Peter G. Beidler identifies "Heile van Beersele" as a likely source for MilT, supporting his argument with seventeen words he ascribes to Middle Dutch origin in MilT. Only one "or perhaps two" of those words prove to be "distinctively Dutch,"…
The relation between public and private in MilT may be understood as the condition of "extimacy": "the presence of the Other at the place thought to be most intimate." The "structure of extimacy" frustrates masculine attempts to control or acquire…
Snyder, Martin.
Journal of Liberal Arts (Seijoh University) 2 (2006): 69-82.
Snyder explores how, despite initial impressions to the contrary, women can be said to have a central function in KnT, even though no woman in the Tale serves as an agent of change.
Rock, Catherine A.
Chaucer Review 40 (2006): 416-32.
Arcite breaks his oath of brotherhood with Palamon, the promise he made to Theseus never to return to Athens, and the code of knighthood by doing menial labor disguised as a "povre laborer." The "ignoble, freakish manner of [his] death" thus suits…
Pearman, Tory Vandeventer.
Essays in Medieval Studies 23 (2006): 31-40.
The language used to describe Hippolyta in KnT undermines the praise of Theseus and exposes "the dramatic irony in the Knight's perception of Theseus's military exploits and subsequent exchange of ethnic women."
Minnis, Alastair.
Ursula Schaefer, ed. The Beginnings of Standardization: Language and Culture in Fourteenth-Century England (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 43-60.
Minnis discusses the impact of Aristotelian social and political theory on the rise of a growing lay culture in France and England. Considers similarities among several "discourses of secular power" - including Chaucer's KnT and Gower's advice to…
Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Ruth Evans, Helen Fulton, and David Matthews, eds. Medieval Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Stephen Knight (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 152-65.
Kelly recounts military and political events in Lithuania around 1390-92 involving Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox Christians, and recent converts. Focuses on the involvement of Henry Bolingbroke and on uses of the word "pagan," as backdrop to…
Greenwood, Maria K.
Colette Stévanovitch, ed. Marges/Seuils: Le liminal dans la littérature médiévale anglaise ((Nancy: AMAES, 2006), pp. 271-89.
As Greenwood has shown in a previous study, garlanding often implied criticism. In KnT and A Midsummer's Night's Dream, however, it is an acknowledgment of power.
Eyler, Joshua R., and John P. Sexton.
Chaucer Review 40 (2006): 433-39.
Following Arcite's death in KnT, Theseus designates for his funeral "that selve grove" (1. 2860) where Arcite and Palamon first fought privately, which technically would have been "destroyed" to erect the lists for the public tournament in which…
Thompson, Kenneth J.
Chaucer Review 40 (2006): 386-415.
Although the Knight's Yeoman may be a "forster" (1.117) before all else, the skills he would possess in that role "would find ready application on military campaign," which helps to explain the Knight's choice of his Yeoman, rather than another…
Lara Rallo, Carmen.
Analecta Malacitana: Revista de la Sección de Filologa de la Facultad de Filosofa y Letras 27 (2004): 155-68.
Assesses GP descriptions of the ecclesiastical pilgrims, showing that Chaucer's criticism of his church figures is ambiguous. Focuses on the Prioress but also comments on the Monk, the Friar, the Summoner, the Pardoner, and the idealized Parson.
Theatre Record 25.25 (2005):1678-83 and 26.14 (2006): 815-18.
Reprints of Stratford and London newspaper and magazine reviews of Mike Poulton's two-part adaptation of CT for the stage, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Includes cast list for each part.
Sola Buil, Ricardo J.
Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre and Ma Nila Vzquez Gonzlez, eds. Medieval English Literary and Cultural Studies (Murcia: Universidad de Muscia, 2004), pp. 145-61.
Evaluates the effects of the transition from orality to literacy in CT. Chaucer's oral mode of presentation conditions his manipulation of that tradition to the extent that it compels his audience to believe that he has read what, in fact, comes from…
Smith, Peter J., and Greg Walker.
Cahiers Élisabéthains 69 (2006): 53-57.
Smith and Walker review the dramatic performance of CT (all but CYT), describing the staging and tracing the emotional swings of the adaptation. Includes one black-and-white and four color photographs of the production.
In his initial governance of the carnivalesque "play" of tale-telling, Harry Bailly augments his masculinity by "queering" his fellow pilgrims; by the end of CT, his own masculinity is "undermined" by his inability to control the carnival he set in…
Mertens-Fonck, Paule.
Catherine Bel, Pascale Dumont, and Frank Willaert, eds. Contez me tout: Mélanges de langue et de littérature médiévales offerts à Herman Braet (Paris: Dudley, 2006), pp. 281-96.
The structure of the Clerk-Knight debates, based on the rivalry between a clerk and a knight, underlies most Tales in CT and can be used to reveal unsuspected meanings.
Lerer, Seth.
Seth Lerer, ed. The Yale Companion to Chaucer (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 243-94.
Lerer reads CT as a "set of representative performances" that "question literary and social selves" and explore the functions of language, literature, and the imagination. Recurrent concern with clothing and representation, communication and monetary…
Koldeweij, Jos.
Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, eds. Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles. 2 vols. (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2005), volume 1, pp. 493-510.
Koldeweij comments on pilgrim badges and related materials mentioned in CT and illustrated in the Ellesmere manuscript. The commentary introduces a discussion of obscene badges (ca. 1350-ca. 1450) intended to mock pilgrimage.
Hirsh, John C.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 241-60.
Hirsh summarizes how religious concepts, contexts, and developments in the politico-religious situation in Ricardian and Lancastrian England bear on our understanding of CT. Discusses the Great Schism, pilgrimage, mysticism, and the shared themes of…
Hernández Pérez, M. Beatriz
Santa Cruz de Tenerife: La Página Ediciones, 2003.
Compares varied uses of narrative voices in CT and Juan Ruiz's "Libro de buen amor "in light of the tradition of prologue writing. Chaucer and Ruiz employ satire and ambiguity to elicit a variety of questions from their audience - enough to arouse…
Green, Richard Firth.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 199-217.
Green confronts "the interpretive function of morality in medieval literature" and discusses why Chaucer's "moral horizons" in CT are elusive. Many of the Tales include competing morals; frameworks such as estates satire and the seven deadly sins…
Ferster, Judith.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 179-98.
Ferster explores the importance of genre for understanding CT, a collection of different genres. Discusses how Chaucer stretches, plays with, and interrogates genre by combining features of genre and the expectations they create. Concentrates on the…
Eyler considers the Pauline concept of "spiritual athleticism" (a means of struggling with temptation) in hagiographic literature and in canonical medieval English texts, including CT. Argues that the spiritual athlete moves from "trope in early…
Craig, Robert M.
Claudette Stager and Martha Carver, eds. Looking Beyond the Highway: Dixie Roads and Culture. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006, pp. 267-87.
Compares people and places of twentieth-century journeys on the Dixie Highway to several medieval pilgrimages, real and fictional, including CT.
