By his choice of stanza Chaucer invites us to compare four tales: SNT, PrT, MLT, ClT, each an elevated tale of saintly suffering involving impingement of secularism upon the saintly ideal. Completed earlier, PhyT is not in rhyme royal.
Bald, Wolf-Dietrich.
Mary-Jo Arn and Hanneke Wirtjes, eds. Historical and Editorial Studies (Groningen: Wolters-Nordhoff, 1985), pp. 175-89.
Diachronic study of verbs like "become," "grow," "wax," and "turn" used as both linking and regular verbs. Old, Middle, Early Modern, and Modern English show a decline in dominant meaning, allowing for linking-verb use. Includes data from Chaucer.
Beeck, Frans Jozef van.
Neophilologus 69 (1985): 276-83.
An examination of thirteen passages in TC and CT indicates that "ther," sometimes an impersonal introductory form word in Middle English as in Modern English, has been given too much adverbial weight by editors.
Based on the language of Robinson's second edition, treats phonology and morphology of Chaucer's works and examines the differences between Chaucer's language and Modern English.
Arn, Mary-Jo, and Hanneke Wirtjes, eds.
Groningen: Wolters-Nordhoff, 1985.
Fifteen essays by various hands. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Historical and Editorial Studies in Medieval and Early Modern English under Alternative Title.
Baird-Lange, Lorrayne Y.
Fifteenth-Century Studies 11 (1985): 1-5.
Trede-fowl, the controlling image of a Middle English lyric (Sloane MS 2593), often cited as an analogue to images in NPT and MkT, suggests pagan, early Christian, priestly, and bawdy meanings.
Beidler, Peter G.
Chaucer Review 19 (1985): 290-301.
Translations of Chaucer are inadequate and have no place in serious literary scholarship. Reviews of translations are also misleading since they may suggest that modern English versions lift a veil from the opacity of Chaucer's poetry.
Benson, Larry D.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 23-47.
Discusses bawdy words, obscenities, and euphemisms in Chaucer,exposing fallacies in overzealous scholarly search for obscene puns.
Berman, Constance H., Charles W. Connell, and Judith Rice Rothschild, eds.
Morgantown: West Virginia Unviersity Press, 1985.
Twelve essays on Hrotsvita, the Skaldkonur, Heloise, Mechthild von Magdeburg, Margery Kempe, Marie de France, and others, including two essays on Chaucer. For the two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Worlds of Medieval Women under…
Bloom, Harold, ed.
New York: Chelsea, 1985. Reissued in 1987.
Nine previously published essays or exerpts. Topics include Chaucer's "greatness" (G. K. Chesterton), the ending of TC (E. Talbot Donaldson), the impact of MerT (E. Talbot Donaldson), Wife of Bath as narrator (David Parker), Chaucer in the…
Breckenridge, Jay Rankin.
Dissertation Abstracts International 45 (1985): 2868A.
A sixty-year-old Chaucer is represented as reading from his works to students at an English school, digressing for audience understanding; includes commentary, playscript, and videotaped reading for beginning students of Chaucer.
Brewer, Derek.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 3-19.
Examines themes of literacy, orality, emphasis on the written word, and reading in BD, HF, PF, LGW. Chaucer is unallegorical, even in NPT. In reconstructing Chaucer, we must beware of approaches too technical that cut us off from a "feeling"…
A review of the allusions to rhetoric in London poets of Chaucer's time fails to reveal a single firsthand reference to an original text. Rhetorical concepts contributed indirectly to their conceptions of poetry and gave the poets an air of literary…
David, Alfred.
Jane Chance and R. O. Wells, Jr., eds. Mapping the Cosmos. (Houston, Tex.: Rice University Press, 1985), pp. 76-97.
Examines physiognomical traditions of noses in medieval "descriptio" in rhetoric books, noses of the Miller and Prioress in GP, noses in RvT, and noses in French romances and in later literature.
Dickinson, Jean G.
Dissertation Abstracts International 46 (1985): 145A.
Italian, French, English, and Spanish collections of tales, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, show women in increasingly significant roles. Though often satirized, women appear in lifelike situations and reveal contemporary attitudes.
Ferster, Judith.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Ferster argues that modern literary and hermeneutical theory (Gadamer and Ricoeur, etc.) can shed light on medieval works: Chaucer's characters "interpret texts and each other as texts," in readings influenced by literary tradition, prejudice,…
Fisher, John H.
Thomas J. Heffernan, ed. The Popular Literature of Medieval England (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), pp. 237-51.
Chaucer was evidently educated in the "ars dictaminis" (art of letter writing), which emphasized voice and point of view and may have influenced CT. While individual tales may have been written to be recited, CT as a collection was designed to be…
Friedman, John B.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 7 (1985): 137-60.
The Richard Thorpe section of the Pincus Codex may be the lost equatorium, or astronomical kalendar, listed in the library catalogue of the York Austin friars. An inscription to Penelope Thompson and disregard of manuscript duplications suggest that…
Gellrich, Jesse M.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985.
Using insights of Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Barthes, and Derrida, and treating the history of textuality from Augustine to Chaucer, Gellrich examines the relationship of literature to other medieval cultural forms that are often expressed in the…
Heffernan, Thomas J., ed.
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985.
Includes the following: D. W. Robertson, "Who Were 'The People'?"; Leonard E. Boyle, O.P., "The Fourth Lateran Council and Manuals of Popular Theology"; Judith Shaw, "The Influence of Canonical and Episcopal Reform on Popular Books of Instruction";…
Hornsby, Joseph Allen.
Dissertation Abstracts International 45 (1985): 1275A.
Although probably not formally educated as a lawyer, Chaucer shows familiarity with common law, church, and "customary" courts, as investigated in a wide variety of his works.
