Though similarities have been found, Mercury's appearance to Arcite in KnT cannot be traced to a single specific source. One should view the scene in the broad context of the theme of epic descent from which Chaucer draws several effects.
Surveys the dilemmas experienced by Criseyde, Troilus, Chaucer, and the reader in TC, relating them all to the conflicts between classical beauty and Christian truth.
Boyd, David Lorenzo.
Claude J. Summers, ed. The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage: A Reader's Companion to the Writers and Their Works, from Antiquity to the Present. Rev. ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 147-48.
Boyd summarizes the tension in medieval tradition between the promotion of homosocial bonding and the proscription of sodomy. He characterizes Chaucer's treatment of male homosexuality in CT as typically homophobic.
Burrow, J. A.
Claude Rawson, ed. English Satire and the Satiric Tradition. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), pp. 44-55. Also in Yearbook of English Studies 14 (1984): 44-55.
Th, according to L. H. Loomis, follows no previous pattern of burlesque. This article disputes Lommis's contention through comparison with "prise de Neuvile" in action, language, opening address, catalogues, descriptions, parody, abrupt ending, and…
Burrow, J. A.
Claude Rawson, ed. The Cambridge Companion to English Poets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 20-36.
Introduces Chaucer's life and describes each of his major works in chronological order, identifying the French context of BD, the Italian travels and reading that influenced him later, the philosophical concerns of TC, and his self-representations in…
Craig, Robert M.
Claudette Stager and Martha Carver, eds. Looking Beyond the Highway: Dixie Roads and Culture. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006, pp. 267-87.
Compares people and places of twentieth-century journeys on the Dixie Highway to several medieval pilgrimages, real and fictional, including CT.
Barber, Charles.
Claudia Blank, and others, eds. Language and Civilization: A Concerted Profusion of Essays and Studies in Honour of Otto Hietsch, 2 vols. (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), vol. 1, pp. 204-17.
According to Barber, "about half the examples of unelided word-final -e in CT were pronounced." A following study will determine in which words final -e was pronounced.
Kaylor, Noel Harold (Jr.)
Claudia Blank, and others, eds. Language and Civilization: A Concerted Profusion of Essays and Studies in Honour of Otto Hietsch, 2 vols. (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 431-45.
TC is Chaucer's only fully realized tragedy. Interrupted by the Knight to show its limitations, MkT satisfies only the "minimal medieval expectations" of the genre, lacking elevated subject matter. Kaylor explores the term "tragedy" by reference to…
Johnston, Andrew James.
Claudia Lange, Beatrix Weber, and Göran Wolf, eds. Communicative Spaces: Variation, Contact, and Change: Papers in Honour of Ursula Schaefer (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2012), pp. 133-46.
Interprets Custance's use of "Latyn corrupt" to the natives of Northumbria in terms of Isidore of Seville's discussion of linguistic history and suggests that MLT takes an acutely historicist view of the development of medieval Christianity,…
Johnston, Andrew James.
Claudia Lange, Ursula Schaefer, and Göran Wolf, eds. Linguistics, Ideology, and the Discourse of Linguistic Nationalism (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 37-51.
Johnston scrutinizes Chaucer's comments on alliterative poetry in ParsP, interpreting them as evidence of a power struggle in England's evolving literary field. By presenting aesthetic difference as linguistic difference, Chaucer consciously presents…
Markus, Manfred.
Claus Uhlig and Rudiger Zimmerman, eds. Anglistentag 1990 Marburg: Proceedings of the Conference of the German Association of University Professors of English, no. 12 (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1991), pp. 177-94.
Enumerative disjunctions, emphasizers, repetition, and variation produce the controlled style of CT. Chaucer's two prose tales, ParsT and Mel, have characteristics that are found less in verse (and that modern readers dislike): cohesive redundancy…
Ridley, Florence H.
Clausdirk Pollner, Helmut Rohlfing, and Frank-Rutger Hausmann, eds. Bright Is the Ring of Words: Festschrift fur Horst Weinstck zum 65 Geburtstag (Bonn: Romanistischer Verlag, 1996), pp. 251-57.
Briefly surveys the ways Chaucer leaves "gaps" in CT--omissions, repetitions, reversals, etc.--and suggests how ParsT provides a wholeness despite these gaps.
Erzgräber, Willi.
Clausdirk Pollner, Helmut Rohlfing, and Frank-Rutger Hausmann, eds. Bright Is the Ring of Words: Festschrift fur Horst Weinstck zum 65 Geburtstag (Bonn: Romanistischer Verlag, 1996), pp. 75-82.
Compares Molly Bloom's concluding monologue with WBP, assessing the two characters' views on sexuality and euphemism and their relations with their husbands.
Ruud, Jay, and Stacey M. Jones.
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.2 (2009): n.p. [Electronic publication]
Uses public relations theory ("concepts of relationship management") to examine the competitiveness of the Pardoner in PardPT and the combination of competiveness in WBP with the valuing of "communal relationship" in WBT.
Hejaiej, Mounira Monia.
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 12.1 (2010): n.p.
Provides comparative analysis of the modern Tunisian tale "Sabra," an analogue of ClT, told by a woman to an exclusively female audience. Includes summary of and commentary on Chaucer's "ambivalent and ironic version," plus other medieval European…
Winterich, John T., intro.
Cleveland and New York: World Publishing, 1958.
A facsimile reprint of the 1896 Kelmscott Chaucer, with Winterich's Introduction that summarizes the lives of Chaucer and of William Morris, the production of the original book, and its place in the history of Kelmscott publications. Includes a…
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Clifford Davidson, ed. Word, Picture, and Spectacle: Papers by Karl P. Wentersdorf, Roger Ellis, Clifford Davidson, and R. W. Hanning. Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series 5 (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University Medieval Institute Publications, 1984), pp. 1-19.
Not mere "doodles" but symbolic images, scatalogical images in the margins of medieval manuscripts derive ultimately from biblical and religious writing. Verbal scatalogy in MilT and SumT is serious, moralistic, not vicious.
Bellamy, Elizabeth Jane.
Clio 34.3 (2005): 297-315.
Responding to Greenblatt's essay, Bellamy explores the status of psychoanalytic criticism in medieval studies, with particular focus on Chaucer studies.
McCormack, Frances.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 107-20.
Discusses the relationship between the Prioress's "empty" rhetoric, audience reception, and emphatically feminine representation. The Prioress, in this reading, is a kind of false prophet, more dangerous than the Pardoner who plays a similar role.
Steenbrugge, Charlotte.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 121-33..
Enters the discussion about apparent temporal discrepancies in PF and reframes it with a reminder that the poem occurs in a dream vision, and need not correspond literally to English weather and bird behavior. Embraces contradictory references to…
O'Connell, Brendan.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 134-57.
Notes that counterfeit and forged documents appear frequently in CT, but most frequently in exemplary and ethical tales such as MLT and ClT. This suggests Chaucer's lack of trust in this kind of writing and his preference for an ethics based on…
Urban, Malte.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 146-57.
Examines "afterlives" of Chaucer created by post-medieval scholars using digital tools. Argues for attention to digital engagements with Chaucer, such as "Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog," as having significant existences separate from a historical…
Scattergood, John.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 15-36.
Explores the use of the phrase "good fellow" as it is used in Martin Scorsese's film, "Goodfellas," Clanvowe's Lollard treatise, "The Two Ways," and FrT.
Pearson, Richard.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 158-84.
Examines the significance of William Morris' direct engagement with Chaucer's works. The illustrations and intricate frames of his Kelmscott Chaucer are complex and communicative, serving as creatively productive interruptions to the act of reading.
