Scattergood, V. J.
Chaucer Review 11 (1977): 210-31.
ShT contradicts the usual view of merchants in the fabliaux. By setting the merchant against the monk and the wife, Chaucer defies tradition and presents the merchant in a generally favorable light.
Schneider, Paul Stephen.
Chaucer Review 11 (1977): 201-09.
In ShT money corrupts marriage and brotherhood, but it effects a relationship between the merchant and his wife. Hence money is both good and evil, but its effects are unpredictable.
That the passage describing the Prioress's habit of wiping her mouth clean (GP, 133-36) has been misunderstood is shown in the translations by all modern translators, except Coghill, of "hir" in the phrase "hir coppe: (133) as "her" when it should be…
Friedman, Albert B.
Chaucer Review 11 (1977): 328-33.
The grain which the Virgin places on the clergeon's tongue and which is removed after his death to stop his singing is simply a prop necessary to the structure of the tale; elaborate allegorizations are unnecessary.
Jember, Gregory K.
American Notes and Queries 15 (1977): 82-86.
The use of the ambiguous word "greyn" in 7.662 indicates that Chaucer had more than one meaning in mind. One of the intentional referents probably was a grain of salt, because of the religious significance of salt. "Greyn" also suggests the seed,…
Witte, Stephen P.
Papers on Language and Literature 13 (1977): 227-37.
Chaucer's use of the mouse, traditionally associated with gluttony and drunkenness, his juxtaposition of it to Christian terms like "charitee" and "tendre herte," and the possible allusion to Christ's sacrifice as Satan's "mousetrap" suggests harsh…
Lepley, Douglas L.
Chaucer Review 12 (1977): 162-70.
Despite recent arguments to the contrary, parallels (such as the depiction of Fortune) between MkT and Books II-IV of "The Consolation of Philosophy" show that the Monk's tragedies are philosophically sound in Boethian terms.
Storm, Melvin.
English Language Notes 14 (1977): 172-74.
Various medieval sources establish the image of the tiger as a figure of hypocrisy. Chaucer's description of the tercelet as a "tiger, full of doublenesse" (5.543) is no accident.
Bachman, W. Bryant,Jr.
Chaucer Review 12 (1977): 55-67.
Contrary to prevailing criticism, Dorigien's rash promise is based on the reality of the experiential world. The tension arises when this reality appears an illusion, according to the Boethian concept of reality. When the world is neither real nor…
Rather than an incoherent outpouring of emotions, Dorigen's Complaint (FranT, 5.1355-456) is a coherent, moral response to the random world Aurelius presents her. Chaucer manipulates "exempla" from Jerome's "Adversus Jovinianum" to compose a…
Medieval manuals of preaching demand that the good preacher be a good man, yet the Pardoner's sermon is very effective. CT is an investigation of the possibility of reaching some compromise between the preaching methods of the evil, but eloquent,…
Besserman, Lawrence L.
Chaucer Review 12 (1977): 68-73.
Chaucer uses wordplay as a device for establishing the Nun's Priest's resentment of his subordination to the Prioress. The Priest disassociates himself from the anti-feminist sentiment of the tale with his final claim "I kan noon harm of no womman…
A detailed examination of Chaucer's principal direct source on significative dreams, Robert Holcot's commentary on The Book of Wisdom, "Super Sapientiam Salomonis," and of Chaucer's method of constant mixture of various viewpoints (especially those…
Though Mary Giffin suggests a connection between SNT and Cardinal Adam Easton, the more important connection is between SNT and the schism in the church during his time. ManT relates thematically to SNT by providing a counter-point to the Second Nun…
Duncan, Edgar Hill.
Interpretations 9 (1977): 7-11.
The source of CYT 1431 is not, as Chaucer says, the "Rosarium" of Arnald of Villa Nova, but his lesser known "De secretis naturae." Chaucer cited the more famous "Rosarium" but quoted from "De secretis" because it contains appropriately mystifying…
Hartung, Albert E.
Chaucer Review 12 (1977): 111-28.
The argument by John M. Manly (1926) that "Pars Secunda" of CYT was not originally part of CTY at all but was an earlier tale intended for a separate occasion and a special audience is plausible in view of internal, textual, and historical evidence.
Trask, Richard M.
Studies in Short Fiction 14 (1977): 109-16.
The last 43 lines of ManT indiate that at home the Manciple must not have been able to get a word in edgewise. His domestic experience has made him obtuse and incoherent. If one so obtuse can cheat his lawyer-masters, the satire is finally on the…
Hardie, J. Keith.
Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association 3.2 (1977): 13-19.
Irony generated by the narrator's foreknowledge of the fates of his characters is subsumed to irony generated by the poet's transcendent Christian view of the narrator's limited moral judgments, whose inadequacies are signalled by images of…
The archetype of initiation is the structural principle of TC. The archetype produces a number of images and actions illustrating the physical and spiritual development of the hero. The archetype is more revealing of the surface structure than of…
Chaucer elaborately constructs the pagan love story as an epic, a romance, and a philosophical demonstration, but simultaneously undercuts all three frames of reference; however, the Christian epilogue decrying earthly existence is modified by the…
The manipulation of narrative techniques in TC (as, for example, in the five-book structure or the epilogue) is one way in which the story reveals its value system and subtly encourages us to adopt that system.
Longo, Joseph A.
Cahiers Elisabethains 11 (1977): 1-15.
In Chaucer's TC and Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," the actions focused on the lovers are remarkably alike in general contours and specific internal resonances, a resemblance which points to Chaucer as Shakespeare's source. Chaucer shows a…
Rogers, H. L.
A. Stephens, and others, eds. Festschrift for Ralph Farrell (Bern: Lang, 1977), pp. 185-200.
TC opens in "high style" comparable with Virgil's "Aeneid" or Milton's "Paradise Lost." This style creates an epic frame for the poem which is sustained by the correlation of Troilus the lover with Troilus the warrior. Donaldson is wrong in…
Garbaty, Thomas J.
Chaucer Review 11 (1977): 299-305.
In the epilogue Chaucer addresses his book as "litel myn tragedye," adding that God might prompt him still to make it into "som comedye." This objective is achieved when Troilus (recalling "Paradiso," XXII) transcends tragedy and attains celestial…
