Kraman, Cynthia.
Diane Watt, ed. Medieval Women in Communities (Toronto and Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 1997), pp. 138-54.
In MerT, the marginal communities of females and Jews maintain ambiguous statuses, serve as subtext to the "Tale," and assert the seductiveness of the suppressed. The ambiguity of the garden--exciting but exclusionary--is associated with female…
Cooke, Jessica.
English Studies 78 (1997): 407-16.
Medieval texts on the ages of humankind (such as "The Parlement of the Thre Ages") indicate that January of MerT is not extremely old or about to die; he is at the transition between middle and old age. May is in early stage of adulthood.
Stanbury, Sarah.
New Literary History 28 (1997): 261-89.
ClT is about visual investigation. Contemporary manuscript illumination, panel painting, and statuary are instructive for understanding Chaucer's representations of lines of sight framing the female body. Relying on complex tensions between an…
ClT is neither an affirmation of traditional hierarchies nor a critique of them, but rather an exploration of the ways individuals interact with social, marital, and spiritual authority. Michel de Certeau's notions of "intextuation" and…
Chaucer intensifies the voluntarist diction found in sources of ClT, thus urging a reconsideration of the "Tale's" principal characters and of the will of God as it was understood in late-fourteenth-century England.
Astell, Ann [W.]
Jeanette Beer, ed. Translation Theory and Practice in the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute, 1997), pp. 59-69.
The link of Griselda and Job in ClT recalls Saint Gregory's "Moralia" in Job, which "translates" Job as feminine. In casting Job as a female figure, Chaucer reveals the contradictions and misogyny of Gregory's exegesis.
Roy, Bruno.
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. 17-25.
A late-fifteenth-century French riddle about the dividing of a fart cites Chaucer as the solution, evidence that SumT was known at the time in France.
Hanks, D. Thomas, Jr.
Chaucer Yearbook 4 (1997): 33-43.
SumP and various puns in SumT not only transform Friar John into a fart but also indicate that his prayers invert the Pentecostal wind and "suggest that his brethern share his odious nature."
Brundage, James A.
Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler, eds. Desire and Sexuality in the Premodern West (Toronto; Buffalo, N.Y.; and London: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 23-41.
Cites FrT as evidence that the archdeacon's court and its officers were "bitterly disliked," in turn evidence of the gap between legal norms of sexual behavior and actual practice in medieval Europe.
The questioning of the fiend by the Summoner in FrT echoes "Purgatorio" 25. Both humans (Dante and the summoner) ask material questions of their supernatural guides; both guides direct the questions to the realm of the spiritual. The place of both…
In WBP, the Wife delivers not a sermon but a mock legal case. Her reasoning is typical of courtroom reasoning, and (like lawyers) she buries her argument in rhetoric. Her unwritten law of marriage triumphs over the written laws of St. Paul, thus…
Speed, Diane.
Sydney Studies in English 22 (1996): 3-14.
Comparison of WBT with its analogues reveals Chaucer's manipulation of generic expectations to create a sequence of "evocations and subversions of romance optimism." The hero's conventional quest is supplanted by "a textual quest on the part of the…
Solopova, Elizabeth.
Norman Blake and Peter Robinson, eds. The Canterbury Tales Project Occasional Papers, Volume II (London: King's College, Office for Humanities Communications, 1997), pp. 133-42.
Analyzes the manuscript variants of the so-called added passages of WBP, concluding that the passages were composed by Chaucer and that they extend from a single exemplar, probably an unfinished authorial draft.
Smith, Warren S.
Chaucer Review 32 (1997): 129-45.
In WBP, the Wife takes not an extremist position on marriage but rather a centralist one, often adhering to the doctrine of Augustine. By burning Jankin's book and by according husbands bliss after she attains "mastery," Alisoun refutes the…
Olivares Merino, Eugenio M.
Margarita Gimenez Bon and Vickie Olsen, eds. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval Language and Literature (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Dpto. Filologia Inglesa, 1997), pp. 222-29.
Focuses on the presentation of polygamy, virginity, and sexuality in WBT, using St. Paul's teachings as a background.
Kennedy, Beverly.
Norman Blake and Peter Robinson, eds. The Canterbury Tales Project Occasional Papers, Volume II (London: King's College, Office for Humanities Communications, 1997), pp. 23-39.
Argues that two distinct scribal attitudes toward the Wife of Bath can be perceived: a misogynous scholarly response typical of one manuscript family, and a more sympathetic popular response typical of another. Considers evidence from WBP,…
Henebry, Charles W. M.
Chaucer Review 32 (1997): 146-61.
Working through WBP at various points in his writing career, Chaucer conceived of changing the character "Janekyn" to make him "Jankyn," the Wife's fifth husband. Thus, the character changes from an apprentice to a scholar boarding with the Wife to…
Hahn, Thomas.
Thomas Hahn and Alan Lupack, eds. Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck (Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1997.), pp. 91-108.
In drafting learned sources (Ovid, Boethius, Dante) onto the core of a popular story, WBT generates a form of romance with appeal for "serious" readers; the appeal of this genre rests not on marvels and adventure but on individual fulfillment through…
Green, Richard Firth.
Helen Cooper and Sally Mapstone, eds. The Long Fifteenth Century: Essays for Douglas Gray (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), pp. 163-84.
Surveys ballad scholarship and argues that exploration of medieval ballads has value for broader study, suggesting, for example, that "King Henry" provides useful contexts for the gentility speech in WBT.
Fleming, John V.
Thomas Hahn and Alan Lupack, eds. Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck (Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 73-90.
The sources for the Wife of Bath's performance as exegete--and the authorities she cites in her "Tale" (in particular Ovid,for the Midas story)--make clear that the underlying theme and conflict in WBPT concern "surface and substance, letter and…
Erzgräber, Willi.
Clausdirk Pollner, Helmut Rohlfing, and Frank-Rutger Hausmann, eds. Bright Is the Ring of Words: Festschrift fur Horst Weinstck zum 65 Geburtstag (Bonn: Romanistischer Verlag, 1996), pp. 75-82.
Compares Molly Bloom's concluding monologue with WBP, assessing the two characters' views on sexuality and euphemism and their relations with their husbands.
Delasanta, Rodney [K.]
Providence: Studies in Western Culture 3 (1996): 285-310.
Assesses the Wife of Bath's admissions of lying, her glossings of Scripture, and her sexual punning as "nominalistic discourse" underpinned by her preference for the empirical and experiential over the universal. Disagrees with feminist readings of…
Silar, Theodore I.
Notes and Queries 242 (1997): 306-9.
Citing examples from feudal law and practice, Silar argues that MLT 2.168 has a specific legal sense and should be translated "[Custance's] hand, in which the right to grant estates in the feudal tenure of frankalmoign."
Shoaf, R[ichard] A[llen].
Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., ed. Dante Now: Current Trends in Dante Studies (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), pp. 189-203.
Arguing that Chaucer was more deeply influenced by Dante than is generally accepted, Shoaf demonstrates Chaucer's dependence on Dante in MLT.
