Brody, Saul N[athaniel].
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Religion in the Poetry and Drama of the Late Middle Ages in England (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 133-48.
Discusses "Chaucer's feeling for the openness of questions, his distrust of final answers" in TC, NPT, and PF. Chaucer has an "unsettling ability to make every alternative attractive, even clearly sinful ones."
Reading CT through the lens of the postmodern text suggests certain Derridean and Bakhtinian parallels, illuminating the polysemic and polyphonic characteristics of Chaucer's text. Like the postmodernists, Chaucer tends to question authority; to…
Boitani, Piero, and Anna Torti, eds.
Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 1990.
Twelve essays by various hands. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Religion in the Poetry and Drama of the Late Middle Ages in England under Alternative Title.
Ferster's and Fradenburg's essays problematize the critical act of reading medieval texts: Ferster's examination of "who speaks" in PrT extends to the critic's own voice; Fradenburg's articulation of medievalists' anxieties concerning the status of…
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid.
North-Western European Language Evolution 16 (1990): 3-52.
Through a largely comparative approach, the author draws on sources that have remained almost unexploited, whether dialectical or belonging to the standard language. Evidence from Dutch, Frisian, German, and Chaucer's English (a three-year-old boy's…
Minkova, Donka.
Sylvia Adamson, Vivien Law, Nigel Vincent, and Susan Wright, eds. Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Cambridge, 6-9 April 1987 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1990), pp. 313-36.
Reviews scholarly treatment of the subject with reference to Chaucer and Gower.
Higuchi, Masayuki.
Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature 5 (1990): 13-26.
The rare construciton "go + walked" occurs only in BD 387 and SumT 3.1778. No other instances are recorded in the OED, the MED, or Visser. Discussion about this construction will contribute to a more accurate reading of Chaucer's text and to an…
Barber, Charles,and Nicolas Barber.
Leeds Studies in English 21 (1990): 81-101.
Through a computer count of the syllabic length of 15,294 verses of CT, Barber challenges J. G. Southworth's hypothesis that unstresses final "-e" was not pronounced in Chaucer's verse. The results suggest that syllabic symmetry could have been…
Windeatt, Barry.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 62-80.
In the fifteenth century, an anonymous "Chaucerian" translated the French romance "Partonope of Blois" into English. Chaucer's influence on the translator is seen in many close verbal echoes of Chaucer and in resemblances to Chaucer's technique and…
Stevens, John.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 139-54.
The "Fayrfax Manuscript" (ca. 1505) is one of the three major song books containing virtually all that survives of English secular songs from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A study of this manuscript's technique of setting English…
Spearing, A. C.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 234-48.
Disliking the unrealistic and the marvelous aspects of romance, Chaucer experimented with the genre in highly original ways in TC, KnT, FranT, SqT, and WBT. Chaucer comments on the romance through the inconsistency between the naturalistic…
Scattergood, John.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 122-38.
"The Garlande of Laurell" is Skelton's considered statement about poetry, the nature of poetic tradition, and his own role in it. But "the most substantial earlier treatment of the subject of "The Garlande of Laurell" in English poetry was Chaucer's…
Pearsall, Derek.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 39-53.
Chaucer gave Lydgate his language, his verse forms, and his poetic style--with the urge to refine and elaborate them into a high medieval art. Lydgate's career is arguably a determined effort to emulate and surpass Chaucer in each of the major…
Morse, Ruth.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 107-21.
Chaucer influenced Douglas in many ways: "as a model for diction and register, as a source of phrase and adapter of syntax, as an establisher of the Dream Poem...; Chaucer's "House of Fame" stands as the inspiration for Douglas's own first long…
Mann, Jill.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 91-106.
In giving the planetary gods a role in the narrative dynamics of "The Testament of Cresseid," Henryson is following in the steps of Chaucer in KnT, Mars, and TC. Mann examines "both the resemblances and the differences between the two poets in their…
Higgins, Anne.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 89 (1990): 17-36.
Spenser's indebtedness to Chaucer is several times acknowledged in "The Faerie Queene," but only in a curious, ambiguous way, "reducing rather than elevating Chaucer's reputation." Chaucer, for example, was hardly the poet of "warlike numbers" that…
Breckenridge, Jay.
Pennsylvania English 15:1 (1990): 37-48.
Breckenridge discusses his stage dramatization of Geoffrey Chaucer and the problems regarding Chaucer's life and personality engendered by life records and critical appraisal of Chaucer the man and Chaucer the persona.
Jager, Eric.
Modern Language Quarterly 49 (1990, for 1988): 3-18.
In his tale, the Monk selectively edits the legend of Croesus from Jean de Meun's "Roman de la Rose" to "lessen the dreamer's responsibility for his fate" and thus to "fit Croesus into his gallery of tragic figures."
