Gibbons, Victoria Louise.
JEBS 11 (2008): 198-206.
Modern notions and theory of literary titles ("titology") cannot be applied readily to medieval works. Gibbons comments on the titles of several of Chaucer's poems as an aspect of the "ordinatio" of their manuscripts. Medieval titles, especially…
TC indicates that love letters were written on paper in England as early as the 1380s. Uses TC to frame connection of paper with verse love epistles and their fictions.
Adds the Cardigan MS (University of Texas) and British Library Egerton MS 2864 to Matheson's list of manuscripts that include "peculiar versions" of Brut.
Discusses prefaces to CT as marketing and self-promotion that linked the authority of editors and a dedicatee, Henry VIII, to the authority of the author.
Demonstrates that "Tudor editions of Chaucer imagined Chaucer himself as a Tudor poet" (109); concludes with three illustrations from Houghton Library copies of STC 5075 and 5077.
Friedman, Jamie A.
Jeff Rider and Jamie Friedman, eds. The Inner Life of Women in Medieval Romance Literature: Grief, Guilt, and Hypocrisy. The New Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 203-22.
Argues against reading Emelye as absent or purely symbolic and instead posits her as having a more complex subjectivity that can be more fully accessed when reading KnT alongside Boccaccio's "Teseida." Close reading of Emelye's prayer to Diana shows…
Thompson, Diane P.
Jefferson, N. C. : McFarland, 2004.
Fourteen chapters on the cultural legacy of the Trojan War, from archeology through literary versions to recent popular culture. Includes chapters on Latin and Roman classics (the works of Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Virgil), the medieval…
Blandeau studies Pasolini's cinematic trilogy of medieval tales: The Decameron, CT, and One Thousand and One Nights, focusing on the first two. Argues that Pasolini "puts two semiotic systems in translation with each other, not so much to transmit…
Richmond studies British and American adaptations of Chaucer's CT for children, from Charles Cowden Clarke's "Tales from Chaucer in Prose" (1833) until World War I. She examines the selections and adaptations of the Tales and the accompanying…
Harty, Kevin J.
Jefferson, N.C., and London : McFarland, 1999.
Alphabetical list by title of 564 movies about medieval Europe, providing details of date, director, cast, and, where possible, critical bibliography. The index lists seven films based on Chaucer's works or Chaucerian material.
Steinberg, Theodore L.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003.
An introduction to the study of medieval literature, with chapters on "Beowulf," "Chrétien de Troyes, the "Lais" of Marie de France, "The Romance of the Rose," "The Tale of Genji," Jewish literature, sagas, Dante, "Pearl," "Sir Gawain and the Green…
Driver, Martha W., and Sid Ray, eds.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2009.
Thirteen essays, plus several introductory commentaries, gauge Shakespeare's uses of medieval materials and how those materials are reflected in modern stage and film adaptations. Shakespeare's "medievalism" shapes modern notions of the Middle Ages.…
Surveys depictions of "good" and "bad" women in medieval art and literature, concentrating on how their hair characterizes them and directs viewers' attention. Includes a brief discussion of the implications of Emelye's yellow/golden hair in KnT…
Distinguishes between academic and popular versions of Chaucer, defining and discussing various categories of popular intertextuality: adaptations, appropriations, invocations, and citations--diminishing degrees of engagement with original works.…
Describes the history and reception of friars in France and England from their inception to c. 1400, with a chapter on late fourteenth-century English literary responses: "England: The Turbulent 14th Century, and the Writings of Chaucer, Langland and…
Beidler, Peter G.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2015.
Describes how Chaucer adapted his source, Heile of Beersele, increasing the "theatricality" of plot and details in making MilT, concentrating on the architectural setting (house and window), dramatic details, and additional "scenes." Surveys and…
Uses selected Arthuriana to describe the development of chivalric romance and offer a descriptive definition of the genre. Emphasizes the non-centered, unstable nature of the romance, although contrasting it with postmodernist works. Notes Chrétien…
Goldstein, R. James.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2017.
Offers instruction on how to read "older poetry" rhetorically, with emphasis on conventional forms and subgenres of lyric verse, and using the scansion system of Derek Attridge (1982). Chapter 4, "The Love Complaint Ballade: Chaucer to Wyatt" (pp.…
Offers brief backgrounds to historical novels, medievalism, and crime fiction, and surveys the subgenre of medieval crime fiction, i.e., novels "featuring crime or mystery that is solved by a 'detective' and set during the European Middle Ages."…
