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…
Chaucerian pathos derives from the rigidity of fourteenth-century social hierarchies. In KnT, pity brings the ruler and ruled closer together; ClT advocates Christ-like endurance and humility for the weak and God-like justice and mercy for the…
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…
As a triad, MkT, Mk-NPL, and NPT present such a variety of motifs, themes, and nuances that one must be mindful of their multiplicity and not reduce their reading to a "hevy" tragedy or a performance of "sentence" alone, thus falling prey to the…
The context of CT changes the meaning of SNT. Although SNT is a clear statement of the 'right path,' ParsT reminds us at the end that we cannot come close to following that path. Spiritual perfection is rare; for the rest of us there are remedies…
Heffernan, Carol F.
Chaucer Review 32 (1997): 32-45.
SqT is Chaucer's one foray into the genre of "interlace" romance, where characters and episodes are treated, then dropped, and subsequently treated again. SqT is not a parody like Th; it is a different genre that Chaucer wanted to try. He did not…
Chaucer's NPT tests the limits of the fable tradition. Containing two complete fables--one from the first half (ending with the cock's downfall and capture) and another from the second (don't open your mouth)--the "Tale" combines to form a third…
Finds parallels between FranT and Chretien de Troyes's "Eric and Enid" as both courtly texts and antiadulterous ones. Chaucer's contribution to the dialectic is the integration of "fin'amour" with Truth expressed as Christian virtue, defending…
Chaucer's choice of this version of the saint's life allows him to portray the interests of a female teller and to fuse masculine and feminine ideals. We hear Cecilia's strident voice and experience her powers of articulation. Further, the hair shirt…
Chaucer writes in a "highly literate cultural code of poetry," which reveals the evolving persona of the poet. It is possible that he read HF aloud in installments and that the original ending--reflecting, no doubt, some crisis at court--was…
Chaucer refuses to allow closure in TC, either for Troilus or for the poem itself. For Chaucer, transgression is inevitable, closure is impossible, and the poet seems to "celebrate" this fact.
Silar, Theodore I.
Chaucer Review 32 (1998): 284-309.
The repetition of "fin" (the settlement of a fictitious suit) at the ending of TC has many legal overtones. It evokes "landholding," "harmonization of contrary positions," and "legal fiction," as in a legal suit for which there is, as in TC, a…
Bolens, Guillemette, and Paul Beekman Taylor.
Chaucer Review 32 (1998): 325-34.
At the beginning of BD, the Black Knight has an inaccurate conception of how chess is played. The misconception must be corrected by the narrator as the poem progresses and before the castle bell strikes midday and the game, the hunt, and the poem…
The "Britoun book, written with Evaungiles," on which Constance's false accuser swears before being struck dead, is likely to have been a Latin gospel book illuminated in Celtic. Such a book (like the Gospel of Gildas) was said to have the power…
PF offers an example of Chaucer's intertextuality. The two "olde bokys" mentioned--Macrobius's commentary on "Somnium Scipionis" and Alain de Lille's "De planctu naturae"--inform the themes of suffering in love and the limitations of natural law in…
DeVries, David N.
Chaucer Review 32 (1998): 391-99.
Despite David Wallace's assertion that London is "absent" in Chaucer, and D. W. Robertson's contention that medieval Londoners were content within "an hierarchical classless society," CT depicts London as an "underworld," where unscrupulous…
Dobbs, Elizabeth Ann
Chaucer Review 32 (1998): 400-22.
TC contains a series of images of windows both open and closed, which are added to (or changed from) Chaucer's sources and which provide a commentary on the relationships between the lovers. Views out of windows are limited views, or "fictions,"…
In TC, Deiphebus serves as an important foil to Troilus. He exposes Troilus not only as weak and inadequate but also as human, something Hector is not.
Griselda's response to Walter at crucial points in the narrative--when he has "killed" her children and when he has banished her from the palace so he can take another "wife"--underscores his appalling behavior and demonstrates the ways outward…
A close reading of passages in KnT reveals Chaucer's close familiarity with the medieval construction industry. Although Chaucer supervised building rather than creating buildings, as a poet, he is supreme master over his own creative process.
Purdon, Liam O., and Julian N. Wasserman.
Chaucer Review 33 (1998): 112-15.
Chaucer's somewhat unusual association of his Franklin with food may reflect the frequent migration of the Exchequer from Westminster to York and the prioritizing of the York food trade as a result. The Franklin may have been a York franklin who…
Like "Inferno" 5, PF contains references to Earthly Paradise and Hell, the dream, and the fate of those who attend to private lusts. Dante compares the plight of souls to that of several kinds of birds, including three of the four bird categories in…
Lucas, Angela M.
Chaucer Review 33 (1998): 123-45.
January's comparison of looking for a bride to reflections in a mirror evokes associations of limited and distorted vision, of two-dimensional representations, and of reversals of left and right. This image of "imperfect vision" is reflected in…
If the Parson represents the Church, the Ploughman represents lay piety in brotherhood with the Church. This is how Chaucer perceives the poet's role: as a "'trewe swynkere,' working 'for Cristes sake, for every povre wight' in accordance with the…
