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c. 1390: England. Rain Check.
Lapham, Lewis H., ed.
Lapham's Quarterly 9.3 (2016): 28-29.
Reprints Nevill Coghill's modern translation of Mk 7.2727-66 (Croesus), included here among a variety of literary samples and commentaries on the theme of luck.
As the Chess-Set Flies: Arthurian Marvels in Chaucer's "Squire's Tale" and the "Roman van Walewein."
Fumo, Jamie C,.
Larissa Tracey ed. Medieval English and Dutch Literatures: The European Context. Essays in Honour of David F. Johnson (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2022), pp. 207-32
Compares and contrasts SqT and the analogous Middle Dutch "Roman van Walewein," focusing on their eastern settings, treatments of marvel, and other romance conventions. Considers Chaucer's possible knowledge of Middle Dutch and "Van Walewein,"…
The Occasion of 'The Parliament of Fowls
Benson, Larry D.
Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel, eds. The Wisdom of Poetry (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University, 1982), pp. 123-44.
Offers new support for the old theory that PF represents Anne of Bohemia as the "formel eagle" and King Richard, Charles of France, and Friedrich as her three suitors, presenting new ararguments for dating the poem in 1380 and new evidence that both…
Venus in the 'north-north-west'? Chaucer's 'Parliament of Fowls,' 117
Lazarus, Alan J.
Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel, eds. The Wisdom of Poetry (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University, 1982), pp. 145-49.
Plots the course of Venus astronomically to show the planet would have been clearly visible in the northwest in 1374, 1377, 1380, and 1382, and possibly in 1375 and 1379.
The Philosophies in Chaucer's 'Troilus'
Howard, Donald R.
Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel, eds. The Wisdom of Poetry (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University, 1982), pp. 151-75.
Explores the philosophy and modern "philosophizing" and especially Bloomfield's location of the philosophy in the actual experience of TC, as for example, in the narrator's "historical hindsight," which is compared to God's prescience.
Miracles of the Virgin, Medieval Anti-Semitism, and 'Prioress's Tale'
Frank, Robert Worth,Jr.
Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel, eds. The Wisdom of Poetry (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University, 1982), pp. 177-88.
Anti-Semitism is a commonplace in miracles of the Virgin, the special enmity between the Virgin and the Jews deriving from the apocryphal "Transitus." Some miracles end in conversion of the Jews; others in their destruction wholesale; PrT in…
Chaucer's Lists
Barney, Stephen A.
Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel, eds. The Wisdom of Poetry (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University, 1982), pp. 189-223.
Surveys the sources of Chaucer's lists and examines them for the effects they create, for the rhetorical ends they accomplish in undermining or leavening the direction of a tale or poem, as in TC, Anel, FrT, Rom, WBT, PardT, MkT, MkPT, MerT, Mel,…
Now (This), Now (That) and BD 646
Brosnahan, Leger.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 11-18.
Explains the imagery of BD 646 as a literary application of a commonplace proverb; the line is drawn from Machaut and implies the instability of Fortune.
The Heart and the Chain
Leyerle, John.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 113-45.
Examines "heart" (in its several meanings) as the nucleus of BD, and "prison"/"chain" as one in KnT, treating each as a structuring device and a wellspring of the themes and imagery in its respective narrative. Similar nuclei function comically in…
How Marcia Lost Her Skin: A Note on Chaucer's Mythology
David, Alfred.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 19-29.
Identifies a source for HF 1229-32, where Marsyas is gendered female: a group of mansucripts of the "Roman de la Rose" that interpolate a comic account "in which Apollo flays a female satyr called 'Marse'."
The Clerk of Venus: Chaucer and Medieval Romance
Lenaghan, R. T.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 31-43.
Argues that in SqT, FranT, KnT, and TC Chaucer used romance to reconcile his two responsibilities as a lay clerk: "to speak of morality and of the refinements of love."
The Image of Paradise in the 'Merchant's Tale'
Bleeth, Kenneth A.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 45-60.
Examines various evocations of paradise as a garden in MerT as parodic inversions of Christian understanding of the scene of the Fall.
Chaucer's Clerk as Teacher
Longsworth, Robert.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 61-66.
Reads details of ClT as evidence of the Ckerk's pedagogical skills in his efforts to instruct the Wife of Bath and others.
In Search of Chaucer: The Needed Narrative
Brookhouse, Christopher.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 67-80.
