Building on three generally acknowledged biblical motifs in MerT, Fumo suggests "the presence, indeed the dominance, of a fourth": the Crucifixion. Januarie's pain in marriage is associated with "Christ's suffering on the cross"; however, the…
Fumo, Jamie C.
Studies in Philology 100: 278-314, 2003.
Fumo analyzes Chaucer's use of Ovid's Heroides 5 (Oenone's letter to Paris) in TC, discussing Chaucer's sustained and allusive use of this text and its "metanarrative function" in the structure of TC.
Chaucer modeled the prayer for the removal of the rocks on a cluster of literary precedents, from Boccaccio to Boethius, Ovid, and Marian lyrics. Chaucer was as interested in the works' interpenetration as in the ironic tensions among them.
Fumo, Jamie C.
Carolyn P. Collette, ed. The Legend of Good Women: Context and Reception (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2006), pp. 157-75.
Intertextual connections among LGWP, Ret, and the end of TC capitalize on the medieval scholastic literary theory of the co-authorship of books by human authors and God ("duplex causa efficiens"). All three works remind audiences of authorial…
Fumo, Jamie C.
Alison Keith and Stephen Rupp, eds. Metamorphosis: The Changing Face of Ovid in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2007), pp. 129-50.
The Wife of Bath's "manipulations of the Argus and Midas myths" reflect her Ovid-like "delight in sensuality and embeddedness of narrative" and her recognition of the power of story to "control and deceive." The myths help unify WBPT; through them,…
Fumo, Jamie C.
Janet Levarie Smarr, ed. Writers Reading Writers: Intertextual Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Literature in Honor of Robert Hollander. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007, pp. 89-108.
Fumo compares and contrasts Chaucer's invocation of Apollo in HF to its source in Dante's "Paradiso," arguing that Chaucer shares with Dante a "fundamental interest in defining the poet's role" as a "vessel of prophetic truth." Both poets are…
Heretofore noted for its allusions to TC, the romance "Amoryus and Cleopes" also develops many of the themes, motifs, and stylistic traits of Fragment 5 of CT (SqT and FranT), in particular "its portrayal of pagan religion, its treatment of…
Surveys the figure of Apollo in classical and medieval traditions, focusing on the figure in Chaucer's works as an embodiment of the poet's understandings of poetic authority. Chaucer "mythologized a new idea of authorship in English," escaping…
Fumo, Jamie C.
Robert Epstein and William Robins, eds. Sacred and Profane in Chaucer and Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honour of John V. Fleming (Buffalo, N. Y.: University of Toronto Press, 2010), pp. 68-90.
Fumo reads Criseyde as someone "who does not believe in love" and perhaps "does not believe at all," a representation of fourteenth-century epistemological concerns "reanimated in the context of a Petrarchan psychology of enamourment." Criseyde's…
Expressions of hatred of Criseyde belie a persistent love for her and thus motivate new attempts at telling her story. In this way, hatred serves as "a sign of dispossession" of Criseyde "that invites repossession by the next author."
Fumo, Jamie C.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 35 (2013): 85-136.
Various associations of sight and death indicate that KnT is a "nightmare vision of vision itself" which, in comparison with Boccaccio's "Teseida," flattens the character of Emelye, intensifies her agency, and indicts chivalry. In KnT the motifs of…
Fumo, Jamie C.
Isabel Davis and Catherine Nall, eds. Chaucer and Fame: Reputation and Reception (Cambridge; D. S. Brewer, 2015), pp. 201-20.
Explores the "reciprocal status of antiquity and celebrity" in the reception of Chaucer, his "construction (and self-construction) as a vernacular authority," and the relations of fame and temporality in his works, especially MLP. Recurrent concerns…
Adapts the "gift theory" of Jacques Derrida; considers the historical context of the marriage of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster; and focuses on the scene of White's ring-giving (as reported by the Black Knight), considering the poem itself as…
Fumo, Jamie C.
In Alison Langdon, ed. Animal Languages in the Middle Ages: Representations of Interspecies Communication (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 217-34.
Departs from purely functional or allegorical approaches to the whelp in BD by situating the narrative's portrayal of canine-human relations within the field of critical animal studies. Establishes the role of the whelp in rectifying human…
Examines the contexts of Criseyde's tears in an antifeminist tradition, to which Chaucer and TC respond, and engages with the revisions to depictions of Criseyde's weeping in TC. Uses insights from sociology and behavioral psychology to argue that…
Fumo, Jamie C.
Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 219-37.
Traces connections between Ovid and Chaucer and asserts that "Chaucer emerges not simply as a conveyor of or apprentice to Ovid, but as a 'collaborator' in an Ovidian poetic, one who necessarily and wilfully transforms Ovid's 'book' into his own." In…
Interprets BD as an early example of "illness narrative." BD's structuring concern with sickness and healing, centered upon insomnia detached from the courtly discourse of lovesickness, reflects the preoccupations of late medieval natural philosophy…
Fumo, Jamie C., ed.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2018.
Includes nine essays, plus a response, by various authors, with an index and an introduction by the editor. Argues for a reassessment of the critical relevance of BD, which has often been marginalized, as a work that is simultaneously "multilingual"…
A mythographic history of the figure of Apollo from Augustan Rome to Chaucer. Fumo focuses on the importance of Apollo to Chaucer's poetic self-conception and on Chaucer's representations of the deity in TC, in SqT and FranT, and in ManT.
Fumo, Jamie Clire.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2015.
Studies the history of interpretation of BD, surveying scholarly commentary, material transmission, and late medieval/early modern creative reception. Emphasizes the (re)making of BD over time, by means of the interrelated textual processes of…
Fuog, Karin Edie Capri.
Dissertation Abstracts International 55 (1994): 959A.
Although Renaissance Scholars have tended to deny subjectivity in medieval literature, medievalists have shown that Chaucer develops it. So does the author of "The Kingis Quair," an important but generally neglected work.
Furr, Grover C.
Richard J. Utz, ed. Literary Nominalism and the Theory of Rereading Late Medieval Texts: A New Research Paradigm (Lewiston, N.Y.; Queenston, Ont.; Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen, 1995) pp. 135-46.
Examines the theme of free will in NPT in light of the "nominalist-Augustinian debate of the fourteenth century," arguing that Chaucer's position reflects contemporary indeterminacy.
The rare pre-Chaucerian fabliaux in English display affinities with exempla, drama, and inverted romance. Critics have long pondered why no fabliau tradition in English exists; they hypothesize scribal prudery or loss of many texts. Considering the…
Furrow surveys medieval verbal and visual depictions of the love-tryst beneath the tree, focusing on the duping of Mark by Tristan and Isolde. Adaptations of the scene in romances include MerT and its analogue, "The Comedy of Lydia."
Furrow, Melissa [M.]
Forum for Modern Language Study 33 (1997): 244-57.
Uses extracts from the Middle English "Mirrur," the fourteenth-century translation of Robert de Gretham's thirteenth-century sermon collection, to explore the context and significance of Ret.
