Examines four Middle English romances against a backdrop of late-medieval penitential doctrine and practice, and assesses the presence of penitential motifs in several more. The major penitential romances--Guy of Warwick, Sir Ysumbras, Sir Gowther,…
Schmitz, Gotz.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
English translation, with a new preface, of Die Frauenklage: Studies zur englischen Verserzahlung in der englischen Literature des Spatmittelalter und der Renaissance (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1984). Investigates the relations between subject matter and…
Kawasaki, Masatoshi.
Eigo Seinen (Tokyo) 135:9 (1990): 433-35.
Considers the conflict between "authority," which is based on higher culture, and "experience," characteristic of folk mode, emphasizing the significance of "game in ernest" in CT. "Game" derives from the festive storytelling contest.(In Japanese).
Mann, Jill.
Proceedings of the British Academy 76 (1990): 203-23.
Anger and glossing--linked by their common "refusal to accommodate the self either to events in the world outside, or to the autonomous meaning of the text"--are evident in SumT and throughout CT. The Marriage Group centers around patience, the…
Ridley, Florence (H.)
Robert Graybill, Judy Hample, and Robert Lovell, eds. Teaching the Middle Ages IV (Terre Haute: Indiana State University Press, 1990), pp. 1-26.
Pedagogical commentary on CT aligned with reader-response theory and affective stylistics.
Williams, Andrew.
Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 3 (1990): 127-36.
In his depiction of clerical celibacy, Chaucer may have been influenced by Andreas. The two authors approach the topic in similar fashion and reflect contemporary attitudes and turmoil.
After a full review of criticism, Savoia explores Chaucer's use of motifs found in other romances. KnT exploits traditional romance only to transcend it, setting the "romance" of Palamon in the perspective provided by the "tragedy" of Arcite and…
Fischer, Andreas.
Rudiger Ahrens, ed. Anglistentag 1989 Wurzburg. Proceedings of the Conference of the German Association of University Professors of English, no. 9 (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1990), pp. 310-19.
Observes similarities of form and theme in FranT and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, particularly the focus on trawthe/trouthe in each, arguing that they transcend the romance genre. Contrasts FranT with Menedon's Question in Boccaccio's Filocolo…
Oka, Saburo.
Thought Currents in English 63 (1990): 79-109.
The tale of Philomela involves a love triangle of one male and two females. Chaucer's narrative focuses on Philomene whereas Gower's analogue focuses on both Philomene and Progne. Chaucer achieves his most important transformation of the story by…
Chaucer's transformations of his sources produced a work that invites multiple and open-ended responses. Benson contrasts TC and its source, Boccaccio's Filostrato; he assesses medieval and modern readership of TC; and he considers the story of Troy…
Phillips, Helen, ed.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990.
Includes nineteen essays, an intoduction, a list of Hussey's publications, and a tabula gratulatoria. Topics of the essays include Langland, various mystics, religious lyrics, religious drama, and handbooks of religious instruction.
For two essays…
Bernardo, Aldo S., and Saul Levin, eds.
Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1990.
Twenty-six essays on the impact of the classics on medieval art, history, philosophy, education, and literature. Topics range widely from Coptic textiles to fourteenth-century England, from neo-Platonism to speculative grammar--all addressing the…
Arai, Teruki.
Sophia English Studies 15 (1990): 29-44.
Statistical exploration of words attributed to Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. In the fourth edition of Bailey's dictionary (1728), the classifications "Chaucerian" and "old" are not distinct.
Ormrod, W. M.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990.
Analyzes the contribution of Edward III to England's growth as a nation, emphasizing such institutional changes as the development of the Commons in Parliament, the emergence of a systematic exchequer, and the commissioning of justices of the peace. …
Reichl, Karl.
Theo Stemmler, ed. Liebe als Krankheit: 3. Kolloquium der Forschungsstelle fur europaische Lyrik des Mittelalters an der Universitat Mannheim (Tubingen: Narr, 1990), pp. 187-215.
Surveys the forms and conventions of Middle English lyrics that treat love-sickness, including MercB, and those in TC and KnT.
Haage Bernhard D.
Theo Stemmler, ed. Liebe als Krankheit: 3. Kolloquium der Forschungsstelle fur europaische Lyrik des Mittelalters an der Universitat Mannheim (Tubingen: Narr, 1990), pp. 31-73.
Examines "amor hereos" as a medical phrase, identifying its roots in classical tradition and tracing its development in the humoural tradition of the Mid-East and Western Europe.
Nine essays by various authors on love-sickness in classical and medieval literature. The essays discuss the topos in medicine, classical writing, medieval Latin, Islamic writing, troubadour poetry, ansd medieval vernacular languages: Spanish,…
Richmond, Velma Bourgeois.
Modern Language Quarterly 51 (1990): 427-45.
Modern discussions of Chaucer and Spark deemphasize the clear religious strains in their fictions. The grotesque, the absurd, and the aberrant are present in both as worldly flaws requiring divine transcendence.
Brief comments about "pairing" WBP and Christine de Pizan in the classroom; mentions the Wife's "deliberate misreading, invective, and outright mockery" of misogynistic writing, and Chaucer's irony that "slices Jerome and the Wife with a single…
Holloway, Julia Bolton; Constance S. Wright; and Joan Bechtold, eds.
New York: Peter Lang, 1990.
To attain equality, woman have historically had to resist hierarchy, to quest liminality, and to exercise holy disobedience. Women in earlier Christianity, especially in the Romanesque period, exercised that disobedience; but in the paradigm shift…
Holloway, Julia Bolton.
Julia Bolton Holloway, Constance S. Wright, and Joan Bechtold, eds. Equally in God's Image: Women in the Middle Ages (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), pp. 198-215.
Discusses Chaucer's women and their relations with pilgrimage and learning. The Wife of Bath rebels against her husband's book of wicked wives. The Prioress tells of a boy's eschewing his primer in order to sing a hymn he does not understand from…
Barr, Jane.
Julia Bolton Holloway, Constance S. Wright, and Joan Bechtold, eds. Equally in God's Image: Women in the Middle Ages (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), pp. 122-28.
The Wife of Bath tells us that she acquired forbidden learning through forbidden sex with university students, breaking the barriers of both literacy and celibacy, as reflected in her challenge to Pauline epistles and Jerome's Vulgate.
