Johnson, Ian.
Chris Given-Wilson, ed. An Illustrated History of Late Medieval England (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 127-51.
A survey of genres and topics in Middle English literature, including Chaucer's "diversity of literary forms and [the] strategies he took to negotiate literary authority."
Johnson, Ian.
Carmina Philosophiae 3 (1994): 1-21, 1994.
Compares Troilus's speech on free will and predestination (TC 4) with John Walton's poetic exposition of the source passage in Boethius 5, prose 3. Aware of TC, Walton "competes" with Chaucer and better succeeds in clearly rendering the nuances of…
Johnson examines Chaucer's attitudes about and representations of the "workings of the soul in stirring itself towards God," comparing Bo to its Boethian original in light of late fourteenth-century pastoral instruction and tracing similar sentiments…
Johnson, Ian.
Phillips, Philip Edward, and Noel Harold Kaylor, eds. A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages (Boston: Brill, 2012), pp. 413-46.
Explores the "special place at the commanding heights of literary culture" that Boethian translation held in Middle English, surveying the variety of translations and uses of the "Consolation," commenting on the importance of Jean de Meun and…
Johnson, Ian.
Sabrina Corbellini, Giovanna Murano, and Giacomo Signore, eds. Collecting, Organizing and Transmitting Knowledge: Miscellanies in Late Medieval Europe (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), pp. 23-38.
Considers late medieval miscellanea and the "sensibility of the miscellaneous," using the concept of "heterarchy," and assessing Nicholas of Lyre's discussion of the Psalter, the :Biblically licensed diversity" of CT (evident in ParsT, Ret, and…
Johnson, James [D.]
Chaucer Review 39 (2005): 436-55
Tabulates and annotates fifty-seven studies that identify or discuss allusions to Chaucer, presented as a continuation of Caroline Spurgeon's Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion (1925). Includes a name and title index for the…
Johnson, James D.
Chaucer Review 29 (1994): 194-203.
An annotated list of thirty-seven items, intended as an update of Caroline Spurgeon's "Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, 1357-1900."
Skeat wrote a "Canterbury tale" in Middle English that admonishes the sin of covetousness, is thoroughly grounded in the Middle Ages, and fits into the scheme of CT. It reveals one of the more "relaxed moments" of this great Chaucer scholar, about…
Johnson, James D.
English Language Notes 38: 41-49, 2001.
Leigh Hunt's "The Tapiser's Tale" amplifies our understanding of Hunt as a nineteenth-century Chaucerian. The poem both imitates Chaucer's language and verse and utilizes the setting, plot, and key motifs from Charles MacFarlane's account of…
Johnson, Judith A.
Michigan Academician 10 (1977): 71-76.
The pilgrims' decisions to address each other formally, as "you," or intimately, as "thou," reveal their attitudes about each other and their own social self-conceptions. Harry Bailly's central role, in terms both of the poem's structure and of…
Johnson, Lesley.
Ruth Evans and Lesley Johnson, eds. Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature: The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 195-220.
Literary and historical contexts modify the presentation of the Griselda story in its many versions, reflecting a broad range of views on women and marriage. Chaucer's version raises questions about the exemplary value of Griselda in religious and…
Johnson, Lesley.
Keith Busby and Erik Kooper, eds. Courtly Literature: Culture and Context. Selected Papers from the 5th Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, Dalfsen, The Netherlands, 9-16 August, 1986 (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1990), pp. 313-21.
Reads Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," not as a "sequel" to TC, but as a "further displacement of the history of Troy," one that "questions the value of the vicarious experience of reading" fiction, particularly as it is realized in the…
Johnson, Lynn Staley.
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 22 (1992): 159-84.
Like Chaucer, Margery Kempe constructs a narrative context for the self she creates. Kempe uses autobiographical details to shape "Margery" into a representative type and to analyze communal values and practices. Kempe employs Chaucer's strategy of…
Johnson, Lynn Staley.
Studies in Philology 89 (1992): 314-33.
Reads SNT as paralleling Wycliffite dissent, arguing that Chaucer's alterations of his sources emphasize Cecilia's challenges to institutional values and power.
The people's and Griselda's agreements with Walter, the agent of testing, are analogous to the Old and New Testament covenants, respectively. The lower-order civil bond, governed by the letter of the law, is weak; the higher-order marriage bond,…
Johnson, Lynn Staley.
Studies in Philology 87 (1990): 137-55.
Mel should be read in light of England's disrupted domestic state and especially of parliamentary dissatisfaction with Richard II in the 1380s. Thus, Prudence's advice, which emphasizes the contractual relationship between ruler and ruled but also…
Johnson, Lynn Staley.
Mediaevalia 11 (1989, for 1985): 121-28.
The Clerk's "apparently subversive narration" draws the reader away from pathos toward "harder wisdom." ClT is a "gem of narrative irony." The Clerk manipulates reader response by exploiting "techniques of irony" and pointing out inconsistencies in…
The Middle Ages provided two contrasting traditions in the characterization of Hector, one celebrating his heroism, the other viewing him as possessed of physical flaws and spiritual debilities. In TC, Chaucer combines the two traditions in his…
Argues that CT (specifically GP, KnT, MilT, and RvT) and Bodiam Castle "converge as ideological constructions," comparing the lives of Chaucer and Sir Edward Dallingridge (builder of Bodiam)--both witnessed at the Scrope vs. Grosvenor trial--and…
Item not seen. Online information indicates that this volume addresses questions about why Chaucer included his legend of Cleopatra in LGW, his sources for the account, and its success as a poem.
