Huntsman, Jeffrey F.
Modern Philology 73 (1976): 276-79.
Medieval English and Latin dictionaries such as the "Medulla gramatice" can often be of great value in textual criticism,offering solutions to several Chaucerian cruces: "stot" (CT III, 1630) "whore"; "nakers" (CT I, 2511) "horns"; "astromye" (CT I,…
Gilbert, Dorothy.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1976): 288A.
Chaucer's line shows tension between accentual-syllabic meter and strong stress. The result is a complex prosody full of variety. Chaucer's prosody should be studied in texts that use the virgule because modern punctuation blurs the prosody.
Bachman, W. Bryant,Jr.
English Language Notes 13 (1976): 168-73.
The appearance of Mercury in Arcite's dream is usually thought to be derived from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses', I. A more probable source, however, is Virgil's 'Aeneid', IV, where Mercury commands the hero to hasten on to Italy, just as in Chaucer Arcite…
Brown, Emerson,Jr.
George D. Economou, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Collection of Original Articles (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976), pp. 37-54.
Chaucer's poetry is highly dependent on Latin, French, and Italian works and genres, and on medieval thought in general. In his day his various works represented stages in the development of different medieval literary traditions; he borrowed from…
McGregor, James Harvey.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1976): 276A-77A.
Dante and Chaucer in effect parody classical tragedy while adapting their Ovidian imitations to a medieval notion of tragic form. They preserve the notion of suffering into truth, but they focus on the truth to be gained by the reader from the…
Spiegel, Harriet.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1976): 2855A.
The romances of Chretien and Chaucer introduced the psychologically self-conscious character into medieval literature. KnT and TC make a distinction between the socially defined male, and the psychologically individualized female.
Weiher, Carol.
English Language Notes 14 (1976): 7-9.
Gower's tales of Lucretia and Virginia in "Confessio Amantis" VII are exempla of the fates of lecherous rulers; however, Chaucer's versions of these stories (in LGW and PhyT, respectively) focus, not on the villains, but instead on the admirable…
Wenzel, Siegfried.
Studies in Philology 73 (1976): 138-61.
The influence of sermon language and structure has been recognized in certain of Chaucer's characterizations. However, his reliance on contemporary preaching obviously goes beyond such loose imitation to the borrowing of story plots, images, and…
Pasolini in his "Canterbury Tales" identifies himself as Chaucer because his central concern is relationship of artist to art, focusing on sexuality and morality. The Merchant's Tale and Wife's Prologue show respectability cloaking lust; the Friar's…
Thompson, Ann.
Yearbook of English Studies 6 (1976): 26-37.
Aside from questions of direct borrowings, "Romeo and Juliet" has much in common with TC. Resemblances include handling of characters, attitudes toward love and death, the use of comedy within the tragedy, imagery, and the overall shape of the…
David, Alfred.
Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1976.
As Chaucer struggled to reconcile "auctorite" and "experience" the concern in his poetry evolved from "love celestial" to "love of kynde." In TC the moralist in Chaucer opposes the artist, and the poem's didactic failure is its artistic success. …
Economou, George D., ed.
George D. Economou, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Collection of Original Articles (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976) pp. 1-14.
Chaucerian study has given rise to differing though complementary schools of criticism, as exemplified by Kittredge, Robertson, Donaldson, etc. The relationship of MilT and RvT exhibits Chaucer's power as an innovator.
Hanning, Robert W.
George D. Economou, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Collection of Original Articles. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976) pp. 15-36.
The opposing artistic impulses toward imposing order on experience and toward reproducing life natualistically are both evident in Chaucer's works, especially CT. This thematic tension is apparent in the overall design, in sequences of tales, and in…
Poetic truth cannot be confined by rigidly orthodox theories of literary criticism. D. W. Robertson, Jr.'s reading of ClT, for example, as a moral fable of "the duties of the Christian soul as it is tested by its Spouse" effectively inhibits any…
Indictor, Rina M.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1976): 1531A.
TC is used (along with later works) to draw conclusions about authorial self-consciousness. There are applications to the "persona" and the author's fictionalization of his audience.
Beckman, Sabina.
College Language Association Journal 20 (1976): 68-74.
In TC, though color words are sparsely used, green, red, blue, white, black are tellingly employed, frequently serving symbolically to connote psychological states of being, sexuality, and emotions, particularly in relation to "eros" and "agape."
Kirk, Elizabeth D.
George D. Economou, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Collection of Original Articles (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976), pp. 111-27.
Chaucer shares literary conventions with the writers of his age. Both he and Gower use framed stories, Chaucer exploiting to the fullest both frame and story. Langland and Chaucer share the use of symbols, but Chaucer's are more expansive. Chaucer…
The friendship-brotherhood motif plays a significant role in Chaucer's poetry. A survey of this theme suggests that friendship between men, whether genuine or simulated, has a negative and even destructive influence on the characters.
Justman, Stewart Martin.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1976): 3607A.
Theoretical "auctoritee" and "auctoritee" as misunderstood by characters in Chaucer are worlds apart. Chaucer was more interested in the violability than in the inviolability of "auctoritee." Many of the Canterbury Tales depend on cases which…
Koretsky, Allen C.
Annuale Mediaevale 17 (1976): 22-47.
Chaucer's chivalric heroes embody the theme of moral "gentilesse," though these knights are often depicted as corrigibly flawed in their characters. The romances emphasize their private lives (especially in love) over purely military or spectacular…
Bachman, William Bryant,Jr.
Dissertation Abstracts International 36 (1976): 6696A.
By the fourteenth century Augustinian idealism had lost ground to rising confidence in the experiential world. TC, KnT, FranT, and NPT all reveal the movement towards determinism. The idealism of the ParsT forms an opposition to this movement.
Julius, Patricia Ward.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1976): 3606A-07A.
BD and HF show thematic unity of conflict between appearance (attractive externals) and reality (the authority of books). Replacing reality with worship for the artificial, mutable object is error.
