Breeze, Andrew.
Notes and Queries 254 (2009): 21-23.
For both linguistic and political reasons, the town in RvT from which John and Aleyn hail may be identified as Westruther in Berwickshire, making Chaucer's rendition of their speech "the first imitation of Scots dialect in English literature."
Barrington, Candace.
Karen A. Ritzenhoff and Katherine A. Hermes, eds. Sex and Sexuality in a Feminist World (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009), pp. 26-51.
Modern adapters of Chaucer interfere with the transmission of Chaucer by infusing their own values. In each era, the versions written for children bear witness to what aspects of feminism have reached popular culture.
An inscription at the end of ParsT in a copy of Thynne's edition at Beinecke Library, Osborn Collection, Yale University, reveals something of the general reception of the Wife of Bath.
McIntyre, Ruth Anne Summar.
Dissertation Abstracts International A69.08 (2009): n.p.
Examines the uses of memory and place to develop authoritative "ethos" in John Mandeville's "Travels," Margery Kempe's "Book," WBP, and WBT. The Wife relies on medieval commonplace texts and essentially turns her own experience into such a text.
Allen, Valerie.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Considers the imagery and implications of flatulence, wind, excrement, and refuse in medieval culture, considering anecdotes, visual imagery, religious commentary, and other literature. Occasional mention of Chaucer's works, with focused attention…
Ironic readings of the GP portrait of the Knight are undermined by an understanding of the medieval ideals of "honor," "prudence," and "moral goodness" and by recognition of their signs in the Knight's portrait. An understanding of the medieval…
Rigby, Stephen H.
Matthew Davies and Andrew Prescott, eds. London and the Kingdom: Essays in Honour of Caroline M. Barron. Proceedings of the 2004 Harlaxton Symposium. Harlaxton Medieval Studies, no. 16 (Donington, England: Shaun Tyas, 2008), pp. 316-34.
Orthodox notions of royal prudence and magnificence underlie the idealized figure of Theseus in KnT. Theseus embodies the traits that Richard II was accused of lacking.
Rigby reads KnT as a mirror for princes, comparing it with Giles of Rome's "De regimine principum" and finding Theseus of KnT to be an ideal ruler by this standard. Theseus's personal ethics, his treatment of his household, his political and military…
Szell, Timea.
English Language Notes 47.1 (2009): 147-57.
Pedagogical report on how to study animal and human identity in Hebrew Scripture, Ovid, and medieval narrative to acquire the interpretive skills to understand postmodern texts and culture. Animals in the imagery and narrative of KnT enable readers…
Vander Elst, Stefan.
Studies in Philology 106 (2009): 379-401.
Vander Elst argues that the "life and writings of the French soldier and statesman Philippe de Mézières" inspired "almost every line" of Chaucer's description of the Knight in GP. This inspiration evinces the circulation of Philippe's works in…
Chaucer's reference to a sow eating a baby "right in the cradle" (CT I.2019) may evince Chaucer's knowledge of "just such an occurrence in the Norman town of Falaise" in 1385, later memorialized in paint on the walls of a Falaise church. This detail…
Withers, Jeremy.
Dissertation Abstracts International A69.08 (2009): n.p.
Withers examines medieval writers' interest in the effect of medieval warfare, tactics, and technology on "the natural world," arguing that several works (including Lydgate's "Siege of Thebes," the "Alliterative Morte Darthur," and KnT) paid…
Biggs, Frederick M.
Notes and Queries 254 (2009): 340-41.
Among the four fabliaux in London, British Library Harley MS 2253, "La gageure," featuring the "misdirected kiss" motif, is an analogue of MilT, while "Le chevalier e la corbeille" is a possible source, providing not only a container that forces "the…
Biggs, Frederick M.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 108 (2009): 59-80.
Biggs argues that Decameron 3.4 is a source for MilT, inspiring the latter's density of detail, its religious sentiment, and many of its narrative features, particularly the Flood story. MilP also echoes Boccaccio's "Conclusione dell'autore" and its…
Murnighan, Jack.
Jack Murnighan. "Beowulf" on the Beach: What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's 50 Greatest Hits (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009), pp. 86-97.
Encourages approaching Chaucer as "both funny and a little racy," giving advice on how to read with understanding, opinions on what is "sexy" in CT, and suggestions of what to skip in the work (CkPT, MLT, SqT, FranT, PhyT, PrT, Th, Mel, MkT, NPT,…
Nakley, Susan Marie.
Dissertation Abstracts International A70.03 (2009): n.p.
Nakley uses postcolonial theory to consider a Chaucerian dialogue with ideas of "nationhood," examining GP, KnT, WBP, WBT, and MLT en route to arguing that CT presents England as nation, "community," and "homeland."
O'Hear, Anthony.
Anthony O'Hear. The Great Books: A Journey Through 2,500 Years of the West's Classic Literature (Wilmington, Del.: ISI [Intercollegiate Studies Institute] Books, 2009), pp. 177-95.
Description of CT that comments on Chaucer's social range and authenticating detail, arranges the Pilgrims into social classes, and comments on the plot of each of the Tales.
Bell, Adrian R.
John France, ed. Mercenaries and Paid Men: The Mercenary Identity in the Middle Ages. Proceedings of a Conference Held at University of Wales, Swansea, 7th-9th July 2005. Smithsonian History of Warfare, no. 47 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 301-15.
Bell analyzes the military record of 5,600 soldiers from Chaucer's lifetime to discover how many had records of military service similar to the experience of Chaucer's Knight. It was not uncommon for English soldiers to serve as mercenaries in…
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.
Studies in Philology 106 (2009): 285-98.
Focuses on the city of Thebes, the Athenian grove, and Theseus's First Mover speech in KnT to define and explore implications of the "elastic ontology" of KnT. Unlike the city in Boccaccio's "Teseida," in KnT Thebes is mysteriously whole after having…
Gambera, Disa.
Andrew Galloway and R. F. Yeager, eds. Through a Classical Eye: Transcultural and Transhistorical Visions in Medieval English, Italian, and Latin Literature in Honour of Winthrop Wetherbee (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), pp. 316-38.
Connections among figurative wounds, literal wounds, and architectural "apertures" in Fragment 1 teach "us to notice the narrative dissonance of bodies and spaces" in CT (334).
