Contzen, Eva von.
Jan Alber and Greta Olson, eds. How to Do Things with Narrative: Cognitive and Diachronic Perspectives (Boston, Mass.: De Gruyter, 2018), pp. 79-92.
Assesses the characterizations of Dido in HF, LGW, and William Caxton's "Eneydos," analyzing their direct discourse and representations of mental state as examples of how premodern authors present well-known figures from the literary past. Chaucer's…
Rowland, Beryl.
Jan Goosens and Timothy Sodmann, eds. Third International Beast Epic, Fable and Fabliau Colloquium, Munster 1979: Proceedings (Koln and Wien: Bohlau, 1981), pp. 340-55.
Surveys several classical, oriental, and exegetical traditions of the symbolic or exemplary value of the cock, variously an emblem of wisdom, pugnacity, or stupidity. Chauntecleer of NPT is unusual in combining many qualities, for later literary…
Bela, Teresa.
Jan Nowakowski, ed. Litterae et Lingua: In Honorem Premislavi Mroczkowski (Wroclaw: Pol. Akad. Nauk, 1984), pp. 51-55.
FrT is a tale warning Chaucer's audience about the stupidity of sin. The Friar tells a story of a foolish summoner who gives in to at least three of the deadly sins. Stupidity, not wickedness, leads the Summoner to hell.
Rogerson, Margaret.
Jan Shaw, Philippa Kelly, and L. E. Semler, eds. Storytelling: Critical and Creative Approaches (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 167–80.
Observes how KnT signals transitions, scene changes, gestures, and even costuming, perhaps inspiring Shakespeare and Fletcher to create "The Two Noble Kinsmen" by dividing the Chaucer poem into written "parts" for actors before assembling their…
van Gelderen, Elly.
Jan Terje Faarlund, ed. Grammatical Relations in Change. Studies in Language Companion Series, no. 56 (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2001), pp. 137-57.
Cites examples from Chaucer and others to show the demise of the "(slight) person split" evident in earlier English impersonal constuctions.
Osselton, N. E.
Jan van Dorsten, ed. Ten Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations (Leiden: The University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 231-45.
Comments on translations of four of Chaucer's works (one spurious) by Willem Bilderdijk, the "first Dutch translator of Chaucer": Lydgate's "Balade de Bon Consail," WBT (mediated by Dryden's version and, in turn, Voltaire's), the tale of Phyllis from…
Hines, John.
Jan-Peer Hartmann and Andrew James Johnston, eds. Material Remains: Reading the Past in Medieval and Early Modern British Literature (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2021), pp. 240-57.
Considers possibilities of assessing material archeology in medieval literature and offers a case study concerning HF, observing connections between the brass-tablet account of Aeneas in the poem (lines 140ff.) and monumental brasses, hypothesizing…
Harper, Elizabeth.
Jane Beal and Mark Bradshaw Busbee, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Middle English "Pearl" (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2018), pp. 148-55.
Clarifies how students' experiences with grief or loss can be useful in overcoming modern resistance to reading "Pearl," and suggests comparative study of the poem with other texts in Middle English, including BD. Offers discussion questions for…
Maclean, Hugh.
Jane Campbell and James Doyle, eds. Essays in English Literature in Honour of Flora Roy (Waterloo: Laurier University Press, 1978), pp. 29-47.
Like Chaucer before him, Spenser uses the literary complaint with greatest success, not as a separate genre, but to heighten the dramatic context of larger works.
David, Alfred.
Jane Chance and R. O. Wells, Jr., eds. Mapping the Cosmos. (Houston, Tex.: Rice University Press, 1985), pp. 76-97.
Examines physiognomical traditions of noses in medieval "descriptio" in rhetoric books, noses of the Miller and Prioress in GP, noses in RvT, and noses in French romances and in later literature.
Storm, Melvin.
Jane Chance, ed. The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 215-31.
Examines the role of tone and narratorial voice in Chaucer's manipulations and distortions of the myth of Theseus in HF, Anel, LGW, and KnT. Theseus is vilified in HF and LGW as a betrayer of women; in KnT, he exemplifies mature "martialism…
Chance, Jane.
