Readings of selections from CT, translated by Nevill Coghill, including GP, KnT, MilPT, RvPT, PrPT, PardPT, WBPT, FrPT, SumPT, MerPT, and Ret. Read by Richard Breers, Alan Cumming, James Grout, Alex Jennings, Geoffrey Matthews, Richard Pasco, Tim…
Rush, Pauline.
Princeton, N.J.: Film for the Humanities and Sciences, 1998.
Introduction to the social and cultural milieu of CT, with narration by Roy Cane and discussion by Christiania Whitehead and Peter Mack. Includes selected readings in Middle English (by Vanessa Adye) and historical illustrations. Produced by…
Myerson, Jonathan, dir.
Cardiff: S4C, with HBO and BBC Wales, 1998.
Animated adaptation/retelling of NPT, KnT, and WBT, with interspersed selections from GP, each dramatized in a different style of animation. The tales are shortened, reduced to simplified plots. Two versions are included, one in modern English and…
Myerson, Jonathan, dir.
Cardiff: S4C, with HBO and BBC Wales, 1998.
Animated adaptation/retelling of MerT, PardT, and FranT, with interspersed selections from GP, each dramatized in a different style of animation. The tales are shortened, reduced to simplified plots. Two versions are included, one in modern English…
Moulton, Carroll.
Princeton, N.J. : Films for the Humanities, 1985; 1988; 1993.
Introduces the themes and genres of major works of Middle Engish, with special emphasis on Chaucer and CT. Narrated by Protase Woodford; produced by Stephen Mantell.
Gedalof, Alan, and Michael Moore.
Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 1996.
Gedalof and Moore discuss the Wife of Bath and WBPT in their social and literary contexts, especially as they reflect issues of male-female relations. Illustrations from historical manuscripts and paintings, and from contemporary visual…
Gallagher, Joe, dir.
Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 1993.
The MilT read in Middle English by Joe Gallagher (with modern subtitles) before an audience in medieval costume. Audience reactions emphasize meaning and humor.
Allen, Mark,and Bege K. Bowers.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20 (1998): 335-438.
Continuation of "Studies in the Age of Chaucer" annotated bibliography (since 1975); based on 1995 "MLA Bibliography" listings, contributions from an international bibliographic team, and independent research.
McCarl, Mary Rhinelander, ed.
New York and London: Garland, 1997.
Prints two versions of "The Plowman's Tale" (ca. 1400)--the 1533 edition originally intended for publication in Francis Thynne's 1532 edition of Chaucer's "Works" but suppressed and the 1606 edition by additional explanatory notes, a glossary and…
The attribution of "Testament of Love" and "The Plowman's Tale" to Chaucer seems to have had no unfavourable effect, though the acceptance of his authorship of "The Plowman's Tale" may have fueled the belief that Ret was a monkish forgery.
Chaucer's complaints develop a "poetics of agency" as they explore questions of subjectivity and causation. His most sophisticated complaint, Mars, presents "incompatible forms of causation" but makes them congruent poetically, achieving a…
Stevenson, Kay Gilliland.
Michel Bitot, ed., with Roberta Mullini and Peter Happe. Divers Toyes Mengled: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Culture in Honour of Andre Lascombes (Tours: Universite Francois Rabelais, 1996), pp. 27-42.
Explores literary and historical contexts that complicate reception of ABC, including works by Jean de Meun, Guillaume de Deguileville, and John Lydgate. Chaucer's stand-alone translation initiates an immediacy with its audience that is not apparent…
Valentine, Virginia Walker.
Virginia Walker Valentine. Chaucer's Knight: A Man Ther Was (Tampa, Fla.: Axelrod, 1994), pp. 25-33.
Though there are elements of courtly love in TC, the poem does not evaluate Criseyde by courtly standards. Instead, it shows her choosing the "lesser harm" of being unfaithful rather than endangered.
Utz, Richard J.
Hugo Keiper, Richard J. Utz, and Cristoph Bode, eds. Nominalism and Literary Discourse: New Perspectives (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997), pp. 123-44.
Surveys the critical history of "Lollius"--Chaucer's putative source for TC--and argues that the invention poses a poetic analogy to the absolute power of the nominalist God. By creating Lollius, Chaucer makes his general audience believe in the…
Spearing, A. C.
A. J. Minnis, Charlotte C. Morse, and Thorlac Turville-Petre, eds. Essays on Ricardian Literature: In Honour of J. A. Burrow (Oxford: Clarenden, 1997), pp. 1-22.
Surveys critical opinion about the narrator of TC, arguing that the narrator is not best regarded as unreliable, that it is difficult to separate narrator from author, and that is is unwise or impossible to construct a single stable narratorial…
Examines feminist and antifeminist readings Criseyde, arguing that--like Chaucer, who appropriates his sources, and like his narrator, who constantly negotiates and repositions himself in relation to Lollius--Criseyde performs, mimes, and parodies…
Ross, Valerie A.
Chaucer Review 31 (1997): 339-56.
Both Criseyde's dream in Bk. 2 and Troilus's dream in Bk. 5 of TC are generally understood in terms that debase Criseyde. But Chaucer's intertextual construction of these dreams and his reconstruction of Cassandra and Criseyde from his sources…
Quinn-Lang, Caitlin.
Will Wright and Steven Kaplan, eds. The Image of Nature in Literature, the Media, and Society (Pueblo, Colo.: Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, 1993), pp. 38-47.
Examines the literary backgrounds of the birds in TC to argue that the birds "carry with them themes of treachery and unnatural and sorrowful love"; they help depict the "dubious nature of temporal love."
Kolve, V. A.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 19 (1997): 3-59.
Documents the pictorial (24 b&w illus.) and intellectual traditions of the "fool...who says in his heart, There is no God," using the traditions as backdrop for analyzing "Folie de Tristan" and TC. In his love of Criseyde, Troilus is similar to the…
Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997.
Chaucer was the first to consider Boccaccio's stories tragedies. But unlike Boccaccio, who served a cautionary moralism and wished to stress retributive justice, Chaucer aimed primarily at sympathy and empathy, developing a generic theory that…
