Deals with medieval systems of dividing life into ages, with ages based on time divisions, and with exhortations to overcome the difficulties of various ages and to act one's age. Discusses the GP Squire as a youth, the Wife of Bath's youth, old…
Clogan, Paul M.
I. D. McFarlane, ed. Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Sanctandreani (Binhamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1986), pp. 569-78.
The distinctive form of literary criticism in the medieval canon of classics in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is evidenced by an examination of one of the characteristic types of treatise that resulted from the association of poetry with…
Newman, Francis X., ed.
Binghamton, N.Y. : Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1986.
Five essays dealing with the peasants' revolt, peasant resistance, the plague, and social conscience. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Social Unrest in the Middle Ages under Alternative Title.
Peck, Russell A.
Francis X. Newman, ed. Social Unrest in the Middle Ages (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1986), pp. 113-48.
Chaucer's work and alliterative poetry such as "Jack Upland" and the "Plowman's Tale" "shared a common audience." John Ball's letters, like Wycliffe's writings, invoked the mythic simplicity of the early Christian church, appealing urgently to…
Robertson, D. W.,Jr.
Francis X. Newman, ed. Social Unrest in the Middle Ages, (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1986), pp. 49-74.
Robertson discusses hardships such as war, crime, extortion, maintenance and procurement, legal abuses, and the ordinances of Edward III and Richard II that serve to illuminate BD, FrT, PardT, and the GP Wife of Bath, Prioress, Monk, Merchant,…
The levels of style of the first three Canterbury tales correspond to John of Garland's columnar figure, which is itself a memory locus derived from classical rhetoric.
Popular understanding of their works is a central issue in both Boccaccio and Chaucer. Boccaccio's urbanity and sophistication reflect the qualities of his cultured, mercantile audience. Chaucer (e.g., PardT) is only apparently more naive, working…
Prior, Sandra Pierson.
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 16 (1986): 57-73.
Not mere humorous touches, Chaucer's complex parodies of the mystery plays of Noah and Herod cover "biblical figures and events, the contemporary religious drama,...and exegesis, which lay behind the widespread use of typology." MilT explodes in…
The Wife of Bath's performance constitutes a bourgeois, female countercommentary by a literate property owner to the dominant male aristocratic and ecclesiastical conceptions of marriage, sex, learning, and economic power in the later Middle Ages.
Friedman, John B.
Francis X. Newman, ed. Social Unrest in the Middle Ages (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1986), pp. 75-112.
Treats iconography, history of medicine, and history of science.
Jost, Jean E.
Medieval Perspectives 1 (1986): 75-88.
Chaucer uses a medieval commonplace--vowing--as a function of genre: tragedy, comedy, or fabliau. In PardT, fashioning an illegitimate triple vow to eradicate Death, and bound by sworn brotherhood, three hoodlums effect upon themselves a grim,…
Discusses a "fourteenth-century lending law" as a possible source of Chaucer's ShT, with its depiction of a "bourgeois financial triangle." More work needs to be done on Chaucer's knowledge of municipal ordinances.
Baird-Lange, Lorrayne Y., and Bege K. Bowers, with the assistance of Hildegard Schnuttgen et al.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 08 (1986): 279-341.
Continutation of SAC annual bibliography (since 1975); based on 1984 MLA International Bibliography listings, contributions from international bibliographic team, and independent research.
Leyerle, John,and Anne Quick.ed. and pref.,
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986.
Designed for readers relatively unfamiliar with Chaucer, this bibliography annotates 1,200+ items in three categories: materials for the study of Chaucer's works, Chaucer's works,and backgrounds.
The study of Chaucer in Japanese universities has increased dramatically during the past quarter century. The paper lists relevant professional organizations and research trends.
Dor, Juliette De Caluwe, trans.
Louvain-Paris: Editions Peeters, 1986.
With facing translation from the Fisher edition plus explanatory notes and new interpretations, this second installment of a projected four-volume, line-for-line translation of CT into French prose presents RvT, CkT, MLT, WBT, FrT, and SumT.
Treats contents and history of the volume bequeathed to Magdalene College by Samuel Pepys. The first of the two manuscripts in the volume preserves texts of LGW, ABC, HF, Mars, Ven, For, PF, and several non-Chaucerian works.
