Taylor, Ann M.
Papers on Language and Literature 15 (1979): 357-69.
Chaucer presents Troilus' appeal to Criseyde as ominous in its accuracy, sincere in its passions, yet faulty in its rhetoric. Troilus fails to appear confident, to inspire Criseyde's good will; through faulty emphasis he loses the effect of his plan…
Brennan, John P.
English Language Notes 17.2 (1979-80): 15-18.
The alliterative phrase "here and houne," usually related to "hare and hound," may derive from an unattested OE formula meaning "the host and the household," an interpretation consistent with the context.
Matheson, Lister M.
Notes and Queries 224 (1979): 203.
The line reads "Thy pourynge ('vrr.' pouryng, powringe) in wol nowher lat hem dwelle." All evidence--context, lexicographical, manuscript--indicates that it means "peering-in, gazing-in," from ME "pouren"; and not "pouring-in."
Shirley, Charles Garrison.
Dissertation Abstracts International 39 (1979): 6118A.
Computer-generated concordances and frequency lists help in deciding which part of a character's vocabulary is especially significant. Pandarus' vocabulary emphasizes his expertise in using social and family relationships. Criseyde applies words to…
Chaucer uses "the winds of Fortune" as a metaphor to organize the genre and to define the characters. Troilus' perception of Fortune shifts from the divine to Criseyde, assuring his fall. The narrator opposes Pandarus' attitude in accepting the…
The main characters in TC are oppressed in various senses. How to enhance and ennoble them despite their unfortunate situation is one of Chaucer's undertakings. He cannot, however, free himself from the given conditions of the Trojan cycle. Hence…
Supports James Wimsatt's contention that the story of Ceyx and Alcyone in BD owes certain details to "Ovide moralise" rather than to the "Metamorphoses" by offering one piece of evidence, namely, that the narrator says that, to drive away the…
Robertson, D. W.,Jr.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 403-13.
Earlier critics, led by Kittredge, read the poem as a consolation for John of Gaunt, embodied as the Black Knight;the dreamer is naive and childish. Recently, however, Robertson has denied the view of "courtly love" some see in the work. Instead,…
Wimsatt, James I.
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. 119-31.
From BD at the beginning of his career to Sted at the end, Chaucer made use of Machaut's ballade, "Il m'est avis." He drew on it for the translation of Bo, for MerT, and for For. Its images appear especially in BD and in MerT, its philosophical…
Baker, Donald C.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 428-45.
Substantive criticism of PF really begins in 1935 with Bronson, who stated that the poem is a study of contrasts between man's views of love. Later critics have elaborated this view, noting the polarities of the work: the "Somnium" and the garden,…
Bennett, J. A. 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. 132-46.
Reconsideration of passages not sufficiently considered in his 1957 edition of PF has led Mr. Bennett to comment on Chaucer's deep and searching study of the "Somnium Scipionis"; the structure of the main part of PF; the central sequence of the three…
Cleary, Barbara A.
Delta Epsilon Sigma Bulletin 24 (1979): 108-12.
There are several contrasts and incongruities in tone, style, and ideas in Chaucer's PF, as for example the naive narrator vs. condescending Scipio, ideal love vs. natural love, the love garden vs. the discordant parliament held therein, courtly…
Kelley, Michael R.
Chaucer Review 14 (1979): 61-73.
Antithesis is the major source of PF's aesthetic unity. It arranges the poem's structural levels in a pattern of oppositions: antithetical word pairs are joined by antithetical arrangements of style, description, characterization, plot, narrative,…
Mori, Hajime.
Bulletin of the Department of English Literature, Teikyo University (1979): 342.
The use of contrast in PF is notable, as the poem begins with a suggestive contrast in "Ars longa, vita brevis." The main theme of the work may be considered to be a contrast of courtly love and natural love.
Pelen, Marc M.
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 9 (1979): 277-305.
Structure and theme of the Vision are established not only by the "Roman de la Rose" but by Latin poems: (1) visionary setting and (2) questing love-debate for a solution to the turmoil resolved (or unresolved) at (3) a Court of Love. Chaucer's…
Merlo, Carolyn.
English Language Notes 17 (1979): 88-90.
Though "the rede" may be taken as referring to either Phaethon or his father Phoebus, Phaethon is in Ovid the red-haired boy burning in the sky, who falls to earth as a human torch;"rede Phaethon" shows fidelity to Chaucer's source and intensifies…
Shepherd, Geoffrey T.
Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell, eds. J. R. R. Tolkien: Essays in Memoriam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979), pp. 204-20.
Chaucer questions the nature of storytelling and the possibility of writing "truth" in imaginative literature. Two words express the divergence of the problem in the Middle Ages: "sooth," which is axiomatic truth (often expressed proverbially);…
Argues that Chaucer's concerns in HF are metalinguistic by drawing an analogy between verbal inflation (high style) and monetary inflation (which was rampant in Chaucer's day). Both words and coins are arbitrary signs and mediums of exchange;…
Fisher, John H.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 464-76.
In this century discussions of LGW have centered on two points: the historical occasion of the poem and its significance as a stage in Chaucer's artistic development. Not until the last decade has criticism concerned itself with the artistry of the…
Kiser, Lisa Jean.
Dissertation Abstracts International 39 (1979): 4275A.
LGWP reveals the God of Love's misreading of TC and Rom. The stories that follow must be read with Alceste's self-sacrifice and resurrection in mind. With Alceste's powers of "translatio," the sinful pagan lovers rise again to live in Christian…
Chaucer's attitude toward love should be observed in the continuity of his works. LGW, which comes in between TC and CT, plays an important part in this connection. Here, human love is once again taken up to be praised with some controversial…
Sutton, Jonathan Wayne.
Dissertation Abstracts International 40 (1979): 2052A.
The stories in LGW represent a first attempt by Chaucer in a series of framed stories to deal with the relation between experience, authority, and ideal sentiment. Comparison with their Ovidian sources and close reading reveals that even though…
