Considine, John.
Notes and Queries 256 (2011): 490-91.
Shows that "rake" in the proverbial simile "thin as a rake/rail" (first attested in English in the GP description of the Clerk's horse, I.288) means a fodder crib.
Conti Camaiora, Luisa.
Giovanni Iamartino, Maria Luisa Maggioni, and Roberta Facchinetti, eds. Thou sittest at another boke: English Studies in Honour of Domenico Pezzini (Milan: Polimetrica, 2008), pp. 305-18.
The theme of doubleness in "The Floure and the Leafe" appears to have been especially attractive for Keats,whose attention was always drawn to the relationship between life and art. He found in the medieval poem an interesting "authority" that…
Contzen, Eva von, and James Simpson, eds
Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2022.
Collects ten essays by various authors that discuss lists and listing as epistemological, rhetorical, and poetic devices, with an introduction by the editors ("Enlistment as Poetic Stratagem"), and a comprehensive index. For four essays that pertain…
Contzen, Eva von.
Jan Alber and Greta Olson, eds. How to Do Things with Narrative: Cognitive and Diachronic Perspectives (Boston, Mass.: De Gruyter, 2018), pp. 79-92.
Assesses the characterizations of Dido in HF, LGW, and William Caxton's "Eneydos," analyzing their direct discourse and representations of mental state as examples of how premodern authors present well-known figures from the literary past. Chaucer's…
Contzen, Eva von.
Eva von Contzen and James Simpson, eds. Enlistment: Lists in Medieval and Early Modern Literature (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2022), pp. 115-34.
Uses Chaucer's list of poets of Troy in HF 1460ff. as a "vantage point" to demonstrate how epic catalogs in Middle English Troy narratives are "sites of scepticism towards established truths, questioning the Trojan War, the claims of epic, and poetry…
Contzen, Eva von.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 53 (2023) 597-622.
Focuses on three different approaches to CT, examines the ways that scholars have attempted to avoid ascribing intention to Chaucer, and concludes that "when engaging with Chaucer, critics need to embrace intention as a key generator in the…
Contzen, Eva von.
Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 175 (2023): 62-81.
Argues that Kynaston's Latin translation of Books I and II of TC, published in 1635, exemplifies "heterochrony"--a "temporal counter-site located in the present and indicative of alternative modernities." Addresses the "perceived outdatedness of…
Cook, Alexandra Kollontai.
DAI A67.10 (2007): n.p.
Like many of his predecessors, Chaucer explores risks in dealing with pagan sources, but he renders such risks pleasurable as a means to "destabilize Christian constructs of safety."
Cook, Alexandra.
Susanna Fein and David Raybin, eds. Chaucer: Visual Approaches (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016), pp. 23-38.
Revisits the significance of the image-based mnemonic system known as artificial memory, especially as conceived in John of Garland's "Parisiana poetria," for Chaucer's poetic project in HF. Argues how "visual mnemonics and creative memory" shape…
Cook, Daniel, ed.
Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor, 1966.
An edition of TC with facing-page glosses and occasional notes, preceded by an Introduction (pp. vii-xxxviii) that includes a summary of the medieval Troy story, commentary on Chaucer's source material (Boccaccio, Boethius, and the conventions of…
Summarizes R. K. Root's theory of three classes of TC manuscripts, and analyzes several variants to argue for the superiority of those found in Root's "beta" class. Treats "beta" variants as authorial revisions.
Alice misunderstands the sacramental nature of Christian marriage--which requires perennial mutual affection and joining of wills, not self-centered egoism--creating a serious obstacle to the sacrament's efficacy in producing grace. Alice does not…
Cook, James W.
American Notes and Queries 7 (1968): 53-54.
Surmises that, as a satiric response to the anti-Semitism of PrT, NPT may reflect Chaucer's possible knowledge of a twelfth-century "Anglo-Jewish collection of 107 animal fables," the "Mishle Shu' alim," generally attributed to Berechiah Ben Natron…
Argues that in ClT Chaucer "has successfully humanized the psychological motivation of both Walter and Griselda," de-emphasizing the "supernatural" aspects of the characterizations found in analogous narratives, and depicting his protagonists with…
Cook, Jon.
David Aers, ed. Medieval Literature (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986), pp. 169-91.
CT shows extensive evidence of "Carnival" (Bakhtin) influence. GP, Miller, and Host show evidence of the carnivalesque approach to life. The clerk, on the other hand, reasserts "official values." CT offers the first English model of secular and…
Cook, Mary Joan,RSM.
Florilegium 8 (1986): 187-98.
"By developing an inner and outer Criseyde, by occasionally indicating a disparity between the two, by raising questions about her behaviour and usually acknowledging that he, the narrator, does not have the answers, (Chaucer) convinces the reader…
Looks at Tudor scholarship's role in the development and maintenance of Chaucer's fame and canonicity, with particular attention to Speght, Thynne, and post-Reformation views of Chaucer's work.
Cook, Megan L.
Spenser Studies 26 (2011): 179-222.
Considers how Edmund Spenser's "Shepheardes Calender" "influenced the reception and presentation of Chaucer in the late Tudor period," focusing particularly on how the editorial apparatus of Thomas Speght's "Works" influenced "two of the most…
Cook, Megan L.
Manuscript Studies 1.2 (2017): 165-88.
Describes Joseph Holland's "thoroughgoing renovation" of the Chaucer manuscript he owned in the sixteenth century (now Cambridge University Library, MS Gg 4.27), detailing how he imitated the corpus and presentation found in Thomas Speght's 1598…
Describes how Chaucer and John Gower appear as two poets/storytellers in "Greenes Vision" (1592), offering "authorization and legitimization" to Robert Greene's work "within a specifically English tradition," colored by "ambivalent nostalgia for an…
Cook, Megan L.
Studies in Philology 113 (2016): 32-54.
Analyzes the absence of Ret from editions of CT published between 1532 and 1721, along with the publication of Adam in 1561, arguing that the combination affected views on textual accuracy and authorial control in Chaucer reception.
Cook, Megan L.
Chaucer Review 52.1 (2017): 124-42.
Claims that LGW may have been viewed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as a response to TC and as an allegory for how Chaucer may have interacted with patrons.
Cook, Megan L.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
Examines how Tudor English antiquarians, including "historians, lexicographers, religious polemicists, and other readers with a professional, but, not necessary literary interest in the English past," played significant role" in the development and…
Cook, Megan L.
Rachel Stenner, Tamsin Badcoe, and Gareth Griffith, eds. Rereading Chaucer and Spenser: Dan Geffrey with the New Poete (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019), pp. 150-67.
Examines E. K.'s commentary on Chaucer in Spenser's "The Shepheardes Calender," arguing that by "associating him with a historically antecedent but culturally current poetic paradigm, E. K. represents Chaucer as a writer who proleptically embraces…
Cook, Megan L.
Huntington Library Quarterly 85 (2022): 643-61.
Compares the contents of manuscripts of Chaucer's works and those of early printed editions, especially William Thynne's 1532 edition of "Works." Focuses on the heterogeneous mixture of Chaucerian materials, apocrypha, and works by other authors in…
