Yoon, Minwoo.
Medieval English Studies (Seoul) 5: 215-41, 1997.
Surveys representative examples of northern English dialect ("Alliterative Morte Arthure," RvT), Scottish Chaucerians (Henryson, Dunbar), and non-Chaucerian Scottish works (Barbour's "Bruce," "The Wallace") to identify common and distinctive…
Explores faith, social and political action, and theology in late-medieval England, focusing on Chaucer, Gower, Langland, the Gawain poet, and Wyclif. Assesses how their ideas reflect Thomas Aquinas, Ockham, and John Ball and how they responded to…
Nine essays on medieval English literature, a preface by Derek Brewer, an introduction by Aers, and a bibliography of Pearsall's publications through 1998. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Medieval Literature and Historical Inquiry…
Explores incest motifs in a wide range of medieval texts, exploring origins and analogues. Discusses MLT as an example of the motif of the flight from the incestuous father and comments on incest in LGW (Philomena and Semiramis).
Barr, Helen.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.
Seven interrelated studies and an afterword that explore "socioliterary practice," considering literature as a material form of social behavior in "internal and dialectical relationship" with the institutions and conventions that shape it and that it…
Battles, Dominique.
Dissertation Abstracts International 62 (2001): 162A, 2001.
Traces the Theban legend from Statius through a twelfth-century Old French version, school texts, florilegia, commentary, Boccaccio, Chaucer (Anel, KnT), and Lydgate. Also assesses relationships with ancient and medieval history. Lydgate's version…
Bourgne, Florence.
Leo Carruthers and Adrian Papahagi, eds. Prologues et épilogues dans la littérature anglaise du Moyen Âge (Paris: Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2001), pp. 73-91.
Distinguishes three major types of prologues in late-medieval English literature: organic; a dilation; and a displaced prologue, i.e., a prologue that does not correspond to the document. Examines CT, LGW, TC, and Astr.
"Pearl" reflects the political and social turmoil of Richard's reign and is a product of the rich visual and verbal culture of his Cheshire coterie. Political and social allusions in the poem engage Lollardy, labor laws, court magnificence,…
In addition to overt allusions to law and its practitioners and his depictions of legal proceedings, Chaucer weaves legal terminology into his texts and uses "embedded" references to real court cases in developing his plots and characters. Advocates…
Bremmer, Rolf H., Jr.
Studies in Medievalism 11: 37-72, 2001.
Bremmer reviews the study of Chaucer undertaken late in life by the pioneering Dutch Anglo-Saxonist Franciscus Junius, as reflected mainly in copious marginalia in Junius's copy of Speght's 1598 edition of Chaucer's Works.
Bullón-Fernández, María.
Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2000.
Studies the incest motif in Confessio Amantis as a "fundamental element" in Gower's explorations of father-daughter relationships and the relationships of authority. In this context, Bullón-Fernández considers Chaucer's MLT and PhyT as analogues…
Burger, Glenn.
Glenn Burger and Steven Kruger, eds. Queering the Middle Ages (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), pp. 213-35.
Argues that Chaucer set the standard for discourse on heterosexuality and modernity, even though modern study has written over his "queer touch." Exemplifies the gendered instability of Chaucer's text by contrasting the normativizing power of…
Burger, Glenn, and Steven Kruger, eds.
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2001.
Ten essays on queer issues, with responses by Kruger. Includes readings on a selection of medieval texts, including Christine de Pizan and Dante. For an essay and a response that pertain to Chaucer, search for Queering the Middle Ages under…
Carruthers, Mary [J.]
Chris Humphrey and W. M. Ormrod, eds. Time in the Medieval World (Suffolk: York Medieval Press, 2001), pp. 137-55.
Like tense-switching and first-person point of view, the use of the "historical present" by Chaucer and the Gawain poet illustrates how medieval authors could convincingly remember and authenticate the stories they told. The past is the time of…
Collette, Carolyn P., and Vincent J. DiMarco.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 23: 317-58, 2001.
Summarizes the political history of the fall of Armenia in 1375, surveying its impact on the court of Richard II and its status as a "haunting symbol" of catastrophe in Middle English literature. Discusses SqT, Anel, the description of the Knight in…
Cooney, Helen, ed.
Dublin and Portland, Ore. : Four Courts Press, 2001.
Ten essays by various authors on the role of language and literature in fifteenth-century England, Chaucer's influence at the time, and the relations of fifteenth-century literature to earlier and later tradition. Mention of Chaucer recurs…
Cooper surveys Chaucer's linguistic and poetic innovations, emphasizing that his rewritings of classical, French, and Italian models were "far from being acts of homage." Chaucer may have thought of himself as a literary heir, but he was an…
Pearsall, Derek.
Helen Cooney, ed. Nation, Court and Culture: New Essays on Fifteenth-Century English Poetry (Dublin and Portland, Ore.: Four Courts Press, 2001), pp. 15-27.
There was no growing sense of an English nation until the time of Henry VIII, although there were momentary surges in 1290-1340 and 1410-1420, the latter focused on Chaucer. Language is crucial to nation building, and the process of "accrediting…
In his account of Katherine in the "Legendys of Hooly Wummen," fifteenth-century poet Osbern Bokenham "rebels" against his poetic fathers, namely Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate. Bokenham allows Katherine to persuade her audience with the Nicene Creed…
Richmond, Velma Bourgeois.
London and NewYork : Continuum, 2000.
Explores affinities between Roman Catholic doctrine and outlook and Shakespeare's works, especially his romances and other plays that use the "romance mode." Recurrent references to Chaucer reflect his influence on Shakespeare in plot, mode, and…
Simpson, James.
New Medieval Literatures 4: 213-42, 2001.
Surveys the reception of Lydgate, especially his "Dance Machabré", and argues that the poet has been victimized by "'ageist' conceptions of cultural change" that seek to reify "the medieval." Lydgate's stature as the most public of English poets…
Straker, Scott-Morgan.
Review of English Studies 52: 1-21, 2001.
Lydgate appropriates Chaucer not so much to pay tribute as to distance himself from anticlericalism, to redeem the narrative and monastic voice, and to assert its freedom from authority, as represented by Harry Bailly. Lydgate's apparent compliance…
Straker, Scott-Morgan.
Martin Gosman, Arjo Vanderjagt, and Jan Veenstra, eds. The Growth of Authority in the Medieval West: Selected Proceedings of the International Conference, Groningen, 6-9 November 1997 (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1999), pp. 285-306.
Assesses Lydgate's responses to authority in "Troy Book": his rhetorical additions to Guido delle Colonne's "Historia destructionis Troiae" (his source), his freeing himself from the influence of TC (his model) by transforming Chaucer into an…
Thompson, John J.
Helen Cooney, ed. Nation, Court and Culture: New Essays on Fifteenth-Century English Poetry (Dublin and Portland, Ore.: Four Courts Press, 2001), pp. 81-94.
Examines Hoccleve's relations with the London book trade and the Lancastrian court to explain how his verse "managed to leak so successfully" into the Chaucer tradition. Hoccleve's manuscripts reflect his autobiographical self-fashioning and his…
