Opening and closing stanzas of TC combine high, epic style with "sermo humilis," creating a rising and sinking pattern of "unlikeness." The verse and rhetoric reflect the meanings, the sublimest points made in simplest statement. The conclusion…
McGunnigle, Michael Gerard.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1980): 2616A.
The genres of history and romance in Middle English Troy poems are distinguished by contrasting attitudes towards sources and the historicity of the subject; by a corresponding contrast in attitudes towards the historical distance between past and…
Bisceglia, Julie Jeanne.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1980): 258A.
TC can be read with two distinct poetic traditions in mind: the serious, Platonic ideal represented by Dante, which desires absolute truth, purposeful behavior, and an immutable self; and the Ovidian rhetorical ideal which upholds behavior shaped by…
Jimura, Akiyuki.
The Ohtani Studies (July 30, 1980): 1-20.
The admirable and delicate precision with which each character works depends on the poet's skillful use of adjectives and similes. The writer illustrates this fact with particular reference to the descriptions of Troilus and Criseyde.
Similarities to Ovid's young Medea give Criseyde's character innocence; to Helen, guile, and reluctance to decide; while references to Oenone prefigure treachery in the connection to Paris' betrayal and the war. Ovidian references undercut the…
Bowers, John M.
Nathaniel B. Smith and Joseph T. Snow, eds. The Expansion and Transformation of Courtly Literature (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980), pp. 141-55.
The visual image of Troilus on his horse, which Criseyde sees from her window, is connected to the earlier image of Troilus as a horse. The horse image, with its suggestions of lust and pride, is associated with both Troilus and Criseyde.
Chaucer's addition of Troilus' swoon allows reestablishment of "obeisaunce" critical to Criseyde's loving him, and threatened by Pandarus' story of his jealousy and his own inability to refute or continue it. Mutual apologies suggest mutual…
Cormican, John D.
USF Language Quarterly 18 (1980): 43-48.
Whatever his name may suggest, Pandarus was himself a true lover, holding love and friendship, though subject to the vicissitudes of Fortune, as the highest human values. Endowed with social grace and committed to friendship, Pandarus pretends not…
Fyler, John M.
Modern Language Quarterly 41 (1980): 115-30.
Just as TC is "distanced" from the reader by its setting during the Trojan War, so too does Pandarus blur the lines between reality and fiction. The "real" world is an illusion; the little world of the lovers is all that is real. Ironically,…
Ebi, Hisato.
The Journal of Liberal Arts Department, Kansai Medical University (December 1980): pp. 15-126.
Pseudo Dionysius Areopagita's theory of "One Light of God" had very much to do with the rich achievements of Gothic art. Consciously or unconsciously, Chaucer was a man in the High Gothic era. In BD his aesthetic idea is clearly presented by the…
The primary mode of discourse, conversation, emphasizes the difficulty of communication. BD oscillates between two opposing views: the existence and dissolution of the self and the other. Chaucer gives the reader an awareness of the conditions…
Salter, Elizabeth.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 2 (1980): 71-79.
Chaucer's writing of BD in English is not evidence of English nationalism but is "the triumph of internationalism." He adopted "both theory and precedent for the creation of high-prestige vernacular literature" to produce in English the kind of…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Chaucer Review 14 (1980): 313-18.
J. E. Hankins' view of the "Pervigilium Veneris" as a source for PF has not caught on because no one has yet found a persuasive verbal echo. Such an echo appears in the list of persons love has destroyed: PF, 286-92 has a counterpart in…
Fujiki, Takayoshi.
Shukugawa Studies in Linguistics and Literature 4 (1980): 1-13.
The puzzling character of the earthly love and life of human beings is what PF tries to explore and discover. Chaucer revealed an irrational aspect of humanity in this work.
Olson, Paul A.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 2 (1980): 53-69.
The discussion of love between men and women is the vehicle for discussing the nature of society and social love. The parliament itself--a talking together--represents the means provided to fallen man for discovering how to achieve the common…
Reed, Thomas L. [Jr.]
Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa 50 (1980): 215-22.
The bird parliament accords with scholastic and literary forms of the debate, including the terminology which characterizes the tradition. Typical of the literary debate, PF ends without any clear decision on either side. The initial "demande…
Tenebruso, Marie Yrsa.
Dissertation Abstracts International 40 (1980): 5856A.
In spite of the limitations imposed on Chaucer by virtue of his socially inferior position in relation to his courtly audiences, his thorough mastery of rhetorical principles and techniques allowed him to transmit his "sententia," namely, the…
Kanno, Masahiko.
Essays in Honour of Professor Hiroshige Yoshida (Shinozaki Shorin Press, 1980), pp. 47-57.
The narrator of this work, pretending ignorance, is conscious of his position as a poet, and a humorous but skeptical attitude towards utterance. Like a nominalist, he examines everyday speech, which is only "eyr ybroken," from the point of view of…
McMillan, Ann Hunter.
Dissertation Abstracts International 40 (1980): 5437A.
The labels "antifeminism" and "courtly love" misrepresent the medieval literary treatment of women. Three types--the chaste wife, the "manly" virgin, and the martyr of love--dominate the catalogues through the Middle Ages.
Shigeo, Hisashi.
The Meiji Gakuin Review (October 1980): 37-54.
The stories about Hypsipyle, Medea, Lucrece, and Ariadne are treated. In each case it seems that the poet finds feminine virtue in masculine vice. Except for the case of Lucrece, simplicity and flippancy on the part of women are exempted from moral…
Waller, Martha S.
Chaucer Newsletter 2.1 (1980): 10-12.
Holcot is a source for the conclusion of "Lucrece": his "In Librum Sapientie" includes (1) the statement, not in the Gospels, that Christ found greater faith in women than in men, and (2) a catalogue of pagan good women including Lucretia and others…
