Caretta, Vincent.
Studies in Scottish Literature 16 (1981): 14-28.
"The Kingis Quair" has been interpreted as autobiographical and Boethian. If, however, James I understood Boethius as Chaucer did, both interpretations are incorrect. James discredits his narrator persona by using the Chaucerian Boethius as a…
Coleman, Janet.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
Deals with verse and prose in Middle English, Latin, and Anglo-Norman as literary evidence of the rise of literacy and social mobility. Most literary works aimed at reform and edification in Christian ethical behavior rather than at entertainment. …
Dello Bouro, Carmen J.
Darby, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1981.
Includes essays by Leonhard Schmitz (1881), George Dawson (1886), William Calder (1892), John W. Hales (1893), Frank J. Mather (1899), Henry C. Beeching (1900), Alfred Ainger (1905), George H. Cowling (1934), and "Chaucer at Woodstock" (1882).
Emmerson, Richard Kenneth.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981.
Presents apocalyptical, exegetical, iconographic, and literary traditions of the Antichrist. Warns against conflation of Antichrist and devil in the canon of CYT (p. 147).
Friedman, John Block.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Drawing from art, iconography, literature, canon law, theology, and cartography, Friedman examines the impact upon European culture of monstrous races.
Lakshmi, Vijay.
Osmania Journal of English Studies 17 (1981): 19-25.
Woolf manages, in her essay "The Pastons and Chaucer," artfully and expertly to conjure up the medieval period while also insisting that Chaucer's gift as a storyteller depends on his creation of an art that improves upon life.
Medcalf, Stephen, ed.
New York: Holmes and Meier, 1981.
Essays include "On Reading Books from a Half-Alien Culture," "The Ideal, the Real, and the Quest for Perfection," "Inner and Outer," "Art and Architecture in the Late Middle Ages," "The Age of the Household: Politics, Society, and the Arts c.…
Merlo, Carolyn.
College Language Association Journal 25 (1981): 225-26.
The symbolic meaning of the color brown in Chaucer's works depends on the context in which the word is used. Examples can be noted in TC, BD, Rom, HF, and CT.
Owen, Charles A.,Jr.
Chaucer Review 16 (1981): 60-75.
Chaucer shows keen awareness of children--they are not merely miniature adults--and their relationship to their parents, as is clear in GP, FranT, ManT, PrT, SumT, MkT, WBT, PhyT, ClT, and especially Astr.
Reiss, Edmund.
Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1981): 209-26.
Although lacking the modern consciousness of irony, the Middle Ages was ironic both in its Christian view of the world and in its literary expression. Examines the "concordantia oppositorum" in art and literature. "The constant possibility of…
Passages from ShT and MLT suggest that men have a right to beat their wives; furthermore, MilT and passages from Mel and WBT (in the wife's marriage to Jankin) seem to suggest masochism in female characters. MkP suggests that women are naturally…
Fineman, Joel.
Stephen J. Greenblatt, ed. Allegory and Representation. Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1979-80, n.s. 05 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 26-60.
Chaucer deals with the ways allegories begin and the ends toward which they tend. The pilgrimage is advanced by the allegory in the tales.
Lemos, Brunilda Reichmann.
Revista Letras 30 (1981): 7-16.
Departures from Boccaccio's tale of Griselda are examined to prove that Chaucer had been familiar with three other versions, those of Petrarch, MS 1165, and Mezieres. Chaucer used differences in detail to add delicacy to enhance the emotional…
Rudat, Wolfgang E. H.
Annuale Mediaevale 21 (1981): 111-20.
The idea of sex as hard work and the portrait of January as lover draws on Augustinian theories of pre- and postlapsarian sexuality, also important in WBT and MkT; nevertheless, bawdy treatments of Christian theories are "harmoniously absorbed by the…
Wurtele, Douglas. J.
Annuale Mediaevale 21 (1981): 91-110.
Proceeding by "oblique allusions and undertones," the treatment of the Virgin in MerT is "mordantly ironic," leading up to January's "brazen parody of the 'Canticum Canticorum'." This blasphemy is appropriate to the Merchant's bitter cynicism.
Fisher, John H., and others.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 189-259.
Based on the "MLA 1979 International Bibliography," plus additions, including 232 books, articles, and reviews, compiled by an international team of contributors.
