Romances are distinguished not by the presence of certain features--the erotic, the fabulous, etc.--but by attitudes toward those elements. WBT is "deliberately" not a romance.
Finlayson, John.
Studia Neophilologica 70 (1998): 35-39.
RvP is a psychological study of the bitterness and frustrations of old age, as well as a quiting of the Miller. Chaucer borrowed the leek-old age simile from Boccaccio's Decameron and adapted it to his own purpose. The simile is not proverbial.
The vivid details of Decameron 7.3 (the story of Friar Rinaldo)-the corrupt clergy, their obesity and sweating faces, their rich foods and wine, together with the simplicity of the widow's life-suggest that Boccaccio's work may have inspired NPT as a…
Contends that the Wife's defense against the charges of adultery (i.e., sex is a lantern that may be shared by many without depriving the owner) is a combination of a simile in the Roman de la Rose and a more exact parallel in Decameron 6.7, where…
Finlayson, John.
Studies in Philology 97: 255-75, 2000.
Argues that Chaucer used Boccaccio's version of the Griselda story in addition to Petrarch's. A number of Chaucer's alterations and additions to Petrarch have a "strong, often detailed relationship" to Boccaccio, Petrarch's own source.
When seen in light of probable sources in Decameron 8.1-2 and contrasted with Chaucer's other fabliaux, ShT is an "elegantly sophisticated comedy of bourgeois values [written] by a socially and intellectually elevated vintner's son."
The combination of genres in MerT (fabliau, encomium, moral allegory, mock-heroic, and parody) satirizes the social institutions and literary genres within which sex and love are contained and represented. The encomium fuses reality and idealization;…
Finlayson reads FrT as anticlerical comic satire rather than a moral exemplum, exploring similarities between the Tale and Boccaccio's story of Ciapellatto in Decameron 1.1. The probable source of FrT is a sermon by Robert Rypon, but Boccaccio may…
Finlayson, John.
English Studies 86 (2005): 493-510.
NPT can best be approached by focusing on form and style rather than on theme and narrator. Attempting to define a central theme or message is frustrated by the Tale's allusive richness and multiplicity of perspectives, and the narrator is largely…
Finlayson, John.
Studies in Philology 104 (2007): 455-70.
SumT is not a hidden allegory, but a narrative that exploits characteristics of the fabliau to explore larger issues of morality and ethics. By focusing almost solely on the distribution of the "gift," critics have ignored most of the story and…
Finlayson, John.
English Studies 89 (2008): 385-402.
In FranT, Chaucer reshapes the source material found in Boccaccio's "Filocolo" and "Decameron," adding the "pre-story" of a courtly love marriage, increasing the pathos of Dorigen, undercutting Arveragus's "self-serving" views of honor and truth, and…
Shows that the GP establishes a comic-satirical tone for the CT that is "indirect . . . shifting and multiple." In this light, ParsT "represents a way of seeing the world," but not the only one; the standard posed by the Parson is not an absolute…
Finley, William K.
Appendix 3 in William K. Finley and Joseph Rosenblum, eds. Chaucer Illustrated: Five Hundred Years of the Canterbury Tales in Pictures (New Castle, Del. : Oak Knoll; London: British Library, 2003), pp. 423-37.
Introduces and reprints Robert van Vorst Sewell's "The Canterbury Pilgrimage: A Decorative Frieze" (New York: American Art Galleries, n.d.), which Sewell wrote to accompany the mural frieze he painted in George Gould's Georgian Court mansion, now…
Finley, William K., and Joseph Rosenblum, eds.
New Castle, Del. : Oak Knoll; London: British Library, 2003.
Includes an introduction by the editors and ten essays and three appendices by various authors, who describe and discuss visual depictions of the Canterbury pilgrims and their tales in books and paintings, from the Ellesmere manuscript into the…
Considers TC to be "amphibious," both a tragedy and, ironically, a comedy, when read in light of Chaucer's changes to Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and his additions from Boethius's "Consolatio."
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 92 (1991): 457-62.
Textual evidence suggests that the friar may be the father of the dead child--rendering the squire Jankyn (little John, the diminutive of the friar) the projection of the central character's sinfully fathered child.
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 93 (1992): 303-12.
The verb "assoillen" and the noun "bulle," two terms that cluster in the prologue and epilogue to PardT, engage in wordplay with "soilen" and "boles" respectively. The Pardoner, who implicity claims to be God, attempts to "soilen" the pilgrims…
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 77 (1976): 227-40.
The Man of Law, in the telling of his tale, wants to present himself as a fount of knowledge. In Part I he frequently interrupts the narrative to voice his own comments. In Part II, as the power of God manifests itself in the trial scene,the…
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.
English Studies 75 (1994): 303-21.
Examines implications of Griselda's problematic promise of obedience (which she should have rescinded once she realized that it meant consent to the murder of her children) from the perspective of theologians and religious writers such as Aquinas and…
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.
Studies in Philology 106 (2009): 285-98.
Focuses on the city of Thebes, the Athenian grove, and Theseus's First Mover speech in KnT to define and explore implications of the "elastic ontology" of KnT. Unlike the city in Boccaccio's "Teseida," in KnT Thebes is mysteriously whole after having…
Finnel, Andrew J.
Chaucer Review 8.2 (1973): 147-58.
Argues that Purse was written soon after the accession of Henry IV, addressed to the new monarch and composed as Chaucer's plea for funds while he was residing in the close of Westminster Abbey in order to avoid debts.
