Boitani, Piero.
Journal of Anglo-Italian Studies 5: 1-14, 1997.
Details the historical record of Chaucer's Italian connections and surveys the influence of Dante on English poetry from Chaucer to the twentieth century. Likens Dante's influence on English to a love story.
Robinson, Peter.
Literary and Linguistic Computing 15: 5-14, 2000.
Despite trends in textual theory and the capability of representing multiple versions of a text electronically, editors should present eclectic, reconstructed texts--not as representations of lost originals but as texts that best explain "all the…
Examines the contents and provenance of MS Digby 86 (Bodleian); MS Harley 2253 (British Library); MSS fr. 837 and 19182 (Bibliothque Nationale); and Carmina Burana MS (Munich), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 4460 and 4460a. The literary techniques…
Pearsall, Derek, ed.
York; and Rochester, N.Y. : York Medieval Press, in association with Boydell and Brewer, 2000.
Thirteen essays by various authors that pertain to the use of manuscripts in understanding medieval texts and/or to the use of computers in manuscript analysis and study. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for New Directions in Later…
Partridge, Stephen.
A. S. G. Edwards, Vincent Gillespie, and Ralph Hanna, eds. The English Medieval Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths (London: British Library, 2000), pp. 51-87.
Summarizes the manuscript information pertinent to The Cook's Tale and The Squire's Tale, focusing on scribal confrontations with their fragmentary state, including continuations and, especially, gaps and notes. Evidence suggests that the notes and…
Ogilvie-Thomson, S. J.
Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2000.
Describes all manuscripts in the Laudian collection that contain English prose composed ca. 1200-1500, including Laud misc. 600, which includes incomplete versions of Mel (one folio lacking) and ParsT (through 10.914, completed in seventeenth-century…
Mosser, Daniel W.
Studies in Bibliography 52: 97-114, 1999.
Proposes quire structures for four paper manuscripts, focusing on watermarks and commenting on implications of the proposed structures. Assesses British Library MS Arundel 140 (Ar); British Library MS Harley 2382 (Hl3); Magdalene College, Cambridge…
Mooney, Linne R.
Derek Pearsall, ed. New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies: Essays from the 1998 Harvard Conference (York; and Rochester, N.Y.: York Medieval Press, in association with Boydell and Brewer, 2000), pp. 131-41.
Surveys the techniques and functions of identifying manuscripts produced by the same scribe (especially manuscripts relating to Chaucer and Gower) and calls for a digital archive of known hands to help identify related manuscripts.
Mooney, Linne R.
A. S. G. Edwards, Vincent Gillespie, and Ralph Hanna, eds. The English Medieval Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths (London: British Library, 2000), pp. 113-34.
Adds to the list of thirteen manuscripts attributed to the "Hammond" scribe another manuscript: BL Add. MS 29901. Long known for his Chaucerian affiliation, the scribe is now also affiliated with the officers of Arms, helping to explain his interest…
Kobayashi, Ayako.
Tokyo Kasei Daigaku Kenkyu Kiyo 36: 161-71, 1996.
Tabulates scribal variants recorded in Barry Windeatt's edition of TC, particularly changes in vocabulary. Characterizes such changes as the result of carelessness and misunderstanding; the scribes did not attempt to improve the poem.
Horobin, S. C. P.
Notes and Queries 245.1: 16-18, 2000.
Explains an eccentric spelling in the Hengwrt version of RvT (heem, or "home") as descending from Old Norse (East Norse "hem"), extended by a kind of imitation in Ellesmere to geen ("gone") and neen ("none"). Ellesmere also mistakes a Northern form…
Hellinga, Lotte, and J. B. Trapp, eds.
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Twenty-eight essays by various authors, arranged under three major headings: Technique and Trade, Collections and Ownership, and Reading and Use of Books. The last is subdivided into Books for Scholars, Professions, and The Lay Reader. References to…
Brinton, Laurel J.
A. E. Christa Canitz and Gernot R. Wieland, eds. From Arabye to Engelond: Medieval Studies in Honour of Mahmoud Manzalaoui on His 75th Birthday (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1999), pp. 175-99.
Documents the development of whilom from its origins as an Old English adverb, to a discourse marker associated with orality, to an adjective. Although this development does not challenge the "unidirectionality hypothesis of grammaticalization," it…
Discusses meter, rhythm, and textual problems in Chaucer's iambic pentameter, analyzing them using text-analysis computer applications: Oxford Concordance Program and WordSmith Tools. Texts of GP and WBP from the Hengwrt manuscript are transcribed…
Minkova, Donka.
Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, and Matti Rissanen, eds. Placing Middle English in Context (Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 2000), pp. 431-59.
Surveys critical discussion of the prosodic behavior of Romance loan words in Middle English, challenging the Halle/Keyser analysis and the reliability of rhyme. Providing examples from alliterative poetry, Chaucer, and Henryson, Minkova argues that…
Over six centuries, Chaucer's verse has been construed in a "bewildering variety of ways." This essay surveys the reception of Chaucer's metrics from his immediate contemporaries to the present and considers the process of "transmitting metrical…
Duffell, Martin J.
Chaucer Review 34: 269-88, 2000.
Chaucer's model for the iambic pentameter line was Boccaccio's endecasillabo, not the French vers de dix. Chaucer introduced the "void" position, the "extra unprominent syllable within the hemistich, and possibly the epic caesura." All of his…
Lydgate was not an incompetent Chaucerian imitator; he used a different verse design. Parametric comparison of Chaucer's and Lydgate's verse designs demonstrates Lydgate's use of a tradition older than Chaucer's iambic pentameter. Lydgate had only…
Argues that Chaucer uses rhyme words in the ballade form (Ros, Ven, For, Purse, Sted, Gent, Wom Nob, Buk, Scog, Truth, Wom Unc) for stylistic effects, not because of linguistic limitation. As a translator, Chaucer employs several methods of…
Wilson, Charles E., Jr.
Studies in Medievalism 10: 74-91, 1998.
Suggests that Naylor's novel "revises" CT by using Chaucer's frame technique to eliminate "unnecessary and arbitrary barriers, rules, and labels." Naylor makes the café, like the pilgrim fellowship, a kind of sanctuary.
