Owen, Charles A (Jr.)
Thomas Hahn and Alan Lupack, eds. Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck (Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 259-74.
The autobiographical character of Chaucer-the-pilgrim's reportage and of the individual "Tales" in CT intensifies the nuanced contradictions of the Manciple's portrait in GP,of the competing voices in the lengthy ManP, and of the Manciple's…
De Looze, Laurence.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.
Defines a genre that "plays with questions of truth, authority, and the relationship between the life 'in' a book and life 'outside' a book," a genre that both asserts autobiographical verity and calls "into question the possibility that the…
Furrow, Melissa [M.]
Forum for Modern Language Study 33 (1997): 244-57.
Uses extracts from the Middle English "Mirrur," the fourteenth-century translation of Robert de Gretham's thirteenth-century sermon collection, to explore the context and significance of Ret.
Like the fifth "passus" in the C-text of "Piers Plowman," ParsT and Ret use confession as a means of inscribing the author's identity within the poem. Langland's "autobiographical" passage--part confession, part "apologia"--integrates his…
An examination of "wit" and its near synonyms provides a control for the study of terms of cognition. Bo discards native words such as "understanding" and "knowing," in favor of Romance words such as "intelligence" and "science." These latter terms…
Rissanen, Matti.
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 31 (1997): 237-48.
Compares Bo with the versions by "Alfred," Walton (1410), Colville (1556), "I. T." (1609), and Preston (1695), tracing the assimilation of sophisticated Latin terminology into English discourse.
Havely, Nicholas R.
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. 61-81.
The Dantean aspects of HF, especially its invocations, not only recall the "Divine Comedy" but also reflect contemporary Italian reception and performance of Dante's masterpiece.
Robeson, Lisa G.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1997): 451A.
Ancient writings, especially inscriptions in stone, impressed the medieval reader as the most reliable of records of past wisdom, even though they might be paradoxical or, eventually, disregarded. Considers "Queste del Saint Graal," HF, and…
Serrano Reyes, Jesus L.
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. 326-37.
Argues that Chaucer visited Catalonia sometime between 1365 and 1366. Exposure to the country's folklore results in Chaucer's description of folk "alle on an hepe" in HF (2149). Serrano Reyes provided contemporary pictures of this type of "human…
The chaos in HF is partly the result of multiple interpretations of texts and massive disagreement among the characters. Geffrey may curse the individual who "misinterprets" his writing, but he is partly joking. Only those authors whose texts are…
Argues that Chaucer drew on Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and the "Ovide moralise" rather than on Geoffrey of Monmouth for his description of Pyramus's death in LGW.
Fradenburg, Louise O.
Karma Lochrie, Peggy McCracken, and James A. Schultz, eds. Constructing Medieval Sexuality. Medieval Cultures, no. 11 (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesote Press, 1997), pp. 135-57.
Lacanian analysis of LGW that considers the hope of redemption as a function of charity in Aquinas and in Freud's commentary on Daniel Paul Schreber. Though beautiful and concerned with love, LGWP promises but does not fulfill the desire it creates,…
Harding, Wendy.
Marcel Faure, ed. Felonie, trahison, reniements au moyen age. Actes du troiseme colloque international de Montpellier Universite Paul-Valery, 24-26 novembre 1995. Cahiers du CRISIMA (Centre de Recherche sur l'Imaginaire et la Societe au Moyen Age), no. 3 (Montpellier: Publications de l'Universite Paul-Valery, 1997), pp. 441-52.
In LGW, Chaucer reflects on his role as poet, his relation to past and present, and his responsibility to his readers, comically exploring how literature must betray its sources through the accusation that the dreamer betrays courtly values. TC and…
Seymour, M. C.
Modern Language Review 92 (1997): 832-41.
Compares the original (F) version with the revised (G) version of LGWP, commenting on stages of transmission of G--from its composition to the extant manuscript Cambridge University Library Gg 4.27. Hypothesizes that Chaucer revised LGWP as a…
Taylor, Andrew.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 19 (1997): 95-119.
Reconsiders what role Anne may have had as a patron of Chaucer, examining her literary interests and political career and assessing the relation between these and the depiction of Alceste in LGWP. From Lydgate forward, the construction of Chaucer as…
Watson, Nicholas.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27 (1997): 145-87.
The belief that all humanity will attain salvation occurs with surprising frequency in Middle English writings. Though influenced by Latin theology, the sentiment was generated primarily by English and Anglo-Norman vernacular culture. PF shows the…
Surveys Ockhamism and Chaucer's exposure to it. Through both a "philosophical interpretation of character" and a close analysis of images, words, and discourse, Andretta maintains Chaucer's allegiance to "manifest truths that are skeptical, and only…
Bankert, Dabney Anderson.
Dissertation Abstracts International 57 (1997): 4733A.
Considers biblical, historical, traditional, and hagiographical accounts of conversion, exploring Chaucer's appropriation of them to psychologize courtly love or "'fin'amors' as a surrogate religion" in TC.
Bloomfield, Josephine.
Modern Philology 94 (1997): 291-304.
Although Chaucer's narrator is sympathetic to the hero of TC, Troilus's "stellification" contradicts our expectations because he values his own desires over the welfare of the polis. Chaucer's "political and moral judgment against Troilus's…
Explores political implications of PF, commenting on the theme of common profit and on Chaucer's political situation. Examines the role of Nature as an advocate of hierarchy and a suppresser of rebellion.
Fehrenbacher, Richard W.
Exemplaria 9 (1997): 341-69.
Readers who refuse to recognize Pandarus's incestuous desire risk participating in the denial of such desire in patriarchal societies; they also risk colluding in society's invocation of the incest taboo, which underlies traffic in women.
Aristotelian natural philosophy, specifically the doctrines of natural place and natural motion, lie at the heart of the structure and meaning of TC. Troilus and Criseyde are bodies in motion toward their natural resting places; their natures--her…
Hanning, Robert W.
Chaucer Yearbook 4 (1997): 79-83
Reads "thus seyde here and howne" (TC 4.210) as "everyone agreed," a reading supported by reference to Henry Knighton's "Chronicle," in which Howne's army ("Hownher") may have connoted wide consensus in popular tradition.
Jimura, Akiyuki.
English and English Teaching, Vol. 2: A Festschrift in Honour of Kiichiro Nakatani (Hiroshima: Department of English, Faculty of School Education, Hiroshima University, 1997), pp. 57-69.
In TC, descriptions of nature, including natural objects, plants, and animals, reflect the characters' emotions. When characters "act in harmony with nature," things go well; when they act against nature, they are destroyed by its "uncontrollable…
