Jordan, Robert M., James I Wimsatt, and Mary Carruthers.
PMLA 94 (1979): 950-53.
An exchange of letters in the PMLA Forum section that comment on the characterization of the Wife of Bath and the role of sources (especially Jerome) and historical contexts in understanding the character.
Smith, Nathaniel B., and Evan Carton.
PMLA 94 (1979): 948-50.
An exchange of letters in the PMLA Forum section letters that comment on the meaning of "authority" in the Middle Ages, particularly Chaucer's uses of the notion.
Steadman, John M.
Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1979.
In a section called "Chaucer and Medieval Tradition" (pp. 67-114), reprints (with revisions and expansions) several previously published essays by Steadman, all of which explore iconographical or allegorical aspects of Chaucer's works. Includes the…
Varnaite, Irena.
Literatura: Lietuvos TSR Aukstuju Mokyklu Mokslo Darbai 21.3 (1979): 22-32.
Treats Chaucer's embedded lyrics as "independent complete structures" that contribute to their respective contexts and can as well stand alone. Comments on the rondel in PF, the ballade in LGW, the envoy of ClT, and the aubades, songs, and letters in…
Abbreviated prose adaptations of selections from CT, interspersed among modernizations in verse of the descriptions of the pilgrims in GP and following the GP order (with slight adjustments). Included are KnT, NPT, ClT, ShT, MLT, FranT, WBT, ManT,…
Judging Chaucer's works, especially NPT, by modern critical and cultural-literary standards deprives us of the "ideas and customs" of Chaucer's age, which are necessary for proper appreciation.
The mother-daughter bond appearing in medieval English poetry and hagiography is analyzed from a modern sociopsychological point of view, especially the surrogate mother-daughter, in which hags and crones advise young women. Deals briefly with WBT,…
Kooijman, Jacques.
Etudes de langue et de litterature francaises offertes a Andre Lanly (Nancy: Universite Publications, 1980), pp. 173-80.
A literary exchange between Eustache Deschamps and Chaucer probably took place between 1377 and 1380. In ballad 285, Deschamps speaks of the "grant translateur" of "Roman de la Rose."
Gerke, Robert S.
Proceedings of the International Patristic, Mediaeval, & Renaissance Conference 5 (1980): 119-35.
The Clerk and his tale serve as a corrective to the Wife of Bath's philosophy by "exploiting a fictional and moral failure of nerve on the Wife's part," since it is not realism but weakness that motivates the Wife.
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.
Identifies the "broad patterns of ideology in the text," discusses sources and onomastics, and examines the way in which the poetic working out energizes and modifies the ideology.
Chiappelli, Carolyn.
Proceedings of the International Patristic, Mediaeval, & Renaissance Conference 4 (1979): 1107-14.
The motif of "fals apparences" is a unifying factor of HF. The eagle as sophist or false philosopher, in seizing the narrator as prey, is reminiscent of Satan as fowler, or Dante's Gerione, emblem of fraud.
An edition and translation of "Filostrato," "Teseida" (excerpts), and "Filocolo" 4.31-34 (excerpts). Includes introduction, bibliography, notes, index of personal names, and three appendices: "The Fortunes of Troilus"; Benoit de Sainte-Maure,…
Bloomfield, Morton W.
Chaucer Review 14 (1980): 287-97.
The stylistic device occurs when a noun is given personification by the poet's use of a verb (or occasionally a verb phrase, adjective, or adverb). Chaucer uses few of them: the lyrics have more than do the longer narratives.