Jane Chance, ed. The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 3-44.
In ParsP, the Parson vehemently rejects the "lies" of pagan fables, as in the scandalous ManT. Yet, medieval poets often used "unseemly stories of the gods"--especially stories dealing with love, sex, and immorality--for their own political or moral…
Chance, Jane.
Jane Chance, ed. The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 177-98.
Examines several mythological winds and traces the use of Zephirus as a "revivifying wind" in Isidore, Bersuire, and Boethius. Chaucer uses the myth of Zephirus and Flora in BD to suggest psychological healing; in TC 5.10, for ironic effect; in…
Smarr, Janet Levarie
Jane Chance, ed. The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 199-214.
Examining erotic elements, "identifications of the pear tree and the garden," and Mercury's role and attributes, Smarr analyzes similarities between Chaucer's and Boccaccio's handling of the pear-tree tale--similarities greater than those found in…
Orr, Patricia R.
Jane Chance, ed. The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990), pp.159-76.
Traces the allegorical tradition of the Judgment of Paris from Fulgentius through Bersuire and other fourteenth-century writers (especially sources of the Troilus story) and examines Chaucer's use of and allusions to the myth. The journey of Troilus…
Chance, Jane.
Jane Chance. Tolkien, Self and Other: "This Queer Creature" (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 133-76.
Considers the roles of apartheid and linguistic queerness in the class-based characterizations of various hobbits in Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," suggesting that Tolkien's scholarly study of Chaucer's literary dialects and his glossary for the…
Czarnowus, Anna.
Jane Tolmie and M. J. Toswell, eds. Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010), pp. 129-47.
Compares the "theatricality of imagery" in MLT, particularly in Constance's prayer to the Virgin (2.841-54), with the Polish Marian crucifixion lament "Listen, Dear Brothers." Includes an English translation of the Polish lyric.
Krug, Rebecca.
Jane Tolmie and M. J. Toswell, eds. Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010), pp. 225-41.
Explores the depictions of grief over lost children in the Wakefield mystery play "Slaughter of the Innocents"; a Middle English life of Saint Bridget; and ClT. The depictions present grief as variously natural, unnatural, and a response to conflict;…
Pearsall, Derek.
Jane Tolmie and M. J. Toswell, eds. Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010), pp. 299-306.
Summary commentary on the collection of essays, with remarks on maternal grief in PrT, ClT, MLT, and other works, especially Lydgate's "A Lamentacioun of Our Lady Maria."
Fumo, Jamie C.
Janet Levarie Smarr, ed. Writers Reading Writers: Intertextual Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Literature in Honor of Robert Hollander. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007, pp. 89-108.
Fumo compares and contrasts Chaucer's invocation of Apollo in HF to its source in Dante's "Paradiso," arguing that Chaucer shares with Dante a "fundamental interest in defining the poet's role" as a "vessel of prophetic truth." Both poets are…
Foster, Michael.
Janne Skaffari et al., eds. Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2005), pp. 199-213.
Chaucer constructed a self-deprecating narrator in BD and in HF in response to audience expectations. These constructions, in turn, shaped how people in Chaucer's own society regarded Chaucer and how his personality has been recorded historically.
Hsy, Jonathan.
Jason Barr and Camille D. G. Mustachio, eds. The Language of Doctor Who: From Shakespeare to Alien Tongues (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), pp. 109-23.
Explores three examples of literary representation of cultural contact across language boundaries: an episode from the "Doctor Who" television series, MLT, and the BBC adaptation of MLT, identifying parallels among cross-linguistic contact,…
Thompson, N. S.
Jay Parini, ed. British Writers Classics. Vol. 1 (New York: Scribner, 2002), pp. 41-63. Electronic edition, 2003.
Summary description of CT, commenting (in the Ellesmere order) on each of the fragments, source materials of the tales, and the ways that Chaucer combines traditional and innovative concerns. The CT is a "work held together by contrast." Includes a…
