Chaucer and his fellow pilgrims saw Madame Eglentyne as the Virgin's handmaiden, reflecting in her foibles and virtues the Queen of Heaven, whose "amor vincit omnia" (love conquers all). Support for the existence of the Marian echoes includes the…
Brewer, Derek.
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 221-43.
Recognition of the arming of the warrior "topos" guides us to many formal arming passages: in the Babylonian epic, the "Iliad," The Bible, the "Aeneid," Irish literature, "Beowulf," the "Chanson de Roland," "Erec et Enide," the Arthurian series,…
Gaylord, Alan T.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 1 (1979): 83-104.
Most critics agree Th parodies Middle English tail-rhyme romances. A regularity of stress, external rhyme, internal alliterations, stanza pattern, and a "bobbing" meter reflect Chaucer's polished craft. While offering an ample measure of "sentence"…
Ruggiers, Paul G.
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 83-94.
Chaucer gives large emphasis and exaggerated length to the didactic. Mel and ParsT are so solidly "there" in the structure of CT that we would not understand the dynamics of the poem if we did not take them into account. Chaucer vies with Dante in…
Bishop, Ian.
Review of English Studies 30 (1979): 257-67.
A framework for the function of the medieval world of learning in NPT can be found in the scheme of the Seven Liberal Arts (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, astrology, arithmetic, geometry, and music). Although arithmetic and geometry are too abstract…
Bloomfield, Morton W.
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 70-82.
Generically and rhetorically NPT is a fable devoted to the teaching of wisdom, undercut by its mock quality, by its characterization, by its scholastic reasoning; but finally leading us back, on a higher level, to its original didactic purpose. NPT…
By constantly breaking the dramatic illusion, the Nun's Priest forces his audience to consider the implications not only of his storytelling but of storytelling itself. The interruptions of his narrative, the comparisons of chickens and people, the…
Lall, Rama Rani.
New Delhi: New Statesman Publishing Co., 1979.
The satiric fable, with oral origins among the Orientals and Greeks, is usually characterized by economy, light-heartedness, and singleness of impression. The popularity of the genre continued into the Middle Ages and beyond not only because of its…
Rex, Richard.
Studies in the Humanities 7.2 (1979): 39-42.
Evidence from several sources indicates that "susters" in NPT 7.4057 may be a triple-entendre: sibling sisters, nuns, and paramours. This heightens the implied parallel between Chauntecleer and the Nun's Priest.
Truter, Wolfgang.
Dissertation Abstracts International 38 (1979): 4698C.
A line-by-line commentary on NPT reveals that the primary difficulties of the poem are not linguistic, but lie rather in the tremendous range of subjects from which Chaucer draws in the work: medicine, theology, astrology, and music, among others.
Taylor, Paul Beekman.
English Studies 60 (1979): 380-88.
Zephirus' breath in GP contrasts the parody of divine inspiration in CYT, and CYP to the piety of SNT. CYT stands in relation to SNT as MilT stands to KnT. Both CYT and SNT exploit the metaphor of creative breath.
Dean, James.
Texas Studies in Literature and Language 21 (1979): 17-33.
In ManT, Chaucer intentionally thwarts his narrative skills, thus creating an "anti-tale" or a "farewell to his book." Providing "images of linguistic destructions," the tale prepares for the Parson's new direction in language and thought.
Davidson, Arnold B.
Annuale Mediaevale 19 (1979): 5-13.
Though aspects of ManT seem hopelessly irreconcilable, the tale itself is a coherent whole, its incongruities intentional. While the Manciple cunningly pretends to be a fool, he is, in a different sense, a far greater fool than he pretends to be. …
Reiss, Edmund.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 1 (1979): 67-82.
The inherent irony of CT stems from a Neoplatonic or Augustinian world view in which poetic tale-telling is an inadequate reflection of reality. This particularly medieval irony necessitates the inclusion of Ret, whereby art leads beyond time and…
McCall, John P.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 446-63.
Comprehensive readings of TC fall into two basic categories: sympathetic/dualistic, and ironic. In the first, the essentially admirable courtly love of Troilus and Criseyde is seen to contrast (in varying degrees) with the orthodox Christian world…
Maresca, Thomas E.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979.
Chaucer explicitly identifies TC as an epic. Like most epics,it uses the structural and thematic device of the "descensus." It also contains many reminders of and allusions to other epics, but also frees him from the confines of Christian allegory…
Barry, Gregory L.
English Language Notes 17 (1979-80): 90-93.
The short verse argument to the "Thebaid" prefixed to most manuscripts of TC had probably been memorized in Chaucer's youth and was used for the later books of TC. While the siege of Troy continues, Cassandra completes the story of the siege of…
Benson, C. David.
Chaucer Review 13 (1979): 308-15.
Guido's "Historia Destructionis Troiae" uses an objective historical tone, mixed with outbursts of personal lamentation. From this Chaucer developed his narrator, a philosophical historian who is affected as a man by his own story, to accent in TC…
Clayton, Margaret.
Notes and Queries 224 (1979): 103-04.
In the astrological setting of TC (2.54-55), Chaucer refers to Taurus as a "white Bole." The epithet probably came from Virgil (Georgics, I, 217-18), perhaps through the intermediary of Macrobius' "Commentary on the Dream of Scipio." It is…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 3-12.
Other enduring attributes of the Criseyde character complicate and perhaps mitigate her infidelity. From the start, as Homer's Briseis, she engages sympathy as a woman unwillingly transferred from one man to another. Dares made Briseida attractive;…
Frost, William.
Notes and Queries 224 (1979): 104-05.
In TC, 5.804, Diomede is said to be "of tonge large," a phrase that perhaps owes a debt to the "Aeneid" (9.338), where Drances is described as "largus opum et lingua melior." Koch's view in "Chaucers Belesenheit in den romischen Klassikern" that…
Gransden, K. W.
David West and Tony Woodman, eds. Creative Imitation and Latin Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 157-71.
The "aubade" of Troilus shows its indebtedness to Ovid's "Amores" (I, 13) in both references and tone, but the effect is transformed by the poet's playing off of medieval complaint and Ovidian satire. Donne makes a similar combination but transforms…
Alisoun has learned through experience that her marital happiness depends upon practical economic control rather than on surrender to the ideals of feminine subservience espoused by authorities. Her tale parodies these authorities in its…
Griffin, Salatha Marie.
Dissertation Abstracts International 39 (1979): 6754A.
In TC the questions of free will and predestination are analyzed in argumentative patterns which may be related to Strode's "Consequences." Measured against Strode's rules, these patterns reveal that the most valid logic is used by the character…
