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.
Pearsall, Derek.
London, Boston, Sydney: George Allen and Unwin 1985.
The manuscripts of the CT attest to the continuous, evolving, and unfinished nature of Chaucer's work on them from 1387 onward. The poet's intent in CT was to stretch the limits of inherited genres and expand the perceptions of his audience. The…
Siegel, Marsha.
Studies in Philology 82 (1985): 1-24.
The fragment considers how well human beings can understand and order reality. KnT and MilT provide positive solutions: KnT through Boethian metaphysics; MilT by restricting sources of causation. The debate founders in RvT and CkT, where…
Smallwood, T. M.
Studies in Philology 82 (1985): 437-49.
Chaucer's digressions distinguish the narrative structure of PardT, WBT, MerT, FranT, PhyT, and ManT from others of the period in a way not accounted for in rhetorical models of the period ("Confessio Amantis," "Decameron," "Ovide Moralise," "Gesta…
McColly, William B.
Chaucer Review 20 (1985): 14-27.
The presence and function of the Knight's Yeoman have been neglected: to a contemporary audience he would represent a retainer of great authority and responsibility; hence the Knight's status is high indeed.
Miller, Robert P.
English Language Notes 23 (1985): 71-72
In the GP portrait Chaucer uses the metaphor of food that "snewed" to make an ironic comparison between the Franklin's epicureanism and the spiritual life represented by scriptural manna.
Orton, P. R.
English Language Notes 23 (1985): 3-4.
"Burdoun" as an obscene pun in Chaucer's description of the Pardoner in the GP is supported in Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and even more strikingly in Wyatt's poem "Ye Old Mule". The latter shows the ribald possibilities of the word as…
Infusino, Mark H., and Ynez Viole O'Neill.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 221-30.
The bitterest controversy between "ancients" and "moderns" in fourteenth-century medicine concerned the treatment of wounds. Whereas Boccaccio in "Teseida" aligns his "medici" with the ancients and prolongs Arcita's death, Chaucer in KnT aligns…
Black, Robert.
Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa 55:1 (1985): 23-32.
MilT 3589-92 alludes to Matt. 5:27-30, where Christ condemns lechery, using the images of hand and eye. Chaucer uses the same imagery to condemn the lecher Nicholas, whose punishment is to be burned a "hand-brede aboute" his "nether ye." The same…
Sell, Roger D.
Studia Neophilologica 57 (1985): 175-85.
Stylistic or linguistic thickening is a key to meaning, as in selectional politeness. Abrupt shifts of topic, disruption of narrative frames, and lack of deference to the reader's expectations make MilT more "impolite."
