Lasater, Alice E.
Southern Quarterly12.3 (1974): 189-201.
Argues that Chaucer's influence on Edmund Spenser's "Shepheardes Calendar" is "deeper and far more extensive" than previously recognized. In particular, manipulations of the "hidden narrator" in Spenser are similar to similar techniques in CT and…
Articulates various "levels of perception" manipulated by Chaucer to create comic irony through his personae in BD, HF, PF, LGW, and CT. The "Chaucerian pose" is relatively constant in the early poems where the narrator is a "reasonable man" (but "no…
Argues that in translating Renaud de Louens's "Le Livre de Mellibee" in his own Mel, Chaucer created an "overtly rhetorical style for purposes of parody." Probably an expansion of an earlier, abridged translation by Chaucer, Mel is characterized by…
Ebin, Lois A.
Philological Quarterly 53 (1974): 321-41.
Reads "The Kingis Quair" as a "direct response" to Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and to TC and KnT, taking up their concerns with Fortune. "Quair" shares the concern with worldly love found in Chaucer's two poems, although it presents love…
Explores the ways in which Chaucer anticipates features of Renaissance literature, focusing on realism and ideas of humanity in TC and CT, but also commenting on satire in PF and parody in Thop. In Lithuanian, with summaries in Russian and English.
English version of an essay originally published in Russian in "Voprosy Jazykoznanija" 3 (1971): 73-88. Tabulates and assesses metrical features of several Middle English poems, including several by Chaucer, exploring the development of English…
Stroud, Theodore A.
Modern Philology 72 (1974): 60-70.
Reviews two books about Chaucer: "Language of Chaucer's Poetry: An Appraisal of Verse, Style and Structure" by Norman E. Eliason; and "Disembodied Laughter: 'Troilus' and the Apotheosis Tradition" by John M. Steadman.
Olson, Glending
Modern Language Quarterly 35 (1974): 219-30.
Argues that in its concern with social pretension and its atmosphere of "game and contest," RvT is better regarded as a comic fabliau than as a tale of vengeance that reflects its teller. Compares and contrasts RvT with several fabliaux, including…
Herzman, Ronald B.
Papers on Language and Literature 10 (1974): 339-52
Several features of KnT indicate that the rules and forms of chivalry can dignify conduct but at the same time threaten to overwhelm or undercut what they are intended to achieve. Similar threats of form overwhelming content are evident in the tale's…
Baron, F. Xavier.
Papers on Language and Literature 10 (1974): 5-14.
Considers Troilus's "altruistic love" of Criseyde to be one of the "outstanding examples in late medieval romance" of "self-abnegating love," i.e., "placing another's good before one's own." Troilus's hesitancy to act is a manifestation of this…
Tallies John Keats's early references and allusions to TC in his letters to Fanny Brawne and assesses how his lyric "What can I do to drive away" follows Chaucer's poem in representing the "rhythmic experience of pain passing into sweetness and…
Reads HF as an example of science fiction, focusing on its presentation of acoustics and commenting on its recurrent use of "scientific or pseudo-scientific explanations."
Gellrich, Jesse M.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 73 (1974): 176-88.
Describes the "pervasive tone" of MilT as "comic irony" and explores how musical imagery contributes to this tone, especially through incongruous juxtapositions of profundity and profanity. Includes discussion of Nicholas's Annunciation song…
Crampton, Georgia R[onan].
Medium Aevum 43 (1974): 22-36.
Argues that TC "gains psychological interest and what may be called a novelistic effect" through adaptation of the "to do and to suffer" topos. Troilus is "a man of passion who suffers," Pandarus is "a man of action who contrives," and Criseyde…
Comments on the comic and aural effects of the allusions to Hasdrubales's wife and to Nero in NPT (7.3362-73), focusing on Pertelote and the other female chickens.
Exemplifies Chaucer's "control of proportion" of details in GP, observing a "middle-class tendency to conformity" in the generalized description of the Guildsmen.
Characterizes the Franklin in light of his social status, administrative and judicial offices, his "Epicurean concern for externals," and his association with the Sergeant at Law. Then reads FranT as an ironic indictment of the narrator's foolish…
Scattergood, V. J.
Essays in Criticism 24 (1974): 124-46.
Shows how concern with lack of "self-control in speech" unifies ManP and ManT, especially in its traditional association with anger, one of the "sins of the tongue." The theme also occurs in SumT and MerT, but it is presented with greater "subtlety"…
Neuss, Paula.
Essays in Criticism 24 (1974): 325-40.
Comments in critics' "pun-hunting" in Chaucer's works and describes two kinds of bawdy puns in MilT (those that carry connotations of subtlety and secrecy and those that connote pleasure and entertainment), tracing their complex interrelations and…
Pearcy, Roy J.
English Language Notes 11 (1974): 167-75.
Documents various "medieval representations of Hell's Mouth," and suggests that the example in ManP (9.35-40) complements the concern with Last Judgment in ParsP.
