Fayne, Gwendolyn D.
Ulrich Müller and Kathleen Verduin, eds. Papers from the Fifth Annual General Conference on Medievalism 1990 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1996), pp. 73-82.
In his modernization of WBT, John Dryden diminishes the "egalitarian" views of Chaucer's original and presents an outlook that is distinctly less feminist.
Rose, Christine M.
Maud Burnett McInerney, ed. Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays. Garland Medieval Casebooks, no. 20; Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, no. 2037. (New York and London: Garland, 1998), pp. 191-226.
Explores representations of the mother-in-law as a figure of Jewry and the synagogue in Western literary tradition. Although MLT overtly poses the Orient as the malevolent Other through the Sultaness, it also suggests in veiled ways that Jews…
Lucas, Angela.
Brian Cosgrove, ed. Literature and the Supernatural: Essays for the Maynooth Bicentenary (Blackrock, Ireland: Columba, 1996), pp. 11-32.
Assesses FranT in light of the conventions of the genre of the Breton lay: prologue, setting, rash promise, magic, impossible task, love triangle, and love. According to Lucas, the distortion of these conventions indicates that the Franklin does not…
The riddle at the end of FranT-who is the most "fre"?-distracts the reader from the central issues of the Tale, namely the concept of the "Real" (Pierre Macherey) and questions of gender. Although Dorigen is apparently excluded from the answer to the…
Chaucer drew from more than one segment of Filocolo to design FranT. He incorporated the larger frame narrative of Florio and Biancafiore, a tale of Byzantine origin that allowed him to draw on various elements of the copious and complicated…
Ambrisco, Alan Scott.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 1569A, 1999.
In medieval thinking, cannibalism became a marker setting off the Christian West from the barbarian East. Gradually, cannibalism came to be perceived sometimes figuratively, involving both the self and the other and a sense of identity. Ambrisco…
Miyajima, Sumiko.
Research Activities (Faculty of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Denki University) 21: 39-51, 1999.
Assesses Griselda of ClT in light of the folkloric tradition of the "Chichevache," said to have eaten ideal wives in medieval Europe. Includes visual representations of the legendary beast and describes the relations of ClT to its sources.
Somerset, Fiona.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 21: 187-207, 1999.
SumT reflects contemporary controversy about the loss of clerical prerogative. The translation of Latin to English in the Tale, as well as its transfer of clerical authority and power to the laity, indicates Chaucer's lampooning of the posturing of…
Olson, Glending.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 21: 209-45, 1999.
Explores a variety of practices and meanings associated with Pentecost in Chaucer's time as context for a nuanced understanding of responses to SumT, especially its ending, which parodies the feast. In addition to traditional iconography, dramatic…
Whitaker, Muriel A.
Chaucer Review 34: 174-89, 1999.
Did Chaucer commission the chest in the London Museum with scenes from PardT? The poet could have supervised its adherence to the literary source and added the hunting fox as a symbol for the Pardoner. He might have chosen the cheaper elm rather than…
Wada, Yoko.
Hisayuki Sasamoto et al., eds. Hearts to the English-American Language and Literature: Essays Presented to Emeritus Professor Sutezo Hirose in Honour of His 88th Birthday (Osaka: Osaka Kyoiku Tosho, 1999), pp. 209-20 (in Japanese).
Assesses the swearing by St. Ronyon in PardP and explores its dark ironies.
The Pardoner masks his questionable oral and sexual potency by conspicuously exhibiting his "bulles" and using them to assert power. These documents remain valid despite their dissonance with the spiritual nature of the Pardoner. PardT demonstrates…
In PardT, the youngest thief's use of "capouns" rather than "hennes" or "coks" functions both realistically, as an indicator of the value of the chickens, and symbolically, as a reminder of the sterility of the Pardoner.
Page, Colleen Barcel.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 1124-25A, 1999.
The medieval "ars dictaminis" evolved from fusion of rhetorical theory and letter-writing practice. Though originally an all-male art, epistolary form eventually became accessible to women. Examines PardT and other works.
Dinshaw, Carolyn.
Carolyn Dinshaw. Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern (Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 100-142.
Explores how the Pardoner and his interruption of WBP challenge the heteronormativity of CT. The opening lines of GP and WBT establish a heterosexual norm that the presence of the Pardoner challenges by making clear the constructed and contestable…
Bullough, Vern L.,with Gwen Whitehead Brewer.
Jacqueline Murray, ed. Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West. Garland Medieval Casebooks, no. 25; Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, no. 2078 (New York and London: Garland, 1999), pp. 93-110.
By making the Pardoner offensive, Chaucer "established a negative stereotype of the effeminate male in Western literature." Modern critical tradition perpetuates the negative stereotype, often ignoring the fact that the Canterbury society tolerates…
Prior, Sandra Pierson.
Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl, eds. Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), pp. 165-80.
PhyT combines several conflicting ideas of virginity: its role in confronting the "ritualized violence of sacrifice," its emphasis on "bodily wholeness," and its "figuration of innocence and purity." In comparison with its sources, PhyT emphasizes…
Walker, Warren S.
Chaucer Review 33: 432-37, 1999.
Turkish tales that parallel the folkloric formula at the end of FranT-"Which was the noblest act?"-generally treat who is the most ignoble. So many Turkish stories fall into this category that Chaucer's Knight may have "previewed a performance"…
In PrT, as in much canonical medieval literature, Jews are largely voiceless and depicted as vile. The lamentations, or "kinot," of Hebrew liturgical poets who mourn the Jewish victims of the crusades record the voices of medieval Jews. The imagery…
Hobbs, Kathleen M.
Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl, eds. Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), pp. 181-98.
Although women and Jews were "equivalent others" in medieval orthodoxy, the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity enabled the Church to sever the "historical ties between Christianity and Judaism" and to "exalt itself as a fixed and timeless…
Godfrey, Mary F.
Thomas A. Prendergast and Barbara Kline, eds. Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority, and the Idea of the Authentic Text, 1400-1602 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999), pp. 93-115.
PrT is anthologized apart from CT in three fifteenth-century manuscripts (Harley 1704, 2251, and 2382) that indicate that the Jews of the Tale were mere "stock villains of Marian legends." The manuscripts (variants and glosses) provide no evidence…
Examines an "uncanny chain of othering" whereby the GP description of the Prioress, the PrP, and PrT associate the Prioress with Jews through imagery of sensuality and filth. Also explores how this association reflects the "fears and fantasies" of…
Since PrT is set in Islamic "Asia," the anti-Semitism of PrT makes little historical sense, since medieval Muslims accepted Judaism in ways Christianity did not. Chaucer's knowledge of Jews and Muslims has been underestimated, even suppressed, a…
