Treharne, Elaine,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Surveys the emergence of earliest literature in Britain and Ireland, including well-known texts, such as "Beowulf" and CT, and less familiar manuscript and print works. Includes discussion of CT, LGW, and TC.
Siewers, Alfred K.
Stephanie LeMenager, Teresa Shewry, and Ken Hiltner, eds. Environmental Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 105-20.
Views "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Malory's "Morte Darthur," and CT through the lens of ecopoetics, contending that they all rely upon the interdependence of author, text, and audience; employ metonyms rather more than metaphors; play with…
Describes and assesses the presence of the comic mode in English literature, including a discussion (pp. 42-51) of portions of CT (especially MilT, RvT, and WBP) that explores how Chaucer achieves comedy without negating the "seriousness of the…
Explores how Chaucer's characters in CT challenge the medieval social norm of community over "pryvetee" by telling tales that expose others' "pryvetee and obscure their own; by profession as a means of asserting individual power over one's pryvetee;…
Lee, Dong Choon.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 24.2 (2016): 83-105.
Discusses medieval concepts of aging and Chaucer's depictions of old men in CT. Claims that Chaucer displays a balanced attitude in his depictions of old men, which differs from how medieval society tended to view the elderly in a negative light.
Focuses on the theological and comical elements of CT and its "beatific vision." Claims that Chaucer "provides a lyrical vision of the possibilities of poetry and pilgrimage" in GP.
Karolides, Nicholas J., Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova.
New York: Facts on File, 2011.
Originally published in 2005. Treats CT (pp. 474-77) in a section called "Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds," describing the pilgrimage and the social variety of the pilgrims, claiming that "Risqué language and sexual innuendo pervade most of…
Gerber, Amanda J.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Explores the political motivations of Ovid's "frame narratives" and how they appealed to and influenced medieval writers. For a chapter on Chaucer see Chapter 4, "Clerical Expansion and Narrative Diminution in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales."
Dobyns, Ann.
Kathleen Dubs and Janka Kaśčáková, eds. Does It Really Mean That? Interpreting the Literary Ambiguous (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), pp. 226-42.
Explores similarities between ambiguity and rhetorical invention in rhetorical tradition from Plato to the twenty-first century. Then discusses three examples of "conscious exploitation of the potential of ambiguity": "Sir Gawain and the Green…
Braswell, Mary Flowers.
Austin Sarat, Cathrine O. Frank, and Matthew Anderson, eds. Teaching Law and Literature (New York: Modern Language Association, 2011), pp. 155-61.
Offers a pedagogical unit in which advanced students explore similarities between CT (especially GP) and manor court records, capitalizing on Chaucer's familiarity with legal proceedings. Suggests that the "manor court seems to have influenced…
Studies how horse figures function in telling, traveling, and space definition in "Les quatre fils Aymon," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, GP, SqT, and TC.
Considers ways that female monastic readers in Amesbury and Syon may have read and used works by Chaucer, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Lydgate. Claims that these "Chaucerian tradition" writings helped influence the devotional culture of female monastic…
Turner, Marion.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 46.1 (2016): 61-87.
Explores how John Arderne, Chaucer, and Thomas Hoccleve use the language of illness and healing in a wide range of texts, noting that the narrators present themselves as "flawed and sick" and that their narratives, like their bodies, are "not wholly…
Presents a comprehensive history of England and argues that shared language is a key component of an English national identity that was developed by the end of the Middle Ages. Credits Chaucer, Langland, and Wyclif with the revival of English in the…
Thompson, John J.
Graham Allen, Carrie Griffen, and Mary O'Connell, eds. Readings on Audience and Textual Materiality (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), pp. 9–21.
Considers the shifts from orality to literacy and from manuscripts to printed books in late medieval English book culture, examining the range of implications about audiences evident in various versions of the lyric "Erthe upon erthe." Opens with…
Sidhu, Nicole Nolan.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.
Argues in Chapter 2, "Chaucer's Poetics of the Obscene: Classical Narrative and Fabliau Politics in Fragment One of the "Canterbury Tales" and the "Legend of Good Women" (pp. 76-110), that RvT taps the subversive potential of the fabliau to critique…
Discusses "the power of affect on minds and bodies" and the "psychology of love and loss" in Chaucer's works. Explores relationship between women's literary culture and roles of women in BD, KnT, TC, and LGW.
Saraceni, Madeleine Louise.
Dissertation Abstracts International A77.12 (2016): n.p.
In the course of examining changing ideas of female readers, considers Chaucer's self-definition as a "writer of feminine genres" (e.g., devotions, saints' lives, and conduct literature).
Saraceni, Madeleine L.
Chaucer Review 51.4 (2016): 403-35.
Explores what Chaucer's use of genres strongly associated with female readers--such as vernacular devotional writing, conduct literature, and hagiography--suggests about his attitudes toward women. Examines the significance of the catalogue of…
Patterson, Serina, ed.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Collects interdisciplinary essays focusing on the breadth and depth of games in medieval literature and culture. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search for Games and Gaming in Medieval Literature under Alternative Title.
Bolens, Guillemette.
Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp, eds. Fleshly Things and Spiritual Matters: Studies on the Medieval Body in Honour of Margaret Bridges (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), pp. 51-77.
Explores the extent to which a "literary text may disturb the social drama of gender roles by staging characters deliberately enacting their normative gender roles 'as' enacted gender roles," focusing on Kit in the Prologue to the Tale of Beryn, but…
Shoaf, R. Allen.
Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp, eds. Fleshly Things and Spiritual Matters: Studies on the Medieval Body in Honour of Margaret Bridges (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), pp. 193-208.
Explores verbal play with walls and words in Dante's allusion to Pyramus and Thisbe in his "Commedia"; Chaucer's uses of enclosure and openness in TC in light of his own allusion to the love pair (TC 5.1247-48); and Henryson's closing off of…
Keller, Angelina.
Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp, eds. Fleshly Things and Spiritual Matters: Studies on the Medieval Body in Honour of Margaret Bridges (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), pp. 79-124.
Identifies in medieval medicine a concern with organs and features of the human body that are "grotesquely" able to speak, and associates the concept with Cecilia's neck in SNT and the clergeon's throat in PrT. Through their depictions of human…
