Petrarch's account of a gemstone ring that, under the tongue of a beautiful corpse, drove Charlemagne mad with passion ("Familiares" 1.1.4) may have been known to Chaucer. The legend provides a suggestive analogue for the motif of the "grain" in the…
The principle of contraries provides a method for relating pairs of tales. ManT and ParsT offer paradigms for improper and proper use of speech. The Manciple uses and misglosses the tale of Phoebus and the Crow, while the Parson speaks the truth…
Neither Gascoigne's comments on Chaucer's deathbed repentence nor the retraction at the end of ParsT should be read too strongly. Rather Ret should be connected to the ParsT more clearly and seen in relationship to remarks on repentence in ParsT…
Neaman, Judith S.
Res Publica Litterarum 3 (1980): 101-13.
The narrator, Alcyone, and the Black Knight suffer from melancholy. Brain functions and anatomy, progress, and treatment of the illness are linked chronologically, and the time shifts are analogous to the order and process of brain physiology as…
Isenor, Neil,and Ken Woolner.
Physics Today 3 (1980): 114-16.
HF 782-834 displays an uncanny foreknowlege of details of the modern theory of sound and wave motion, especially in lines 809-13, where, in a great creative leap of scientific imagination, the motion of water waves is transferred to the propagation…
The "partridge wings" at the end of the "pictura" of Fame result not from error but from Chaucer's following the commentary on the "Metamorphoses" in "Ovide moralise," where Perdix (partridge) represents a clever but deceitful craftsman and Daedalus…
Barney, Stephen A., ed.
Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1980.
Contains seventeen essays or excerpts from longer works by various authors, fourteen previously published, some with very brief additional "afterwords." For the three newly-published pieces, search for Chaucer's Troilus: Essays in Criticism under…
Bestul, Thomas H.
Chaucer Review 14 (1980): 366-78.
Like other late medieval art, TC exhibits a growing concern with the portrayal of emotions, especially through the shifting role of the narrator. He sometimes resorts to "occupatio," claiming inability to describe an emotional state, and eventually…
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Chaucer Review 15 (1980): 101-26.
A clandestine "marriage" was not fornicatory but simply unlawful, since the church insisted on an eventual ceremony. Chaucer adds the troth plight to his source, thus raising the story above amorous intrigue and heightening the poignancy of…
Fisher, John H.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 2 (1980): 221-85.
Compiled by an international team of scholars, and based upon the 1977 and 1978 listings in the MLA International Bibliography, with additions. Includes 311 entries, including reviews.
A variorum editor should record "fully and impartially, the history of what people have 'thought' that his author wrote and meant." And he "should not 'editorialize' at all."
Owen, Charles A., Jr.
Chaucer Newsletter 2:2 (1980): 14.
Variations in the ink color of MSS. Ellesmere and Hengwrt have yet to be accurately described and may provide information concerning the order in which the parts of the mss were written.
Kern, Edith.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980.
Mikhail Bakhtin's study of the grotesquerie of medieval folk festivals encourages us to view certain Chaucerian characters in the carnivalesque spirit of absolute comedy: moral offenders such as Alysoun of MilT escape unscathed; Nicholas is punished…
Knight, Stephen.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 2 (1980): 15-51.
Modern sociological theories of criticism are applied to Chaucer's major works--BD, HF, PF, TC, and CT. In particular Pierre Macherey's ideological analysis is applied to structure and mimesis in Chaucer, and Jacques Lacan's theories on subjectivity…
Recent critics of Chaucer--Terry Jones, David Aers, and others--are conventional in their desire to moralize medieval literature. The trend of contemporary criticism of FranT, TC, and KnT, as examples, is to isolate from the story tableaux serving…
Ridley, Florence H.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 81 (1980): 131-41.
Chaucer's enduring appeal derives from his poetry's visuality,its presentation of unchanging human behavior, its deliberate ambiguity. The broad ranges of psychological criticism are viable as long as they are understood as imaginative constructs of…
Rogers, William E.
Chaucer Review 14 (1980): 260-77.
A theoretical objection to patristic criticism is that it is guilty of question-begging because it assumes that a work is intended to promote "caritas." It is not the assumption of coherence that produces the fallacy but the assumption of a…
In his paintings of the Canterbury pilgrims, Blake shows the influence of previous illustrations for and commentary upon CT, but goes beyond the artistic and textual tradition to set the group of pilgrims in his own Blakean cosmos, pairing characters…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 2 (1980): 7-13.
In this first presidential address to the New Chaucer Society, Professer Donaldson wittily summarizes the 20th-century conflict of opinion regarding Chaucer's work to conclude that Chaucer is partly to blame for the confusion. Like all great poets…
Gugelberger, Georg [M.]
Orbis Litterarum 35 (1980): 220-34.
In "ABC of Reading" Pound praises Chaucer above Shakespeare and Dante, and in his "Cantos" he makes important use of Chaucer's works, the short poems especially. Chaucer provides a setting-off point for understanding Pound's ideas about poetry and…
