Heffernan, Carol F.
Chaucer Review 32 (1997): 32-45.
SqT is Chaucer's one foray into the genre of "interlace" romance, where characters and episodes are treated, then dropped, and subsequently treated again. SqT is not a parody like Th; it is a different genre that Chaucer wanted to try. He did not…
An unfinished "Tale" that constantly calls attention to stories it is not telling, SqT epitomizes the poetics of Chaucer's fragments, including CT itself. Successful fragments prompt intensified reader response; they imply infinitude. Medieval…
Although the initial description of the egalitarian marriage in FranT seems to open liberating possibilities for Dorigen,the ultimate concern is which man is most "fre." Dorigen's actions and intentions have been lost in the insistence of Arveragus…
Finds parallels between FranT and Chretien de Troyes's "Eric and Enid" as both courtly texts and antiadulterous ones. Chaucer's contribution to the dialectic is the integration of "fin'amour" with Truth expressed as Christian virtue, defending…
A Bakhtinian approach to the juxtaposition of PhyT and PardT. In its aloof style and its paralleling of Apius and Virginius, PhyT is marked by a "tendency to monologue." PardT is dialogic in its comic replacement of justice with mercy.
Lázaro Lafuente, Luis Alberto.
Margarita Gimenez Bon and Vickie Olsen, eds. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval Language and Literature (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Dpto. Filologia Inglesa, 1997), pp. 146-53.
Discusses oral satiric performance in PardPT, focusing on medieval flytings, sermons, and "additive" oral structure.
Sturges, Robert S.
Jeffrey Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler, eds. Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (New York and London: Garland, 1997), pp. 261-77.
Provides Freudian and Lacanian analysis of two references to veils in the GP sketch of the Pardoner and the Host's threat at the end of PardT. The Pardoner's vernicle signifies his collusion with masculinist equations of penis and word, while his…
Holsinger, Bruce W.
New Medieval Literatures 1 (1997): 157-92
Both ManT and PrT reflect the violence inherent in medieval teaching of music, especially evident in the role of tactile solmization--through the use of the Guidonian hand--in ecclesiastical tradition. In both, Chaucer suggests that music fuels the…
Lampert, Lisa Renee.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1997): 450A
In patriarchal tradition, the Christian is defined as male and spiritual; the female, as Other, Hebrew, and carnal. Lampert traces tensions in the parallel between women and Jews from Bernard de Clairvaux to Shakespeare's Shylock, including medieval…
Lindahl, Carl.
Journal of Folklore Research 34 (1997): 263-73.
Folklorists' recent interest in performance tends to neglect the chronological context of storytelling, for which now-maligned type and motif indexes remain useful. A change in pattern usually signals a change in meaning. For example, the ending of…
Meale, Carol M.
A. J. Minnis, Charlotte C. Morse, and Thorlac Turville-Petre, eds. Essays on Ricardian Literature: In Honour of J. A. Burrow (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), pp. 39-60.
Argues that Chaucer was familiar with the realities of female monastic existence but chose to create his GP sketch of the Prioress from literary satire. The spirituality of PrT, however, is particularly apt for females, and many discussions of the…
Oliver, Kathleen M.
Chaucer Review 31 (1997): 357-64.
The "greyn" placed on the little child's tongue by the Virgin in PrT represents the Eucharistic Host, also known as "singing bread." "Greyn" means "particle," such as that broken from the wafer. The viaticum possessed properties of restoration and…
Rambuss, Richard.
Lori Hope Lefkovitz, ed. Textual Bodies: Changing Boundaries of Literary Representation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 75-99.
The Prioress's identification with the little clergeon of PrT and her elisions of history indicate a "desire for transcendence" rather than sentimentality. The presence of bodily violence and prurience in PrT accords well with some of the…
Mel resembles several other late-fourteenth-century retellings of this story as a proper model for wifely imitation. In using the form of the scholastic arts lecture, however, Prudence co-opts a masculine discursive style and its authoritative…
Mertens-Fonck, Paule.
Bulletin de la Societe Royale Le Vieux-Liege 13 (1997): 707-18.
Argues that the GP portrait of the Monk evokes Jean le Bel, chronicler of Edward III, and suggests that MkT is a poetic chronicle. With the Knight and the Prioress, the Monk is evidence that contemporary personalities and events lie behind CT.
Houwen, L. A. J. R.
L. A. J. R. Houwen, ed. Animals and the Symbolic in Mediaeval Art and Literature. Mediaevalia Groningana, no. 20 (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1997), pp. 77-92.
Assesses references to mermaids' singing in medieval tradition to argue that Chaucer's reference (NPT 7.3270) suggests flattery and thereby anticipates Chauntecleer's fall.
As a triad, MkT, Mk-NPL, and NPT present such a variety of motifs, themes, and nuances that one must be mindful of their multiplicity and not reduce their reading to a "hevy" tragedy or a performance of "sentence" alone, thus falling prey to the…
Chaucer's NPT tests the limits of the fable tradition. Containing two complete fables--one from the first half (ending with the cock's downfall and capture) and another from the second (don't open your mouth)--the "Tale" combines to form a third…
Warner, Lawrence.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1997): 862A.
In medieval literature, the sins of Cain and Nimrod acquired sexual overtones associated with wandering. Warner assesses in this light the "Alliterative Morte Arthure," Dante, Abelard, Langland and NPT.
The context of CT changes the meaning of SNT. Although SNT is a clear statement of the 'right path,' ParsT reminds us at the end that we cannot come close to following that path. Spiritual perfection is rare; for the rest of us there are remedies…
Statistical analysis, based on Mersand's still-valid assumption that Chaucer's romance vocabulary increased throughout his career, establishes different dates for the composition of different parts of SNT. The first part was probably written in the…
Doyle, Charles Clay.
Chaucer Review 32 (1997): 108-10.
Peter Beidler asserted that a "shadow allusion" to CYT in "Rip Van Winkle" had gone unnoticed; in fact, scholars of seventeenth-century literature have recognized the allusion. Further, Chaucer's statement that one cannot trust someone who swears to…
