Tisdale, Charles P. R.
Comparative Literature 25 (1973): 247-61.
Argues that in HF Chaucer achieves "symbolic cohesion" and unity by combining the narrator's Virgilian epiphany of a "higher sense of duty" (his response to the Aeneas/Dido exemplum) with the Boethian imagery of philosophical ascent (effected by the…
Tisdale, Charles P. R.
American Benedictine Review 24 (1973): 365-80.
Commends BD for its reconciliation of extreme tones: despair derived from "earth-shattering sorrow" and "intellectual hope" derived from "heaven-sent consolation." Inspired by Bothus's "Consolation of Philosophy," Chaucer achieves consolation and…
Traces Chaucer's uses of two rhetorical devices of compression throughout his poetic career, "praeterito" and "reticentia," arguing that he developed sophisticated uses of the devices for creating dramatic and emotional effects. The devices entail,…
Surveys the literary tradition of the term "vavasour" and explores the implications of its use to describe the Franklin in GP. Focuses on encounters between vavasours and knights in French Arthurian romances, the juxtaposition of FranT and SqT, and…
Owen, Charles A. Jr.
Chaucer Review 7.4 (1973): 267-80.
Surveys critical approaches to Mel and discusses its themes of "the good woman" and forgiveness; also assesses Mel as a complex, multi-leveled allegory.
Describes the "literary attitudes" evident in Eustace Deschamps' "L'Art de Dictier," focusing on its concern with the "natural music" of lyric poetry, a concern also found among troubadour poets and in Chaucer's ballades and complaints, even though…
Tagmemic analysis of NPT that examines three of its "overlapping hierarchies" by shifting focus among them: the tale as a fable, the rhetorical elaboration of it, and the framing context of CT. Such analysis discloses the complex comedy of the tale.
Studies aspects of PhyT that derive from hagiography, particularly its emphasis on Virginia as a "virgin martyr," not found in Chaucer's sources. As a result of Chaucer's various changes and genre modifications, the tale raises "grave questions of…
Reads ClT as a "dramatization" of the teaching of St. James' epistle: the testing of faith "begets patience." Despite Walter's cruelty, he is God's "unwitting agent" in effecting Griselda's faith and obedience.
McCann, Garth A.
Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 27 (1973): 10-16.
Reads the first three tales in CT as a gradated and "symmetrical" treatment of love that moves from the non-physical idealism of KnT to the mixture of emotion and action in MilT and on to the revenge and "physical realism" of RvT.
Mathewson, Jeanne T.
Annuale Mediaevale 14 (1973): 35-42.
Argues that Chaucer's additions to his sources in PhyT (Virginia's speech and the reference to Jephthah's daughter) convey a sense of masculine blindness to feminine reality--seeing only the "transient conditions of beauty, youth, and virginity."
In TC, Chaucer shows the "inter-relatedness of the moral and the aesthetic" by demonstrating the "corruption and debasement" of key concepts: "honour," "worthiness," "gentilesse," "manhood," and "trouthe." Such debasement reflects the inevitable…
Lenaghan, R. T.
Chaucer Review 7.4 (1973): 281-94.
Argues that, while clearly discrediting summoners, the Friar "also discredits himself." Reads FrT as a exemplum that satirizes summoners and, ironically, condemns the Friar's malicious hypocrisy, especially clear in light of contemporary sermon…
Kahrl, Stanley J.
Chaucer Review 7.3 (1973): 194-209.
Argues that SqT "presents the growing impulse toward exoticism and disorder at work in the courts of late medieval Europe," the antithesis of classical order depicted in KnT. Also comments on notions of "gentilesse" and the uses of rhetorical colors…
Haskell, Ann S.
Chaucer Review 7.3 (1973): 221-26.
Explicates features of the reference to St. Giles in CYT (8.1185), drawing on the various traditions of Giles as patron saint of "'those struck by some sudden misery, and driven into solitude.'"
Garbáty, Thomas Jay.
Chaucer Review 8.1 (1973): 1-8.
Identifies the "compound humor" of the "geographic dialect" material in RvT and the GP description of the Reeve, where he is depicted as an "immigrant" from Norfolk to London and thereby the butt of humor for indigenous Londoners.
Friedman, John Block.
Chaucer Review 7.3 (1973): 250-66.
Surveys approaches to NPT, and discusses its appropriateness as a homiletic exemplum to the Priest as narrator, discussing its rhetoric, its misogynistic depictions of females, and its allusions to mermaid song and Physiologus (7.3270-72)
Examines the tension in ClT between human pathos and clerkly training and intelligence, reading the combination as a depiction of late-medieval "clerkishness." Additions to his sources and the use of "specialized vocabulary" make Chaucer's tale…
Fisher, John H.
Chaucer Review 8.2 (1973): 119-27.
Shows how the first three tales in CT can be seen to align with the discussion of three rhetorical styles in John of Garland's "Poetria"--courtly, civic, and rustic. Particularly applicable is Garland's commentary on his rectangular chart of…
Finnel, Andrew J.
Chaucer Review 8.2 (1973): 147-58.
Argues that Purse was written soon after the accession of Henry IV, addressed to the new monarch and composed as Chaucer's plea for funds while he was residing in the close of Westminster Abbey in order to avoid debts.
Dilligan, Robert J., and Karen Lynn.
College English 34 (1973): 1103-4 and 1113-23.
Describes an eight-step "algorithm" for enabling computers to aid in the recognition and cataloging of prosodic traits, and explores the utility of such practice by discussing the data from a computer-assisted scansion of a 1000-line sample of…
