Patch, Howard R.
Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., and Robert P. Creed, eds. Franciplegius: Medieval and Linguistic Studies in Honor of Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. (New York: New York University Press, 1965), pp. 255-64.
Describes a series of recurrent concerns in Chaucer's poetry: pity (but not sentimentality), remarkable female characterizations, a complicated view of love, and the "theme of death."
Presents SqPT and the description of the Squire from the GP in Middle English (based on the Ellesmere manuscript), with bottom-of-page textual notes, end-of text notes and glossary, an Introduction (pp. vii-xxxv), and a description of Chaucer's…
Proposes punctuation for CkT 1.4394-96 that renders Perkyn's "sober-living master" as "not altogether above reproach," offering the reading as "yet another token of Chaucer's sophisticated art."
Surveys the history and development of English drama from the Renaissance to the modern period, emphasizing "the nature and effects" of plays and performance. Includes a chapter entitled "The Dream Vision from Chaucer to Shakespeare" (pp. 61-79),…
Brookhouse, Christopher
Medium Ævum 34.1 (1965): 40-42.
Identifies several instances of Chaucer's uses of lists of impossibilities (rhetorical "adynata" or "impossibilia") in "personal laments and exclamations of fidelity and sincerity" (TC, BD, Anel), giving classical precedents in Virgil's "Eclogues"…
Brookhouse, Christopher
Notes and Queries 210 (1965): 293-94.
Shows that the humor of applying the phrase" flower of chivalry" to Sir Thopas (Tho 7.901-2) results from Chaucer's change of a "traditionally metaphoric phrase into a literal one."
Campbell, A. P.
Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa 35 (1965): 35-53.
Accepts Ret as earnest but impersonated, surveying critical opinions, and suggesting that it is best read as an instance of Chaucer's "contrast principle" in operation, offering examples of his "many pretended or real about-faces" in CT. After ParsT,…
Clogan, Paul M.
Explicator 23.8 (1965): item no. 61.
Suggests that Chaucer's reference to "Thorus" as a sea-god derives from a misunderstanding of Statius's "theori" in the "Achilleid" and its medieval gloss.
Correale, Robert M.
English Language Notes 2.3 (1965): 171-74.
Identifies influences of St. Jerome's "Epistola Adversus Jovinianum" 2 at the end of FrT, particularly the imagery of lion as hunter equated with Satan and juxtaposed with Biblical allusions.
Explores Chaucer's depiction in CT of human vitality "in an unending variety of circumstances," framed by the "revelatory power of symbolism" latent in his details and styles. Separates Chaucer's techniques from Dante's allegory and from modern…
Considers "Trohetvisan" and Sted in light of their possible historical allusions and literary conventionality, exploring similarities and differences, and concluding that Chaucer's poem is best regarded as "undated and unaddressed," a poem "written…
Argues that in PardT the Old Man "reveals the Pardoner's real secret, the joylessness of the life he professes to relish so much." The Pardoner is a "young-old man, and the confrontation between the three rioters and the old man in the tale brings to…
Davis, Norman.
Review of English Studies 16, no. 63 (1965): 233-44.
Considers Chaucer's modifications in Troilus's letter (TC 5.1317-1421) of Boccaccio's original in "Filostrato" and of Beauvau's French translation in "Roman de Troyle et de Criseida," arguing that the changes reflect late-medieval English…
Devereux, James A., S.J.
Philological Quarterly 44 (1965): 550-52.
Identifies similarities between Criseyde's address to Troilus in TC 3.1309 with "levation" prayers, i.e., popular devotional prayers aligned with the "looking at the host at the elevation of Mass."
Argues for choosing "wrighte" over "wight" among the manuscript variants of WBP 3.117, justifying the choice on the grounds of source material and consideration of scribal choices and practices.
Dorris, George E.
Romance Notes 6.2 (1965): 141-43.
Identifies the earliest mention of Chaucer in Italian criticism, in the preface to Paolo Rolli's translation of Milton's epic, "Del Paradiso Perduto" (1729). Rolli's comments include recognition, perhaps the first, that Chaucer refers to Dante in…
Durling, Robert M.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Treats the "significance of the Narrator's changeability or instability" in Renaissance epics by Boiardo, Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, with prefatory discussions of works by Horace and Ovid, Chaucer, and Petrarch. The chapter on Chaucer (pp. 44-66)…
Economou, George D.
Comparative Literature 17.3 (1965): 251-57.
Argues that the image of the mirror of January's mind in MerT (4.1577-87) derives from the "Roman de la Rose" and connects with Chaucer's garden setting to underscore the selfish narcissism of January's distorted love-seeking.
Elliott, Ralph W. V.
New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965.
Introductory, descriptive analysis of NPPT and PardPT, "designed primarily for the school, college, and university student." Summarizes the places of the two Tales in CT and explains their poetic and thematic concerns, focusing on the artful…
Fisher, Ruth M.
Notes and Queries 210 (1965): 168-70.
Adduces precedents in French for Chaucer's punning in ShT on "cosyn" and its derivatives to mean "harlot" as well as "prospective victim," part of a larger pattern of "mocking irony" in his various uses of the words.
Fisiak, Jacek.
University: University of Alabama Press, 1965.
Describes the morphemic structure of Chaucer's language, "based only on the facts recorded in Chaucer's writing," without considering the work of his contemporaries or inferring data beyond extant forms in his works. Defines morphemes and their…
