Alexander, Michael, and Mary Alexander.
Harlow: Longman; London: York, 2005.
Study guide to GP that includes a synopsis, commentary, and glosses (text not included, except for three passages in Middle English for closer analysis--lines 1-18, 118-62 [Prioress], and 331-60 [Franklin]). Also includes descriptions of Chaucer's…
Translation of selections from CT in modern prose, designed for "pre-intermediate" readers. Includes adaptations of GP, KnT, ClT, WBT, PardT, FranT, FrT, and NPT), with a brief Introduction and activities for classroom use. Illustrated by Victor…
Abbreviated prose adaptations of selections from CT, interspersed among modernizations in verse of the descriptions of the pilgrims in GP and following the GP order (with slight adjustments). Included are KnT, NPT, ClT, ShT, MLT, FranT, WBT, ManT,…
A selection of critical responses to Chaucer's works from his late contemporaries until 1968. Mostly excerpted from longer works, the selections are arranged in three categories: "Contemporaneous Criticism" (Deschamps, Usk, Lydgate, and Hoccleve);…
Verse translation of TC in rhyme royal stanzas, including brief explanatory notes (pp. 311-21), and "Four Brief Appendices" (pp. 325-32) that comment on questions of translation and on early adaptations of the poem. The Introduction (pp. ix-xxvi)…
Capacious anatomy of Middle English literature, with a variety of essays by individual authors; a selection of lyrics, narrative, poems, and dramas; suggestions for further readings, and comprehensive index. The selection includes no works by…
Cunningham, John E., ed.
Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1985.
Classroom text of MilT, with study-guide Introduction, notes, brief glossary and bibliography. The Introduction includes commentary on Chaucer's life, the "Framework and Origin" of CT, "how to read" Chaucer, the "Miller and his Language," and…
Study guide that includes text and facing-page prose translation of the GP description of the Pardoner and of PardPT, with same-page notes, end-of-text glosses, a "structural summary," and shaping the Pardoner's materials.
Presents the Manly and Rickert text (1940) of KnT, with facing-page notes and end-of-text glossary and glossary of rhetorical terms. The Introduction (pp. 11-69) includes commentary on Chaucer's life, various techniques and themes of KnT, and the…
Moseley, C. W. R. D., ed.
Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1987.
A "critical study, incorporating Chaucer's text." Includes F. N. Robinson's text (1957) of PardPT and of GP description of Pardoner, with facing-page notes and end-of-text glossary. The introduction describes Chaucer's life and various literary,…
Item not seen. The WorldCat record states that this is a "Shortened edition of The Horizon book of the Middle Ages, published in 1968 by American Heritage, New York," with a section on Chaucer.
Bloom, Harold.
Harold Bloom. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (New York, San Diego, and London: Harcourt, 1994), pp. 105-26.
Appreciative criticism of Chaucer and his contribution to Western literary tradition, especially his anticipation of Shakespeare as a comic ironist and creator of self-conscious characters. Focuses on CT--in particular, the Falstaffian vitality of…
Bloom, Harold.
Harold Bloom. Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds. New York: Warner, 2002, pp. 102-9.
Impressionistic praise of Chaucer's ability to combine human sensitivity with comedy, his refusal to be cowed by Dante, his characterizations, and his irony.
Bloomfield, Morton W.
Harry Levin, ed. Veins of Humor. Harvard English Series, no. 3 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 57-68.
Describes Chaucer's comic perspective as one that "takes all things lightly because fundamentally they are too serious . . . a way of faring the universe bravely." Exemplifies the poet's narrative device of offering rhetorical "defence of the…
Compares depictions of Chaucer-the-pilgrim, the Knight, the Squire, the Monk, the Shipman, and the Reeve by the anonymous illustrator of John Urry's 1721 edition of Chaucer's "Works" and by James Jeffreys. The comparison reveals that "readers in…
Rose, Christine M.
Harvard Library Bulletin, n.s., 3:4 (1992-93): 38-55.
The existence of a fifteenth-century Middle English translation of Trevet's "Chronicle" indicates that one may have been available to Chaucer and Gower in the fourteenth century.
Surveys problems with critical editions that distort readers' ideas of medieval literature and indicates directions for the scholarly study of manuscripts. The article refers repeatedly to manuscripts of Chaucer and of Langland.
Griffith, Benjamin W.
Hauppauge, N. Y.: Barron's Educational, 1991.
This study guide includes brief summary descriptions of works from "Beowulf" to Beckett; Includes a list of Chaucer's works and sentence-long summaries of seven of the "key" CT (pp. 14-15).
California Health Kids Resource Center.
Hayward, Calif.: California Health Kids Resource Center, 2002.
Item not seen; cited in WorldCat, where [vol. 3] is entitled "The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer," with the volumes described as "Lesson-plan booklets integrating HIV/AIDS education with core literature in grades 6-12."
