Allen, Valerie.
English Studies 74 (1993): 324-42.
Argues that Chaucer's portrait of Blaunche in BD is not a mere rhetorical exercise in the tradition of Vinsauf's prescriptions but "a serious attempt" to reform the "descriptio feminae," exploring identity by examining the relation between mind and…
Taylor, Paul Beekman.
Chaucer Review 28 (1993): 67-77.
In Bo, Chaucer's substitution of "the eye of the lynx" for the original "eye of Lynceus" points to his philosophy of vision. The lynx is sharp sighted and can perceive "the imperfection of things apparently fair." The poet's task is also to see…
The dreamer/narrator's account of the Black Knight and Lady White in BD textualizes their discursive performances, revealing them to be institutionalized discourses desired by the narrator and his audience. The work provides interpretive closure…
Examines the two lyrics embedded in BD for what they reflect about the relation between the narrator and the Black Knight. Through this relation and its "delicate act of self-effacement," Chaucer credits John of Gaunt for commemorating his dead…
Howes, Laura [L.]
Joyce Salisbury, ed. The Medieval World of Nature: A Book of Essays. Garland Medieval Casebooks, no. 5. (New York and London: Garland, 1993), pp. 187-200.
Examines outdoor space in BD and PF in light of research on medieval constructed gardens, especially the pleasure garden of Elizabeth de Burgh at Clare Castle, Suffolk.
Kita, Rume.
Hiroe Futamura, Kenichi Akishino, and Hisato Ebi, eds. A Pilgrimage Through Medieval Literature (Tokyo: Nan' Un-Do Press, 1993), pp. 303-18.
Considers "life" and "death" in BD, examining the role of the dream-vision genre in establishing meanings of the terms.
Margherita, Gayle.
Linda Lomperis and Sarah Stanbury, eds. Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 116-41.
Reprinted in Gayle Margherita, The Romance of Origins Language and Sexual Difference in Middle English Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 82-99.
Martin, Carol A. N.
Chaucer Review 28 (1993): 95-116.
Throughout his works, Chaucer employs "mercurial figures" who appear as "emblematic escorts, to lead readers safely past narrative fissures." In BD, these figures appear not only as Mercury himself but also as the whelp (d-o-g for g-o-d), who…
Miller, James.
Robert Taylor, James F. Burke, Patricia J. Eberle, Ian Lancashire, and Brian S. Merrilees, eds. The Centre and Its Compass: Studies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Professor John Leyerle (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1993), pp. 367-88.
The portrayal of "faire White" in BD reflects the double vision--physical and metaphysical--of rhetorical description in Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Joseph of Exeter, and Alain de Lille.
Rooney, Anne.
Anne Rooney. Hunting in Middle English Literature (Woodbridge, Suffolk;
Surveys critical assessments of the hunting episode in BD, explicates details of the episode, and reads it as a representation of worldly bliss. The episode and the allusion to the hunt near the end of the poem frame the Black Knight's account of…
Rand Schmidt, Kari Anne.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993.
Concludes that the case for Chaucer's authorship of Equat remains "not proven"; i.e., Equat "cannot be identified as Chaucer's work." This conclusion is built on examination of handwriting, dialect, and style, showing that Equat is a holograph in…
Kruger, Steven F.
Chaucer Review 28 (1993): 117-34.
Movement in HF is simultaneously inward and self-reflexive and outward and upward, toward a world of "eternal phenomena" and a realm of "abstract ideas." The poem is thus poised between two worlds, and its incompleteness may indicate Chaucer's…
Pinti, Daniel J.
Medieval Perspectives 8 (1993): 105-11.
Relies on Douglas Robinson's understanding of "synecdochic translation" as a "dialogical interaction" between the translator and a single, representative part of the source text, arguing that HF 1 creates a "rhetorically dialogic relationship" with…
HF contains an inordinate number of lists of seemingly disparate materials in random order. Chaucer challenges the concept of authority by suggesting that the lists themselves provide the "authority"--not any one central force. Readers authorize a…
Ruffolo, Lara.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1993): 2364A.
With the fourteenth-century philosophical division between faith and reason, or single and multiple authorities, English poetry reveals new tensions, as shown in "Pearl," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and "Piers Plowman." HF,with its many…
Shigeo, Hisashi.
Hiroe Futamura, Kenichi Akishino, and Hisato Ebi, eds. A Pilgrimage Through Medieval Literature (Tokyo: Nan' Un-Do Press, 1993), pp. 59-80.
The poet's involvement in HF is an extension of similar involvement in BD, modified by Chaucer's occupation as an officer in the London Customs House.
Steadman suggests "a possible connection between the fictional date of the poet's dream, its tripartite structure, the feast of Saint Lucy, and the Dantesque associations of Chaucer's eagle," discussing major images and motifs of the poem.
Watkins, John.
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 23 (1993): 345-63.
The transmission and reception of the "Aeneid" determined the possible meanings and appropriations for medieval and Renaissance writers, as HF makes clear in its skepticism.
Dane, Joseph A.
Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 87 (1993): 65-80.
Questions long-established assumptions about the status of Cambridge Gg and examines Kane's methods for solving Gg 126-38. Argues that the G text of LGWP is "a modern and potentially misleading critical fiction"; that Gg should be regarded as a…
Although earlier Christian comment (especially Augustine's) blames Lucrece for being motivated by love of reputation, English chroniclers and the "classicizing" friars variously reworked her story. The views of Ridevall and Higden, reasserting…
Ishino, Harumi.
Hiroe Futamura, Kenichi Akishino, and Hisato Ebi, eds. A Pilgrimage Through Medieval Literature (Tokyo: Nan' Un-Do Press, 1993), pp. 337-53.
Examines the relations between Chaucer's figures of Nature in PF and Alain de Lille's "De planctu natura," considering several notions derived from Alain: "multiplex," "deficiens," "mutablile," and "concordia discors."
Tanaka, Sachiho.
Hiroe Futamura, Kenichi Akishino, and Hisato Ebi, eds. A Pilgrimage Through Medieval Literature (Tokyo: Nan' Un-Do Press, 1993), pp. 319-36.
Explores PF as an example of Chaucer's poetic technique, examining the text, sources, structure, and organic unity of the work.
Arthur, Karen.
Ian Lancashire, ed. Computer-Based Chaucer Studies (Toronto: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, 1993), pp. 67-85.
Demonstrates the utility of the text-retrieval program "TACT" by examining references to death and cold in TC. Sketches the "vocabulary" of death in the poem, assesses the words in their contexts (especially Pandarus's threats of death to Criseyde),…
Examines the ambiguous character of Criseyde in TC 4. Chaucer gives her a point of view only to call her morality into question and he provides a sense of history that he never allows her fully to understand. TC is a "feminist work that fails to…
