Schmidt, Gary D.
Anne C. Hargrove and Maurine Magliocco, eds. Portraits of Marriage in Literature (Macomb: Western Illinois University, 1984), pp. 97-105.
Chaucer uses enfolding irony in MerT and FranT to examine the good marriage, with insights on courtly love and adultery through shifting perspectives and character conflict.
Bergner, Heinz.
Xenia von Ertsdorff and Marianne Wynn, eds. Liebe--Ehe--Ehebruch in der Literatur des Mittelalters: Vortrage des Symposiums vom 13. bis 16. Juni 1983 am Institut fur deutsche Sprache und mittelalterliche Literatur der Justus Liebig-Universitat Giessen (Giessen: Wilhelm Schmitz, 1984),pp. 140-47.
FranT mirrors contemporary contradictory beliefs about marriage, criticizing standards and legal constraints that force paradoxical and confusing demands on married partners,and exposing the predicament of three moral characters who fall short with…
Lane, Robert C.
Anne C. Hargrove and Maurine Magliocco, eds. Portraits of Marriage in Literature (Macomb: Western Illinois University, 1984), pp. 107-24.
The marriage speech of Averagus and Dorigen is of pivotal importance in understanding the dynamics of their marriage. Human interaction does not guarantee valid or shared meaning.
Benson, C. David.
American Notes and Queries 22 (1984): 62-66.
The Physician's being "grounded in astronomye," i.e., astrology, is not a slighting gibe at his abilities. The publication of Nicholas of Lynn's "Kalendarium" (ed. Sigmund Eisner, Chaucer Library) offers "convincing evidence that Chaucer intended no…
Durmuller, Urs.
Andre Crepin, ed. Linguistic and Stylistic Studies in Medieval English. Publications de l'Association des Medievistes de l'Ensignement Superieur 10. (Paris, 1984): pp. 5-22.
Using applied sociolinguistics, Durmuller follows Schauber and Spolsky in analysis of verbal behavior of the Pardoner, whose oddities in language (speech acts, pronominal reference, selection of lexical items) relate to his strange behavior.
Yeager, R. F.
Studies in Philology 81:4 (1984): 42-55.
According to a theological tradition of the late Middle Ages, gluttony included swearing, blasphemy, sorcery, witchcraft, and devil worship, as well as excessive eating and drinking.
Adams, Robert.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 6 (1984): 83-102.
Discussion of the debt as religious. The characters in ShT are "impenitent" because they and the Shipman have been blinded to moral and spiritual truth by their middle-class milieu.
Burrow, J. A.
Claude Rawson, ed. English Satire and the Satiric Tradition. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), pp. 44-55. Also in Yearbook of English Studies 14 (1984): 44-55.
Th, according to L. H. Loomis, follows no previous pattern of burlesque. This article disputes Lommis's contention through comparison with "prise de Neuvile" in action, language, opening address, catalogues, descriptions, parody, abrupt ending, and…
Gaylord, Alan T.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 6 (1984): 65-84.
Th is analyzed in the context of CT and compared with PrT. The deliberate failure of Th to achieve the promised "miracle" is a comment on the difference between miracles and poetry: miracles "overwhelm" debate, while poetry evokes it.
Taggie, Benjamin F.
Fifteenth-Century Studies 10 (1984): 195-228.
Treats Chaucer's use of the story of Pedro of Castile in MkT and BD; argues that Chaucer was unique in showing Pedro favorably--which suggests Gaunt was Chaucer's patron.
Brown, Dorothy H.
New Laurel Review 12 (1982): 6-16.
The Yeoman is an unreliable narrator who seems to confess only his own sins, holds contempt for the Canon; in his pride he is a "caricature of repentance."
The Knight may have been modeled on (and a compliment to) Henry, Earl of Derby. The expedition to Ruce was not to Russia but to Rossenia, where English crusaded in 1390 and before. The Knight is "the worn-out but noble example of the cherished…
Hanks, D. Thomas (Jr.)
Christianity & Literature 33 (1984): 7-12.
The pun on "pryvetee," meaning in ME "private affairs" and "private parts," mocks the orderly piety of KnT and becomes part of a series of sacred-profane juxtapositions which heighten the bawdiness and comic effect of MilT.
Jordan, Tracey.
Studies in Short Fiction 21 (1984): 87-93.
Treats antifeminist reversal when Absolon must replace his romantic vision of Alisoun with his experience of her bestiality, but Chaucer ridicules antifeminist themes and celebrates Alisoun's desirable physicality.
Berkhout, Carl T.
American Notes and Queries 23 (1984): 33-34.
A reference in Matthew Parker's "De antiquitate britannicae ecclesiae" (1572) to Clare Hall, Cambridge, as "vocatum in Chaucero in fabula de Reve the soller Halle" (cf. RvT 3990).
Regan, Charles Lionel.
American Notes and Queries 22 (1984): 97-99.
Chaucer's reference in RvT 4096 to "make a clerkes berd" (i.e., "cheat") may be echoed a few lines later in the oath "by seint Cutberd" (line 4127), suggesting terms for shaving and castration.
Vasta, Edward.
American Notes and Queries 22 (1984): 126-28.
Characteristics of the Reeve suggest stereotypes of a medieval devil: his beardlessness, Northern origin, phlegmatic character, and sharp wit. He fits all six literary types of the Devil in Hannes Varter's "The Devil in English Literature."
