Knowles, Dom David.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955.
Part of a three-volume study, this volume addresses the "history of the religious orders [monastic and mendicant] in England from the Pontificate of Benedict XII to the end of the strife between the houses of York and Lancaster," considering a…
Trudeau, Lawrence J., ed.
Poetry Criticism. Volume 155 (Detroit: Gale, 2014), pp. 187-343.
Describes the place of MilPT in CT, summarizing its plot, major characters, major themes, and critical reception. Includes a selection of seventeen excerpts from previously printed critical studies (1956–2006), and a brief, annotated bibliography…
Trudeau, Lawrence J., ed.
Poetry Criticism. Volume 58 (Detroit: Gale, 2005), pp. 227-373. (Detroit: Gale, 2005), pp. 227-373.
Sketches the biography of Chaucer, and describes the place of WBPT in CT, summarizing its plot, major characters, major themes, and critical reception. Includes a selection of sixteen excerpts from previously printed critical studies (1970–2002),…
Introduces Chaucer and his world, with sections on his life, English history, and culture; the lyrics and short poems; translations and "minor" poems (including TC and the dream visions), and CT, with discussion of manuscripts, the order of the…
Assesses parallels between PrT and the "liturgy of the Feat of the Holy Innocents" (mass, vespers, etc.), a source likely to have been known to Chaucer. Also labels PrT a "devotional" tale, sharing distinctive similarities of imagery and symbolism…
Stroud, Theodore A.
College English 17 (1955): 109-10.
Identifies modern analogues to ShT and Boccaccio's "Decameron" 8.1 in Thomas Menkel's 1946 short story, "Secret Debt," and Menkel's reported source in a "Scotch joke," surmising general transmission of the tale.
Stillwell, Gardiner.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 54 (1955): 693-99. Rpt. in Studies by Members of the English Department, University of Illinois, in Memory of John Jay Parry. Essay Index Reprint Series. [Urbana]: University of Illinois Press, 1968, pp. 212-18.
Identifies predecessors in Old French fabliaux for courtly details, diction, locutions, and situations in MilT and RvT, helping to create comic irony by contrast between "elegance and 'harlotrye.'"
Speaight, George.
New York: John de Graff, [1955].
A sweeping survey of puppets, puppeteering, puppet shows, and their cultural legacy in England. Surmises briefly (p. 52) that "popet" (Th 7.701) and "popelote" (MilT 1.3254) may evince knowledge of puppet performance in Chaucerian England, but also…
Shain, Charles E.
Modern Language Notes 70 (1955): 235-45.
Considers the "pulpit rhetoric" of PardPT, the friar in SumT, and MerT, arguing that they all share general techniques, imagery, and symbols of medieval sermons, without following strictly the structural formality of "artes praedicandi." Observes…
Sells, A. Lytton.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955.
Assesses the influence--direct and mediated--of Italian literature on English poetry from Chaucer to Robert Southwell (excluding verse drama), considering issues of meter and style as well as plot, atmosphere, and theme. Opens with appreciative…
Schoeck, Richard J.
The Bridge: A Yearbook of Judaeo-Christian Studies 2 (1955): 239-55.
Argues that Chaucer's characterization of the Prioress in GP "leaves shadows of doubt" about the Prioress, along with "several kinds of uncertainty" and some "strong implications" for the audience. Further, in PrT, her "own words . . . convict her of…
Schoeck, R[ichard]. J.
Notes and Queries 200 (1955): 140.
Lends authority to Gerard Legh's claims about Chaucer's status at the Inner Temple (and writing HF for a ceremony there) by adducing Legh's "standing as a heraldist."
Schaar, Claes.
Lund: Gleerup, 1955. Rpt. 1967, with an Index.
Introduces the conventions of "impersonal" style based in classical rhetoric and developed in medieval rhetorical handbooks Then anatomizes the characteristics of Chaucer's descriptive techniques in relation to his "predecessors and contemporaries,"…
Rosenthal, M. L., and A. J. M. Smith.
New York: Macmillan, 1955.
Introduces "the study of poetry," suitable for classroom use. A section on "Implied Argument: Irony and Ambiguity" includes a reading of PardT 6.728-33 that suggests a "profound idea wells up in this passage--the idea that we cannot conceive of…
