McMillan, Ann.
Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 1.1 (1982): 27-42.
Argues that "The Flower and the Leaf" and "The Assembly of Ladies" are both concerned with female chastity as a means to effective power, the first asserting this theme and the second expressing frustration with such assertions. Also surveys…
O'Brien, Timothy David.
Dissertation Abstracts International 42.09 (1982): 3993A.
"This study argues that, in major Middle English works, authority is the central issue involved in concepts of character and of relationships beween characters. 'Havelok the Dane,' 'King Horn,' 'Sir Orfeo,' Malory's works, and 'The Canterbury Tales'…
Presents the text of the Middle English poem, "Lyarde," discussing it in light of Goliardic satire and identifying instances where the poem shares themes with parts of CT: the "sexual superiority" of clerics (the Monk in MkP and NPE), wives' control…
Describes the Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer as the "supreme achievement" of the partnership between Morris and Burne-Jones, placing the volume in the careers of the two men, describing the process of its production, and examining a number of…
Reisner, M. E.
Roger L. Emerson, Gilles Girard, and Roseann Runte, eds. Man and Nature: Proceedings of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 1 (London, Ontario: Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario, 1982), pp. 185-98.
Demonstrates that details of dress in William Blake's "Canterbury Pilgrims" derive from the monuments in Westminster Abbey. Focuses on Blake's depictions the Pardoner, Prioress, and Wife of Bath.
Capacious anatomy of Middle English literature, with a variety of essays by individual authors; a selection of lyrics, narrative, poems, and dramas; suggestions for further readings, and comprehensive index. The selection includes no works by…
Brewer, Derek.
Boris Ford, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, Volume 1, Part 1: Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition (New York and Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1982), pp. 15-39.
Describes the major social institutions and social practices of late-medieval England, identifying their roots, indicating their later developments, and illustrating their features from Middle English literary sources, especially the works of…
Mann, Jill.
Boris Ford, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, Volume 1, Part 1: Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition (New York and Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1982), pp. 133-53.
Reads FranT as an epitome of the CT to the extent that both are concerned with the "ideal of patience and the problems of time and change," emphasizing the universality of these concerns and their appearances throughout the CT. As in Marie de…
Bishop, Ian.
Boris Ford, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, Volume 1, Part 1: Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition (New York and Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1982), pp. 174-87.
Treats TC and KnT together because each derives from a source by Boccaccio and because each includes Boethian thought; also considers the Shakespearean analogues of each and compares each with opera, Books 1-3 of TC correspond to the "medieval…
Facing-page translation (Middle English verse/German prose) of selections from the CT, with introductions, commentaries, and bibliographies. Includes GP, KnT, MilT, WBPT, FranT, PardPT, and NPT. Translations by Bergner, Waltraud Böttcher, Günter…
Neumann, Fritz-Wilhelm.
Hans-Heinrich Freitag and Peter Hühn, eds. Literarische Ansichten der Wirklichkeit: Studien zur Wirklichkeitskonstitution in Englischsprachiger Literatur: To Honour Johannes Kleinstück (Frankfurt am Main: Peter D. Lang, 1980), pp. 41-57.
Assesses the arena and attendant temples in KnT as a squared circle, central symbol in the tale and its concerns with perception and reality.
Anderson, Judith H.
Mary J. Carruthers and Elizabeth D. Kirk, eds. Acts of Interpretation (Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1982), pp. 105-18.
Close reading of the uses of the conjunction "but" as an "illogical adversative" in Spenser's Proem to Book 6 of "The Faerie Queene," compared and contrasted with Chaucer's related uses in his GP. Generally, Chaucer's usage "serves narrative…
Pope, John C.
Mary J. Carruthers and Elizabeth D. Kirk, eds. Acts of Interpretation (Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1982), pp. 345-62.
Explicates tensions within several poetic evocations of mutability in English poetry: the Old English "Wanderer," "Beowulf," the end of Chaucer's TC (5.1835-48), and Spenser's Mutability Cantos. Chaucer and Spenser both use "equivocation" to express…
Summary (without text) and commentary on MerT, arranged in sections, accompanied by glosses to Middle English phrases. Also includes a brief introduction to Chaucer and his backgrounds; commentary on themes, characterization, and style of MerT; the…
Originally published in 1966, here revised, corrected, and expanded. Describes Chaucer's grammar and usage, anatomized according to parts of speech, with extensive examples. Topics include verbs (in their various tenses, aspects, and moods), nouns,…
An anthology of translations from Greek and Roman by English writers, including a section on Chaucer (pp. 32-33) with a brief (and erroneous) biography and a selection from Chaucer's Dido legend (LGW 1180-1209), from Virgil's "Aeneid" 4.129-50,…
Crozier, Andrew, Roy Fisher, Keith Please, and Kevin Power.
Guildford: Circle Press, 1982.
Twenty lyric poems inspired by descriptions in GP: "Knight," "Dyere," "Cook," "Tapicer," and "Webbe," by Roy Fisher; "The Reeve, " "The Manciple," "The Merchant," 'The Doctor of Physic," by Keith Please; "Some Instructions of the Horses," by Andrew…
Brewer, Elisabeth
Harlow: Longman; Beirut: York Press, 1982.
Study guide to MilT that includes a plot synopsis, running commentary, and glosses (text not included). Also includes descriptions of characters and characterization, various themes and devices, stylistic features, and suggestions for further study;…
Borges, Jorge Luis.
Andrew Hurley, trans. Collected Fictions: Jorge Luis Borges (New York: Viking, 1998), pp. 508-15.
Fantasy story about the transmission of Shakespeare's memory from one man to another; includes several references and allusions to Chaucer. The story was first published in Spanish in a limited edition. "La Memoria de Shakespeare" (Buenos Aires:…
Kean, P. M.
London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972.
Describes Chaucer's contributions to English literary tradition: a "new kind of organization" of large narrative, an "urbane" style that assumes a shared set of values with its audience, and a "new attitude" toward the "usefulness and dignity" of…
Hoeniger, F. David.
Shakespeare Quarterly 33 (1982): 461-79.
Describes "the marked incongruity in the sheer quality of styles" in Tho and Mel, commenting on them as "burlesque," and using them to support an argument that Shakespeare intentionally employed mediocre, archaized poetry in the first two acts of…