Appreciative comments on BD, HF, TC, and CT, addressing their concerns with death, isolation, knowledge of self, and above all, the hman need for self-disclosure in confronting these concerns. The human need for narrative is particularly evident in…
Speculation, Intention, and the Teaching of Chaucer
Reinecke, George F.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 81-93.
Confronts several questions or matters of internal inconsistency in CT (1.164; 1.361; 3.45; 4.1222; 5.673; 2.96; 6.443) and speculates about possible resolutions and their usefulness in the Chaucer classroom.
Chaucer's Courtly Love
Reiss, Edmund.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 95-111.
Gauges Chaucer's "view and use of love," concentrating on BD, TC, and KnT as his only narratives that take courtly love seriously, both as a theme and a plot device. Even in these cases, courtly love is presented pejoratively--both foolish and…
Foreword to the 2008 Edition
Cannon, Christopher, intro.
Larry D. Benson, gen. ed. The Riverside Chaucer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. iva-ivh.
Foreword to the reissue of the paperback version of The Riverside Chaucer, assessing the legacy of the Riverside text in light of editorial theory and modern computers.
Geoffrey Chaucerin Canterburyn Tarinoiden Anekauppias: Pervo Myöhäiskeskiajan Sukupuolittuneessa Todellisuudessa [ Queer in Late Medieval Gendered Reality: The Example of the Pardoner in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' ]
Linkinen, Tom.
Lasse Kekki and Kaisa Ilmonen, eds. Pervot Pidot: Homo-, Lesbo- ja Queer-Näkökulmia Kirjallisuudentutkimukseen (Helsinki: Like, 2004).
Item not seen; WorldCat cites this essay in its entry for the edited volume, without page numbers. In Finnish.
Wrestling for the Ram: Competition and Feedback in 'Sir Thopas' and 'The Canterbury Tales'
Brinkman, Baba.
LATCH 3 (2010): 107-33.
Considers patronage and the developing status of the poet in the role of "court maker" in late medieval England, aligning the change with the influence of Italian culture. In his response to Th, the Host represents a courtly "negative feedback loop,"…
It's Miller Time! Baba Brinkman's Rap Adaptation of the Miller's Tale
Beidler, Peter G.
LATCH 3 (2010): 134-50.
Commenting on how Baba Brinkman's rap version of MilT "recast and reset" Chaucer's original, Beidler raises questions about the pedagogical and cultural value of the live performance, the audio recording, and the printed version. Includes (pp.…
Betraying Origins: The Many Faces of Aeneas in Medieval English Literature
Scott, Joanna.
LATCH 3 (2010): 64-84.
In HF, Aeneas is a "possible love-traitor," while in LGW the "condemnation" is much clearer. In the "Laud Troy Book," he is a political traitor who is never presented as the founder of Rome. Such depictions of Aeneas reflect how the "threat--or…
Subtle Crafts: Magic and Exploitation in Medieval English Romance
Saunders, Corinne.
Laura Ashe, Ivana Djordjević, and Judith Weiss, eds. The Exploitations of Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 108-24.
The use of magic was exploitative and morally ambiguous; however, with the thirteenth-century rise of universities, attitudes shifted: through natural magic and great learning, one could harness natural powers. The "highly intellectual" FranT…
A Knyght Ther Was
Calabrese, Michael A.
Laura C. Lambdin and Robert T. Lambdin, eds. Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the "Canterbury Tales" (Westport, Conn.; and London: Greenwood, 1996), pp. 1-13.
Summarizes the medieval history of knighthood and its status in late-fourteenth-century England, exploring implications of details in the GP sketch of the Knight, especially those that relate to the "Crusading spirit" in its positive and negative…
A Clerk Ther Was of Oxenford Also
Dillon, Bert.
Laura C. Lambdin and Robert T. Lambdin, eds. Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the "Canterbury Tales" (Westport, Conn.; and London: Greenwood, 1996), pp. 108-15.
Reads the Clerk's sketch in GP as an idealized depiction of academic life in fourteenth-century Oxford, summarizing typical activities and outlooks.
A Sergeant of the Lawe, War and Wyse
Hornsby, Joseph.
Laura C. Lambdin and Robert T. Lambdin, eds. Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the "Canterbury Tales" (Westport, Conn.; and London: Greenwood, 1996), pp. 116-34.
Surveys the development of the legal profession in medieval England as background to understanding how the GP sketch of the Man of Law is a "thumbnail sketch of a common lawyer," focusing on his status as a "sergeant." MLT capitalizes on the myth…
