Browse Items (16459 total)

Pigg, Daniel F.   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. 263-70.
The GP sketch of the Plowman reflects the ambiguities of late-medieval attitudes toward labor. It depicts ideals of working-class spirituality and the social realities of agriculture.

Conlee, John W.   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. 27-37.
With the Knight and the Squire, Chaucer's Yeoman comprises the "basic English fighting unit--a unit sometimes referred to as a 'lance.'" Details of the Yeoman's GP sketch capitalize on the various connotations of "yeoman," and depict the Yeoman as a…

Richardson, Thomas C.   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. 324-39.
Characterizes the Host by examining the social history of his profession as an innkeeper and its possible associations with prostitution. In his interactions with other pilgrims,the Host reveals a "desire to be entertained with merry stories" and an…

Wilson, Katharine.   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. 369-84.
Considers Chaucer's narrative persona in CT in two manifestations: as writer and as pilgrim. Writers were necessarily reciters in Chaucer's day, with opportunities in government, in religion, and as itinerant performers. Pilgrims encountered…

Grosskopf, John Dennis.   Laura Cooner Lambdin and Robert Thomas Lambdin, eds. Arthurian Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2008), pp. 120-27.
Grosskopf summarizes Chaucer's life and assesses allusions to King Arthur and Arthurian motifs and characters in CT, commenting on SqT, Th, NPT, WBT, and the lack of Arthurian material in KnT. Surveys related critical commentary and suggests that…

Barefield, Laura D.   Laura D. Barefield. Gender and History in Medieval English Romance and Chronicle (New York: Peter Lang, 2003), pp. 37-72.
Barefield contrasts the characterizations of Constance in "Les Cronicles" and MLT, focusing on how female patronage (by Mary of Woodstock) may have encouraged the character's active role in Trevet's version.

Hanning, Robert W.   Laura Howe, ed. Place, Space, and Landscape in Medieval Narrative (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), pp. 181-96.
Compares and contrasts how Boccaccio's two analogues to ShT evoke differing senses of locale and the signifying potential of language.

Federico, Sylvia.   Laura L. Howes, ed. Place, Space, and Landscape in Medieval Narrative (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), pp. 171-79.
Federico explores how "Ricardian court culture haunts the chivalric spaces inhabited and visited by" Chaucer's TC and by Gawain in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Parallels between the "moral lapses" of Richard II and those of the two protagonists…

Askins, William R.   Laura L. Howes, ed. Place, Space, and Landscape in Medieval Narrative (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), pp. 27-41.
Askins treats Mars and Ven as two halves of a single poem, reading them together as the "first epithalamium" in English, a celebration of the marriage that took place in spring 1386 between Elizabeth of Lancaster (daughter of Gaunt) and John Holland.…

Warner, Lawrence.   Laura L. Howes, ed. Place, Space, and Landscape in Medieval Narrative (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), pp. 43-59.
Warner examines affiliations of the London Church of St. Thomas of Acre with mercantile interests that, in turn, help to clarify features of MLT, including its concerns with merchants, with the Crusades, and with legal discourse. MLT also explores…

Bleeth, Kenneth.   Laura L. Howes, ed. Place, Space, and Landscape in Medieval Narrative (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), pp.107-17.
Bleeth examines the ways that gardens in TC, KnT, MerT, and FranT reveal Chaucer's discomfort with the aristocratic fantasy of "pure play," idealized in the Roman de la Rose and separated from the world.

Moore, Jeanie Grant.   Laurel Amtower and Dorothea Kehler, eds. The Single Woman in Medieval and Early Modern England: Her Life and Representation (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2003), pp. 133-46.
As an often-married single woman, the Wife of Bath confronts and eludes the "binarisms that contained married women": married/not married, male/female, experience/authority, etc. In the fantasy of WBT, she succeeds partially in creating a "world of…

Amtower, Laurel.   Laurel Amtower and Dorothea Kehler, eds. The Single Woman in Medieval and Early Modern England: Her Life and Representation (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2003), pp. 119-32.
Surveys Chaucer's treatments of widows, which reveal an "awareness of their excluded social status and how it affects their assertions as individuals." Focuses on Dido and Cleopatra of LGW, the Wife of Bath, and, especially, Criseyde.

Finke, Laurie A.,and Martin B. Shichtman.   Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 1-11.
Summarizes through Kaske (defender of patristic exegesis) and Donaldson (opposer) the debate in the 1950's and 1960s over textual meaning. In the 1970s, medievalists underplayed historical differences between their work and medieval texts. In the…

Leicester, H. Marshall,Jr.   Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 15-26.
Invoking "Derridean models," Leicester examines the problem of evolution of medieval manuscripts. With its possibility of "univocal meaning," "logocentric" oral literary culture flattens out the difference between composer and audience; the scribal…

Hanning, Robert W.   Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 27-50.
Quintilian's definition of allegory suggests that "allegorical texts produce stable meanings and mirror unequivocal truths." For Augustine, "Figural language exists so that 'by means of corporal and temporal things we may comprehend the eternal and…

Knapp, Peggy A.   Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 142-57.
Arguments against patristic readings in WBP pose the "problem of controlling biblical interpretation in an age of increasing lay literacy." The Wife speaks of herself as "a text to be glossed."

Travis, Peter W.   Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 201-15.
Argues that modern theoretical discourse, in particular affective criticism--reader-response theory and "rezeptions-asthetik" (which "emphasizes the historicity and alterity of literary works from the past")--derives from and is applicable to…

Mayer, Lauryn S.   Lauryn S. Mayer. Worlds Made Flesh: Reading Medieval Manuscript Culture (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 121-54.
Mayer examines Caxton's edition of HF and de Worde's edition of TC to explore "strategies of authorial construction."

Minnis, Alastair.   Lawrence Besserman, ed. Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: New Essays. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 63-82.
Minnis explores medieval attempts to "explain the difficult and dangerous relationship" between "material and spiritual economies" underlying pardons or indulgences, commenting on the explanations of Albert the Great, Aquinas, and Bonaventure and…

Patterson, Lee.   Lawrence Besserman, ed. The Challenge of Periodization: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 51-66.
A revised, shortened version of Patterson's "Perpetual Motion: Alchemy and the Technology of the Self."

Wetherbee, Winthrop.   Lawrence D. Roberts, ed. Approaches to Nature in the Middle Ages: Papers of the Tenth Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 16. (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982), pp. 47-62.
Discussion of nature and woman in twelfth-century latin works of Bernardus Silvestris ("Cosmographia") and Alain de Lisle ("De planctu naturae")l, with comments on PR and the Wife of Bath.

Trudeau, Lawrence.   Lawrence Trudeau, ed. Literature and Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Volume 56 (Farmington, Mich.: Gale, 2000), pp. 1-117.
Anthologizes nine critical essays or excerpts from books published between 1970 and 1997 on issues of gender and sexuality in Chaucer's works, with a brief introduction.

Krstovic, Jelena.   Lawrence Trudeau, ed. Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Vol. 260 (Farmington, Mich.: Gale, 2017), pp. 114-0.
Reprints eleven examples of Chaucer criticism published between 2001 and 2013 and an excerpt from 1934. The introduction by Krstovic summarizes Chaucer's biography, major works, and critical reception, updating information supplied in Volume 56 of…

Ludwig, Jenny.   Lawrence Trudeau, ed. Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Volume 210 (Farmington, Mich.: Gale, 2012), pp. 37-228.
Reprints twenty essays on HF published between 1896 and 2006. The introduction by Ludwig (pp. 37-39) summarizes the plot and characters of HF, and comments on its plot and sources, major themes, and critical reception. Includes a selected…
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