Cherniss, Michael D.
Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1987.
Studies six medieval poems in a genre structured by the "Consolation of Philosophy," beginning with an exploration of Boethius's literary strategies and shaping influence and continuing to examine "De planctu naturae," "Roman de la Rose," "Confessio…
Examines "Sir Gawain" in the context of ideas about chivalry and death in the fourteenth century and conflicts between morality and knighthood. A pessimistic view of knighthood is seen in "Form Age." Clein discusses indeterminancy and audience…
Clogan, Paul M.
Stella P. Revard, ed. Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Wolfenbutel (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1987), pp. 25-32.
Known to Boccaccio and possibly Chaucer, Lactantius Placidus's commentary is one of the earliest on the classics that deeply influenced the tradition of medieval mythography. Composed in the fifth or sixth century, it circulated widely in the early…
Clopper, Lawrence M.
Medievalia et Humanistica 15 (1987): 119-46.
Considers romance as a vehicle for the resolution of philosophical and theological problems, the relation of history to romance, and the rhetorical systems of each genre. KnT, TC, and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" illustrate how Chaucer and the…
Courtenay, William J.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987.
Chapters on the fourteenth-century educational framework, schools of the religious orders, higher education, patronage of ideas, English ties with Continental education, English scholasticism, Oxford after the plague, and "Piety and Learning in the…
Using Chaucerian spellings, the dictionary is designed for beginners and nonspecialists as well as for scholars and specialists interested in the etymology, formation, and development of personal names and names of gods and goddesses (mythical and…
Donnelly, Colleen Elaine.
Dissertation Abstracts International 47 (1987): 4381A-4382A.
Chaucer's method of creating romance (unlike the techniques of Milton, Hawthorne, and Faulkner) requires scrutiny of the placement of formulaic phrases to reveal meaning and theme.
Dragstra, H. H.
G. H. V. Bunt, E. S. Kooper, et al., eds. One Hundred Years of English Studies in Dutch Universities (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), pp. 187-97.
In their use of the term "modern," modern Chaucer scholars agree on three aspects: modern critical, scientific method;modern literary aesthetics; and the artistic personality of Chaucer himself as seen through modern eyes. Though D. W. Roberson,…
Erzgräber, Willi.
Joerg O. Fichte, ed. Chaucer's Frame Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987),: pp. 11-33.
By applying it to BD, PF, HF, TC, and CT (MilT, WBP, and GP Monk), Erzgraber tests Karl-Heinz Stierle's thesis that the "object of comicality is anything that threatens a culture." Chaucer reflects the cultural complexity of his age.
Fanale, James Francis.
Dissertation Abstracts International 48 (1987): 387A.
Fanale examines pertinent materials to construct a portrait of the confessor figure in fourteenth-century English literature, including the God of Love in LGWP, Pilgrim Parson, Gower's Genius, and the Green Knight.
Ferris, Sumner.
Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 8 (1987): 33-66.
The diptych (1398-99), an English work that once belonged to Richard II, shows "God, the Blessed Virgin, and Richard's ancestors" conferring upon him "absolute, unlimited sovereignty." As the king's altarpiece, it "proclaimed the religious mystery…
Finke, Laurie A.,and Martin B. Shichtman.
Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 1-11.
Summarizes through Kaske (defender of patristic exegesis) and Donaldson (opposer) the debate in the 1950's and 1960s over textual meaning. In the 1970s, medievalists underplayed historical differences between their work and medieval texts. In the…
Finke, Laurie A., and Martin B. Shichtman, eds.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987.
A collection of essays that question "traditional perceptions of medieval texts and the fictions and ideologies that structure these perceptions" (introduction). For five essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Medieval Texts and Contemporary…
Ganim, John M.
John V. Fleming and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 2, 1986. (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1987), pp. 59-71.
Examines the appropriateness and limitations of the "anthropological" approach in Chaucer criticism, specifically the "carnivalesque"--implicit in monastic satire, popular culture and folklore, goliardic parody, and the social dynamics of Chaucer's…
Goller, Karl Heinz.
Brian Patrick McGuire, ed. War and Peace in the Middle Ages (Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzels Forlag, 1987), pp. 118-45.
After a discussion of good and evil in medieval romance, especially Arthurian matter, Goller turns to authors who express opinions about war: Wycliffe, a pacifist, and Gower and Chaucer, who are ambivalent about war. Examines Chaucer's KnT, Mel,…
Hanning, Robert W.
Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 27-50.
Quintilian's definition of allegory suggests that "allegorical texts produce stable meanings and mirror unequivocal truths." For Augustine, "Figural language exists so that 'by means of corporal and temporal things we may comprehend the eternal and…
Henry, Avril, ed. and trans.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.
Critical edition of a fifteenth-century manuscript of a Middle English translation of "Speculum humanae salvationis," written between 1310 and 1324. The work is a compilation for both laity and clergy, a handbook or compendium of images and stories…
Jordan, Robert M.
Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1987.
Advising Chaucerians to abandon literary interpretation in favor of poetics, Jordan catalogues the genres, modes, and discursive forms of a particular Chaucerian text, first pointing out their incompatibility and then noting the failure of univocal…
Jordan, Robert M.
John V. Fleming and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 2, 1986. (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1987): pp. 51-57.
Reviews major modern critical theories and theorists, explains Todorov's distinction between interpretation and analysis, and develops the idea that "the language-oriented emphasis of much contemporary theory correlates closely with medieval ideas…
