A general survey referring to the hag of WBT as part of the tradition of women who approach heroes in disguises; to Troilus's dream of Diomedes as a pig, a symbol of lust; and to the Pardoner's counterfeit relics, pig bones.
Waugh, Scott L.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
A descriptive political history of Edward's reign that explores how his personality and style of ruling were crucial to the development of political order and various domestic institutions. Pt. 1 surveys major events of Edward's reign; pts. 2 and 3…
Benson, C. David.
John Michael Crafton, ed. Selected Essays: International Conference on Representing Revolution, 1989. (Carrollton): West Georgia College International Conference, 1991, pp. 9-20.
Compares Chaucer's poetry and the so-called Peasants' Revolt of 1381, demonstrating their common unexpectedness, extremism, touches of conservatism, and uniqueness. As is clear from his treatment of the Revolt in NPT, Chaucer was not a political…
Erzgräber, Willi.
Armin Paul Frank and Ulrich Molk, eds. Fruhe Formen mehrperspektivischen Erzahlens von der Edda bis Flaubert (Berlin: Schmidt, 1991), pp. 17-33.
Based on Nietzsche's epistemology, the essay discusses Chaucer's use of multiple perspective in PF, TC, and NPT as the poet's instrument for encouraging his readers to reflect on the multiplicity of their experiences.
Sanders, Barry.
David R. Olson and Nancy Torrance, eds. Literacy and Orality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 111-28.
In GP, Chaucer poses himself as a "liar," capable of impossible feats of memory; in tales such as MilT, he capitalizes on the oral genre of joking. As a liar and a joker, the literate Chaucer manipulates oral expectations, compelling his audience to…
Walsh, Elizabeth.
Studies in Scottish Literature 26 (1991): 156-63.
Applying the work of Bakhtin and Jameson to MilT and other texts, Walsh points out that many medieval texts concerning peasants represent the evolving socioeconomic threat to established society.
Pelen, Marc M.
Florilegium 10 (1991, for 1988): 107-25.
Can one reconcile in a "single poetic focus" the contradictory voices of MerT? Plato, Claudian, Boethius, and especially Ovid distinguish between true and false fictions on the basis of whether legend is used to recognize cosmological order or to…
Dundes, Alan, ed.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.
A collection of essays treating the legend of Jews killing Christians, particularly children. Fourteen essays cover such areas as case histories, folkloristic tales and literary texts, surveys of the legend in different locales, ritual-murder…
Jacobs, Joseph.
Alan Dundes, ed. The Blood Libel Legend (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), pp. 41-71.
Focuses on the story of the martyred child, Hugh of Lincoln, said to have been murdered by Jews for religious purposes. Jacobs traces the story through history, songs, and legend. Considers the prayer at the end of PrT.
Kang, Du-Hyoung.
Journal of English Language and Literature (Korea) 37 (1991): 825-41.
NPT subverts the idea of tragedy reflected in MkT, and KnT counterpoints its tragic view of fate. Diverse and comprehensive in his outlook, Chaucer is not content with a simple formula.
ManT expresses ambivalence about verbal signification and asserts the power of poetry. The role of Phoebus (a figure of poetry), imagery of caging, the figure of the crow, and violations of poetic decorum affirm humanist poetics, despite the…
Haines, Victor Yelverton.
Florilegium 10 (1991, for 1988): 127-49.
A close reading of Ret, with attention to medieval meanings of such words as "revoke" and "guilt," suggests that Chaucer takes responsibility not for writing works of vanity but for wrong readings of his poetry made possible by his habits of ironic…
Buckler, Patricia Prandini.
JoAnna Stephens Mink and Janet Doubler Ward, eds. Joinings and Disjoinings: The Significance of Marital Status in Literature (Bowling Green Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1991), pp. 6-18.
Composed in the context of the bubonic plague, BD encourages rejection of despair.
Haas, Renate.
Florilegium 10 (1991, for 1988): 93-98.
Richly rhetorical and allusive, Chaucer's "Go, litel bok" stanza, in its undercutting of the opposition between "makyng" and "poesye," reflects his ambivalence toward the new classicizing poetics of trecento Italy.
Jonassen, Frederick B.
Fifteenth-Century Studies 18 (1991): 109-32.
The "Beryn" poet defuses the moral menace of Chaucer's Pardoner. The Pardoner in "Beryn" is more of a fool than a threat to either the Inn or the Cathedral, the symbolic "poles" of the pilgrimage.
Blake, N. F.
N. F. Blake. William Caxton and English Literary Culture. (London and Rio Grande: Hambledown Press, 1991), pp. 149-65.
Argues that Caxton's two editions of CT were prompted by patrons; that the revision of the text from the first to the second edition was a "haphazard affair"; and that Caxton's published remarks on Chaucer are conventional and economically motivated,…
Zhang, John Z.
English Language Notes 28 (1991): 10-17.
Suggests that the prison window in KnT "alludes to certain medieval paintings that reveal the meaning of the scene"; also discusses symbolism and allegory in KnT.
Green, Richard Firth.
English Language Notes 28:4 (1991): 9-12.
Discusses similarities between Chaucer's WBT and the French farce "Les deux maris et leurs deux femmes" and suggests that the loathly lady's riddle at the end of WBT "might be drawing on a less recherche tradition than that of Latin rhetoric."
