López-Pelaez Casellas, Jesús.
Ana María Hornero and María Pilar Navarro, eds. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of S.E.L.I.M. (Zaragoza: Institucion Fernando el Catolico (CSIC), 2000), pp. 93-100.
Reads KnT as a satiric exposure of the historical contingency of various views of honor and the "chivalric ideal," examining the gap between what the Knight intends to tell and what he does tell.
Dressler, Rachel.
Studies in Iconography 21: 91-121, 2000.
High- and late-medieval tomb effigies show knights possessing muscular corporeality, a feature emphasized (through contrast with the Squire) in the GP portrait of the Knight.
Douglass, Rebecca M.
Studies in Medievalism 10: 136-63, 1998.
Ecocriticism is "a discipline that examines (criticizes) the relationship of texts to literal and figurative environments." Douglass's test case is an examination of how metaphors of nature are used in KnT and MilT to set off the person of Emilye,…
Clopper, Lawrence M.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22: 115-39, 2000.
Surveys various kinds of spectacle in late-medieval English society, exploring backgrounds of and attitudes toward tournaments, royal processions and entries, civic celebration, and dramas. Assesses Langland's depiction in "Piers Plowman" of the…
Wurtele, Douglas (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. 93-111.
Surveys Chaucer's uses of physiognomic detail in descriptions of the Canterbury pilgrims, especially in GP. Chaucer uses these details in various, often ironic ways.
Reconsiders Manly's distinction between the "Abhorrent Doctrine" (that Chaucer, in GP, "merely photographed his friends and acquaintances") and the "More Abhorrent Doctrine" (that Chaucer built his characters by piecing together "scraps from old…
Sadlek, Gregory M.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 8.2: 77-97, 2000.
Describes the value of sociograms ("visual diagram[s] of a given social network") in teaching GP, summarizing underlying theory and presenting a practical application. College-level assignment and results included.
Olivares Merino, Eugenio M.
Ana Mara Hornero and Mara Pilar Navarro, eds. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of S.E.L.I.M. (Zaragoza: Institucion Fernando el Catolico (CSIC), 2000), pp. 159-68.
Assesses the descriptions of the Knight and Squire in GP for how they reflect differing chivalric views of femininity and, more broadly, wisdom versus pleasure.
Explores the variety, subtleties, and complexities of Chaucer's "costume rhetoric" in GP, examining how details of the secular pilgrims' dress and accoutrement capitalize on late-medieval English clothing practice and extend literary tradition.…
George, Jodi-Anne, ed.
New York : Columbia University Press, 2000.
Summary-survey of critical responses to GP. Six chapters focus on particular time periods and the critical emphases that dominated them: (1) 1368-1880, Chaucer's "greatness" and the early editorial tradition; (2) 1892-1949, later editors and…
Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning.
Classical and Modern Literature 20.2: 61-65, 2000.
Lucretius's "De rerum natura" may have influenced the reverdie, or spring song, that opens GP. Lucretius's reverdie predates and almost certainly influenced those in the "Georgics" and the "Pervigilius veneris," already linked to The General…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Review of English Studies 51: 523-39, 2000.
Chaucer responds to the uprising of 1381 by shifting blame for the underlying oppression from the ruling and judiciary figures to the Reeve, a rigorous despot over the lower classes. Chaucer does not write from a classless position; rather, he…
Yamaguchi, Eriko.
Eigo Seinen 146.8: 502-04, 2000.
Analyzes three types of pleats or folds in CT: graceful or classical drapings of the cloak of the Prioress; artificial folds "pynched" on her wimple, characteristic of Gothic art; and "wyndynge," which the Parson reproaches as a waste of cloth and…
Eleven Japanese essays, three English essays, and one translation in Japanese. Focusing on literary and philological traditions, the essays contribute to study of Chaucer, Langland, and Gower. The Japanese translation is of De descriptione temporum,…
Tomasch, Sylvia.
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ed. The Postcolonial Middle Ages (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), pp. 243-60.
Because Jews were expelled from England in 1290, their presence in English art and literature is "virtual." Tomasch surveys virtual Jews in the Holkham Bible Picture Book, the Luttrell Psalter, and Chaucer's CT (PrT, the Old Man of PardT, ParsT, and…
Stevens, Martin.
John M. Hill and Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi, eds. The Rhetorical Poetics of the Middle Ages: Reconstructive Polyphony. Essays in Honor of Robert O. Payne (Madison, N.J., and London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Associated University Presses, 2000), pp. 130-48.
Th, MkT, and SqT are "double-voiced"; they reveal CT's central concerns with "narratological competence" and Chaucer's self-awareness about his storytelling.
Schildgen, Brenda Deen.
Leonard Michael Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen, eds. The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: New Essays on an Old Question (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000), pp. 102-27.
Through authorial intrusions into their texts, Boccaccio and Chaucer defend vernacular fiction as legitimate consolation and a necessary cultural medium. In doing so, both enter into a dialogue with Boethius. Schildgen discusses CT, in particular…
Scala, Elizabeth.
Journal x: A Journal in Culture and Criticism 4: 171-90, 2000.
Critical attempts to find structural cohesion or unity in CTare misguided. Instead of reading over or past the interruptions, omissions, and inconsistencies of the poem, we ought to recognize that, in many ways, its absences are central to its…
Phillips, Helen.
New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.
Discusses all of the Tales in Ellesmere order, surveying past and current critical approaches. Emphasizes the diversity of CT, discusses the narrative voice, and places the work in historical, political, and economic contexts. Concludes that Chaucer…
As a compilatio, CT is an experiment with a variety of popular narrative genres in which the limitations and possibilities of each genre are illuminated.
Kealy, J. Kieran.
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. 113-29.
Reads Ret as the "culminating moment in the progressive disillusionment" of the Canterbury fiction for poet and reader alike. SNT, CYT, and ManT together "systematically confront" medieval notions of truth and the ability of humans to know it,…
Kaye, Joel.
S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon, eds. Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice. (Leiden, New York, and Köln: Brill, 1998), pp. 371-403.
Discusses the "impact on . . . consciousness" of late-medieval European economic expansion, focusing on evidence in French and English chronicles and on reflections of the rise of bourgeois power in fabliaux, in the "technical language of finance and…
Jucker, Andreas H.
Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, and Matti Rissanen, eds. Placing Middle English in Context (Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 2000), pp. 369-89.
Classifies instances of verbal aggression within and across narrative layers in CT in several groups: direct, embedded, mediated, or indirect. Considers the speaker, the addressee, and the target of aggression, exploring twenty-two examples.
