates Chaucer's own poetic practice.
Bawcutt, Priscilla J.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Surveys what is known of the life and context of William Dunbar, and discusses his canon and language, focusing on Dunbar's range of genres and his idea of himself as a poet or "makar." Comments frequently on Dunbar's debt to Chaucer (and others),…
White, Patrick
Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies 12 (1992): 213-28.
Adds FranT to the list of possible sources of George Bernard Shaw's "Candida." Evidence for the influence includes a similar tone in the two works, concern with a "rash promise" or "reckless declaration," plot resolution through "magnanimity," and…
Canitz, A. E. C.
Medievalia et Humanistica 17 (1991): 81-99.
Documents Douglas's theory of literal translation, "with its stress on the integrity and inviolability of the text," and gauges his success in achieving his goal. Douglas's theory is evident in his critiques of Caxton's translation of the "Aeneid"…
Shafik-Ghaly, Salwa.
Dissertation Abstracts International 49 (1989): 3716A.
Examines "tectonics and compositional strategies" in Chrétien's "Yvain" and in TC, focusing on "disposition" and the relationship between orality and textuality in each work.
Greetham, D. C.
Modern Philology 86.3 (1989): 242-51.
Analyzes Thomas Hoccleve's narrative persona in his "Regement of Princes" and his "Series" poems, treating it as a development out of "the inherited Chaucerian narrator" toward a psychological portrait marked by the deleterious effects of "thought"…
Edwards, A. S. G., and Derek Pearsall.
Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall, eds. Book Publishing and Publishing in Britain, 1375-1475. Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 257-78.
Describes the "new phase" in English publishing and book production that took place in the "early years" of the fifteenth century--particularly the large increase in the number of books of vernacular poetry, including Chaucer's poetry. Summarizes…
Correale, Robert M.
R. F. Yeager, ed. John Gower: Recent Readings. Papers Presented at the Meetings of the John Gower Society at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 1983-1988 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1989), 133-57.
Tabulates correspondences between Gower's Tale of Constance ("Confessio Amantis" 2.587-1598) and available manuscripts of Trevet's Anglo-Norman original, seeking to identify Gower's source manuscript. Includes recurrent attention to Chaucer's MLT,…
Blake, N. F.
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr., ed. Standardizing English: Essays in the History of Language Change, in Honor of John Hurt Fisher (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), pp. 57-81.
Illustrates the difficulties editors face in dealing with literary representations of regional or non-standard dialects, citing scribal variations of northern features of RvT before examining at greater length examples of dialects in Shakespeare's…
Anderson, Judith H.
George M. Logan and Gordon Teskey, eds. Unfolded Tales: Essays on Renaissance Romance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 16-31.
Argues that in his "Faerie Queene," Edmund Spenser intended his "avowed kinship with Chaucer, and especially with Chaucer's romances, as a paradigm of his relation to the recorded sources of memory." Fused in Spenser's "extension" of SqT, KnT and SqT…
