Heyworth, Gregory.
South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009.
Six studies on literature ranging from Marie de France to Milton. In the chapter on Chaucer, Heyworth examines medieval cultural values and suggests that Chaucer complicates those values, particularly marriage. KnT and FranT depict the social…
Considers dream visions in the works of Chaucer and his successors (Hoccleve, Lydgate, Skelton, and Spenser), arguing that these dreams break down "binary" notions, including those of body/mind, gender, and text/reader.
Urban, Misty Rae.
Dissertation Abstracts International A69.12 (2009): n.p.
Using figures from Middle English literature (including Chaucer's Constance and Medea), Urban argues that the literature both dramatizes and "interrogate[s] the prevailing gender ideology."
Whitehead, Christiania.
Rebecca Lemon, and others, eds. The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature. (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 134-51.
Whitehead surveys Chaucer's engagement with the Bible and biblical texts in CT and suggests a parallel between the poem's dialogic structure and the fourteenth-century debate over Wycliffite ideology. While parts of CT may corroborate certain…
Yu examines the changing roles of literary rhetoric and dialectic, poesy and logic, from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Chaucer is cited as a writer whose use of irony reflects changes in the understanding of logic.
Baron, F. Xavier.
Journal of Psychohistory 7.1 (1979): 77-103.
Because Chaucer's "children's tales" deal with "extreme violence which the children suffer as innocent victims," these narratives "tend toward despair." Yet, they provoke compassion and thereby suggest that compassion is the proper response to…
Bloom, Harold, ed.
New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2008.
A summary/introduction to the pilgrims and plots (Part 7 excepted) of CT, with brief excerpts from fourteen critical commentaries written between 1956 and 2007; annotations of twenty-one book-length studies; and an index.
Facing-page translation of selections from CT into informal, colloquial modern prose. A brief introduction characterizes the pilgrims and the characters in selected tales; selections include GP, KnT, MilT, WBPT, PardPT, Th, and NPT.
Chen, Hsiaojane Anna.
Dissertation Abstracts International A70.06 (2009): n.p.
Considers Astr and CT within a larger analysis of the formation of intra- and extra-familial kinship bonds. Such bonds are rooted in education and common experiences.
Davis, Isabel.
Literature Compass 6 (2009): 842-63.
Davis assesses late medieval, first-person narration in English literature as a rhetorical and allegorical device and as an autobiographical stance. She comments on the influence of Augustine and Boethius and explores a range of Middle English…
Knutson, Karla.
Dissertation Abstracts International A70.06 (2009): n.p.
Knutson examines medieval ideas of innocence associated with penitential forgiveness in CT, "Pearl," and medieval pageant plays, suggesting that a later concept of innocence--a lack of "knowledge or experience"--shaped William Godwin's and Mary Eliza…
Introduction to late medieval social and literary history, focusing on Chaucer. Illustrated with modern footage and reproductions from medieval life and narrated by Peter Morgan Jones. Interspersed with portions of an interview with Terry Jones that…
Mann, Jill.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Examines "how animals mean" in beast fable, beast epic, and related literature in classical and medieval traditions, focusing on the uses of animals in Marie de France, Nigel of Longchamp, "The Owl and the Nightingale," the Reynard tradition,…
Despite abundant evidence of their being held in high regard by contemporary society, male oaths of friendship are consistently "satirized, broken, and/or ridiculed" in Chaucer's works, suggesting "an overarching distrust of such relationships" on…
Ransom, Daniel J.
Chaucer Review 43 (2009): 376-99.
An examination of Chaucer's use of temporal terminology--from references to "eternity and perpetuity" to references to seconds and moments, including seasons, days, nights, and hours--suggests that he uses such terminology with a modicum of…
Rigby, Stephen H.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed. A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 497-520.
Rigby explores how a variety of Middle English texts reflect and reinforce the normative ideologies of class and gender in late medieval England. Contempt for the world helped to assert social hierarchies, justify inequalities, and quell tensions.…
Sauer, Michelle M.
Journal of Lesbian Studies 11 (2007): 331-45.
Sauer describes the "inadequacy of lesbian criticism in today's Medieval Literary Studies" and suggests some opportunities for developing such studies, including opportunities in Chaucer studies.
Scala, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Scala and Sylvia Federico, eds. The Post-Historical Middle Ages ((New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 191-214.
Indicts the "patrilineal logic by which the [masculine] gender of historicism is perpetuated and reproduced," surveying how recent publications in medieval studies (especially Chaucer studies) embody the structures of the "patriarchal family."
Scala, Elizabeth, and Sylvia Federico, eds.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Nine essays by various authors and an introduction by the editors "look beyond the absolute horizon of Marxist historicism in ways that display concern with how we know, with the limits of our knowledge, and with ourselves as presumably knowing…
Scanlon, Larry.
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature 1100-1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 165-78.
Scanlon introduces Chaucer as the "most monumental of English poets," summarizes Chaucer's biography, surveys his works and their reception, and comments on the difficulties of dealing with his legacy: especially in CT, Chaucer is "eager to disavow"…
Sidhu, Nicole Nolan.
Literature Compass 6 (2009): 864-85.
Sidhu surveys recent attention to gender in medieval studies and assesses the "continuing marginalization" of gender studies. Recurrent references to Chaucer studies.
Gibbons, Victoria Louise.
JEBS 11 (2008): 198-206.
Modern notions and theory of literary titles ("titology") cannot be applied readily to medieval works. Gibbons comments on the titles of several of Chaucer's poems as an aspect of the "ordinatio" of their manuscripts. Medieval titles, especially…
Gray, Douglas.
Alan Deyermond, ed. A Century of British Medieval Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2007), pp. 383-426.
Gray surveys the study of Middle English literature from the founding of the British Academy until the early twenty-first century, commenting on accomplishments of individual scholars up to World War II. He describes critical trends and how they…
Gust, Geoffrey W.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Gust seeks to "reenergize persona theory" for future Chaucer scholarship, arguing that Chaucer's "autofictional" persona should be regarded as the central topic not only of Chaucer's works but also of studies of his reception and literary history at…
