Strohm, Paul, and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds.
Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985.
Papers presented at the Fourth International Congress of the New Chaucer Society, University of York, August 6-11, 1984, selected and revised. For nineteen essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1…
Tuck, Anthony J.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 149-61.
The court of Richard II was influenced not only by Wycliffe and Lollard preachers but also by the Carthusians, who emphasized private devotion, mysticism, and eremiticism.
Of the interpretative constructs posited in the act of reading, none is more persistent than the author. In CT, GP, PF, and NPT, Walker examines author postulation to explain Chaucer's "tolerance" and "broad-minded humanity."
Weiss, Alexander.
New York and Berne: Peter Lang, 1985.
Treats alliteration, enjambment, repetition, oral style, etc.,to demonstrate that Chaucer's poetry represents "not so much...the beginning of a new tradition...as the culmination of a native poetic tradition," especially as found in early Middle…
Wimsatt, James (I.)
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 69-79.
In Pennsylvania MS French 15, bourgeois realism produces the finest effects in the twelve pastourelles by "puy" poets. Possibly Chaucer was familiar with the collection, which could have influenced GP, MilT, RvT, CYT, PF, and TC.
Blake, N. F.
Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 10 (1985): 31-42.
Refutes Benson's view (SAC 3 (1981), pp. 77-120) that Ellesmere represents Chaucer's final arrangement of CT. Like Manly and Rickert, Blake thinks there is no Chaucerian order and that after Chaucer's death scribes tried to achieve a satisfactory…
Bowers, John M.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 7 (1985): 23-50.
Explores the literary nature of these two continuations of CT and their importance as early readings, which assume that the pilgrimage is round trip rather than one way.
Condren, Edward I.
Papers on Language and Literature 21 (1985): 233-57.
Chaucer celebrates "man's simultaneous transcendence and absurdity": in MilT, Nicholas's psaltery playing may be onanistic; in MerT, January's praise of Damian as "discreet," "secree," and "manly" may suggest his willingness to allow May…
Cowgill, Bruce Kent.
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 15 (1985): 157-81.
With comic irony Chaucer contrasts Harry Bailly with the Monk and with Dante's Virgil. The Host is a failed spiritual guide and a burlesque Christ-mass priest.
Dauby, Helene Taurinya.
Paris: Publications de l'Association des Medievistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Superieur, 1985.
Comparisons of the position of women in the two contemporary works: portraits, attitudes toward marriage, motherhood, householding, life in society, culture, religion. Women are presented as wives with social responsibilities.
Freed, E. R.
Unisa Medieval Studies 2 (1985): 80-94.
Before the frame of CT establishes the brief "authenticating level," the narrator works in GP to establish that his report is an exact chronicle and that he is reliable. His veracity influences views of the Parson and the Pardoner as preachers.
Hanning, Robert W.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 7 (1985): 3-21.
Chaucer's pilgrims misquote or distort received texts to further their own interests. In SumT and WBP, Chaucer turns two experts in "glosinge" into "human texts" to satirize Friar John and to expose the limited options of the Wife in dealing with…
Hinton, Norman D.
Essays in Medieval Studies 1: 28-48, 1985
Advances computer data-based theory that if various manuscripts of CT represent "compilationes" with the "Tales" as "auctoritates," study of incomplete manuscripts may reveal how readers used them to discuss moral-ethical issues.
Jones, Alex I.
English Language Notes 23 (1985): 9-15.
The Harley scribe preserved the structure of Chaucer's original, revealing Chaucer's intent to structure CT according to a numerical series that the thirteenth-century Lombard mathematician Fibonacci used to describe the geometrical increase of a…
Keiser, George R.
Thomas J. Heffernan, ed. The Popular Literature of Medieval England (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), pp. 167-93.
Through the "Planctas Mariae," Keiser illuminates the pathetic mode that governs MLT, PrT, ClT, and PhyT. Griselda, Custance, and Virginia resemble the Virgin in the "Planctas." The anti-Semitism of PrT is common in the "Planctas," and the tale of…
With the Host as a master of revels who cannot coerce the lower orders, CT develops wide audience appeal through the pilgrims as players in a medieval festival atmosphere, where both "gentils" and "churls" participate, often with role reversals and…
Although courtly love is central to TC, it is parodied or viewed as dangerous in CT. Evidently Chaucer no longer found it a viable way of revealing the human heart.
Middleton, Anne.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 119-33.
Chaucer's examination of chivalry in KnT, SqT, and FranT is a "mediation on the means of representing it," offering the audience "style reflexiouns" on the making of fiction.
Olson, Glending.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 211-18.
Like Boccaccio's "Decameron," CT reveals awareness of medieval principles of game and play articulated by Aristotle, Aquinas, and Albertano of Brescia.
