Chaucer exemplifies one of Mikhail Bakhtin's important claims that laughter can engage and comment on human systems and can function as a form of social and intellectual critique. Engle briefly surveys Bakhtinian theory, suggests its power in…
Farrell, Thomas J.
Studies in Philology 86 (1989): 286-309.
Whether or not Chaucerian, the glosses reveal medieval responses to ClT; they emphasize the introduction of important thematic material and highlight the difference between the Clerk's restrained rhetoric and the ornate style of Petrarch's 'Seniles'…
Grudin, Michaela Paasche.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 11 (1989): 63-92.
Dante's advocacy of absolute rule as necessary for a peaceful state ("De monarchia") was opposed by other fourteenth-century Italian political theorists who saw such a state as tyrannical. Boccaccio's treatment of Griselda in "Decameron" implicitly…
Johnson, Lynn Staley.
Mediaevalia 11 (1989, for 1985): 121-28.
The Clerk's "apparently subversive narration" draws the reader away from pathos toward "harder wisdom." ClT is a "gem of narrative irony." The Clerk manipulates reader response by exploiting "techniques of irony" and pointing out inconsistencies in…
Reading ClT in its social and historical context is reason for employing Bakhtin's theoretical framework, since Bakhtin recognizes the complexity and riches of poetic discourse as connected to the diversity and complexity of socio-ideological…
McClellan discusses the strengths of Engle's Bakhtinian analysis of ClT, particularly Engle's "very valuable insight about Griselda's dialogic re-envoicing of Walter's discourse." McClellan argues, however, that Engle gives no psychological analysis…
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Mediaeval Studies 51 (1989): 313-28.
The Clerk's dismissal of Petrarch's opening "descriptio" is ironic--for the "king of rivers" would be understood by knowledgeable pilgrims to signify rhetorical powers and divine wisdom. In fact, the Clerk deploys a full range of rhetorical figures…
Griffiths, Gwen.
Papers on Language and Literature 25 (1989): 242-63.
The divergence of critical opinion about MerT attests to Chaucer's success in prompting multiple responses to his text and in allowing no definitive reading. In the tale, "the narrator/narratee relationships are reflected in a multiplicity of…
Hallissy, Margaret.
Studies in Short Fiction 26 (1989): 295-304.
During the Middle Ages, widowhood usually brought legal, social, and economic benefits. Although the Wife of Bath makes calculated use of these advantages, May in MerT foolishly jeopardizes her inheritance. Fertility lore indicates that she is…
Interprets the pear and enclosed garden of MerT by the Christian iconography of a medieval painting of Saint Barbara in an enclosed garden. Lloyd finds both January and May choosing the garden of pleasure over the love of Christ or of Mary.
The lack of a defined perspective from which to judge exposes a profound ambivalence in the Merchant, an ambivalence that manifests itself in a series of confusing and disconcerting shifts in narrative viewpoint, suggesting a narrator who is quite…
Olson, Donald W.,and Laurie E. Jasinski.
Sky and Telescope 77 (1989): 376-77.
Chaucer is assumed to have had a high level of astronomical knowledge, unusual for medieval times. Olson and Jasinski used an Apple IIe microcomputer to investigate certain celestial constellations and to prove that Chaucer was correct in his…
Osborn, Marijane.
Patrick J. Gallacher and Helen Damico, eds. Hermeneutics and Medieval Culture (Albany : State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 121-31.
In SqT, Chaucer obliquely introduces the astrolabe, an instrument used for celestial observation in navigation and timekeeping. According to Osborn, the diagram and operation of the astrolabe clarify our understanding of both time and place in CT.
By skewing their narrative deployment, Chaucer simultaneously undermines the viability of heroic and courtly romance themes in FranT and reevaluates their relationship to lived human experience. He does so through narrative pacing, repression and…
Scott, Anne Marie.
Dissertation Abstracts International 49 (1989): 2214A
Unlike Horn and Havelock, who mature into heroism in fulfilling their vows, Chaucer's characters in FranT make promises that govern personal relationships; their "gentilesse" transcends class and gender.
Singer, Margaret.
Geraldine Barnes, John Gunn, Sonya Jensen, and Lee Jobling, eds. Words and Wordsmiths: A Volume for H. L. Rogers (Sydney: University of Sydney, 1989): pp. 113-18.
FranT is comedic in structure from first to last since all the events are equally lucky for all the characters by the end of the tale. Noble gestures are made, even by the magician,but neither harm nor disadvantage results for any of those who make…
Speed, Diane.
Sydney Studies in English 15 (1989-1990): 3-30.
Speed gives a careful reading of FranT based on the Franklin's statement of contradictory intentions in his prologue: to tell a Breton lay and to render his tale plain and simple because he has never studied rhetoric. Presenting a romantic fairy…
The source of PhyT 30-120 and 238-50 is the thirteenth-century "Communiloquium" of John of Wales, not (as argued by Martha S. Waller in 1976) a fourteenth-century commentary by Castrojeriz.
Speed, Diane.
Geraldine Barnes, John Gunn, Sonya Jensen, and Lee Jobling, eds. Words and Wordsmiths: A Volume for H. L. Rogers (Sydney: University of Sydney, 1989): pp. 119-36.
A study of language in PhyT reveals intricate patterns of cohesion among elements sometimes regarded as disparate. The text invites the reader to consider several ethical and literary issues.
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani. The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1989), pp. 1-19.
Comparing the old man in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" and the old man in PardT, Boitani explores the medieval "other" or "discarded image of the universe," which depends on a "hermeneutic openness" that makes the modern reader perceive the…
Fletcher, Alan J.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 11 (1989): 15-35.
PardT is not organized according to modern sermon form; rather, it follows a homiletic genre exemplified by the sermons in John Mirk's "Festial," in "Jacob's Well," and in "Speculum sacerdotale," among others. Often "themeless," with an "associative…
Vance, Eugene.
New Literary History 20 (1989): 723-45.
Summarizes some medieval semantic theories that are helpful as an approach to the literature and suggests that the Pardoner by his transgressions calls attention both to the semiotics and to the ethics of truth-making processes in fourteenth-century…
Wenzel, Siegfried.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 11 (1989): 37-41.
Evidence from a Latin handbook for preachers ("Fasciculus morum"), mendicant literature, and canon law suggests that the "association of pardoners with fake relics was not as uncommon...as is currently believed."
