Carruthers, Mary (J.)
Representations 93 (2006): 1-21.
Carruthers reevaluates Troilus's weeping and lamentation in Book 4 of TC in the context of monastic tradition, including the works of Peter of Celle and Galen, that sees links "among perception, sensation, and rational process."
Carruthers, Mary (J.)
Journal of Narrative Technique 2 (1972): 208-14.
Argues that FrT and SumT "explore the question of true meaning in far-reaching ways." Concerned with "externals" only, the Friar's summoner ignores intention, while the Friar himself (a "false glossator" though described as worthy) "cannot properly…
Carruthers, Mary [J.]
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 21: 3-26, 1999.
Confronts questions of canonicity, the "value" of literature, and the relations between language and literature, encouraging members of the New Chaucer Society to help revitalize the role of language study. Equipped with a historical sense of how no…
Carruthers, Mary [J.]
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. 67-87.
Medieval memory is inherently social and constructive, playing a central role in the process of composition and thus BD is best understood in the context not of psychology but of rhetoric, as an "act of public mourning, of public remembering."
Carruthers, Mary [J.]
Chris Humphrey and W. M. Ormrod, eds. Time in the Medieval World (Suffolk: York Medieval Press, 2001), pp. 137-55.
Like tense-switching and first-person point of view, the use of the "historical present" by Chaucer and the Gawain poet illustrates how medieval authors could convincingly remember and authenticate the stories they told. The past is the time of…
Carruthers, Mary J.
John V. Fleming and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 2, 1986 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1987), pp. 179-88.
Concerns the influence upon Chaucer exerted by the "rhetorica ad herennium," specifically in the art of memory training, which was largely ignored in medieval commentary until it was revived in Italy. Both Dante and Chaucer make use of the…
Carruthers, Mary J.
Chaucer Review 17 (1983): 221-34.
Some medieval readers or hearers would have considered ClT incredible or cruel. The Clerk agrees with the Wife that gentilesse means "trouthe," fidelity and integrity.
The Franklin is a gentleman with old-fashioned but praise-worthy standards. FranT treats the fourteenth-century interdependent virtues of "trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie" (A46)--moral values in ambiguous wrappings.
Alisoun has learned through experience that her marital happiness depends upon practical economic control rather than on surrender to the ideals of feminine subservience espoused by authorities. Her tale parodies these authorities in its…
Carruthers, Mary J.
Robert R. Edwards, ed. Art and Context in Late Medieval English Narrative: Essays in Honor of Robert Worth Frank, Jr (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994), pp. 93-106.
Carruthers explores the role of memory, one of the five divisions of classical rhetoric, in composing and understanding medieval poetry. Works such as "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and Chaucer's KnT are "memory-friendly" because images…
Argues that the Frontispiece of the 1420 manuscript of TC (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61) demonstrates a medieval tradition of textuality that is not only oral and aural but social, and an example of group textuality in which words and…
Carruthers, Mary.
Charlotte Brewer and Barry Windeatt, eds. Traditions and Innovations in the Study of Middle English Literature: The Influence of Derek Brewer (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2013), pp. 73-87.
Focuses on how Troilus's "disciplined imagination" can be viewed through an understanding of "rhetoric's ancient connection with moral philosophy."
Carruthers, Mary.
Ardis Butterfield, Ian Johnson, and Andrew Kraebel, eds. Literary Theory and Criticism in the Later Middle Ages: Interpretation, Invention, Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), pp. 206-19.
Explores the roles of distress, dislocation, and thoughtfulness in medieval academic discourse, theology, and literary invention. Includes comments on the scene of encountering marvels in SqT (81ff., esp. 189–95)--among the "many [examples] to…
Carson, M. Angela.
Chaucer Review 1.3 (1967): 157-60.
Contrasts the "tone, circumstance and result" of the Ceyx and Alcyone story and the grief of the Black Knight in BD, suggesting that the contrasts in the heart/herte hunt emphasize the consolation of Chaucer's poem.
Carson, M. Angela.
Annuale Mediaevale 8 (1967): 46-58.
Argues that BD draws on Welsh mythology for a number of its details including the king named Octavian, the hunt motif, and the "white castle on a rich hill." King Octavian is a "composite figure" with several onomastic resonances.
Carson, Mother Angela, O.S.U.
American Notes and Queries 6.09 (1968): 135-36.
Explains Criseyde's comment about Troilus in TC 3.88 in light of the Feast of Fools, suggesting that it means she considers him neither a fool nor "too bold or irreverent."
The use of "gnof" to describe John the carpenter is appropriate because it suggests "churl" and "numbskull" and further emphasizes the "ease with which John is hoodwinked."
Carter, Ronnie D, and David G. Bailey.
Chaucer Review 34: 236-41, 1999.
Polish academic writing on Chaucer follows a political pattern. Retreating from politically charged topics, students and professors have concentrated on linguistics topics, such as morphology, syntax, semantics, and loanwords. Most "literary"…
Carter, Susan Ann.
Dissertation Abstracts International 62: 1403A, 2001.
Examines loathly ladies in Irish myth, Chaucer (WBT), Gower ("Florent"), Dame Ragnell, Thomas of Erceldoune, and ballads, focusing on two loci--court and forest--and kinds of power. Also examines the political significance of the refiguration of…
Chaucer's WBT destabilizes gender roles rather than focusing on the issues of kingship at the core of most of the loathly-lady tales. WBT engages issues of personal power politics as it creates a lively, garrulous character, but the moral lies in the…
Assesses Spenser's Duessa in light of WBT and its Middle English analogues, exploring how Spenser turned the Irish sovereignty motif against the Irish.
Carter, Susan.
S. Elizabeth Passmore and Susan Carter, eds. The English "Loathly Lady" Tales: Boundaries, Traditions, Motifs (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007), pp. 83-99.
Because the loathly lady in WBT is not enchanted but is a shape-shifter under her own power, she likely is not virginal. Carter explores the implications of this likelihood, as well as parallel concerns in WBT and several analogues.
Carter, Thomas H.
Shenandoah: The Washington & Lee University Review 11.3 (1960): 48-60.
Offers impressionistic appreciation of ways that Chaucer "naturalized and made his own the continental traditions," with particular attention to the conventions of courtly love. Comments on a range of short poems: ABC, Mars, Ros, FormAge, Scog, Buk,…
Astr (and probably Equat) may serve to show that Chaucer was not merely curious about astronomy but was, in the modern sense, an active amateur who made astronomical observations.
