Surveys the reception of Hoccleve's poetry and argues that its "autobiographical self-presentation" underlines its differences from Chaucer's influential precedent. Hoccleve also introduces innovative themes and topics: madness, alienation, and…
Summarizes the scholastic idea of the book and applies the concept of the written word (book) as "essential epistemological instrument" to Wolfram's "Titurel" fragments (ca. 1220) and to TC. Chaucer presents Troilus as a misreader of texts who only…
Surveys depictions of sexual activities and attitudes toward them in the literature of medieval Europe. Includes a brief life of Chaucer and recurrent comments on his works (see the Index), with a summary description of sexuality and scatology in…
Suggests that in medieval literature generally the "motif of crossing a body of water was regularly perceived as an epistemological operation of a physical and a spiritual kind," and explores the notion in several narratives, including MLT, examining…
Clayton, Candyce Lynn.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1992): 800A.
Half a millenium before Freud, Chaucer's WBT asks "What does woman want?" In light of recent critical theory, this question is explored in the works of Gabriela Mistral and Gillian Clarke as well as in WBT.
Clayton, Margaret.
Notes and Queries 224 (1979): 103-04.
In the astrological setting of TC (2.54-55), Chaucer refers to Taurus as a "white Bole." The epithet probably came from Virgil (Georgics, I, 217-18), perhaps through the intermediary of Macrobius' "Commentary on the Dream of Scipio." It is…
Cleary, Barbara A.
Delta Epsilon Sigma Bulletin 24 (1979): 108-12.
There are several contrasts and incongruities in tone, style, and ideas in Chaucer's PF, as for example the naive narrator vs. condescending Scipio, ideal love vs. natural love, the love garden vs. the discordant parliament held therein, courtly…
Cleaves, Wallace Thomas II.
Open access Ph.D. dissertation (University of California, Riverside, 2017). Available at https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6gr3m9zr (accessed April 4, 2022).
Explores aspects of medieval literary studies and Native American studies, including examination of 'the trickster figure" in the works of Chaucer, particularly the GP descriptions and characterizations, and MilT, RvT, SumT, PardT, and ManT. Also…
Examines "Sir Gawain" in the context of ideas about chivalry and death in the fourteenth century and conflicts between morality and knighthood. A pessimistic view of knighthood is seen in "Form Age." Clein discusses indeterminancy and audience…
Examines how Chaucer's early poems (i.e., those written before 1380) engage the conventional forms, techniques, and themes of French and Italian models, enriching them via "humour and realism" and applying them to "new uses." His innovative…
Clemens, John K., and Douglas F. Mayer.
Homewood, Ill.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1987
Included in this "practical book about leadership" are claims that CT reveals that "people can't be stereotyped" because they are essentially paradoxical. Comments most extensively on the Wife of Bath, who is "incapable of being classified, sorted,…
Clements, Pamela.
Carol L. Robinson, Pamela Clements, and Richard Utz, eds. Neomedievalism in the Media: Essays on Film, Television and Electronic Games (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2012), pp. 35-54.
Essay on adaptations of CT, focusing on Powell and Pressburger's "A Canterbury Tale (1944), Piero Pasolini's "I racconti di Canterbury" (1972), and Brian Helgeland's "A Knight's Tale" (2001), which treat CT in a "neomedievalist fashion" and also…
Identifies parallels between CT and Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," found particularly in the fictional "Historical Notes" that follow the main text of the novel. Notes the echo of Chaucer in Atwood's title and a single reference to Chaucer…
Clements, Robert J., and Joseph Gibaldi.
New York: New York University Press, 1977.
Describes the development of the Renaissance novella, particularly the fourteenth-to-seventeenth century traditions in Italy, France, Spain, and England. Deeply influenced by the model of Boccaccio's "Decameron," the genre is distinct from the later…
Clermont-Ferrand, Meredith, ed.
Lewiston, N. Y.: Mellen, 2008.
Clermont-Ferrand edits d'Angoulême's copy of CT, providing continuous lineation (15,080 lines), sidebar glossing, and bottom-of-page explanatory notes. The introduction (pp. vii-xxxv) comments on editing a "bad" copy of CT, various exemplars of…
Clifford, Robert.
Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 81.1: 155-65, 1999.
Examines Chaucer's use of the dream-vision genre and authoritative texts and suggests that the author "deconstructs any sense of textual authority." The process of granting fame in HF parallels the random process of readers granting authority.
Clifton, Nicole.
Literature Compass 5.1 (2008): 158-64.
Pedagogical portfolio (containing material such as bibliography, sample syllabi, and discussion questions) for study of Middle English romances, including several works by Chaucer.
Clifton, Nicole.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 20. 1 (2013): 99-109.
Offers an approach to teaching MLT that encourages "students to question their own identities and own attitudes toward race and, in doing so, come to a more complex understanding" of Chaucer's story.
Clifton, Nicole.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 25, no. 2 (2018): 123-43.
Describes an "upper-division Chaucer course that teaches Chaucerian English as a foreign language," aiming "to ensure that students learn to read Chaucer's language comfortably on their own." Provides sample lesson plans and assignments.
Cline, Ruth H.
English Language Notes 2.2 (1964): 87-89.
Explores the "appropriateness" of Chaucer's "only original and direct reference to St. Anne," in FrT 3.1613. Mentions Chaucer's two other references to St. Anne, derived from Dante, and offers evidence that Anne of Bohemia was associated with St.…
Cline, Ruth H.
Huntington Library Quarterly 26 (1963): 131-45.
Clarifies references to St. Neot, St. Frideswide, and St. Thomas in MilT; provides historical and topographical information about Oseney Abbey and Oxford as setting for the tale; and explores Absolon's habit of not wearing a tonsure, despite the…
The artistic unity of Chaucer's TC seems to fall prey to the contradictory philosophical arguments present, the attractiveness of earthly love, and then the repudiation thereof.
Clogan, Paul (M.)
Medievalia et Humanistica 5 (1974): 183-89.
The exensive emendations in the text of "Lady" are unjustified. The poem is a series of unfinished metrical innovations, showing Chaucer experimenting and practicing his art. The search for metrical regularity has in this lyric deprived the poem of…
