Argues that CT provides an aesthetic of irony and parody, where part of the pleasure of the experience entails ironic interpretation on the reader's part, thereby both entertaining and instructing.
Considers the role of the nonsense word as "material supposition"; as prayer; and, in HF, as "tydynges" (rumors), which allows the previously mute poet to speak.
Considers walking and other forms of mobility in terms of social expectations of urban movement and movers. Examines works by various authors, including Chaucer, Hoccleve, and Shakespeare.
Argues that Shakespeare's adaptations relied not only on understanding and knowing Chaucerian texts, but on his "memory of Chaucer " and Chaucerian ideas and practices, particularly his mingling of "sources and authorities" in TC.
Robinson, Olivia.
Daisy Delogu and Anne-Hélène Miller, eds. Approaches to Teaching the "Romance of the Rose" (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2023), pp. 227-36.
Describes goals and methods of teaching the "Roman de la Rose" in undergraduate courses that include Middle English literature. Includes attention to manuscript illustrations and to intertextual relations of MerT to Rom.
Argues that, despite the influence of French on the idioms, spelling, and pronunciation of Chaucer's English, the "basic structure of English as a Germanic language . . . remained intact." In Japanese, with English abstract.
Hirabayashi, Mikio.
Daito Bunka Daigaku Kiyo, Jinbun Kagaku (Bulletin of Daito Bunka University: The Humanities) 45 (2007): 157-73.
Lists examples from Chaucer's works of rhetorical devices recommended by Aristotle and/or used by Ovid, demonstrating Chaucer's place in the rhetorical tradition of Western European literature.
Ajiro investigates editorial differences in manuscript readings between Robinson's second edition of PF and the text in Benson's The Riverside Chaucer; considers what manuscripts were used in their editing.
Examines differences in punctuation between Robinson's second edition of PF and the text in Benson's The Riverside Chaucer. Concludes that modern punctuation might sometimes distort Middle English style, especially in colloquial speech.
Until mid-thirteenth century, the East was, in spite of some factual knowledge, the fabled land of Prester John. Then real travel in the Tartar empire gave Europe facts just as marvellous.
Zeikowitz, Richard E.
Dalhousie Review 82.1 : 55-73, 2002.
The Pardoner's "altercation" with the Host "reveals how queer power disarms heteronormativity." In GP and PardPT, the Pardoner does not fit modern categories of "gay" or "bisexual"; his queerness is aligned with several forms of verbal and social…
Assesses payment and revenge in MilT and RvT as economies of sexual exchange following Aristotelian notions of "distributive" justice, reflected in the "poetic" justice of the Tales. Women are the commodity in MilT and RvT, as in KnT and CkT. Edwards…
Zeeman, Nicolette.
Dallas D. Denery II, Kantik Ghosh, and Nicolette Zeeman, eds. Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 213-38.
Examines how writings of Jean de Meun and Chaucer focus on issues of scholastic philosophy and skeptical tradition. Refers specifically to Chaucer's uses of "systematic philosophy" as a narrative tool in WBT, PF, KnT, and TC.
Gelber, Hester Goodenough.
Dallas D. Denery II, Kantik Ghosh, and Nicolette Zeeman, eds. Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 285-304.
Argues that Holcot and Chaucer "depict a world in which farce and deception are possible." Discusses how Chaucer's ironic humor and "Chaucerian misdirection" fuel the ambiguity in ClT and NPT.
Furrow surveys medieval verbal and visual depictions of the love-tryst beneath the tree, focusing on the duping of Mark by Tristan and Isolde. Adaptations of the scene in romances include MerT and its analogue, "The Comedy of Lydia."
Elbow, Peter.
Damon, Phillip, foreward. Literary Criticism and Historical Understanding: Selected Papers from the English Institute (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 85-107.
Examines Troilus's two speeches on the "problem of free will and determinism" in TC (4.958-1082 and 3.813-40), observing complex irony whereby readers are led to agree with a perspective, then disagree, and then agree again. Chaucer "affirms both…
Kane, George.
Daniel Donoghue, James Simpson, and Nicholas Watson, eds. The Morton W. Bloomfield Lectures, 1989-2005 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2010), pp. 1-19.
The first of the Bloomfield lectures. Traces the impact of "hamartiology" (the study of sin and crisis) in Langland's "Piers Plowman" and Chaucer's CT, especially in GP and the fabliaux. Estates satire, penitential handbooks, and other examples of…
Partridge, Stephen.
Daniel Pinti, ed. Writing After Chaucer: Essential Reading in Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century (London and New York: Garland, 1998), pp. 2-26.
Focusing on manuscripts of Chaucer's works, Partridge assesses the habits of scribes and book owners in the fifteenth century, showing how variants among texts alter meaning and how fifteenth-century readers, aware of such variants, made…
Eisner, Sigmund, and Marijane Osborn.
Daniel T. Kline, ed. Medieval Literature for Children (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 155-87.
An introduction to Astr by Eisner that emphasizes Chaucer ability to write clear instructions for a child, followed by Osborn's Modern English version of the treatise.
Aloni, Gila.
Danielle Buschinger and Arlette Sancery, eds. Mélanges de langue, littérature et civilisation offerts à André Crépin à l'occasion de son quatre-vingtième anniversaire (Amiens: Presses du Centre d'Études Médiévales, Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, 2008), pp. 1-10.
Explores how Chaucer's reflections on maternity expose a relationship between Christianity and other religions in MLT.
Cigman, Gloria.
Danielle Buschinger and Arlette Sancery, eds. Mélanges de langue, littérature et civilisation offerts à André Crépin à l'occasion de son quatre-vingtième anniversaire (Amiens: Presses du Centre d'Études Médiévales, Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, 2008), pp. 111-17.
Explores ambiguities of wealth and poverty in CT in light of contemporaneous reality.
