Bestul reexamines the relevant evidence and shows that Chaucer lived at 179 Upper Thames Street rather than at 177. The study illuminates the history of scholarly politics and of conflicting "historical paradigms" behind the 1966 "Chaucer…
Hoccleve's authorial identity develops through "borrowings and echoes" derived from TC: "Boethian dialogue; diseased language; and gendered subjects." These allusions work as conjurings--understood as both invocation and exorcism--of the "spectral…
Chaucer's uses of parliamentary terminology throughout KnT, but especially in Saturn's counsel to Venus and in Theseus's "First Mover" speech, establish a parallel between divine and human realms, revealing "the abuse of power and authority" in…
Quinn, William A.
Chaucer Review 43 (2008): 171-96.
Chaucer's interest throughout HF in the nature of phantoms--from dreams to spirits of the dead--ultimately reflects a single "immediate concern: the survival of his rehearsal of the dream in script, that is, the translation of his voice into our…
Winstead, Karen A.
Chaucer Review 43 (2009): 239-59.
By assigning his English translation of Raymund of Pennaforte's "orthodox" yet "contritionist" "Summa de poenitentia" to the Parson, Chaucer subtly resists the emphasis on oral confession to priests that characterized the doctrine of penance of his…
Chaucer's uses of "verray felicitee parfit" and "verray parfit" evince his engagement with Boethius's concern with "the true and everlasting good, the 'summum bonum'" in the "Consolation of Philosophy." Whether meant ironically or used in the spirit…
Despite abundant evidence of their being held in high regard by contemporary society, male oaths of friendship are consistently "satirized, broken, and/or ridiculed" in Chaucer's works, suggesting "an overarching distrust of such relationships" on…
Its fierce anti-Semitism notwithstanding, "Titus and Vespasian" is an important document of cultural uses of the "fall-of-Jerusalem narrative" and of attitudes toward Jews and Judaism in late medieval England. Thus, it deserves scholarly attention…
The essays in this special issue (43.4) of the "The Chaucer Review" open new perspectives on Chaucer's works, placing them in the context of the "new impulses toward quantification and measurement" in and beyond late medieval England.
Bradbury, Nancy Mason, and Carolyn P. Collette.
Chaucer Review 43 (2009): 351-75.
Bradbury and Collette survey historical records and literary representations of clocks in works by Jean Froissart, Henry Suso, Philippe de Mézières, and Christine de Pizan. The article counters the notion that the mechanical clock caused a sudden…
Ransom, Daniel J.
Chaucer Review 43 (2009): 376-99.
An examination of Chaucer's use of temporal terminology--from references to "eternity and perpetuity" to references to seconds and moments, including seasons, days, nights, and hours--suggests that he uses such terminology with a modicum of…
Walts, Dawn Simmons.
Chaucer Review 43 (2009): 400-413.
In MilT, Nicholas's real and reputed knowledge of astrology convinces John of the upcoming Flood, evidence that the clerk has spent his time well in learning the science of reckoning time. Indeed, in contrast to the carpenter, the educated clerk has…
By framing his "Pentacostal parody" within a parody of fourteenth-century English academics' preoccupation with measuring "both physical and metaphysical realities," Chaucer registers "a cautious but not gloomy attitude" regarding the spectrum of…
As knight, sheriff, and "contour" (I.359), the Franklin is the quintessential late medieval county "bureaucrat," whose duties provided incentives both to disclose and to hide the financial information to which he was privy. From its "dramatic irony"…
Boethius's "prosimetrum" lets readers experience the "consolation of temporality" that Philosophy offers. In Bo, Chaucer demonstrates his understanding of this consolation by highlighting Philosophy's references to time; however, by rendering the…
Chaucer's sensitivity to the "cultural survival" of Wales is suggested in three moments in HF: the insinuation that Wales is near the river of forgetfulness through a visual pun on "Cymerie" (73); the citation of an unknown and hence implicitly…
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Chaucer Review 44 (2009): 110-13.
The clear erotic context of the blacksmith's response to Absolon's late-night visit supports a gloss of "viritoot" as a derivation of "the Latin ablative cum virtute," meaning 'with manly ardor.'
Ironic readings of the GP portrait of the Knight are undermined by an understanding of the medieval ideals of "honor," "prudence," and "moral goodness" and by recognition of their signs in the Knight's portrait. An understanding of the medieval…
A study of works featuring the test-of-love motif argues for including FranT among them rather than among narratives employing the motif of the "maiden's rash promise." However, by devising a "test" for Dorigen's suitor that expresses her concern for…
Beidler, Peter G.
Chaucer Review 44 (2009): 186-204.
Reading ShT in the context of fabliaux in which children witness their mothers' infidelity, Beidler recalls that the Tale was originally intended for the Wife of Bath. He argues that the placement of a prepubescent girl on the scene of another wife's…
In its evocations of a "locus amoenus," "fin' amors," and Aeneas, the dream chamber in BD serves as a "structural analogue" to the Man in Black's autobiography, which narrates an idyllic youth, describes falling in love, and refers to the duties of…
Chaucer's reference to a sow eating a baby "right in the cradle" (CT I.2019) may evince Chaucer's knowledge of "just such an occurrence in the Norman town of Falaise" in 1385, later memorialized in paint on the walls of a Falaise church. This detail…
ClT and MLT dramatize contemporary uncertainties concerning the extent of a mother's genetic "influence" on her offspring, even as they critique the "fantasy of an autonomous male line." Given that disputes regarding monarchal succession formed the…
Chaucer modifies his sources for ClT in a way that emphasizes Griselda's virtue as specifically "feminine" and exclusively "wifely." The reflections of her wifely virtue in the pagan wives of LGW, who "view devotion to their husbands as their highest…
Hodges, Laura F.
Chaucer Review 44 (2009): 84-109.
Hodges "reads" Griselda's "sartorial transformation[s]" in light of detailed knowledge of fourteenth-century material culture. For instance, the fact that a smock could be made of plain linen or embroidered silk, or that it was the innermost of many…
