Cramer, Patricia.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 89 (1990): 491-511
Walter and Griselda are an "Oedipal couple whose sadomasochistic rituals of dominance and submission enact gender roles prescribed by patriarchal social structures which Freud recognized and propogated through his Oedipal models for mental health."
Crampton, Georgia R[onan].
Medium Aevum 43 (1974): 22-36.
Argues that TC "gains psychological interest and what may be called a novelistic effect" through adaptation of the "to do and to suffer" topos. Troilus is "a man of passion who suffers," Pandarus is "a man of action who contrives," and Criseyde…
Crampton, Georgia Ronan.
Medium Aevum 59 (1990): 191-213.
Provides critical analysis of Chaucer's "ABC," examining in turn its genre, plot, two characters, style, and reception, and comparing it to its source.
ABC is not polite praise of the Virgin or gentle expression of filial love: it is a needy, fearful, grasping cry for her protection, evincing the greed, craft, and importunity of a child seeking its mother's reassurance.
Crampton, Georgia Ronan.
David A. Richardson, ed. Spenser: Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern (Cleveland State University, 1977), pp. 132-34. [Microfiche available from the Department of English.]
Spenser and Chaucer both composed subtle, complex closures, spreading out before the audience several endings, like sections of a fan. Many medieval poems ended almost interchangeably in a formulaic prayer for salvation.
Crampton, Georgia Ronan.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974.
Examines the commonplace theme of "agere et pati" (to act and to suffer) in the works of Chaucer and Spenser, especially KnT and books 1-4 of Spenser's "The Faerie Queene," exploring oppositions between deed and emotion, action and passion, and…
Crampton, Georgia Ronan.
Dissertation Abstracts International 28.06 (1967): 2205A.
Traces the topos of the sufferer as protagonist in classical, Christian, and late Latin sources and explores it "as an element" in KnT, TC, and Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene," arguing that Chaucer tends to emphasize "the value of acceptant…
Crampton, Georgia Ronan.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 62 (1963): 486-500.
Assesses the transitions in BD as devices Chaucer uses to "direct the reader toward the hard statements [the poem] makes about deprivation, consolation, the hazards of fortune and the consequences of decision." Divisions in the conversation between…
Crane, John Kenny.
English Language Notes 4 (1966): 81-85.
Adduces evidence from late-medieval maritime law and practice and from details in the GP description of the Merchant (compared with those of the Friar and the Clerk) to argue that the Merchant "has probably committed every money-crime in the books."
Crane, Susan.
Barbara A. Hanawalt, ed. Chaucer's England: Literature in Historical Context (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), pp. 201-21.
Asserts the importance of assaults on written documents in the so-called Peasants' Revolt of 1381, exploring the hegemony that writing represented to the rebels. Assesses how Langland's revisions of Piers Plowman reflect his concerns with the…
The analogies between the Franklin and Dorigen allow Chaucer to relate class to gender and to explore the ways romance imagines the possibilities and the constraints of self-definition.
Crane, Susan.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990): 47-63.
While critics have recently emphasized classicizing influences, KnT's portrayal of courtship, its enigmatic heroine's resistance to courtship, and the marvels in Diana's temple should be understood in light of romance conventions. Chaucer's…
Crane, Susan.
English Language Notes 25:3 (1988): 10-15.
No case can be made that the Wife of Bath murdered her fourth husband. Such claims are made only by readers who invent for her an extratextual history and psychology or who believe that she "merely fulfills antifeminist expectations rather than…
Galled by clerical antifeminism (woman is weak and hence evil), the power-obsessed Alison turns for her tale to courtly romance (woman is weak and hence good). Thus, ultimately she subverts the conventions of estates, gender, and genre, proving…
Crane, Susan.
Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1986.
Argues that romances produced in England, whether in Anglo-Norman or Middle English, share a consistent series of concerns that distinguishes them from French romances.
Despite traditional misconceptions of their relative chronology and a lack of specific verbal echoes, the "structural and thematic parallels" of BD and Froissart's "Dit dou Bleu Chevalier" indicate Chaucer's dependence on Froissart. Their common…
Crane, Susan.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Romance is the medieval genre that most clearly dramatizes gendered identity, focusing on "courtship, marriage, lineal concerns, primogeniture, and sexual maturation." Chaucer's KnT, WBT, SqT, FranT, and Th reflect and confront masculine identity…
Crane, Susan.
New Medieval Literatures 2 (1998): 159-79.
Suggests that "maying" shapes participants' sexuality, thereby furthering the "ritual's enactment of social status." Uses LGW as an example of the mirroring of human qualities in the natural world.
Crane, Susan.
Robert Boenig and Kathleen Davis, eds. Manuscript, Narrative, Lexicon: Essays on Literary and Cultural Transmission in Honor of Whitney F. Bolton (Lewisburg, Penn: Bucknell University Press; and London: Associated University Presses, 2000), pp. 17-44.
Argues that scribe John Duxworth, rather than his patron Jean d'Angoulême, was the guiding intelligence behind the execution of the Paris manuscript of CT (Ps) and that his revisions and errors are consistent with the habits of other scribes who…
Crane, Susan.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
Crane investigates a wide range of cultural rituals, demonstrating how identity was performed in late medieval England and how such performances make meaning and establish identity. She explores the Chaucer coat of arms as self-representation rooted…
The two portions of SqT align the cultural differences between the Mamluk emissary and the Mongol court with the species differences between the falcon and Canacee. Capitalizing on symbolic, metonymic connections between animals and humans and…
References to animals presented as "sentient beings" in SumT convey the friar's "spiritual weakness," perhaps reflecting oral traditions of Franciscan ideals.
