Mitchell, Charles.
College English 27 (1966): 437-44.
Asks why the Pardoner "always preaches against his own sin" and why he admits to doing so to the Canterbury pilgrims, using the questions to argue that he is a con-man rather than a hypocrite, and one who considers himself morally superior to his…
McCall, John P.
Chaucer Review 1.2 (1966): 103-09.
Describes patterns of "elaborate inconsequence, incongruity and downright bathos" in SqT, attributing them to the Squire's naïve efforts to be impressive and, by extension, Chaucer's skillful weaving of character and theme.
Comments on Chaucer criticism produced between 1950 and 1964 and, treating Chaucer's work as a "single fiction," reads it as a "complex examination of what it means to love" in earthly and spiritual ways. An "abyss exists between" the two kinds of…
Mann, Lindsay A.
Studies in Philology 63 (1966): 10-29.
Explores the "aristocratic, moral, and Christian" understandings of "gentilesse," listing the entailed ideals of truth, benevolence, mildness, etc. as expressed in ParsT, Gent, and in French courtly tradition. Argues that a complex understanding of…
Illustrates Chaucer's "comic misapplication" of "monitory elements" as a device of characterization in CT, discussing how the misapplied expressions of traditional wisdom can be used cleverly (as with Nicholas in MilT), foolishly (John in MilT and…
Argues that Chaucer uses portions of Pope Innocent's "De Miseria" in MLPT to "further characterize" the Man of Law, deepening the "concern with wealth" found in the GP description of the Sergeant. Furthermore, the portions from "De Miseria" unify the…
Levy, Bernard S.
Tennessee Studies in Literature 11 (1966): 45-60.
Contributes to discussions of the effectiveness of SumT by describing its "pattern of biblical parody" centered on Pentecost, arguing that the Summoner uses the pattern to attack the claim that friars, like the apostles, "have a special divine…
Coghill, N. K.
John Lawlor, ed. Patterns of Love and Courtesy: Essays in Memory of C. S. Lewis (London: Edward Arnold, 1966), pp. 141-56.
Explores the attitude toward sexual love expressed in Andreas Capellanus's "De Arte Honeste Amandi," contrasting it with the "innocent sincerity in sexual love" that is characteristic of Chaucer's Troilus (and Shakespeare's), also considering the…
Salter, Elizabeth.
John Lawlor, ed. Patterns of Love and Courtesy: Essays in Memory of C. S. Lewis (London: Edward Arnold, 1966), pp. 86-106.
Interprets the discontinuities and disunities of TC for the ways that they reveal the "growth and release" of Chaucer's creative imagination, reading them as evidence of his "dissatisfaction" with the characterization of Criseyde and the nature of…
Brewer, D. S.
John Lawlor, ed. Patterns of Love and Courtesy: Essays in Memory of C. S. Lewis (London: Edward Arnold, 1966), pp. 54-85.
Examines the meaning and significance of "courtesy" in the works of the "Gawain"-poet, and includes comments on characterization (as a matter of role rather than personality) in Chaucer's works, along with an excursus on "hende" that focuses on…
Includes ten essays by various authors and a comprehensive index. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Patterns of Love and Courtesy under Alternative Title.
Lanham, Richard A.
Literature and Psychology 16 (1966): 157-65.
Challenges psychoanalytic approaches to ClT and rejects the approaches that read the poem either as a Christian parable of authoritarianism or a rejection of authority as a "disease of monarchy." Argues that Chaucer creates the Tale as an expression…
Kelly, Francis J.
Explicator 24.9 (1966): item 81.
Explicates the phrase "withouten coppe" (FranT 5.492) as meaning "outside of the cup," conveying that Aurelius drank his penance to the fullest extent.
Reads the rocks of FranT as a representation of natural evil, only apparently avoided in the plot, and an opportunity for the operations of both "gentilesse" and unearned providential grace.
Hussey, Maurice, ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966.
Presents MerPT in Middle English (following Robinson's 1957 edition), with notes and glossary at the end of the text. The Introduction (pp. 1-34) comments on the GP description of the Merchant, the relations between MerT and ClT and between MerT and…
Hoffman, Richard L.
English Language Notes 3 (1966): 169-72.
Explains the sexual resonances latent in the reference to Priapus in MerT 4.2034-37, citing tales in Ovid, the commentary tradition, and PF. January's statue of Priapus "constitutes a kind of devotion to the obscene god who was the true patron saint…
Hoffman, Richard L.
[Philadelphia]: [University of Pennsylvania Press,] 1966.
Argues that Ovid inspired the structure, narrative complexities, and thematic focus of CT--its tales-within-a-tale structure, its multiple narrators characterized by their tales, and its concern with two kinds of love, higher and lower--and shows…
Heydon, Peter N.
Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters 51 (1966): 529-45.
Argues that Chaucer was influenced by the now-lost Prologue to "Sir Orfeo" of the Auchinleck manuscript, evident in similarities in "concept, diction, and syntax" between the FranP and the extant versions of the "Orfeo" prologue and between the…
Contends that the "Joce"/"croce" rhyme in WBP 3.483-84 is not just a convenient rhyme but a set of sexual puns, dependent upon the association of St. Joce with a staff.
Haller, Robert S.
Chaucer Review 1.2 (1966): 67-84.
Explores the epic elements of KnT and its sources, arguing that in placing love at the thematic center of his poem (replacing traditional political concerns), Chaucer was "attempting to make something entirely new" out of his material. By emphasizing…
Halle, Morris, and Samuel Jay Keyser.
College English 28 (1966): 187-219.
Explores the assumptions about stress that underlie prosodic scansion, and demonstrates that Chaucer's decasyllabic verse is built upon a contrastive rather than an absolute distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables. Considers elision,…
Grennen, Joseph E.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 67 (1966): 117-22.
Argues that a possible source for the references to "Sampsoun" in PardT 6.549-61 and for aspects of the account of Samson in MkT 7.2914-94 is "Livre du Chevalier de la Tour-Landry."
Grennen, Joseph E.
Romance Notes 8 (1966): 109-12.
Argues that aspects of the beginning of MerT (including January's ill health, the names Placebo and Justinus, etc.) may have been inspired by details and sentiments found in "Livre du Chevalier de la Tour-Landry."
Grenberg, Bruce L.
Chaucer Review 1.1 (1966): 37-54.
Argues that the concern with the "basic duality between material and spiritual values" in CYPT is based in Boethius's admonitions against pursuing false felicity in his "Consolation of Philosophy," manifested in the Canon's Yeoman's concern with…
