Bloch, R. Howard.
Qui Parle 2 (1988): 22-45; Representations 28 (1989): 113-34.
Explicates Virginia's death by reference to patristic definitions of virginity as the desired ideal veiled in substance, a state inevitably transgressed by the gaze. By extension, the ideal that virginity implies is destroyed by its articulation. …
MLT, ClT, and PhyT address the same question: how can God allow the innocent to suffer and the wicked to go unpunished? Although in each case Chaucer enhances the virtue of the protagonist and the pathos of her suffering, he tests diverse…
Johnston, Alexandra F.
Records of Early English Drama Newsletter 13:2 (1988), 13-20.
Allusions in MilT and WBP help date the mystery plays. Despite the paucity of archival records, Chaucer's allusions clarify contemporary familiarity with the plays and their production.
The relationship between Troy's story and Criseyde's demonstrates Chaucer's vision of how common Destiny frames but ultimately releases individual free will. The "de casibus" frame comments on the human condition; like Troy and Criseyde, we are…
Baird-Lange, Lorrayne Y., and Bege K. Bowers, with the assistance of Hildegard Schnuttgen et al.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 10 (1988): 219-87.
Continuation of SAC annual bibliography (since 1975); based on 1986 MLA "Bibliography" listings, contributions from an international bibliographic team, and independent research. A total of 336 items.
The 1987 report of the Committee on Chaucer Bibliography and Research lists 354 Chaucer studies. Listings are devoted primarily to Americian Chaucerians.
Oizumi, Akio.
Kinshiro Oshitari et al., eds. Philologia Anglica: Essays Presented to Professor Yoshio Terasawa on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday. (Tokyo: Kenkyusha, Ltd., 1988) pp. 455-66.
Hornsby, Joseph A.
Chaucer Review 22 (1988): 255-68.
By establishing a truer picture of the fourteenth-century Inns of Court, we can see the improbability of Chaucer's having been educated there. First, Chaucer's education at the Inns of Court is questionable. Second, the fourteenth-century Inns of…
Dane, Joseph A.
Norman and London : University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.
Proposing to assess "how our language of parody...acts to manipulate the literature it is intended to describe," Dane explores the relation of genre to politics. Part 4, "The Classification of Medieval Parody," contains a chapter, "The…
Marzec, Marcia Smith.
Proceedings of the ... International Patristic, Mediaeval and Renaissance Conference 12-13 (1987-88): 197-208.
Critically regarded as a failure, MLT may be seen in better light if we look at its overriding theme: the efficacy of God's will at work in the world. But while the tale succeeds in explicating that theme, it fails in its portrayal of Constance,…
Tsur, Reuven.
Journal of Pragmatics 12 (1988): 711-24.
Discusses poetic metaphor, especially water imagery, with relation to conceptualization strategies (rapid versus delayed conceptualization) and how psychoanalysis might deal with the issues raised. Delayed conceptualization may provide more adequate…
Lloyd-Kimbrel, Elizabeth D.
Mediaevistik 1 (1988): 115-24.
Discusses the "Gothic" aesthetics of Chaucer's work: duality, complexity, progression, juxtaposition of jarringly opposite elements, exposure of structural features, audience participation, incompleteness, ambiguity, and physicality of thought.
Kirk, Elizabeth D.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 2 (1988): 1-21.
Against the sociopolitical background of the fourteenth century, Kirk examines the Plowman as worker and religious symbol in "Piers Plowman" and Chaucer's GP.
Davidoff, Judith M.
Rutherford, N.J.; Madison, Wis.; and Teaneck, N.J.:
Basing her work on a study of 189 poems, Davidoff analyzes common features of "framing fictions." With attention to Chaucer's sources and literary tradition, she offers readings of BD, demonstrating relationship of meaning to structure; of HF,…
Dane, Joseph A.
Text: Transactions of the Society for Textual Scholarship 4 (1988): 217-36.
Examining past editions of Chaucer--Urry's 1721 edition (commonly considered the "worst" edition), Tyrwhitt's 1775 five-volume edition (the first "modern" edition), and Thomas Morell's 1727 "open" edition--illuminates current editorial practices. …
Greetham, D. C.
Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 82 (1988).
Review controversies regarding the editing of medieval texts, faults the new "Riverside Chaucer," which represents no "textual advance over Robinson 2," and judges that "what Bowers offers is the best of two worlds--fidelity to auctorial usage…
Brewer, Derek.
Kinshiro Oshitari et al., eds. Philologica Anglica (Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1988), pp. 270-84.
Explores Chaucer's interest in the Bible and assumes that he possessed his own copy and read it seriously. Suggests that Chacuer's piety may be connected with the late-fourteenth-century courtly interest in Carthusian ideals.
Hill, Archibald A.
Caroline Duncan-Rose and Theo Vennemann, eds. On Language: Rhetorica, Phonologica, Syntactica. (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 66-78.
The search for Chaucer's puns has increased dramatically in modern scholarship, particularly John Gardner's. By adopting some conservative principles, we can curb the "extravagence of pun-hunting." First, puns should be distinguished from innuendo…
