Explores the "interstitial pattern of errors about things literary" in MLPT that characterize the teller as a "not-quite scholar" and highlight a tension between his "rhetorical excess and religious exhibitionism" and his penchant for legalisms,…
Archer, Jayne Elizabeth, Richard Marggraf Turley, and Howard Thomas.
Chaucer Review 50.1-2 (2015): 1–29.
Proposes connections between the CT--especially Chaucer's Plowman, the apocryphal Plowman's Tale, and RvT--and ideas about food supply. Provides an overarching argument that anxieties about farming and the politics of how food was distributed in late…
Blurton, Heather, and Hannah Johnson.
Chaucer Review 50.1-2 (2015): 134–58.
Examines manuscript circulation of PrT showing Chaucer's reception as a Marian poet. This tale was not only used in devotional texts but was responded to in this register by Lydgate and Hoccleve.
Links BD with Freudian method, arguing that the poem "foreshadows" psychoanalysis through its depiction of how certain uses of language can heal trauma from painful memories
Farrell, Thomas J.
Chaucer Review 50.1-2 (2015): 178–97.
Argues that in CT, "wight" could indeed mean a supernatural being and refer to Jesus Christ as Creator, which questions a long-standing editorial emendation by E. Talbot Donaldson in WBP, 117.
Presents textual analysis about CT manuscript descent, specifically, that "a copying of *W [the MS used by De Worde for his 1498 edition of CT]" is likely to have "led to the production of Gg [CUL, MS Gg.IV.27] and Ph1 [University of Texas, Harry…
Argues that the Franklin presents a formula for happiness: living a life of "gentilesse" as opposed to the principle of adhering to a law-based system of morality.
Examines Chaucer's use of dream visions and the "Somniale" tradition as contrasted with that of the Harley scribe. While Chaucer is suspicious, the Harley scribe uses the tradition as a source of knowledge. Includes an edition and translation of…
Examines the parallels between Cresseid and the narrator showing Cresseid's eventual transformation while the narrator fails to understand the moral point. Includes comments on Chaucer's narrator in TC.
Argues for the effectiveness of the Pardoner's speech in light of his use of fables and exempla rather than "officium." PardT affirms the power of literature over that of the Pardoner's own duplicitous nature.
Focuses on three letters that preface Thomas Speght's Chaucer editions, which "conceive, invite, and attempt to influence their audiences." Argues that these letters reveal that the intended audience included both the established audience for Chaucer…
Shows that "what is thought to be the earliest record of a Chaucer folio in North America in fact refers to a text by the Protestant theologian Daniel Chamier." Concludes "with a brief survey of other early American readers of Chaucer."
Discusses "the power of affect on minds and bodies" and the "psychology of love and loss" in Chaucer's works. Explores relationship between women's literary culture and roles of women in BD, KnT, TC, and LGW.
Considers ways that female monastic readers in Amesbury and Syon may have read and used works by Chaucer, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Lydgate. Claims that these "Chaucerian tradition" writings helped influence the devotional culture of female monastic…
Mosser, Daniel W., and Linne R. Mooney.
Chaucer Review 51.2 (2016): 131-50.
Analyzes the paleography and spelling of the fifteen manuscripts belonging to the hooked-g group, including three CT manuscripts, identifying two separate scribes and several collaborators. Includes four tables, six b&w illustrations, and an appendix…
Analyzes the border illustrations and other codicological features of twelve manuscripts of the hooked-g group of manuscripts (including three CT manuscripts), using them to construct a "tentative chronology" of the dates of production and the…
