Considers how the "professional identity" of the teller informs concerns with justice in MLT. Engagement with mercantile law, common law, natural law, divine intervention, and the "limitations of human justice" pervade MLPT and indicate an uncertain…
The language and imagery of demonic temptation versus human free will connect FrT and SumT and gain dimension by comparison with ClT. Thomas of SumT is called "demonyak," but his scatological riposte to the friar is justified anger.
Examines shame as a force in identity construction and a constraint on female agency, focusing on Criseyde in TC and Dido in HF, and briefly mentioning LGW. As an historical force, shame also determines narrative possibilities in these poems.
In the five instances in which "male," meaning "bag or pouch" or "holder of writing," appears in CT, the word can also mean "man, male gender, or genitals," "stomach," and "wrongdoing." Through this wordplay, Chaucer reveals his anxieties about the…
Analyzes the Parson's use of "myrie" in ParsP in terms of the "internal generic matrix" constructed by the Parson in the ParsT. Focuses on Tzvetan Todorov's and Paul Strohm's writings on genre.
Focuses on how the idiomatic phrase "for goddes love" is used in TC as "an expression of power" and how the phrase "appeals to a divine system of mercy and justice" when used by Troilus, Criseyde, and Pandarus.
Argues that the phrase "for gode" in MilT (I.3526) is not, as is often assumed, a misspelling meaning "by God," but rather an intentional use of a phrase appearing in unsophisticated texts of the period. The phrase has similarly been misunderstood in…
Owing to waning interest, the Chaucer Library, which had sought to present the works Chaucer knew, will cease following the publication of Boccaccio's "Teseida."
Examines how Lydgate's "Legend of Dan Joos" recasts the opening of GP into a representation of eternal redemption in praise of Mary in his own aureate style.
Addresses how Chaucer's bawdiness is perceived in the United States. Includes issues of censorship related to CT, with focus on curricula changes over the past few decades.
Van Nolcken, Christina.
ChauR 47.1 (2012): 107-33.
Discusses William Thomas Stead's 1895 publication of Masterpiece Library's CT, part of the "Penny Poets" series, and its effects on the circulation of Chaucer's works.
Examines Giles of Rome's social theory and its vision of unity and hierarchy, as well as the degree to which it might have been influential in Chaucer's time, commenting on the Wife of Bath's discussion of "gentilesse." Also refers to LGW; HF; KnT;…
Examines the grove in KnT in the context of hunting and forest laws; reveals how Chaucer alters Boccaccio's "Teseida" to turn the grove first into a politicized space of human discord and then into a space of destruction, evoking warfare among men…
Presents a version of the Griselda story from Thomas III, Marquis of Saluzzo (c. 1355-1416) in "Le chevalier errant," and analyzes how fourteenth-century audiences would have reacted to Chaucer's version in ClT. Includes a translation of Thomas's…
Suggests Chaucer's portrayal of Criseyde challenges the "traditional 'descriptio' as a restrictive benchmark of feminine beauty." Describes Criseyde's transformations in TC as an "experiential journey through love and war."
Analyzes Criseyde, arguing that Chaucer forces the reader's "active engagement" with the language in Criseyde's soliloquy, which reinforces the ambiguity of her character.
Suggests possible sources for Chaucer's ideas on parenthood that influenced CkT, including the "Wisdom commentary of Dominican friar, Robert Holcot." Also compares Holcot's views on parental responsibility with those in PhyT.
Argues that Criseyde is a "willful agent," who reveals "nominalist intentions" and is guided by her own desires and "misdirected will" in her love of Troilus.
Details two meanings of Chaucer's idea of "fame" in lines 1873-82 of HF: either living a "private, unnoticed life," or not looking for "glory as a poet." Compares Book II to Alexander's Pope's "The Temple of Fame."
Discusses the relationship between "translation and historical alterity" in TC, examining how Dante's vernacular language in his "Convivio" connects with how Chaucer "exploits the transformative potential of translation" within his own vernacular…
Contextualizes MerT by looking at medieval scientific writings on "pica" ("deviant pregnancy cravings") and the medieval "pathology of pregnancy," assessing May's pregnancy and her "sexual longings."
Reviews Prudence's "allegorical reading practices" and argues that Mel is based on the "relationship between the literary mode of moralizing allegory and contingent reading practices."
Investigates character development, language, and motifs of GP, CT, and TC to establish the extent of Chaucer's influence on the sixteenth-century poem "Debate betweene Pride and Lowlines."
