Armstrong, Elizabeth Psakis.
Centennial Review 34 (1990):433-48.
Both ClT and Marie de France's "Fresne" examine the themes of patience and obedience. Although the descriptions of Griselda and Fresne are strikingly similar, the style and perspective of the tales differ. In Chaucer's "lavish and masterful" style,…
Fragment III of CT reflects ironically on a mechanistic view of life, a scientific method that could be applied even to purely logical problems, and the movement away from authoritative (or public) to experimental (or private) solutions.
Martin, Daniel, and Margaret Wright.
Chaucer Review 24 (1990): 271-73.
The "hostes man" who follows the begging friars of SumT can be identified as the servant of their innkeeper, who follows after them to carry their ill-gotten gains.
Kolve, V. A.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990): 5-46.
In the carter's episode, the ethical center of FrT, balanced curses and blessings invoke medieval images of humanity, "in the middle" between heaven and hell, and so preoccupied with daily life that it forgets spiritual concerns. Carters are so…
Suggests that saints' lives, "in which demons converse with saints," provide a context and structural pattern that informs the dialogue between the Summoner and the devil. The tale inverts the usual threefold pattern of the saint's victory over the…
Wilson, Katharina M., and Elizabeth M. Makowski.
Albany : State University of New York Press, 1990.
Traces the history of misogamy: (1) classical antecedents in Imperial Rome, especially misogamy and mirth in Juvenal; (2) ascetic misogamy in the patristic period, particularly in Saint Jerome;
Taylor, Paul Beekman.
Journal of Popular Culture 24:2 (1990): 75-80.
Examines the imagery of beautiful feet in Deschamps, Homer, the Old Irish tale of Derdriu, and Nordic myth. Using the motif of Jankin's attractive legs and feet, Taylor draws correspondences between the Wife of Bath's choice of the fifth husband and…
Argues that writers or works or periods can offer alternatives to modern critical theory. O'Brien's view that Chaucer presents union (in particular, love and marriage) as an overarching theme of CT encourages us to see that views other than…
Treats WBP, hermeneutics, and Chaucer and Wycliffism. Investigating whether and why Chaucer might have given Wycliffite traits to the Wife of Bath, Martin argues that he did in order to explore both faults and virtues of literal-minded…
Haahr, Joan G.
Helen R. Lemay, ed. Homo Carnalis: The Carnal Aspect of Medieval Human Life. Acta 14 (1990, for 1987): 105-20.
The Wife of Bath (the female counterpart of the "senex amans") stands in opposition to the Husband-Merchant in MerT. They are "mercantile figures of similar status and class," the Wife involved in production, the Merchant in export. Each sees sex…
Folks, Cathalin Buhrmann.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 2062A.
Neither WBT nor "Gawain" presents straightforward satire on late-fourteenth-century English romance. At once ironic and idealistic, the two works provide a human redefinition of the genre as exemplified in contemporary chivalric writing.
Cooper, Helen.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp. 168-84.
The Wife of Bath is interpreted variously: She is a shrew; she is the voice of feminism; she represents Eve; she stands for joy and vitality. The Wife demands female sovereignty in marriage, but this sovereignty is put into doubt by the end of both…
Chaucer explores the "citation and corruption of media" in MLT by having the lawyer tell a tale of "pseudo-circulation" in which Custance remains constant despite her apparent circulation and use. The tale enacts the Man of Law's anxieties about…
Raybin, David.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990): 65-84.
In MLT, Chaucer transforms medieval concepts of divine and human time "to formulate a powerful expression regarding the positive use of time in this world." Harry Bailly's introductory focus on time is significant; "Custance's story illustrates a…
Keiser, George R.
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 121-36.
In MLT, Chaucer exploited "contemporary taste for stories of beleaguered and pathetic heroines," simultaneously appropriating conventions from his sources and manipulating them to evoke stronger than usual emotional and intellectual responses.
Furrow, Melissa M.
Chaucer Review 24 (1990): 223-35.
The tale of Custance is related to medieval lives of sainted women but is opposed to them in its concentration on the secular relations of an ordinary woman. Through this tale, the Man of Law seeks to reconcile the conflicting claims of the divine…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Chaucer Review 25 (1990): 76-77.
By emending Constance's plea to the constable from "The lyf out of hir body for to twynne" to "The lyf not of hir body for to twynne," an emendation that has no support from the variant readings of the manuscripts, we can bring the line into harmony…
Edwards, A. S. G.
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 85-94.
Noting that MLT has often been apologized for or ignored, Edwards surveys critical approaches to the tale: the date of its composition, its place in the Canterbury sequence, source study, biography, narrative voice, the problem of Constance,…
Balliet, Gay L.
English Language Notes 28:1 (1990): 1-6.
The wife's attack upon her husband Symkyn at the end of RvT is not an accident as commonly believed. Rather, the action is a deliberate attempt to conceal her adultery.
Silar, Theodore I.
Philological Quarterly 69 (1990): 409-17.
The epithet "joly" or "jolif," used seven times to characterize Absolon in MilT, is inadequately translated as "jolly." Chaucer makes use of many Middle English meanings of the word to portray Absolon as "happy and light-hearted, amorous, a…
