A. A. MacDonald's objection to reading "woman" for "wo man" in line 847 of MLT is a misunderstanding of a more fundamental problem--that traditional attitudes toward gender may have played a part in separating two letters in a context wherein certain…
MacDonald, Alasdair A.
Chaucer Review 22 (1988): 246-49.
John C. Hirsh's proposed emendation of "wo man" to "woman" in MLT 847 is probably unwarranted. Consideration of manuscript evidence, as well as syntax and cultural context, render Hirsh's reading implausible.
Crane, Susan.
English Language Notes 25:3 (1988): 10-15.
No case can be made that the Wife of Bath murdered her fourth husband. Such claims are made only by readers who invent for her an extratextual history and psychology or who believe that she "merely fulfills antifeminist expectations rather than…
Hamaguchi, Keiko.
Essays Commemorating the Retirement of Professor Sachiho Tanaka. (Tokyo: Kirihara Shoten, 1988), pp. 107-21.
Explores why Chaucer made the Wife of Bath an ideal wife after she became physically "somdel deef," tracing the meaning and effect of "deef" in the context of her revolt against the antifeminist tradition. In Japanese.
WBP and WBT appear within frameworks of CT in which masculine values of truth and authority are already evaporating. In phallocentric discourse, women's talk is assumed to be untrue, and male desire is the central secret. Alison reveals throughout…
Wurtele, Douglas J.
Chaucer Review 23 (1988): 117-28.
If Jankyn and Alison conspired at the death of the Wife's fourth husband, the books from which Jankyn reads possibly contain lessons to murderesses. Her anger and threat of revelation result in his capitulation and flight, leaving her to purvey her…
The Summoner addresses the devil in formal pronouns (you) until he learns the fiend's true identity; then, he speaks to him informally (thou). The devil, however, is consistently formal in his own usage.
Williams, David
Gary Wihl and David Williams, eds. Literature and Ethics: Essays Presented to A. E. Malloch (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988), pp. 77-95.
In FrT, Chaucer satirizes some "excesses of fourteenth-century logical demonstration" and develops a "theory of fiction from the theories of intention current in his day." Intentionality involves the "relation of language to the real," and…
Wright, Stephen K.
English Language Notes 26:1 (1988): 4-7.
Jankyn's scheme for the equal distribution of the fart in SumT may be derived from Boethius's theory of the propagation of sound waves in "De musica," a Boethian passage also echoed in HF.
Lynch, Kathryn L.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 10 (1988): 41-70.
Reexamines ClT "from Walter's point of view"--that is, focusing on Walter as the center of the tale--suggesting that Chaucer, like Petrarch, his source, was concerned as much with epistemology or the quest for knowledge as with Griselda's fidelity.
Mandel, Jerome.
Hebrew University Studies in Literature and the Arts 16 (1988): 27-50.
Explores parallels of character and structure (councils, marriage agreement, feast, tests, restoration) used to establish the architectonic unity of the fragment. Clothing imagery in the tales strengthens these connections.
A collection of ten articles by various hands, in Italian, concerning the spread and development of the Griselda tradition in Italy, England, Iceland, Germany, and Bohemia, among other Eruopean countries.
In modern reader reception, ClT produces either "Paduan" pity for Griselda or "Veronese" disbelief in woman so virtuous. Schaum examines the "negative capability" needed in reader response because of the character of the GP Clerk, the manner of…
Both Beowulf and Chaucer's Walter in ClT are "compulsive." Beowulf is obsessed with his heroic powers; Walter, with testing his wife. Walter is seen as a "monster," his treatment of his wife as inhuman.
Walter is not just testing his wife but doing the worst he can imagine himself doing as a stage in achieving a better unity among the parts of himself and between his private and public selves.
Romance typically treats ambiguous doubles, threatened incest,and the unfallen world. Though SqT fits both genre and teller, it devalues the marvelous (e.g., the dry tree) and transmutes its components (analogously to but differently from CYT). The…
Innes, Susan.
Copyright Washington D.C.: Library of Congress, 1988.
Supports the research of J. D. North by attesting that the astrological structure of SqT can be perceived through purely literary means, i.e., without astrological training or predisposition.
Laird, Edgar S.
English Language Notes 25:3 (1988): 23-26.
The use of the word "proportionals" by the Clerk of Orleans in FranT shows "how very up to date" Chaucer was in astronomy. Corresponding to the Latin "minuta proportionalia," proportionals were a measure for calculating celestial positions in the…
Feminist analysis of FranT. Though the theme of the tale is "gentilesse," none of the three men is gentle, and Dorigen suffers from the egoistic behaviors of Arveragus and Aurelius. Dorigen is not a wise wife but an ordinary woman.
Robertson, D. W.,Jr.
Chaucer Review 23 (1988): 129-39.
The Physician's misunderstanding of his tale adds to the comedy of CT. He concludes the tale with a warning to forsake sin, not realizing that--like Appius, who betrays the innocence of Virginia--he betrays the innocence of those who come to him "in…
Ruud, Jay.
Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 9 (1988): 29-45.
Behind the grotesque circumstances of PhyT, Chaucer presents an ironic view of natural law: Nature gloats as she forms Virginia to glorify God in purity; yet, the Physician mocks the sheltering of perfection since natural law will soon corrupt her.
