Economou, George D.
Ferrante, Joan M., and George D. Economou, eds. In Pursuit of Perfection: Courtly Love in Medieval Literature (Port Washington, NY, Kennikat, 1975), pp. 17-50.
Distinguishes two kinds of love associated with Venus in the Middle Ages, both of them subsets of earthly love: one "legitimate, sacramental, natural, and in harmony with natural law; the other, illegitimate, perverted, selfish, and sinful." Traces…
Economou, George D.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Traces the uses and development of personified Nature in classical and medieval traditions, focusing on Boethius, Bernard Silvestris, Alain de Lille, Jean de Meun, and Chaucer's relations with all of them in PF. Following tradition, Chaucer presents…
Economou, George D.
Comparative Literature 17.3 (1965): 251-57.
Argues that the image of the mirror of January's mind in MerT (4.1577-87) derives from the "Roman de la Rose" and connects with Chaucer's garden setting to underscore the selfish narcissism of January's distorted love-seeking.
Economou, George D., ed.
George D. Economou, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Collection of Original Articles (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976) pp. 1-14.
Chaucerian study has given rise to differing though complementary schools of criticism, as exemplified by Kittredge, Robertson, Donaldson, etc. The relationship of MilT and RvT exhibits Chaucer's power as an innovator.
ClT is not a religious tale but a secular story "enriched with religious symbolism." The Tale is domestic, not cosmic; there is no indication of a providential plan; God is only evoked twice; Griselda's vow is clearly secular; and her reward is…
Edden, Valerie.
Ilha do Desterro 18:2 (1987):15-33.
Analyzes MilT "using a theory of narrative analogous with transformational grammar," which assumes not merely a "grammar of narrative" but also "narrative competence," or ability of the reader or hearer to understand. Edden explores the function of…
Eddy, Elizabeth Roth.
Review of English Studies 22 (1971): 401-09.
Gauges the nature and extent of the influence of Tho on William Dunbar's parodic romance, "Sir Thomas Norny," commenting on various devices of literary and social satire.
Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning.
Classical and Modern Literature 20.2: 61-65, 2000.
Lucretius's "De rerum natura" may have influenced the reverdie, or spring song, that opens GP. Lucretius's reverdie predates and almost certainly influenced those in the "Georgics" and the "Pervigilius veneris," already linked to The General…
Similar concerns with fairies and male oppression encourage comparison of WBT and Jane Eyre; they reflect either Brontë's familiarity with Chaucer's work or a significant coincidence.
Edmonds, David, and Lou Burnard.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
SGML-encoded version of the texts of "The Riverside Chaucer" (SAC 11 (1989), no. 11), without notes or other apparatus, readable on a personal computer or Macintosh.
Edmondson, George Thomas.
Dissertation Abstracts International 64 (2004): 2880A
Considers the relations both between TC and Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and between TC and Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," examining them, not as sources or descendants, but as psychoanalytic "neighbors," fraught with "unsettling desires."
Edmondson, George.
Elizabeth Scala and Sylvia Federico, eds. The Post-Historical Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 139-60
The appearance of naked "Geoff" Chaucer in Brian Helgeland's film, "A Knight's Tale," "challenges the logic of the present . . . assumed by presentism," even while reminding us that historical periods exist, "each one haunted by the moment of its…
Considers "Testament of Cresseid" as a "Nebenmensch" (next man, or neighbor) to TC, doubting or negating it rather than emulating it, and, by "the logic of imperial translation," suspending England's rise as Scotland's "hostile neighbor."
Edmondson, George.
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011.
Applies psychoanalytical analysis to Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato," Chaucer's TC, and Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," tying "literary neighbor relations to the social and political realities of the late Middle Ages."
Edmondson, George.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 41 (2019): 73-105.
Reads the prologue to Th (Prioress-Thopas Link) psychoanalytically as a comic enactment of the internal economy of the self in which the ego (Chaucer) absorbs the "attentions" of the superego (the Host) "so thoroughly as to arrest them" and deflect…
Contextualizes FranT using Hannah Arendt's "The Human Condition," and argues that the tale represents another moment in CT where journeys end abruptly before the destination is reached. Considers how the tale functions as "a parable of how household…
Considers the Pardoner in PardT as an "exemplary figure" of what Walter Benjamin argues is a defining trait of modernity: the eclipse of religion's sacralizing capacities by capitalism, which, like the Pardoner's sales pitch, intensifies guilt rather…
Edsall, Donna Marie.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1981): 2663A.
The fourteenth century accepted literary conventions of the love code and approved warfare with honor and profit conjoined. Chaucer understands chivalry without attacking it: Theseus, in KnT, is an idealized knight modeled on Edward III; Th…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Poetics: Theory and Practice in Medieval English Literature (Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 57-67.
The characters of individual pilgrims are revealed through their speech, which often serves to underline their philosophical viewpoints. Chaucer's awareness of language and its creative powers reflects a general skepticism regarding the…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 92 (1991): 469-70.
In one version of the versified Stacions of Rome, the word "prose" clearly designates a change of subject rather than nonmetrical writing. In MLP, "prose" may signal a verse tale of historical and religious significance.
