Brockman, Bennett A.
Children's Literature 2 (1973): 40-49.
Discusses the "sentimental reverence for the child's innocence" in a variety of medieval texts, including the account of Hugolino in MkT, compared with the version in Dante's "Inferno" 33, In both versions, the children have "precocious knowledge"…
Jambeck, Thomas J., and Karen K. Jambeck
Children's Literature 3 (1974): 177-22.
Praises the stylistic appropriateness of Astr to its youthful audience, showing how Chaucer adapts the lexicon, syntax, and rhetoric of Massahalla to be more suitable to his ten-year-old son, Lewis. Chaucer relies on native rather than Latinate…
Truscott, Yvonne J.
Children's Literature Association Quarterly 23 (1998): 29-34.
Refutes claims that children were ignored during the Middle Ages. Chaucer wrote Astr to his son. In Th, he adopts a "childish identity," complemented by the pedagogy of Mel. The narrators of HF, PF, and BD are childlike.
Eisner, Sigmund.
Children's Literature Association Quarterly 23 (1998): 35-39.
Suggests that Chaucer "creates a persona from his son (Lewis Chaucer) to be the initial audience" of Astr and argues that Chaucer's prose style is pedagogic, written to be easily understood by children.
Lee, Brian S.
Children's Literature Association Quarterly 23 (1998): 40-48.
Examines the diverse portrayals of children in medieval literature, commenting on how Chaucer questions the innocence of the "clergeoun" in PrT and how in LGW and MkT his pathos is more restrained than in his sources.
Ferris, Sumner.
Chivalric Literature: Essays on Relations Between Literature and Life in the Later Middle Ages. Studies in Medieval Culture, no. 14. (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1980), pp. 25-38.
Deals with the interrelations between the chivalry of literature and chivalric actualities, chronicles, biographical accounts.
Johnson, Ian.
Chris Given-Wilson, ed. An Illustrated History of Late Medieval England (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 127-51.
A survey of genres and topics in Middle English literature, including Chaucer's "diversity of literary forms and [the] strategies he took to negotiate literary authority."
Carruthers, Mary [J.]
Chris Humphrey and W. M. Ormrod, eds. Time in the Medieval World (Suffolk: York Medieval Press, 2001), pp. 137-55.
Like tense-switching and first-person point of view, the use of the "historical present" by Chaucer and the Gawain poet illustrates how medieval authors could convincingly remember and authenticate the stories they told. The past is the time of…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Christa Jansohn and Bodo Plachta, eds. Varianten - Variants - Variantes. (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 2005), pp. 79-90.
Edwards comments on the conceptualizations and uses of variants in textual studies of CT and "Piers Plowman," particularly those by Manly and Rickert and by Kane and Donaldson, arguing that some manuscripts are better regarded as separate versions of…
Mehl, Dieter.
Christa Jansohn, ed. Old Age and Ageing in British and American Culture and Literature. Studien zur englischen Literatur, no 16 (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2004), pp. 29-38.
Explores the representation of old age in WBPT, MerT, PardT, Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Confessio Amantis, and the Book of Margery Kempe, arguing that the motif of old age falls into three distinct categories: "the comical figure…
Gorlach, Manfred.
Christa Jansohn, ed. Problems of Editing. Beihefte zu Editio, no. 14. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999)
Görlach surveys a selection of textual cruxes (Old English to Modern) that reflect the importance of linguistic evidence in editorial decisions, including two from Chaucer ("armee," GP 1.60; "Aueryll," GP 1.1) and one "quasi-Chaucerian" example…
Kane, George.
Christian J. Kay and Louise M. Sylvester, eds. Lexis and Texts in Early English: Studies Presented to Jane Roberts. Costerus New Series, no. 133. (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 2001), pp. 161-71.
Argues for "literary" rather than "historicist" analysis, examining the tone and rhetoric of the reference to the uprising of 1381 in NPT and arguing that Chaucer was "distancing" himself from the events.
Hamilton, Christopher T.
Christian Scholar's Review 23 (1993): 145-58.
Chaucer's and Langland's depictions of clergy are rooted in the "biblical topos of contrastive portraits for emulation and rejection," reflecting the medieval belief that church reform depended on the renewal of the clergy. Chaucer's Parson and…
Stigall, Joshua J.
Christian Scholar's Review 42.3 (2013): 245-60.
Considers the Physician's misreading and misapplication of his source material (the Sermon on the Mount and Jean de Meun) to be key to proper understanding that he is "untrustworthy" and that PhyT reveals his lack of "spiritual sensitivity." Reads…
James, Max H.
Christian Scholars' Review 18 (1988): 118-35.
Although many of Chaucer's works are bawdy, modern readers can find contemporary ethical and moral issues resolved or discussed according to Christian values. "Christlike" faithfulness, steadfastness, and truth underlie TC, WBT, ClT, MerT, and…
Fleming, John V.
Christianity & Literature 28.4 (1979): 19-26.
Chaucer is the rule for vernacular poets rather than the exception. His appropriation of monastic patterns of thought and ascetic ideas and imagery were a tradition already becoming a classic in his time. In CT, the Summoner's portrait, the…
Hanks, D. Thomas (Jr.)
Christianity & Literature 33 (1984): 7-12.
The pun on "pryvetee," meaning in ME "private affairs" and "private parts," mocks the orderly piety of KnT and becomes part of a series of sacred-profane juxtapositions which heighten the bawdiness and comic effect of MilT.
Benson, C. David.
Christianity & Literature 37 (1988): 7-22.
Benson urges that Chaucer be returned from merely professional scholarship to the mainstream of English literature and finds that structuralist, poststructuralist, Marxist, and feminist theories give new perspectives on Chaucer's work. Equally,…
Richmond, Velma Bourgeois.
Christianity & Literature 54 (2005): 363-96.
Four historical paintings by Ford Madox Brown (1821-93) exhibit the interplay among literature, art, and religion in Victorian medievalism. Chaucer is the primary focus in The Seeds and Fruits of English Poetry (1845) and Chaucer at the Court of…
Curtis, Carl C. III.
Christianity & Literature 57 (2008): 207-22.
Biblical analogies embedded in KnT constitute an implied critique of the pre-Christian setting: Palamon and Arcite's first sight of Emelye accords with David's first sight of Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:2); loving Emelye reorganizes Arcite's psyche and…
Klassen, Norman.
Christianity & Literature 64.01 (2014): 3-20.
Analyzes the rhetorical structure, themes, and wordplay of the first thirty-four lines of GP, arguing that in CT Chaucer maintains "his commitment to the coherence of creation within the narrative framework of Christianity."
Thundyil, Zacharias.
Christianity and Literature 20.3 (1971): 12-16.
Gauges Chaucer's attitude toward "reason and revelation," and argues that "one of the structural principles" of CT is the "pursuit of moral wisdom," particularly in movement from KnT to ParsT and in the image of pilgrimage.
Jeffrey, David Lyle.
Christianity and Literature 59 (2010): 515-30.
Chrétien's "Erec and Enide" does not celebrate courtly love but provides a "model for rightly ordered desire." Chaucer highlights the "social and spiritual value" of marriage in CT, PF, TC, and various lyrics. Henry VIII's own theatrics, however,…
Dobbs, Elizabeth A.
Christianity and Literature 62.2 (2013): 203-22.
Observes that St. Matthew's account of the Canaanite's interaction with Christ is far more descriptively verbose than the version recorded by St. Mark, and argues that in SNP Chaucer very purposefully chose Matthew's version in order to augment his…
