Brewer, Derek.
Nikolaus Ritt and Herbert Schendl, eds. Rethinking Middle English: Linguistic and Literary Approaches (New York and Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 1-16.
Some scholars harbor a Golden-Age notion of chivalry not unlike that expressed in ParsT. Others, operating within a post-Freudian context, presume that the chivalric emphasis on ceremony must conceal inward anxiety or repression: hence, the…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Blamires elucidates ways in which CT and, to a lesser extent, TC engage moral and ethical discourse and shows this discourse at times to be gendered. Grounded in a range of Christian and classical sources, especially Stoic texts, Chaucer's "spectrum…
Blackbourne, Matthew.
Medieval History Magazine 6 (2004): 30-33.
Brief summary of Ricardian literature and contemporary social and political events. Mentions Gower's works, "Piers Plowman," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and Chaucer's works, especially GP and WBPT.
Bellamy, Elizabeth Jane.
Clio 34.3 (2005): 297-315.
Responding to Greenblatt's essay, Bellamy explores the status of psychoanalytic criticism in medieval studies, with particular focus on Chaucer studies.
Barnes, Geraldine.
Ruth Evans, Helen Fulton, and David Matthews, eds. Medieval Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Stephen Knight (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 241-67.
Barnes contrasts the absence of the city of London in medieval fiction (CkT, CYT, and Athelston) with fictionalized descriptions of medieval London in murder mysteries written in the 1980s and 1990s by P.C. Doherty and Kate Sedley.
Allen, Valerie.
Lisa Perfetti, ed. The Representation of Women's Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005, pp. 191-210.
Uses examples from Chaucer, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and the "Ancrene Wisse" to explore how shame differs for men and women. For men, shame stems from a wide range of cultural experiences associated with chivalry, while women's shame is…
Adams, Jenny.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
Studies the ways that chess represents types of political and social order, examining the "Liber de Moribus Hominum et Officiis Nobilium" of Jacobus de Cessolis, "Les echecs amoureux," BD, the "Tale of Beryn," Hoccleve's "Regement of Princes," and…
Bradbury, Nancy Mason.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006): 237-42.
Bradbury addresses Chaucer's uses of proverbs as a "crucial" form of "quoting behavior"--a form of "soft source" important to Chaucer's art and its reception in manuscripts and early editions. Draws examples from KnT and refers to uses of proverbs in…
Yoshikawa, Fumiko.
Michiko Ogura, ed. Textual and Contextual Studies in Medieval English: Towards the Reunion of Linguistics and Philology (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 205-16.
Yoshikawa studies Middle English verbs with both reflexive and impersonal uses in ten typical situations, considering Chaucer's uses of "menen" and "remembren" as examples where semantic value and the nature of the participants affect usage.
Windeatt, Barry.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 90-109.
Windeatt examines how the court and elements of courtly writing are represented and function in BD, HF, PF, and LGWP, with some attention to SqT. Comments on Machaut as Chaucer's model and how the dream vision gives Chaucer the liberty to examine…
Watson, Nicholas.
English Language Notes 44.1 (2006): 127-37.
This final essay in a forum responds to preceding essays and argues that vernacular writing about religion is a political act subject to study as a "single area of discourse." Literary critics examining this area will find that "the logic that…
Etymological and semantic exploration of "fear" and related words that indicates nuances lost in translation between early English and modern editions and adaptations; discusses two uses of "no fere" in TC (3.583 and 1144) and an emendation of "thys…
Rothwell, W[illiam].
English Studies 87 (2006): 511-38.
Identifies in RvT lexical evidence of a culture permeated with French linguistic influence, evidence that could be reinforced by a more thorough linguistic study of RvT and the rest of Chaucer's corpus: "Far from being 'ephemeral and localized' or…
Rissanen, Matti.
Ursula Schaefer, ed. The Beginnings of Standardization: Language and Culture in Fourteenth-Century England (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 133-46.
Rissanen analyzes the "grammaticalization" of several related conjunctions (because, in case, save, except) that suggest a complicated model of standardization. Popular texts such as Chaucer's CT may have had as much influence on standardization as…
Pearsall, Derek.
Ursula Schaefer, ed. The Beginnings of Standardization: Language and Culture in Fourteenth-Century England (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 27-41.
Pearsall surveys traditional accounts of the rise of an English standard and comments on recent emphases and remaining issues. Considers the Auchinleck Manuscript as evidence of the London literary culture that precedes Chaucer.
Ono, Hideshi.
Hiroshima Studies in English Language and Literature 43 (1988): 1-15.
Ono examines Chaucer's personal and impersonal uses of the verbs "meten" and "dremen" to refer to dreams. The personal use emerged in the fourteenth century.
Nevalainen, Terttu.
Journal of English Linguistics 34 (2006): 257-78.
Addresses historical sociolinguistic trends between 1400 and 1800, tracing the disappearance of multiple negative (negative concord) usage to the latter half of the eighteenth century. However, data also suggest that Late Middle English initiated the…
Nakao, Yoshiyuki.
Michiko Ogura, ed. Textual and Contextual Studies in Medieval English: Towards the Reunion of Linguistics and Philology (Frankfurt am Main, 2006), pp. 51-73.
Nakao assesses Criseyde's comment on trusting Pandarus (TC 3.587) as ambiguous, considering "phonological, morphological, lexical/collocational, syntactic and pragmatic" aspects of Chaucer's use of "moste" as an auxiliary and an adverb.
Molencki, Rafal.
Nikolaus Ritt and Herbert Schendl, eds. Rethinking Middle English: Linguistic and Literary Approaches (New York and Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 147-60.
Molencki traces the phonetic and semantic conflation of "dare" and" tharf," once distinct verbs, now obsolete. Scribal errors contributed to the obsolescence of "tharf" and its replacement with the more flexible OE "neden." The essay draws examples…
Miller tallies a number of "hybrid derivatives" from before 1500, focusing on top-frequency suffixes. Examples and conclusions involve Chaucerian usage, including Chaucer's tendency to develop "non-technical hybrids" and to use "non-prestige French…
Maíz Arévalo, Carmen.
Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre and M. Nila Vázquez González, eds. Medieval English Literary and Cultural Studies (Murcia: Universidad de Muscia, 2004), pp. 81-94.
Discusses linguistic pragmatics to disclose parallels between WBPT and PardPT, focusing on the relationship between the characters' uses of speech and the two works.
Lozowski, Przemyslaw.
Nikolaus Ritt and Herbert Schendl, eds. Rethinking Middle English: Linguistic and Literary Approaches (New York and Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 125-46.
Disputes the assumption that "meten" and "dremen" are synonyms in Chaucer and illustrates systematic differentiation in WBT, NPT, BD, Rom, HF, Bo, and TC (plus other, non-Chaucerian texts). In general, the late fourteenth century is a transitional…
Johnston, Andrew James, and Claudia Lange.
Ursula Schaefer, ed. The Beginnings of Standardization: Language and Culture in Fourteenth-Century England (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 183-200.
The authors consider linguistic and cultural factors in English standardization of the fourteenth century, including the reciprocity of Chaucer's contributions to standardization and the role standardization played in "'the making' of Chaucer."
