Delany, Sheila.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 47-60.
In contrast to other analogues to PhysT, Chaucer "systematically obliterates social content" to deprive the characters of plausible motives. This "bad piece of work" is "pornographic or free-floating sadistic sensationalism, with murder as its only…
Beidler, Peter G.
Chaucer Review 15 (1981): 250-54.
Although thought immortal and evil, the Old Man in PardT is mortal in his longing for death, and, furthermore, good, patient, and kind. Chaucer's audience might have seen a parallel with Noah, the incredibly old survivor of a worse "plague," the…
Gill, Richard.
Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 2 (1981): 18-32.
Ambiguous old men in English poetry, including the one in PardT, can be illuminated by the psychological archetype of the "wise old man" that Jung describes in "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy Tales."
Kuntz, Robert Allen.
Dissertation Abstracts International 42 (1981): 1141A.
Critical views of the Pardoner range from total condemnation to interpretations of him as Christlike, with current views seeing him as evil. Interpretations can be immediate, direct, and simple, or complicated sociopsychologically or…
Lawton, D. A.
G. A. Wilkes and A. P. Riemer, eds. Studies in Chaucer. (Sydney: University of Sydney, 1981), pp. 38-63.
Explicates PardT with a concern for the division between the tale proper (lines 463-903) and its frame. The tale is structurally a digression, theologically orthodox, but unconvenional in "tone," and is to be taken seriously.
Nitecki, Alicia K.
Chaucer Review 16 (1981): 76-84.
Although the major sources of the Old Man figure have long been known, the existence of the figure in alliterative and lyric poetry shows how Chaucer transforms the tradition. His Old Man is a trope for man's desire for transcendence.
Sato, Noriko.
Thought Currents in English Literature (Tokyo) 54 (1981): 11-36.
The Old Man in PardT represents a fusion of divine force with the sense of futility and remorse that accompany physical aging--a motif found in medieval lyrics, Villon, and in later writers.
Standop, Ewald.
Peter Erlebach, Wolfgang G. Muller, and Klaus Reuter, eds. Geschichtlichkeit und Neuanfang im sprachlichen Kuntswerk. Studien zur englischen Philologie zu Ehren von Fritz W. Schulze (Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1981), pp. 59-69.
All attempts by critics to ascribe psychological implications to conventional self-revelations of a fictional character such as Chaucer's Pardoner lead to a false evaluation. The text does not contain the slightest suggestion that the Pardoner is a…
In ShT, Chaucer may have used the well-known text of Proverbs 31.10-31, which praises the valiant woman, in ironic fashion. The scriptural "mulier fortis" is praised for her "huswifery," her provision of food and clothing, her "rendering" to her…
Gibson, Gail McMurray.
John P. Hermann and John J. Burke, eds. Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry (University: University of Alabama Press, 1981), pp. 102-12.
In the Noah's Flood motif of MilT, the audience delightedly and ruefully recognizes the consequences of the perversion of God's order. In addition to visual or other sensory images (the runaway mare in RvT) Chaucer employs also dramatic icons, as in…
Stock, Lorraine Kochanske.
Studies in Short Fiction 18 (1981): 245-49.
Suggests that in three places in the ShT--lines 1519-21, 1536-37, 1581--Chaucer exploits two denotations of "chevyssaunce." In addition to the specific denotation "usury," the word has a more general denotation--MED meaning 2--which, when applied…
As all five saints of PrT had Lincoln associations in Chaucer's day, so the poem was intended for Lincoln. PrT commemorates the visit to Lincoln Minster, on March 26, 1387, of Richard II, who sought by its means the political support of John…
Ferris, Sumner.
American Benedictine Review 32 (1981): 232-54.
Theologically, the Blessed Virgin is highly venerated, with "hyperdulia," but she is nevertheless only a means to the one mediator, Christ (1 Tim. 2.5), who is worshiped with "latria." This distinction, most unusual for a work of literature, is a…
Chaucer's Prioress is said to be a miniature of CT. Just as Madame Eglantine is a religious with fairly secular characters, so CT shows all kinds of people, with their sublime and indecent faces, their beauty, and their ugliness.
Wood, Chauncey.
John P. Hermann and John J. Burke, eds. Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry (University: University of Alabama Press, 1981), pp. 81-101.
Chaucer uses signs playfully, "in bono, in malo": tears cited by the Parson are signs of contrition; the Prioress weeps for dead mice and whipped dogs. Chaucer is original in his treatment of her features, all of which point to worldliness.
Fleming, John V.
Chaucer Review 15 (1981): 287-94.
For his portrait of the Monk in GP, Chaucer probably recalled Dante "Paradiso" 21.118-20, 127-35, an encomium of Peter Damian, and Damian's own words regarding "unholy hunters, cloisterless monks, and waterless fish." "Palfrey" may be an echo of…
Schauber, Ellen,and Ellen Spolsky.
New Literary History 12 (1981): 397-413.
Readers resolve conflicts by readjusting genre expectations. NPT is a beast fable "told in the rhetoric of epic. The homely moral of the tale is comically inconsistent with the implications of high seriousness in the language."
Kolve, V. A.
Donald M. Rose, ed. New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism (Norman Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1981), pp. 137-74.
Although Chaucer was not a "painterly" poet, he was, like most other serious writers of the time, an iconographic poet. Examines a number of medieval images appropriate to Chaucer's life of Saint Cecilia and includes twenty reproductions in black…
Westervelt, L. A.
Southern Review (Adelaide) 14 (1981): 107-15.
The focus of ManT is not adultery and murder but rather talebearing. Chaucer returns to Ovid for janglery as a serious crime. If janglery causes murder, the janglerer is as guilty as the murderer because he is the cause of the crime.
Correale, Robert M.
English Language Notes 19 (1981): 95-98.
Five patristic quotations in ParsT have not been noted: one originates in Pseudo-Augustine, a second in Isidore of Seville, another in St. Jerome, and two others can be traced to St. Gregory.
Frequently used in ParsT, colloquial anaphora enhances the homiletic style in such repetitious expressions as "Now Comth...," "Look forther...," "Certes...," and "Soothly,...."
Norton-Smith, John.
P. L. Heyworth, ed. Medieval Studies for J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 81-99.
As suggested by the manuscripts, Anel is a complete, finished poem (with the omission of an unchaucerian final stanza). It is concerned with the theme of poetry as an art functioning as a record of history. Its closest affiliations are with the…
Deals with both real ecstatic visions and fictional literary visions and gives criteria to discern them. Thus it provides the background for Chaucer's dream poetry as well, quoting Langland, BD, HF, LGW, PF, etc.
An examination of the source, Machaut's "Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne," proves that the Knight's and the Dreamer's mutual lack of understanding--which serves a powerful dramatic purpose--stems from differences in social background and rank.
