The introduction to this critical edition addresses cultural, historical, syntactic, and metrical aspects pertinent to Chaucer's works as well as to those of Charles of Orleans.
Similarities to Ovid's young Medea give Criseyde's character innocence; to Helen, guile, and reluctance to decide; while references to Oenone prefigure treachery in the connection to Paris' betrayal and the war. Ovidian references undercut the…
Describes and analyzes a deed of property conveyance indicative of the complex relations and interactions among Thomas Chaucer, Richard Wyot, William Paston, Sir John Fastolf, John, duke of Bedford, and others. Compares Thomas Chaucer's appended seal…
Arnell, Carla.
Modern Language Review 102 (2007): 933-46.
John Fowles's novel"A Maggot," set in eighteenth-century England, is similar to CT in several ways, from its opening premise to its general structure as a series of "tales" (reconstructions of mysterious events surrounding a death) told by various…
Arner, Lynn.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013.
Explains how the "vernacular rising" expanded Chaucer's and Gower's readership to include "lesser merchants and prosperous artisans" (Introduction and Chapter 1). Chapters 4 and 5 emphasize LGW. In contrasting Gower and Chaucer, argues that in LGW,…
Arner, Lynn.
Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Tison Pugh, eds. Chaucer on Screen: Absence, Presence, and Adapting the "Canterbury Tales" (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2016), pp. 69-87
Describes the limited presence of Chaucer in the early American films, commenting on a Motion Picture Academy educational promotion and a "distorted" version of PardT, "On Borrowed Time" (1939). Offers five reasons for this scarcity:…
Arner, Timothy D.
Studies in Philology 102.2 (2005): 143-58
Examines Chaucer's use of Boccaccio's Teseida as a source for KnT. Also argues that by having the Miller parody the story of Palamon and Arcite, Chaucer transforms his own work, as well as Boccaccio's text, into a fabliau.
Arner, Timothy D.
Medium Aevum 79.1 (2010): 68-89.
In TC, Diomede, rather than Troilus, functions as the second Hector, and Diomede is the only hero who escapes the cycle of Theban and Trojan violence. At a dangerous time in English history, Chaucer desires a healing ideology for England; his turn…
Focuses on how the idiomatic phrase "for goddes love" is used in TC as "an expression of power" and how the phrase "appeals to a divine system of mercy and justice" when used by Troilus, Criseyde, and Pandarus.
Arner, Timothy.
Comparative Literature 69.2 (2017): 160-80.
Shows that Lucan's "Bellum civile," the medieval "accessus" tradition, and "vitae Lucani" together depict the Roman poet as a "violated female," victimized by his "tyrannical emperor," and abruptly silenced, arguing that this legacy influenced LGW…
Arnovick, Leslie K.
Mark C. Amodio, ed. Oral Poetics in Middle English Poetry (New York and London: Garland, 1994), pp. 125-47.
In light of linguistic, legal, and folkloric traditions, Dorigen's speech to Aurelius in the garden--a moment of dialogue within the larger dialogue of the pilgrims--does not constitute a promise. Rashly made promises were not considered legally…
Arnovick, Leslie K.
Oral Tradition 11 (1996): 320-45.
Chaucer's proverbs in HF point up the provocative tension between orality and literacy in the Middle Ages. Ultimately, however, the poem illustrates that Chaucer favors literacy.
Arnovick, Leslie K.
Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Pivi Pahta, and Matti Rissanen, eds. Placing Middle English in Context (Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 2000), pp. 411-25.
Argues that lines 81-120 of HF are Chaucer's adaptation of the topos of the "book curse," tracing the "speech act origin" of the curse and exploring Chaucer's use of the device to "tease his audience and manipulate its expectations."
Arntz, Sister Mary Luke, S.N.D.
American Notes and Queries 3.10 (1965): 151-52.
Suggests that in TC 1.531-32 Troilus is referring to Tristan as a much-rhymed-about fool in love, adducing evidence of general familiarity with Tristan's foolishness in John Gower, Robert Mannyng, and PF.
Aronstein, Susan, and Peter Parolin.
Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Tison Pugh, eds. Chaucer on Screen: Absence, Presence, and Adapting the "Canterbury Tales" (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2016), pp. 33-44.
Argues that Shakespeare's works have more often been adapted to the screen than Chaucer's works because the latter have widely been considered to be "guarded by experts." Comments on the Troilus frontispiece, Jonathan Myerson's animated adaptation of…
Aronstein shows how Henryson, influenced by late-fifteenth-century attitudes toward women, especially prostitutes, returns the story of Criseyde to its pre-Chaucerian misogynistic purpose. The article examines the story's literary history and its…
Explores interrelations among youth, old age, virginity, and chastity in PhyT and WBPT as they "reveal the links between eroticism and control over bodies." Includes an abstract in English.
Arrathoon, Leigh A.
Leigh A. Arrathoon, ed. Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction (Rochester, Mich.: Solaris Press, 1986), pp. 385-409.
MerT is an ethical narrative in which the aenigmalogue (puzzling narrative surface) is blended with the apologue (Augustinian "oversense"), thus revealing the Merchant as a Manichean and January as a parody of Jovinian. The apologue is signaled by…
Arrathoon, Leigh A.
Ball State University Forum 25 (1984): 18-40.
The Sara mentioned in MerT may not refer to Sara the wife of Abraham, as is commonly thought, but to Sara of Rages from the book of Tobit--a symbol of ideal marriage and a strong thematic contrast to January and May. The Merchant's late reference…
Arrathoon, Leigh A.
Language and Style 17:1 (1984): 92-120.
Throughout MerT synonyms for the Boethian values of true bliss and sorrow are juxtaposed to develop the theme of the woe that is in marriage--parallel to the "contemptus mundi" theme of the "Consolation." The protagonist of MerT uses Boethian…
