Wimsatt, James I.
Mediaevalia 15 (1993, for 1989): 231-39.
Conventional source-and-analogue criticism of CT and TC, in particular, can be enhanced by concepts and taxonomies of intertextuality, especially the systems introduced by Gerard Genette and Manfred Pfister.
Brooke, Christopher N. L.
Christopher N. L. Brooke. The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 211-27.
Comments on the theme of marriage in Chaucer's works to indicate the poet's "capacious view of love and sexuality." Chaucer's representations of marriage range from bawdy humor in WBP to the sublime in BD, often combining more than one view, as in…
Pearcy, Roy J.
Leeds Studies in English 20 (1989): 119-41.
Surveys the tradition of the "prayer of the greatest peril" from Old French "chansons de geste" to Middle English adaptations of "romans d'aventure," arguing that the tradition underlies one of the prayers of Custance in MLT and several of the…
Elliott, Ralph (W. V.)
Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature 4 (1989): 1-30.
Considers the Wife of Bath's "colloquial, conversational idiom as a key to her character," examining details of diction, syntax, and imagery, and comparing her with Alison of MilT.
The setting and select characters of SqT have historical basis in the reigns of Ozbeg Khan of the Golden Horde at Sarai (ruled 1313-41) and Mamluk sultan el-Melik en-Nasir at Cairo (ruled variously 1291-1340). Their failed alliance influenced the…
Mulryne, J. R.
J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring, eds. War, Literature, and the Arts in Sixteenth-Century Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), pp.165-89.
Mulryne assesses attitudes toward chivalry in early seventeenth-century shows and plays, including discussion of how Shakespeare and Fletcher's Two Noble Kinsmen reflects the magnificence and human pain of KnT.
Wing, Susan L.
Cornelia N. Moore and Raymond A. Moody, eds. Comparative Literature East and West: Traditions and Trends. Selected Conference Papers (Honolulu: College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature, University of Hawaii, and the East-West Center, 1989), pp. 139-51.
Wing explores similarities and differences among the characterizations of Emelye in Boccaccio's Teseida, KnT, Anne de Graville's Le beau romant, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The characterizations differ, but only in Shakespeare and Fletcher's play is…
Summarizes the Augustinian psychology of memory and its relationship to language, arguing that these concepts underlie the narrator's "'educational' pilgrimage" in HF. The end of the poem reflects the transformation of fiction into reality.
Anderson, Judith H.
George M. Logan and Gordon Teskey, eds. Unfolded Tales: Essays on Renaissance Romance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 16-31.
Argues that in his "Faerie Queene," Edmund Spenser intended his "avowed kinship with Chaucer, and especially with Chaucer's romances, as a paradigm of his relation to the recorded sources of memory." Fused in Spenser's "extension" of SqT, KnT and SqT…
Blake, N. F.
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr., ed. Standardizing English: Essays in the History of Language Change, in Honor of John Hurt Fisher (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), pp. 57-81.
Illustrates the difficulties editors face in dealing with literary representations of regional or non-standard dialects, citing scribal variations of northern features of RvT before examining at greater length examples of dialects in Shakespeare's…
Correale, Robert M.
R. F. Yeager, ed. John Gower: Recent Readings. Papers Presented at the Meetings of the John Gower Society at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 1983-1988 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1989), 133-57.
Tabulates correspondences between Gower's Tale of Constance ("Confessio Amantis" 2.587-1598) and available manuscripts of Trevet's Anglo-Norman original, seeking to identify Gower's source manuscript. Includes recurrent attention to Chaucer's MLT,…
Edwards, A. S. G., and Derek Pearsall.
Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall, eds. Book Publishing and Publishing in Britain, 1375-1475. Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 257-78.
Describes the "new phase" in English publishing and book production that took place in the "early years" of the fifteenth century--particularly the large increase in the number of books of vernacular poetry, including Chaucer's poetry. Summarizes…
Greetham, D. C.
Modern Philology 86.3 (1989): 242-51.
Analyzes Thomas Hoccleve's narrative persona in his "Regement of Princes" and his "Series" poems, treating it as a development out of "the inherited Chaucerian narrator" toward a psychological portrait marked by the deleterious effects of "thought"…
Shafik-Ghaly, Salwa.
Dissertation Abstracts International 49 (1989): 3716A.
Examines "tectonics and compositional strategies" in Chrétien's "Yvain" and in TC, focusing on "disposition" and the relationship between orality and textuality in each work.
Knight, Stephen.
Leeds Studies in English 20 (1989): 87-98.
A "correlative study" of the near contemporaries, Chaucer and Dafydd ap Gwilym, comparing their formal and linguistic innovations, their respective social standings and concerns with mercantilism and politics, and their relative concern with nature…
Visual and verbal guide to the "Pilgrims' Way" between London and Canterbury, documenting the remaining evidence of ancient and medieval archeology, architecture, and topography, and exploring possible side routes and byways where remaining evidence…
Cookson, Linda, and Bryan Loughrey, ed.
Harlow: Longman, 1989.
Ten essays concerning GP addressed to a student audience, each essay followed by brief "Afterthoughts," intended for purposes of study and review. The volume also contains a "Practical Guide" on writing student essays (pp. 121-37). For individual…
Norgate, Paul.
Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey, ed. Critical Essays on The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales (Harlow: Longman, 1989), pp. 9-17.
Interprets the interplay of literal and symbolic implications in GP, reading pilgrimage as a "metaphor for a society in the act of 'being itself'." The poem "declares its intention to deal less with what 'should be' in society than what is actually…
