Alexander, Michael.
Rosalynn Voaden, René Tixier, Teresa Sanchez Roura, and Jenny Rebecca Rytting, eds. The Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), pp. 201-13.
Identifies ways Dante influenced the invocations in TC, as well as TC's depictions of love and hell. Also explores the words that Chaucer invented to rhyme with "Troie" and with "Criseyde."
Steiner, Emily.
New Medieval Literatures 6 (2003): 199-22.
Steiner assesses political "clamor," "appeal," and "voice," using them to discuss the Prologue to "Piers Plowman" as a work in which "commonality" is "the poem's ideological subject and poetic process." Suggests briefly that the same is true of PF.
Davis, Kathleen.
Kathy Lavezzo, ed. Imagining a Medieval English Nation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), pp. 161-90.
Parallels between the sex/gender system and establishing medieval English identity indicate that the perceived doubleness of woman echoes that of the nation. PF does not fantasize about a unified nation, but it does produce "England" as a site of…
Cadden, Joan.
Lorraine Daston and Fernando Vidal, eds. The Moral Authority of Nature (Chicago and London : University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 207-31.
Cadden traces the "persistent association of nature with moral conduct and social order" in various late medieval texts, from commentaries on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics to vernacular poetry. Focuses on PF as an example in which both desire and…
Gilbert, Jane.
Nicola F. McDonald and W. M. Ormrod, eds. Rites of Passage: Cultures of Transition in the Fourteenth Century (York: York Medieval Press, 2005), pp. 109-31
Gilbert's anthropological reading of BD and LGW emphasizes how in BD Blanche is represented as having successfully left the land of the living for the land of the dead. In LGW, the female protagonists resist this rite of passage and, in doing so,…
Scattergood, John.
Notes and Queries 51.3 (2004): 233-34.
Argues for the adoption of "thy selven" instead of "they shynen" (line 1015) as the "lectio difficilior: and as the reading supported by Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 16, the copy-text for most editions of HF.
Kerr, John.
Stephen Gersh and Bert Roest, eds. Medieval and Renaissance Humanism: Rhetoric, Representation, and Reform (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003), 185-202.
In HF, Chaucer poses "epistemological instability" as a condition of the sublunar realm, which he characterizes as hellish through associations with Proserpina in her triple manifestation, references to Claudian, and allusions to Virgil and Dante.
Cawsey, Kathy.
University of Toronto Quarterly 73 (2004): 972-79
Cawsey suggests an emendation to HF 1124 and argues that the image of an "ice mountain limned in light, illuminated with gold, covered with melting writing" indicates Chaucer's concerns about literary transmission.
Wilcockson, Colin.
Joanna Burzynska and Danuta Stanulewicz, eds. PASE Papers in Literature and Culture: Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of the Polish Association for the Study of English. Gdansk, 26-28 April 2000 (Gdansk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdánskiego, 2003), pp. 431-36.
The puppy in BD is not only a guide, but also a complex symbol of psychological and literary connectivity.
The chess metaphor in BD shows that Chaucer's knowledge of the game, while not extraordinary, was adequate for his purpose. His knowledge could have come from being an actual player, from studying medieval chess puzzles, from knowledge of the…
Eisner, Sigmund, and Marijane Osborn.
Daniel T. Kline, ed. Medieval Literature for Children (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 155-87.
An introduction to Astr by Eisner that emphasizes Chaucer ability to write clear instructions for a child, followed by Osborn's Modern English version of the treatise.
Pitard, Derrick G.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 26 (2004): 299-330
Considers ParsT in light of Lollard concern with the use of English, the themes and drama of MLE and ParsP, and the inclusion of ParsT in MS Longleat 29. Longleat indicates that lay readers used ParsT for private devotional purposes, although the…
Chaucer's use of the Ovidian source of ManT, insisting on the tale of the crow--and not the connecting tale of the raven--allows him to argue for the "potentially treacherous nature of language" and to lead smoothly into Ret. The influence of Ovid is…
Despairing in his sin, the Monk ignores the providential aspect of the story of Job, and so his tragedies emphasize only death. He particularly ignores the conventionally exegetical readings of Adam and Sampson as examples of Providence.
Czarnowus, Anna.
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 40 (2004): 299-310
Suggests a link between KnT and MkT: Saturn's "children" can be either individuals born under the sign of Saturn or societies suffering the effects of the "Age of Saturn." The predicament of the Monk's Hugelyn and his children can be read in light of…
Cowgill, Bruce Kent.
Mediaevalia 8 (1985 for 1982): 151-69.
Mel, MkT, and NPT are related by their concern with spiritual perception or its lack: Mel deals with the failure to listen to Prudence and the return of Sophia; MkT shows "the consequence of sacrificing both prudence and sapientia"; NPT reasserts the…
Kennedy, Kathleen E.
Chaucer Review 39 (2004): 165-76.
Events depicted in Chaucer's French source "mirror a popular English legal remedy, the loveday or accord," and Chaucer uses the occasion to comment on the importance and role of "maintenance" (the "exchange of money and influence between a lord and…
Reads Mel as a narrative of anger and anger management in which Prudence's "transformative" advice helps Melibee resolve his personal and political anger, even though his fundamental anger against God is not reconciled.
Critical review of two applied textual theories, exposing their weaknesses in light of recent theory and revealing their ongoing utility. Includes discussion of Laura Hibbard Loomis's arguments that Th indicates Chaucer's firsthand knowledge of the…
Zieman, Katherine.
Sarah Rees Jones, ed. Learning and Literacy in Medieval England and Abroad. Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, no. 3 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003), pp. 97-120.
Zieman examines the "liturgical literacy" of medieval nuns, exploring the extent to which they may have understood Latin texts that they performed. PrT presents "singing explicitly characterized as illiterate" as "the purest form of piety"; SNT…
Spence, Timothy L.
Scott D. Troyan, ed. Medieval Rhetoric: A Casebook (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 63-90.
The Prioress's prayer to Mary shares characteristics with the "genre of prayer known as 'pura oratio'." Spence identifies features of this genre in rhetorical tradition, shows where they are evident in PrP, and suggests that they extend into PrT,…
Lampert, Lisa.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Lampert decenters Christianity and releases the study of Jews and Judaism from a "restricted economy of particularism." She shows how representations of Jews go beyond representations of the "Other" in a range of English texts by revealing…
Heffernan, Carol F.
Chaucer Review 39 (2004): 103-16.
Heffernan considers the clergeon's devotion to Mary's image in relation to historical medieval religious images and the "affective piety" they were produced to evoke among the unlearned.
