Hanna, Ralph.
Journal of the Early Book Society 26 (2023): 209-21.
Presents previously overlooked "gleanings" of verse that are missing from the general catalogues: one is at the end of Mel in MS Barlow
20, while another is an analogue to lines from KnT.
Hannam, James.
Carl Kears and James Paz, eds. Medieval Science Fiction London: King's College London Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 2016(), pp. xv-xxv.
Defines medieval science fiction and provides a survey of types of science appearing in medieval literature, including natural philosophy (in NPT and PF), alchemy (in CYT), herb lore (in GP), and astronomy.
Hanning, Robert W.
James M. Dean and Christian Zacher, eds. The Idea of Medieval Literature: New Essays on Chaucer and Medieval Culture in Honor of Donald R. Howard (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992), pp.108-25.
"Pryvetee" assumes a spectrum of meanings and a range of functions in the overall scheme of CT. Hanning examines a few of these functions, suggesting that at the center of the poem and Chaucer's art is a mysterious, antithetical, yet symbiotic…
Hanning, Robert W.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 120-37.
In Filostrato, Troilo's accurate decoding of Criseyde's language enables him to discover her reciprocal desire, leading to fulfillment. In TC, fulfillment is more complex as Troilus, Pandarus, and the narrator each construct their own meaning of…
Hanning, Robert W.
George D. Economou, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Collection of Original Articles. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976) pp. 15-36.
The opposing artistic impulses toward imposing order on experience and toward reproducing life natualistically are both evident in Chaucer's works, especially CT. This thematic tension is apparent in the overall design, in sequences of tales, and in…
Hanning, Robert W.
Karl-Ludwig Selig and Robert Somerville, eds. Florilegium Columbianum: Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller (New York: Italica Press, 1987), pp. 113-23.
Examines little-noticed instances "where allusions to classical texts, or to medieval recreations of pagan life and times," form part of Chaucer's narrative strategy in TC,MerT, and MilT.
Surveys Chaucer's depictions of emblematic women in BD, HF, PF, and TC, and examines the Prioress and Wife of Bath as complex women who struggle with the roles imposed on them by male-dominated society. The GP description of the Prioress reflects a…
Hanning, Robert W.
Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 27-50.
Quintilian's definition of allegory suggests that "allegorical texts produce stable meanings and mirror unequivocal truths." For Augustine, "Figural language exists so that 'by means of corporal and temporal things we may comprehend the eternal and…
Hanning, Robert W.
Modern Language Quarterly 45 (1984): 395-403.
Review article comparing John M. Ganim's discussion of Middle English narrative in TC and other Middle English works with Lynn Staley Johnson's treatment of the subject in the "Pearl" poems.
Hanning, Robert W.
Leigh A. Arrathoon, ed. Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction (Rochester, Mich.: Solaris Press, 1986), pp. 121-63.
In BD, the "Metamorphoses" provides a positive paradigm for exploring the relationships of grief and poetry, whereas Ovid's work yields a negative paradigm for the representation of Fame in HF. Deals with the creative process in dream visions; and…
Hanning, Robert W.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 7 (1985): 3-21.
Chaucer's pilgrims misquote or distort received texts to further their own interests. In SumT and WBP, Chaucer turns two experts in "glosinge" into "human texts" to satirize Friar John and to expose the limited options of the Wife in dealing with…
While arousing authorial anxieties, the dream vision permits Chaucer to treat otherwise inaccessible psychological problems. In CT the verbal game repeatedly explores the dangers of violating "pryvetee," privacy.
Hanning, Robert W.
Lois Ebin, ed. Vernacular Poetics in the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University Press, Medieval Institute Publications, 1984), pp. 1-32, esp. pt. 3, pp. 24-28.
Treats Alceste as Christian emblem of transformation in LGW.
Hanning, Robert W.
Yearbook of English Studies 11 (1981): 1-28.
Extrinsic models for twelfth-century audiences of chivalric romances (Duly, Bezzola, Legge) should be complemented by indirect evidence that defines such audiences as literary virtuosos, humanists able to evaluate romances to discover the poet and…
Hanning, Robert W.
Literary Review 23 (1980): 519-41.
Statius celebrates the triumph of Theseus' righteous wrath as an agent of civilization and order over murderous rage and chaos; Boccaccio celebrates the triumph of the courtly code variously applied. As teller of the Theban tale, Chaucer's Knight…
Hanning, Robert W.
Jean E. Jost, ed. Chaucer's Humor: Critical Essays (New York and London: Garland, 1994), pp. 295-319.
Hanning examines the allusions to demons and devils in CT and compares them with the devil figure in late-medieval English religious drama. In both contexts, the devil is a tricker of humans who is tricked by God; a "spirit of inversion" who seeks…
Hanning, Robert W.
Chaucer Yearbook 4 (1997): 79-83
Reads "thus seyde here and howne" (TC 4.210) as "everyone agreed," a reading supported by reference to Henry Knighton's "Chronicle," in which Howne's army ("Hownher") may have connoted wide consensus in popular tradition.
Hanning, Robert W.
James J. Paxson, Lawrence M. Clopper, and Sylvia Tomasch, eds. The Performance of Middle English Culture: Essays on Chaucer and the Drama in Honor of Martin Stevens (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 143-59.
In TC, the narrator and Pandarus are mediators--purveyors of desired commodities (women or love stories) to a designated recipient (Troilus; the audience assembled for the occasion). Hanning examines the "crisis of mediation" of late-medieval…
Hanning, Robert W.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 21: 29-58, 1999.
Assesses how MLH and MLP reflect the anxiety of Chaucer's poetics-how they indicate Chaucer's awareness that he is both following and improving upon the poetic model of Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron and the "penitential" poetics of John Gower's…
Hanning, Robert W.
Leonard Michael Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen, eds. The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: New Essays on an Old Question (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000), pp. 177-211.
Both The Man of Law's Tale and Decameron 1.1 consider the problematics of mediation inherent in the use of language. MLT is an exercise for the teller to impress the other pilgrims with his authority and wisdom.
Hanning, Robert W.
James H. McGregor, ed. Approaches to Teaching Boccaccio's Decameron (New York: Modern Language Association, 2000), pp. 103-18.
Assesses the "relevance and importance" of the Decameron to the study of CT, considering evidence of Chaucer's knowledge of Boccaccio's work and the ways the two works reflect similar and different "cultural agendas." Comparison of shared motifs and…
In opposition to Robertson's "patristic exegesis," Donaldson models a practice of engaging the autonomy of medieval texts. In the process, he adopts a critical persona that, feminist critiques notwithstanding, "is a decorous fiction which may or may…
Hanning, Robert W.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
Considers "social and political crises that activate the comic poetry" of Ovid, Chaucer, and Ariosto. In particular, chapter 2, "Chaucer: Dealing with the Authorities, Or, Twisting the Nose That Feeds You," addresses Chaucer's humor as it relates to…
Comments on the fittingness and suggestiveness of a number of proper names in CT--Eglyntine, Absolon, Alisoun, Philostratus, January, May, Justinus, Placebo, and Cecilia--as part of a survey of the literary uses of names and naming in medieval Latin…
