Nicholson, Peter.
Elisabeth Dutton, with John Hines and R. F. Yeager, eds. John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 206-16.
Nicholson asserts that critics' "willingness to detect irony at every turn" is appropriate in Chaucer studies, but not in Gower studies, arguing that paradox is a recurrent and sustained mode of thought and expression in Gower's "Confessio." Surveys…
Knoepflmacher, U. C.
Chaucer Review 4.3 (1970): 180-83.
Suggests that two allusions to Matthew's gospel in the GP description of the Prioress contribute to the "ironic stance" of the description, despite the narrator's "calculated evasiveness."
Richardson, Lilla Janette.
Dissertation Abstracts International 24.03 (1963): 1176.
Shows that Chaucer uses "rhetorical figures . . . [to] produce imagery," analyzing the "use of imagery" in FrT, RvT, ShT, MerT, and MilT--in comparison with sources, where available--and focusing on how he uses imagery to create ironic effects not…
Adams, John F.
Modern Language Quarterly 24 (1963): 61-65.
Observes a variety of astrological and sexual puns, allusions, and emphases in Troilus's address to Criseyde's house ("paraclausithyron"), distancing the reader from Troilus's grief and emphasizing sensual love.
Slade, Tony.
Modern Language Review 64 (1969): 241-47.
Treats WBT as an "expression of her personality," focusing on the "matter-of-fact" tone of the tale, its humor, and its "tolerant sexual irony." However, Chaucer undercuts "her views and reactions" ironically, particularly in the pillow lecture of…
Identifies various instances of irony in MerT, arguing that its "persistent irony" distinguishes the tale from Chaucer's comic fabliaux and aligns it with the "moral fable" of PardT. A poem of "clarity, critical observation, and disgust," MerT also…
O'Reilly, William M., Jr.
Greyfriar 10 (1968): 25-39.
Argues that "there is an ironically complex relationship of the speaker to what he says" in CYPT, particularly in the way that the Yeoman's simplistic understanding of alchemy leads him to abandon the evils of alchemy while the Canon's intelligent…
Blanch, Robert J.
Lock Haven Review 8 (1966): 8-15.
Demonstrates the presence of three kinds of irony in MerT: verbal irony in the Merchant's double entendres and introductory comments on marriage, rhetorical irony in the deflation of courtly ideals by means of distorted or exaggerated figures and…
Pelen, Marc M.
Forum for Modern Language Studies 27 (1991): 1-22.
Just as the themes of liberality and magnificence are treated ironically in Decameron 10, particularly in the tale of Griselda (10.10), so ClT is as "poetically and morally suspect" as are WBT and FranT. Both poets use multiple narrators and…
Hansen, Elaine Tuttle.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 82 (1983): 11-31.
LGW satirizes the narrator's perspective on women rather than examining feminine virtue. Obvious distortions of the legends reveal the deficiency of the narrator's attitude: he idealizes women in passivity, irrationality, and stupidity.
The narrator of BD, who sees in the tale of Ceyx and Alcyone an exemplum of the loss of their "golden age" love, realizes that the love of the knight is an analogue of the happy fulfillment of the couple's love. Thus, the actual consolation of the…
Lawton, David.
Leeds Studies in English 14 (1983): 94-115.
Shifts of tone and tension between ironies of fatal necessity and fateful will create balance between appreciation of the lovers' nobility and pessimism about their frailty. The oxymoron functions thematically and modally: religious passion…
Lázaro Lafuente, Luis Alberto
Luis A. Lazaro Lafuente, Jose Simon, and Ricardo J. Sola Buil,eds. Medieval Studies: Proceedings of the IIIrd International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (Madrid: Universidad de Alcala de Henares, 1996), pp. 207-15.
Surveys the kinds of irony and humor in PardPT for the ways they characterize the Pardoner.
Wurtele, Douglas (J.)
Chaucer Review 13 (1978): 66-79.
Alongside January's outright parody of "Canticum Canticorum," a web of allusions thereto sets up an ironic juxtaposition of May and the Virgin Mary, reinforcing the bitterness permeating MerT; these subtle allusions also reflect the Merchant's desire…
Chickering, Howell D.
Nicolay Yakovlev, ed. Lecture Series (St. Petersburg: Linguistic Society of St. Petersburg, 2003), pp. 20-37. Rpt. from Yazyk i rechevaya deyatet'nost' (Language and Language Behavior) 4 (2001): Supplement.
Close reading of several GP descriptions (including the Knight, Monk, Clerk, Sergeant at Law, and Summoner) shows how Chaucer's shifting tones produce ironic implications.
Roberts, Valerie S.
Chaucerian Shakespeare (Ann Arbor: Michigan Consortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 1983), pp. 97-117.
The gardens of MerT and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" are not idyllic "gardens of love" but "gardens of vanity," the setting for human deceit, folly, and cruelty.
Pattison, Andrew John.
Chaucer Review 54.2 (2019): 141-61.
Contextualizes the barnyard chase scene of NPT alongside late medieval hunting treatises, and questions the juxtaposition between the chase and the medieval noble hunt. The parody of this hunt offers multiple layers of meaning, from criticism of the…
Absolon's twenty manners of dance after the school at Oxford may be traceable to the Morris dance troupes in the Oxford area, whose repertoire numbered approximately twenty dances. Absolon is ironically linked to dances which cast him in the role of…
Reconsiders the 127 Irish analogues to RvT cited in Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson's "Types of Folktale" and reduces them to four. Comments on the transmission of the various motifs in the Tale, suggesting that Chaucer may have gotten the Tale from…
DuBruck, Edelgard E.
Uwe Boker, Manfred Markus, and Ranier Schowerling, eds. The Living Middle Ages: Studies in Mediaeval English Literature and Its Tradition (Stuttgart: Belser, 1989), pp. 103-13.
After reviewing scholarly opinion of the Pardoner's character,DuBruck turns to the somewhat neglected exemplum of the rioters to analyze narrative speed and style, by which the Pardoner drives his text to an emphatic conclusion. DuBruck then…
Vines, Amy N.
Amanda Hopkins, Robert Allen Rouse, and Cory James Rushton, eds. Sexual Culture in the Literature of Medieval Britain (Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 2014), pp. 161-80.
Discusses the perception of sexual violence in medieval literature, using WBT and "Perceval" by Purcelle de Lis as primary case studies, and describes the medieval misconception that equates sexual assault with heroism.
Johnson, Lynn Staley.
Studies in Philology 87 (1990): 137-55.
Mel should be read in light of England's disrupted domestic state and especially of parliamentary dissatisfaction with Richard II in the 1380s. Thus, Prudence's advice, which emphasizes the contractual relationship between ruler and ruled but also…
