Staley, Lynn.
David Scott Kastan, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. 5 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, vol. 1, pp. 450-56.
Treats Chaucer as a "means of entry" into the political and cultural world of late fourteenth-century England, surveying Chaucer's works (CT most extensively) and summarizing his life and reception. Includes a brief bibliography.
Cooper, Helen.
Richard K. Emmerson and Sandra Clayton-Emmerson, eds. Key Figures in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 131-35.
An introduction to Chaucer and his works, with attention to his sources and influences. Includes a brief bibliography.
Andrew, Malcolm.
New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Lists and describes Chaucer's works, major characters, sources, influences, themes, genres, and allusions; several manuscripts, editions, and scholars; and people and places in Chaucer's life. Alphabetical arrangement of some 720 entries, with a…
Allen, Mark, and Bege K. Bowers.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28: 349-423, 2006.
Continuation of SAC annual annotated bibliography (since 1975); based on contributions from an international bibliographic team, independent research, and MLA Bibliography listings. 218 items, plus listing of reviews for 74 books. Includes an author…
Ramsburgh, John S.
Dissertation Abstracts International 65 (2005): 3797A
Suggests that TC and WBP argue for a diachronic understanding of time-as-phenomenon, as opposed to the religious emphasis on eternity over temporality.
Kimmelman, Burt.
Ian Frederick Moulton, ed. Reading and Literacy in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 25-44.
Surveys representations of reading in literature from Abélard and Héloise to Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich, including commentary on TC. The "autonomy of the reader" developed in the fourteenth century.
Thompson, Diane P.
Jefferson, N. C. : McFarland, 2004.
Fourteen chapters on the cultural legacy of the Trojan War, from archeology through literary versions to recent popular culture. Includes chapters on Latin and Roman classics (the works of Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Virgil), the medieval…
Wittig, Joseph S.
T. L. Burton and John F. Plummer, eds. "Seyd in Forme and Reverence": Essays on Chaucer and Chaucerians in Memory of Emerson Brown, Jr. (Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio Press, 2005), pp. 117-32.
Reads Chaucer's allusion to Tereus, Procne, and Philomela in TC as an "ethical and moral" gloss on his own poem, generating tensions between the refined love of Troilus and Criseyde and the raw passions in Ovid. Also comments on source relations…
Brewer, Derek.
Uwe Boker et al., eds. Of Remembraunce the Keye: Medieval Literature and Its Impact Through the Ages. Festschrift for Karl Heinz Goller on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2004), pp. 47-59.
Traces the history of romance as a genre as it adumbrates the modern novel. Includes recurrent references to TC.
Einersen, Dorrit.
Angles on the English-Speaking World 5 (2005): 45-55.
Einersen examines genre markers in versions of the story of Troilus and Criseyde (including Chaucer's claims for tragedy in TC) as background to a discussion of Shakespeare's play as a "historical-tragical-comical-satirical problem play."
Mitchell, J. Allan.
Comparative Literature 57.2 (2005): 101-16.
Emmanuel Lévinas's "Time and the Other" indicates how Fortune or contingency is constitutive of ethics in Chaucer's TC. In contrast to Boethian readings of TC, a Lévinasian reading shows how Troilus's subjection to love and his passivity before…
Garner, Lori Ann.
Mark C. Amodio, ed. New Directions in Oral Theory (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005), pp.255-77.
Contrasts uses of proverbs in TC and in "Havelock the Dane." In the latter, proverbs affirm traditional wisdom and elicit the reader's trust. Chaucer uses proverbs in more complex ways, presenting them as contradictions or in striking juxtapositions…
Urban, Malte.
Thomas Honegger, ed. Riddles, Knights and Cross-dressing Saints: Essays on Medieval English Language and Literature (Bern: Lang, 2004), pp. 33-54.
Presenting Troy in TC as the mirror image of London in the 1380s, Chaucer engages conflicting notions of history and historiography. In particular, his depiction of the Trojan parliament is a warning to his contemporaries. Chaucer embraces…
Barbaccia, Holly G.
Dissertation Abstracts International 66 (2005): 2205A
Examines the concepts of "change and eschaunge" in Middle English poetry, with particular attention to Langland's Lady Meed, Gower's Constance, Criseyde from TC, and Lady Bertilak in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Considers instability and…
Wetherbee, Winthrop.
T. L. Burton and John F. Plummer, eds. "Seyd in Forme and Reverence": Essays on Chaucer and Chaucerians in Memory of Emerson Brown, Jr. (Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio Press, 2005), pp. 133-41.
In its bleak presentation of love, Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid" responds in a complex way to Chaucer's characterization of Criseyde in TC, making apparent the "spiritual and ethical limitations of the world view that frames the experience of…
Hill argues that Troilus's pagan, earthly joy in the second half of Book 3 of TC is Chaucer's representation of "the maximum of good and beauty to be found outside of Christian belief and the dispensations of faith." The intense joy experienced by…
Pugh explores the "performative cruelties" of TC--the ways the three major characters are willing to "resort to tactics of cruelty to advance their individual agendas" and the way the narrative itself displays the "pleasures of salvation" that are…
Gaylord, Alan.
Publications of the Medieval Association of the Midwest 11 (2004): 1-25.
An extended example of "prosodic criticism," which comments on several passages of TC (1.1-21, 53-56, 99-133, 981-87, 1016-29; 2.109-47, 190-217, 309-28, 407-28, 443-48; and 3.1198-1211). Gaylord explains how Chaucer's poetry invites readers to be…
Howes, Laura L.
Robert M. Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior, eds. Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Hanning (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp. 321-43.
Chaucer presents Criseyde as a victim of several betrayals--by Calchas, by the Trojan parliament, by Pandarus, and by the narrator--and prompts the possibility of readers' betrayal of her as well. Obedient to her father but unfaithful to her lover,…
Ryan, Lawrence V.
English Literary Renaissance 17 (1987): 288-302
Francis Kynaston's translation of TC in Latin rhyme-royal stanzas was influenced by Henryson's and Shakespeare's depictions of Criseyde. Substantial omissions in Books 4 and 5 of the translation simplify the character and reduce readers' sympathy by…
O'Brien examines the theme of brotherhood in TC as portrayed through the relationships of Troilus and Pandarus, Troilus and Criseyde, Diomedes and Criseyde, and the narrator and readers. The poem's ending portrays brotherly relationships as no remedy…
Tournoy, Gilbert.
George Hugo Tucker, ed. Forms of the "Medieval" in the "Renaissance": A Multidisciplinary Exploration of a Cultural Continuum (Charlottesville, Va.: Rookwood, 2000), pp. 175-203.
Traces the developments and distortions of the classical myth of Apollo's service to Admetus and its association with love; includes discussion of the allusion in TC 1.659-65.
