Astell, Ann [W.]
Jeanette Beer, ed. Translation Theory and Practice in the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute, 1997), pp. 59-69.
The link of Griselda and Job in ClT recalls Saint Gregory's "Moralia" in Job, which "translates" Job as feminine. In casting Job as a female figure, Chaucer reveals the contradictions and misogyny of Gregory's exegesis.
Astell, Ann W.
Raymond-Jean Frontain and Jan Wojcik, eds. Old Testament Women in Western Literature (Conway, Ark.: UCA Press, 1991), pp. 92-107.
Gregory's Moralia in Job not only associates Job's wife with Eve as the archetypal temptress but also links her voice to the feminine speaking of poetry, with its imagistic power to move, delight, and (mis)instruct. Chaucer refashions her in CT in…
Astell, Ann W.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 13 (1991): 81-97.
Chaucer's additions to Trevet's tale of Constance consist chiefly of rhetorical additions by the narrator and prayers by Custance, converting the tale to a satire of the narrator's long-winded fatalistic views. Apostrophe and prayer, "converse"…
CT Fragment VII illustrates and undercuts the Aristotelian causes of literature. Thus, ShT demonstrates the near efficient cause, the teller; PrT, the remote cause, God. Chaucer-the-Pilgrim, the final cause, separates delight and instruction in Th…
The rhetorical trope 'translatio' subsumes metaphor, allegory,and irony, providing a basis for understanding how the Pardoner translates himself into his characters and the Old Man into the rioters. The Pardoner represents his own Otherness while…
The tale of Orpheus is a tragic love story used to convey the central moral lesson of Boethius's "Consolation," a lesson corresponding to the "moralitee" spelled out in the epilogue to Chaucer's TC. Both the Orpheus metrum and Chaucer's poem have a…
Astell, Ann W.
Allen J. Frantzen, ed. Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell in the Middle Ages (N.p.: Illinois Medieval Association, 1993), pp. 53-64
Both NPT and Gower's "Vox clamantis" merge the figure of the crowing cock with the figures of the preacher and the poet, a response by each poet to the social challenges of the so-called Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Chaucer's ironic identification of…
Astell, Ann W.
Ithaca, N.Y.; and London: Cornell University Press, 1994.
In the Middle Ages, Job was regarded as a figure comparable to the heroes of classical epic, prompting allegorical readings of Job that parallel allegorical readings of works by Homer,Virgil, and Boethius. Astell traces the tradition of treating Job…
In the Ellesmere arrangement, CT forms a unified whole, modeled on the seven planets and on the traditional divisions of philosophy, offering a "planetary pilgrimage" and a philosophical "journey of the soul." Like Gower's "Confessio Amantis," CT is…
Astell, Ann W.
Studies in Philology 94 (1997): 395-416.
Examines Chaucer's two brief but similar references to the "St. Anne Trinity," a portrayal of Mary, Jesus, and St. Anne in the cultural context of fourteenth-century England. Concludes that the references in MLT and SNT represent two sides of a…
Astell, Ann W.
Ithaca, N.Y., and London : Cornell University Press, 1999.
A series of studies that explore how William Langland, John Gower, the Gawain poet, Chaucer, and Sir Thomas Malory all "practiced an allegorical art, partly as a result of their similar educational backgrounds and also because political pressures…
Astell, Ann W.
Carmina Philosophiae 3: 23-36, 1994.
Argues that Boethius's "Consolation" inspired many "amatory imitations" (especially the "Roman de la Rose" and TC) because its opening scene parallels--and perhaps helped inspire--the visual commonplace of the (love)sick man tended by a female who…
Astell, Ann W.
Scott D. Troyan, ed. Medieval Rhetoric: A Casebook (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 41-62.
Assesses medieval notions of the utility of books, comparing modern and medieval theoretical discussions. Astell's essay focuses on the symbolic exchange value of books and the "antisacrificial rhetorical strategies" for offering books as gifts to…
Reads ManPT, ParsPT, and Ret in light of the Dionysian/Apollonian opposition posed by Nietzsche in "The Birth of Tragedy Out of Music." Whereas Nietzsche treated the two as irreconcilable, Chaucer combines them in "an ethical aesthetics and an…
Astell, Ann W.
Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson, eds. Levinas and Medieval Literature: The "Difficult Reading" of English and Rabbinic Texts (Pittsburgh, Penn.: Duquesne University Press, 2009), pp. 255-80.
Two talmudic tales interpreted by Levinas complement PardT in "uncanny ways." While Chaucer explores the impossibility of forgiveness from the perspective of the offender, the talmudic tales explore the impossibility of forgiveness from the…
Astell, Ann W.
Susan Yager and Elise E. Morse-Gagné, eds. Interpretation and Performance: Essays for Alan Gaylord (Provo, UT: Chaucer Studio Press, 2013), pp. 3-11.
The quotation of Psalm 8 in PrP would have reminded Chaucer's audience of two Gospel narratives of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, one referring to singing children, the other to speaking stones. The power of this combined allusion links the clergeoun…
Astell, Ann W., and J. A. Jackson, eds.
Pittsburgh, Penn.: Duquesne University Press, 2009.
Twelve essays by various authors, plus an introduction by the editors, consider interactions among Christian allegory, talmudic hermeneutics, and the interpretive theory of Emmanuel Levinas. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for…
Astell, Anne.
Sharon M. Rowley, ed. Writers, Editors, and Exemplars in Medieval English Texts (Cham: Macmillan Palgrave, 2021), pp. 43-78.
Argues that allusions to Mary in ClT "disturb a reception of Grisildis as Stoic heroine and Chistian saint." Claims Griselda is a "failed Pietá and that the tale is "caught between two worlds, critical of its own sacrificial gestures."
Traces the legacy of Lollard and Wycliffite writings in early modern print, including works incorrectly attributed to Chaucer (such as "The Plowman's Tale," "Jack Upland," and "The Testament of Love") and led to him being regarded as a…
Atkinson, Laurie Ray.
Ph.D. dissertation (University of Durham, 2021), Dissertation Abstracts International C83.05(E). Fully accessible at http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/14081/ (accessed January 30, 2025).
"[I]nvestigates the distinctive conceptions of literary authorship of John Skelton, William Dunbar, Stephen Hawes, and Gavin Douglas by means of close and comparative readings of their utilisation of a particular form and mode: framed first-person…
Atkinson, Laurie.
Jennifer Nuttall and David Watt, ed. Thomas Hoccleve: New Approaches (Cambridge: Brewer, 2022.), pp. 85-102.
Shows how the "framed first-person narrative with which [Hoccleve's] "Regiment" begins is a reconfiguration rather than a straightforward rejection of Chaucer's dream poetry." While both authors use dream-vision conventions to engage previous authors…
WBT is a tale of transformations best understood by applying to it Jung's concept of anima. The knight's quest is really a search for understanding of his inner self, the feminine psyche. The transformation of the hag at the end mirrors his own…
Atkinson, Ruth, and Geert van Iersel, trans
Nathanael Busch and Robert Fajen, eds. Allmächtig und Unfassbar: Geld in der Literatur des Mittelalters (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel, 2021), pp. 316-19.
Translates Purse into German verse, with notes; Middle English text included.
Attridge, Derek.
The Experience of Poetry: From Homer's Listener to Shakespeare's Readers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 2285-3.
Examines evidence for the modes of performance and reception of late medieval English poetry, focusing on Chaucer's dream visions, TC, and CT, but also commenting on works by John Gower, other English poets, and continental writers. Considers…
