Davis, Deborah Ann.
Ph.D. Dissertation. Texas Women's University, 1984. Fully Accessible at https://twu-ir.tdl.org/items/668fcba6-645b-4fcf-a8e3-1ef1c6f4ff36; accessed November 14, 2023.
Argues from internal and external evidence "that there is the strong possibility" that Chaucer's dream visions (BD, HF, PF, and LGWP) influenced five early works by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The Offshore Pirate" (1920), "The Ice Palace (1920), "The…
Burrow, J. A.
Essays on Medieval Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), pp. 69-78.
Documents that the honorific "sir" plus a "knight's name" occurs twelve times in Th and "not once elsewhere" in Chaucer's works, suggesting that, confined to a "burlesque context" and similar to historical French practice, this usage should be…
Lodge, David.
New York: Macmillan; London: Secker & Warburg, 1984.
A comic novel that satirizes academic travel and conferencing, particularly in English studies. The "Prologue" opens with a quotation of GP 1-11 in modern translation, replacing pilgrimage with conference-going, followed by a quotation from TC…
Everitt, Charles.
D. Phil. Thesis. Oxford University, 1985. Copyright 1986. Fully accessible via http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:69a69618-50df-4f27-8291-98546df046eb (last accessed January 22, 2026)
Studies the "ars dictaminis" in late-medieval England, focusing on its influence and uses in administrative circles, ecclesiastical and secular, with particular attention to the career of Gilbert Stone, an "episcopal chancellor." Includes discussion…
Gerlach, John.
UIniversity: University of Alabama Press, 1985.
In a section on directness and indirectness in plotting, discusses Boccaccio and Chaucer works as antecedents to modern short-stories, contrasting the directness of "Decameron" 3.5 with the "indirect mode" of CT, particularly NPT (pp. 17-23).
Collins, Marie.
Essays and Studies 38 (1985): 12-28.
Examines depictions of masculine attractiveness in medieval romances, including TC. Influenced by rhetorical and courtly traditions, such depictions (and parallel cautions against seduction) emphasize moral and social qualities rather than personal…
White, Beatrice.
Essays and Studies 38 (1985): 1-11.
Accounts of love from chronicles and letters show that historical love in the Middle Ages was as rich, varied, and earthy as even Chaucer could imagine.
Low, Anthony.
Chapter 5 in Anthony Low, The Georgic Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 155-220.
Two subsections of chapter 5 examine political and philosophical attitudes toward work in the Middle Ages and later eras, specifically the relationships among the revolution in agricultural technology, "the Protestant work ethic," and "modern…
Lewis, R. E.,N. F. Blake, and A. S. G. Edwards,eds.
New York and London: Garland, 1985.
"A record of all extant Middle English prose texts composed between c. 1200 and c. 1500 in both manuscript and printed form in medieval and post-medieval versions." Lists texts and editions through 1982.
Frese, Dolores Warwick.
Charles Foulon, et al., eds. Actes du 14e Congres International Arthurien (Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 1985), pp. 184-207.
In contrast to the prevailing critical view that Chaucer eschewed the use of Arthurian romance material, two Arthurian themes--the quest and amorous fatality--become transposed as pilgrimage and marriage in CT. The Tale of Arveragus, told by the…
Jackson, W. T. H.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
Fifteen essays by Jackson on classical and medieval subjects, focusing on courtly love, lyric, epic and drama, allegory and romance and covering literary works from Continental Europe. Edited by Joan M. Ferrante and Robert W. Hanning.
Karnein argues that the "De amore" was written at the court of Philip Augustus, not in Champagne; that it was to condemn "courtly love'; and that it was so interpreted by its earlier, clerical audience and only later taken nonironically by lay…
Recent studies have attributed psychological realism to CT characters. This "old critical ghost" unfortunately diverts the "critic from his (or her) proper task, the analysis of the functioning of verbal constructs constituting the text, to…
Dean, James.
Modern Language Quarterly 46 (1985): 235-49.
Probably written before Chaucer knew Boethius well, BD is a courtly poem offering the consolation of art, the solace that one can achieve through "makyng" or listening to poetry. The alleged Boethian aspects of BD reflect the French…
Obscenity exists in LGW to extend the "aesthetic credo" of LGWP, where Chaucer establishes himself "as a poet faithful to the contradictions inherent in nature." Delany argues that obscenity produces a more "natural" view of women than that provided…
Morgan, Gerald.
Eric Haywood and Barry Jones, eds. Dante Comparisons: Comparative Studies of Dante and Montale, Foscolo, Tasso, Chaucer, Petrarch, Propertius and Catullus (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1985), pp. 73-95.
"Courtly love" is a critics' term that was never used by medieval poets. To understand Chaucer's treatment of love, we must turn not to the principles of courtly love but to medieval philosophy and the treatment of love by poets such as Dante.
Cullen, Mairi Ann.
Studies in Scottish Literature 20 (1985): 137-59.
Henryson's preface to the "Testament of Cresseid" is to be taken seriously. Having read Chaucer, he picked up "an euther quair" that portrays Cresseid as a whore. His poem therefore accurately reflects a contemporary apologia for his heroine.
