Wright, David, trans.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
A translation of all the verse of CT into modern English verse, using metrical forms imitating the original, and half rhyme or assonance; brief introduction, bibliography, life, and notes.
Blake, N. F.
London, Caulfield East, and Baltimore, Md.: Edward Arnold, 1985.
By manuscript evidence Blake justifies his position that of CT only what appears in Hengwrt can be attributed to Chaucer. He attributes all the early manuscripts to a single copy text assembled from Chaucer's own copies after his death. For best…
Brewer, Derek.
Mary-Jo Arn, and Hanneke Wirtjes, eds. Historical and Editorial Studies in Medieval and Early Modern English (Groningen: Wolters-Nordhoff, 1985), pp. 37-47.
Rebuts use of audience to privilege interpretation in Middle English romances. Rather than representing a historically authentic event, the Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 61 frontispiece of Chaucer reading to a court audience may be merely a…
Mosser, Daniel W.
Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 79 (1985): 235-40.
Deals with Manly and Rickert's erroneous procedures and conclusions regarding classification of manuscripts, scribal procedures, the Ellesmere MS, the Cardigan MS, HM 144, and the order of the tales.
Pearsall, Derek.
Jerome J. McGann, ed. Textual Criticism and Literary Interpretation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 95-106.
Use of the Robinson second edition based on the Ellesmere MS has encouraged the neglect of many textual problems in critical studies concerning "unity" or "idea" of CT; Manly and Rickert's monumental edition is virtually ignored. Hengwrt is a vastly…
David, Alfred.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 105-15.
Chaucer plays with sources, including echoes of his own works in KnT, LGWP, SqT, MerT, PF, and Anel.
Backgrounds and sources for PF, HF, BD, NPT. Argues that Macrobius was less influential in later Middle Ages than Chaucer's references to him suggests.
Wallace, David.
Woodbridge, Suffolk : D. S. Brewer, 1985.
Examines aims and literary traditions of early writings of Boccaccio to provide a context for Chaucer's use of Boccaccio. Both writers loved and used Latin and French writers and Dante; both drew from a wide range of literary forms and styles: …
Wallace, David.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 61-67.
Examines the influence of "Roman de la Rose" on European literature; Brunetto Latini, "ser Durante," Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Chaucer. "Five generations of Italian poets...defined their individual enterprise" against the "Rose." Chaucer…
Dane, Joseph A.
Huntington Library Quarterly 48 (1985): 345-62.
A double reception was given Th in the eighteenth century. Dane agrees with Warton that Th is not a "grave heroic narrative" but a humorous tale. The burlesque Th is an eighteenth-century creation. Treats genre of Th and SqT and twentieth-century…
Darjes, Bradley, and Thomas Rendall.
Medieval Studies 47 (1985): 416-31.
Parallels in diction, phrasing, portrayal, and plot suggest that the episode of the Pardoner and the tapster is shaped according to the model of the Chaucerian fabliau.
Edwards, A. S. G.
Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 10 (1985): 175-82.
Early in his career Lydgate borrowed from Chaucer for particular effects: echoes of GP appear in "The Siege of Thebes." In his later career Lydgate tried to create a Latin-derived poetic language linked to Chaucer.
Fleming, John (V).
Thomas J. Heffernan, ed. The Popular Literature of Medieval England (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), pp. 148-66.
Proposes that Erasmus's satiric "Peregrinatio religionis ergo"--detailing a pilgrimage to Canterbury--is influenced by the cynicism of Chaucer's CT. The parodies on "dulia" and "latria" in KnT, of Moses and Aaron in the Pardoner and Summoner, and…
Hale, David G.
Shakespeare Quarterly 36 (1985): 219-20.
Documents an additional Chaucerian allusion in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Like the dreamer in BD, Shakespeare's Bottom says his dream cannot be interpreted; it can only be written down.
Koff, Leonard Michael.
Chaucer Review 19 (1985): 338-51.
In his translation of ManT and comments Wordsworth reveals typical Romantic preoccupations and premises, notably that feelings are inherently moral and unrestrainable.
Waller, Martha S.
College English 47 (1985): 873-74.
Woman was made from Adam's rib (rather than his head or foot) so that she would be a fellow to man. This idea is found in Chaucer's ParsT and earlier in Aquinas's "Summa Theologica," pt. 1, chap. 92.
