Pearsall, D. A.
University of Toronto Quarterly 34 (1964): 82-92.
Characterizes the Squire as a "young man among his elders" on the pilgrimage, describing his "nervous, apologetic tone" that derives from his uses and abuses of "rhetorical decorum, "tinged with "self-regard" and snobbish "anti-intellectualism." The…
Reiss, Edmund.
College English 25.4 (1964): 260-66.
Investigates the dramatic ironies of PardPT (comparing them with those of WBPT), arguing that the Pardoner does not reveal "more than he intends, but rather the converse": that none of the pilgrims "is able to see the full meaning of what he says"…
Severs, J. Burke.
Philological Quarterly 43 (1964): 27-39.
Re-examines the narrator's eight-year sickness in BD, surveying previous commentary, and arguing that, unlike in Chaucer's French sources, the illness is insomnia rather than love-sickness and that God rather than a paramour is his only physician. As…
Steadman, John M.
Medium Aevum 33.2 (1964): 121-30.
Argues that the old man of PardT is neither a Messenger of Death nor Old Age personified, but a figure of the exemplary wisdom and virtue of the aged, set in contrast the youthful rioters and their foolish avarice. Compares Chaucer's "aged stranger"…
Argues that in Book 4 of TC Chaucer presents a "conflict between reason and desire" (amplified from Boccaccio's "Filostrato"), helping to characterize and evaluate Troilus as, simultaneously and ambiguously, "both strong and weak," reasonable as a…
Wood, Chauncey.
Modern Language Quarterly 25 (1964): 259-71.
Argues that the astrological data in GP and MLH establish the date of the beginning of the Canterbury pilgrimage as April 17, the same day as the departure of Noah's ark, evoking notions of sinfulness and salvific baptism, reinforced by imagery of…
Bawcutt, Priscilla.
Notes and Queries 209 (1964): 332-33.
Observes that William Dunbar ridicules sexual impotence by means of the image of a dog ineffectively lifting its leg and maintains that the image and its implications derive from the "striking (and probably original)" use in ParsT 10.858,
Maintains that the Summoner's fondness for "overheating foods" conveys lechery, adducing evidence from Reginald Pecock's fifteenth-century "The Reule of Crysten Religioun."
Bowen, Muriel.
New York: Farrar, Straus, and Co., 1964.
Introduces Chaucer's life and works to "those who are new readers" of the poet, evoking a sense of late-medieval life, especially London, Chaucer's court life, and international contexts. Explicates the tales and tellers of CT in thematic chapters,…
Studies the Christian and Platonic underpinnings of romantic love in Renaissance drama and poetry, exploring its roots in courtly traditions, and distinguishing it from love depicted by Augustan, Romantic, and modern writers. A section on Chaucer…
Cline, Ruth H.
English Language Notes 2.2 (1964): 87-89.
Explores the "appropriateness" of Chaucer's "only original and direct reference to St. Anne," in FrT 3.1613. Mentions Chaucer's two other references to St. Anne, derived from Dante, and offers evidence that Anne of Bohemia was associated with St.…
Dyer, Frederick B., Jr.
Paolucci, Anne, ed. 1564-1964: Shakespeare Encomium (New York: City College, 1964), pp. 123-33.
Compares and contrasts Chaucer's "Pandare" of TC with Shakespeare's Pandarus of "Troilus and Cressida," emphasizing the degenerate nature of the latter and Shakespeare's reduction of the "great depth of . . . personality" that characterizes…
Elliott, Charles.
Notes and Queries 209 (1964): 167-70.
Compares and contrasts the uses of northern dialectical words and forms in the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscript versions of RvT, assessing J. R. R. Tolkien's evaluations of them (1934), and extending the discussion beyond northern forms to…
Fleming, John.
English Language Notes 2.1 (1964): 5-6.
Posits that John of Salisbury's "Policraticus" is the source of the closing comment of the GP description of the Clerk (GP 1.308); "gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche."
Offers the image of unholy clerics as rusted gold in Robert Grosseteste's "Epistolae" as a possible source of the use of the image by Chaucer's Parson in GP 1.500.
Harrington, David V.
Notes and Queries 209 (1964): 166-67.
Observes differences between January's reference to proverbially "sotile clerkis" (MerT 4.1427) and the Wife of Bath's reference to proverbially "parfyt" ones (WBT 3.44c; perhaps cancelled). The first is anti-clerical; the latter pro-clerical, and…
Heuston, Edward F.
Notes and Queries 209 (1964): 20-21.
Asserts that the source of the echoes from Chaucer in William Wordsworth's "Liberty" is ManT 9.163-74 rather than SqT 5.610-20 even though the Chaucerian passages are analogous.
Hoffman, Richard L.
Notes and Queries 209 (1964): 49-50.
Conjectures that the source of a recurrent glosses to MilT at 1.3381-82 (variously 3383) attributed to Ovid by the glossators resulted from a misreading of Ovid's "Fasti" 2.193.
Hoffman, Richard L.
Notes and Queries 209 (1964): 287-88.
Maintains that the Wife of Bath's knowledge of the "remedies of love" and of the "art" of love's "olde daunce" (GP 1.475-76) refer to, respectively, Ovid's "Remedia Amoris" and "Ars Amatoria," familiar to her, perhaps ("per chaunce") because Jankyn…
Huppé, Bernard F.
Albany: State University of New York, 1964.
Reads CT as a thematic engagement with the need for humans to pursue spiritual pilgrimage, considering allegorical and symbolic imagery and focusing on charity, "caritas," and contempt for engagement with the world ("contemptus mundi"). Explores…
