Cooney, Helen, ed.
Dublin and Portland, Ore. : Four Courts Press, 2001.
Ten essays by various authors on the role of language and literature in fifteenth-century England, Chaucer's influence at the time, and the relations of fifteenth-century literature to earlier and later tradition. Mention of Chaucer recurs…
Cooney, Helen, ed.
New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Eleven essays by various authors, an introduction by the editor, and an index. Topics include the theory of courtly love, love and social class, romance depictions of love, and readings of individual works. For seven essays that pertain to Chaucer,…
Cooney, Helen.
Studia Neophilologica 63 (1991): 147-59.
Argues that social identity is fundamental to description of each pilgrim and determines how each is presented; examines how Chaucer presents himself in rhetorical terms, with particular reference to the "diminutio" of GP 745-48.
Cooney, Helen.
Eilean Ni Cuilleanain and J.D. Pheifer, eds. Noble and Joyous Histories: English Romances, 1375-1650 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993), pp. 27-58.
Briefly examines the role of "wonders," or miracles, in romance and philosophy as background to the lack of justice in Arcite's death. Chaucer is heavily indebted to Boethian thought in TC, but the unsatisfying, even skeptical deployment of such…
PF offers an example of Chaucer's intertextuality. The two "olde bokys" mentioned--Macrobius's commentary on "Somnium Scipionis" and Alain de Lille's "De planctu naturae"--inform the themes of suffering in love and the limitations of natural law in…
MLT can be seen as an exposition and justification of the medieval Christian providential view of history. The concern with exemplifying this theory governs the teller's choice of source and emphasis. It is ironic that the Tale's philosophy can be…
Cooper Helen.
Guillemette Bolens and Lukas Erne, eds. Medieval and Early Modern Authorship (Tübingen: Narr Verlag, 2011), pp. 29-50.
Addresses the "literal paternity" of Chaucer as the "father of English poetry" for fifteenth- and sixteenth-century writers, including Shakespeare and Jonson. Discusses how Chaucer established himself as a "poet within the classical poetic line." …
Cooper-Rompato, Christine F.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010.
Discusses (pp. 143-88) Chaucer's "great translation experiment" in PrPT, MLT, and SqT, arguing that Chaucer is "highly invested in the mechanics of miraculous and mundane translation" and that Custance is a "medieval example of a xenoglossic holy…
Tracks the popularity of a passage about shoes from Rom in the nineteenth-century popular press, demonstrating how the passage forges a connection between Victorian and medieval England by using Chaucer as a supporter of Victorian interests and…
Cooper, Christine F.
Yearbook of English Studies 36 (2006): 27-38.
In MLT, Chaucer uses the case of Custance's Latin being understood by Northumbrians - an instance of xenoglossia, more characteristic of the saint's life genre - to focus on translation in various genres and to make Custance, "subtly active," an "apt…
Cooper, Geoffrey.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 79 (1980): 1-12.
"Sely" (from OE "gesaelig") originally meant "happy, fortunate," and hence "blessed by God, pious, holy." Later,however, the word took on connotations of "pitiful" and "silly, rustic," while still retaining its earlier meaning in different contexts.…
Cooper, Helen, and Robert R. Edwards, eds.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.
Twenty-nine essays devoted to the examination of poetry from the end of Old English verse through the Ricardian poets, including an introduction by the editors. For nine essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Oxford History of Poetry in English.…
Fourteen essays by various authors on topics in English literature of the late fourteenth through early sixteenth centuries. Includes an introduction and a bibliography of Gray's publications. For seven essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Long…
Plenary lecture positions Chaucer as important to sixteenth-century writers for his incorporation of the Latin rhetorical tradition--particularly the concepts of decorum and Augustine's three levels of style--into English, even as he does so with…
Cooper, Helen.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Poetics: Theory and Practice in Medieval English Literature (Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 83-103.
Examines the equation of political and poetic authority in the works of Chaucer and his contemporaries. Historical romance tends to legitimize political authority and to cite poetic authority, while the fabliau pretends to chronicle true occurences…
Cooper, Helen.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 1 (1987): 71-81.
GP was inspired by the A text of Piers Plowman, echoing its concern with estates satire, its concern with social and moral cohesion, and many of its details.
Cooper, Helen.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp. 168-84.
The Wife of Bath is interpreted variously: She is a shrew; she is the voice of feminism; she represents Eve; she stands for joy and vitality. The Wife demands female sovereignty in marriage, but this sovereignty is put into doubt by the end of both…
Cooper, Helen.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. 2d rev. ed., 1996. 3d rev. ed, 2023.
The Oxford Guides offer summaries of what is known about Chaucer's work and include "fresh interpretations based on recent advances in both historical knowledge and theoretical understanding." Cooper includes commentary on all aspects of CT as a…
Cooper, Helen.
Charles Martindale, ed. Ovid Renewed: Ovidian Influences on Literature and Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 71-81.
Discusses Chaucer's borrowings from Ovid in HF, BD, WBT, and ManT. Although to the fourteenth century the "Metamorphoses" was a chief among works demystified or allegorized to produce Christian doctrine, Chaucer rejects this tradition and emphasizes…
A comparison, not a source study, which discovers parallel attitudes toward style, character, and tradition, especially on the role of humor in "Ulysess" and CT.
Treats CT in context of literary and social conventions of the age, discussing genre, ordering of CT, the diversity of pilgrims and genres in the tales, KnT, links within fragments, themes. CT does not accept the answers in ParsT and Ret, and…
Cooper, Helen.
Leeds Studies in English 13 (1982): 104-23.
Wyatt's awareness of the power of direct language is Chaucerian, as is the flexibility of his use of rhyme royal. Unlike Chaucer, however, Wyatt is a poet of the contraries existing within the individual, and whereas Chaucer advocates a stable mind…
