Driver, Martha Westcott.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1981): 4391A.
Previous investigators of the sixteen extant TC MSS assumed three "parent" forms, presumed to represent Chaucer's recensions. Two MSS before 1400 may be the work of Chaucer's scribe.
Heyworth, P. L.
P. L. Heyworth, ed. Medieval Studies for J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 140-57.
The punctuation of medieval texts, including Chaucer's, imperfectly shows relationships between parts of the sentence. Standardized punctuation adopted in early Chaucer reprints often confuses meaning.
Owings, Frank N.,Jr.
Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 75 (1981): 147-55.
"The Works," edited by Speght (1598), sold in 1848 as part of Charles Lamb's library may be the same volume to which Keats refers in his letter of May 3(!), 1818. The copy at Lily Library of the University of Indiana is likely the one owned by Keats…
Bennett, J. A. W.
Review of English Studies 32 (1981): 294-96.
"The Meroure of Wisdom" (1490), by John of Ireland, contains a previously overlooked allusion to TC and ParsT. This work is followed in the manuscript by "Oracio Galfridi Chaucer," written by Hoccleve but possibly attributed to Chaucer because of…
Doederlin, Sue Warrick.
Comparative Literature 33 (1981): 156-66.
In his translation of KnT, Dryden imposed a number of pictorial effects--colors, emblems, icons, static scenes, and landscapes--to transform Chaucer into a seventeenth-century gentleman.
Chaucer developed a poetic idiom of ubiquitous equivocal effects and prevarication both in the comments of his persona and in the voices of his speakers. Poems touched on include TC, PardT, NPT, MerT, and LGW.
Concentrates on "colloquialism" in Chaucer's syntax in the context of popular romance and poetry, including some examples from Old English, finding that "discontinuous patterns of word-order" and "negative forms of emphatic expression" contribute to…
Barney, Stephen A.
Chaucer Review 16 (1981): 18-37.
The words "sodeny(ly)" and "proces" are keys to Chaucer's narrative skill. In both his serious and his comical narratives there are sudden changes in events, sudden shifts in emotions. He usually makes the sudden seem humorous, ridiculous, or…
Sasagawa, Hisaaki.
Journal of the General Education Department, Niigata University 12 (1981): 179-91.
The historical present and perfect tenses in KnT could be said to function mainly to express vividness, which is closely related to the nature of orally delivered poetry.
Allinson, Jane Frank.
Dissertation Abstracts International 42 (1981): 1140A.
The nine surviving Anglo-Norman fabliaux (three translated from manuscripts are appended) differ from their seven English counterparts (five in CT) in depicting higher social ranks, incorporating less violence, and introducing less antifeminism. …
A comparison of the medieval descriptions of idealized feminine beauty with depiction of women in medieval and modern Japanese literature points up characteristic Japanese aesthetics and philosophy of beauty.
The Host's use of "tredefowel" in MkT and NPE suggests that he may have been aware of "cock" as an obscenity (as well as a symbol for priest), a meaning supported by evidence from other languages, literature, and iconography.
Wenzel, Siegfried.
Hans Gerd Rotzer and Herbert Walz, eds. Europaische Lehrdichtung. Festschrift fur Walter Naumann zum 70. Geburtstag (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981), pp. 86-98.
By endowing ParsP with a number of rhetorical and dramatic devices, Chaucer gives the tale a significance that sets it apart and precludes an ironic or perspectivist reading.
Ovitt, George,Jr.
Proceedings: 28th International Technical Communication Conference, May 20-23, 1981, Pittsburgh, Pa. ((N.p.): Society for Technical Communication, 1981), pp. E78-E81.
The problems Chaucer faced in describing the construction and use of the astrolabe were similar to today's problems in technical communication.
Palmer, R. Barton.
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 7 (1981): 380-93.
Although the outlook of BD is fundamentally different from Machaut's "Dit de la fonteinne amoureuse," the later influenced far more profoundly than has been noted the structure and motifs of BD.
Smith, Sarah Stanbury.
Centerpoint 4 (1981): 95-102.
Implications of clear-sighted love in the Middle Ages lead one to view Cupid in Chaucer's LGW as a symbol of marital, generative love. But because this Cupid is indiscriminate in love (being in favor of it, without regard to circumstances), it is…
Medcalf, Stephen.
Stephen Medcalf, ed. The Later Middle Ages (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1981), pp. 291-303.
The word "uncircumscript" near the end of TC suggests Chaucer's Boethianism. Chaucer's TC differs from Boccaccio's "Filostrato" in telling the story of a man who lives by "love's heigh service" in a universe where love holds the world together.
Bloomfield, Morton W.
Donald M. Rose, ed. New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism (Norman Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1981), pp. 23-36.
We need an "over-all metaphysics" such as the fourteenth-century "Aristotelian ontology and psychology," or such modern systems as "phenomenology, Marxism, Heideggarian ontology, positivism,...existentialism, and Chomskyean rationalism" as approaches…
Burrow, J. A.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 61-75.
Although Chaucer frequently uses petitionary devices, he seldom seems comfortable in the humble role (cf. For, Purse,Scog). Usually he distorts the pattern in fictive and outrageous fashion (HF, LGW) to make jest of humility.
Chamberlain, David.
John P. Hermann and John J. Burke, eds. Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry (University: University of Alabama Press, 1981).
Chaucer uses both conventional and original musical signs, some "in bono," some "in malo." His originality manifests itself in five main areas: "single signs, elaborate combinations, vivid contrasts, recurring symbolism, and overall structure," as…
Cooper, Helen.
P. L. Heyworth, ed. Medieval Studies for J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 65-80.
KnT, MilT, MerT,and FranT share the same plot--the story of the girl with two lovers--and show striking interrelations and variations of episodes, conventions, images, and ideas.
