Taylor, Andrew.
Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler, eds. Desire and Sexuality in the Premodern West (Toronto; Buffalo, N.Y.; and London: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 280-95.
Cites E. Talbot Donaldson's appreciation of May in MerT as an example of "iconologia," sexualized analysis or penetration of art or literature. Sexual titillation in reading is evident in medieval manuscripts and in modern responses to medieval…
Gonzalez Fernandez-Corugedo, Santiago.
Luis A. Lazaro Lafuente, Jose Simon, and Ricardo J. Sola Buil,eds. Medieval Studies: Proceedings of the IIIrd International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (Madrid: Universidad de Alcala de Henares, 1996), pp. 151-75.
Comparative analysis of PrT and its Spanish analogue reveals how the author of each uses different rhetoric to achieve different aims, although the two share a tendency to direct personal appeal.
Staley, Lynn.
David Aers and Lynn Staley. The Powers of the Holy: Religion, Politics, and Gender in Late Medieval English Culture (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), pp. 179-259
Revises, and reprints as one, the following essays: "Inverse Counsel: Contexts for the 'Melibee'" and "Chaucer's Tale of the Second Nun and the Strategies of Dissent."
Linden, Stanton J[(ay].
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.
Assesses literary references and allusions to alchemy as an aspect of the transition from the medieval to the modern age, focusing on works by Chaucer, Bacon, Jonson, Donne, Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Milton, and Samuel Butler, but also considering a…
Ridley, Florence H.
Clausdirk Pollner, Helmut Rohlfing, and Frank-Rutger Hausmann, eds. Bright Is the Ring of Words: Festschrift fur Horst Weinstck zum 65 Geburtstag (Bonn: Romanistischer Verlag, 1996), pp. 251-57.
Briefly surveys the ways Chaucer leaves "gaps" in CT--omissions, repetitions, reversals, etc.--and suggests how ParsT provides a wholeness despite these gaps.
Arnovick, Leslie K.
Oral Tradition 11 (1996): 320-45.
Chaucer's proverbs in HF point up the provocative tension between orality and literacy in the Middle Ages. Ultimately, however, the poem illustrates that Chaucer favors literacy.
Straus, Barrie Ruth.
Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler, eds. Desire and Sexuality in the Premodern West (Toronto; Buffalo, N.Y.; and London: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 245-64.
The formel eagle in PF, Emily in KnT, and Margery Kempe seek to delay or renounce sexual activity. The eagle's blush embodies her later request to delay a choice of mate; Emily's desire to remain unmarried is marked by her desire to reject the…
Andretta, Helen [Ruth]
Joan F. Hallisey and Mary-Anne Vetterling, eds. Proceedings: Northeast Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature (Weston, Mass.: Regis College, [1996]), pp. 1-7.
Considers Criseyde, Troilus, and Pandarus as figures of Spirit, Psyche, and Self respectively, suggesting that the interactions among the three characters in TC depict a "false theology" that is made right in Troilus's translation.
Considers the letter as a means of spoken and written transmission and demonstrates how the most important elements and functions of the letter prescribed by the "artes dictaminis" were put to creative use in medieval literary texts such as the…
Summarizes the scholastic idea of the book and applies the concept of the written word (book) as "essential epistemological instrument" to Wolfram's "Titurel" fragments (ca. 1220) and to TC. Chaucer presents Troilus as a misreader of texts who only…
Examines feminist and antifeminist readings Criseyde, arguing that--like Chaucer, who appropriates his sources, and like his narrator, who constantly negotiates and repositions himself in relation to Lollius--Criseyde performs, mimes, and parodies…
Stevenson, Kay Gilliland.
Michel Bitot, ed., with Roberta Mullini and Peter Happe. Divers Toyes Mengled: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Culture in Honour of Andre Lascombes (Tours: Universite Francois Rabelais, 1996), pp. 27-42.
Explores literary and historical contexts that complicate reception of ABC, including works by Jean de Meun, Guillaume de Deguileville, and John Lydgate. Chaucer's stand-alone translation initiates an immediacy with its audience that is not apparent…
Readings of selections from CT, translated by Nevill Coghill, including GP, KnT, MilPT, RvPT, PrPT, PardPT, WBPT, FrPT, SumPT, MerPT, and Ret. Read by Richard Breers, Alan Cumming, James Grout, Alex Jennings, Geoffrey Matthews, Richard Pasco, Tim…
Surveys scholarship pertaining to Chaucer's 1366 visit to Spain and Gaunt's 1386-87 campaign in Spain, commenting on historical events and Chaucer's involvement with them.
Mowat, Barbara A.
R. B. Parker and S. P. Sitner, eds. Elizabethan Theater: Essays in Honor of S. Schoenbaum (Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1996), pp. 93-110.
Assesses how the sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer by Thynne and Speght helped to create and monumentalize a view of the writer. Renaissance notions of authors, evident in Speght's Chaucer, Holland's Livy, and Harrington's Ariosto, are not the…
2 vols. Volume 1: Texts and Illustrations. Volume 2: Catalogue and Indexes. Descriptions of 140 late-medieval manuscripts, selected for their representative value and focusing on their styles and programs of illustration. The introduction (1:…
Mahoney, Dhira B.
Douglas Kelly, ed. The Medieval "Opus": Imitation, Rewriting, and Transmission in the French Tradition. (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 405-27.
Discusses medieval English translation of Christine's works, focusing on Hoccleve's translation of "L'Epistre au Dieu d'Amours." Also considers the influence of LGW on Hoccleve's translation.
Calle Martin, Javier.
SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Mediaeval English Language and Literature 06 (1996): 64-84.
Traces the classical and colloquial origins of Chaucer's stereotyped comparisons (e.g., "as stille as any ston," "white as chalk"); describes their syntax; and assesses the functions of grammar, alliteration, and prosody in the development of terms…
Nagucka, Ruta.
Jacek Fisiak, ed. Middle English Miscellany: From Vocabulary to Linguistic Variation (Poznan: Motivex, 1996.), pp. 233-44.
Assesses the spatial prepositions in Astr, arguing that the availability of the instrument to the audience of Astr made it possible for Chaucer to use imprecise indicators of space, that the prepositions used are "semantically transparent," and that…
Staczek, John J.
Jacek Fisiak, ed. Middle English Miscellany: From Vocabulary to Linguistic Variation (Poznan: Motivex, 1996.), pp. 245-52.
Argues that certain English pronominal forms are "durable over time" when used in instructions. Assesses cookbooks and Astr as Middle English samples and compares their usage with modern American cookbooks.
Fifteen essays by various authors from the 1994 conference on Middle English held in Rydzyna, Poland. Individual essays consider lexicographical topics such as Middle English sexual vocabulary, plant names, and words associated with fate;…
Rivera, Alison Bucket.
SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Mediaeval English Language and Literature 6 (1996): 103-16.
Considers medieval family structures, attitudes toward sexuality, and marital practices to argue that the Wife of Bath "almost definitely had no children." Unlike Margery of Kempe, she may have been sterile.
Godorecci, Barbara J.
RLA: Romance Languages Annual 8 (1996):192-96.
Assesses the modifications of Boccaccio's tale of Griselda (Decameron 10.10) in the translations of Petrarch and Chaucer, focusing on the uses and nuances of the verb "provare" (to prove) and its associations with "probus" (good). In ClT, Chaucer's…
