Landman, James [H.]
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20 (1998): 1-39.
In MLT, the torment of Constance is explicitly linked with the judicial torture of Alla's messenger. A notion of a "single, certain truth" underlies the concern with torture in the Tale, also reflected in the attitude toward fiction expressed in MLP…
Landman, James H.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 28 (1998): 389-425.
Both CYPT and the "Book of Margery Kempe" raise questions about community and selfhood. In each, an individual criticizes his or her community to the members of a different, markedly less local community. The two texts suggest the precariousness of…
Landman, James H.
New Medieval Literatures 4: 139-70, 2001.
Decried by detractors such as Gower and Langland, legal discourse was a way of bridging the growing gap between legal tradition and contemporary reality. Although it satirizes legal pragmatism, The "Tale of Beryn" reflects appreciation of such…
Landman, James Henry.
Dissertation Abstracts International 57 (1996): 2492A.
The complicated matrix of late-medieval law, with its efforts to seek truth (even by torture), sheds light on the historical dynamics of various works.
Identifies concerns with patience and marriage in sources and analogues of ClT, and explores the status of these concerns in medieval scriptural commentaries. Argues that ClT presents a clearly orthodox view of marriage which underlies the Clerk's…
SNP and SNT express a feminist point of view not present in the original sources and analogues, but added by Chaucer in order to portray dramatically her character. She is contrasted with the Prioress and the Nun's Priest.
Landy, Joshua.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012
Applies understanding of literary texts, including Chaucer's CT, to ideas of everyday life. Chapter 1, "Chaucer: Ambiguity and Ethics," addresses the benefits of using NPT, in particular, to teach ethics and issues of morality.
Lane, Robert C.
Anne C. Hargrove and Maurine Magliocco, eds. Portraits of Marriage in Literature (Macomb: Western Illinois University, 1984), pp. 107-24.
The marriage speech of Averagus and Dorigen is of pivotal importance in understanding the dynamics of their marriage. Human interaction does not guarantee valid or shared meaning.
Mentions Hoccleve's role in establishing Chaucer as the prototypical English writer in the course of a larger discussion of Hoccleve's negotiation of the relationship between author and reader.
Langdell, Sebastian J.
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2018.
Focuses on Hoccleve's engagement "with contemporary religious reform movements and religious debate," arguing that he was interested in the "spiritual health of English society" rather than "earthly fame," and exploring how Hoccleve invented Chaucer…
Langdell, Sebastian.
New Medieval Literatures 16 (2016): 250-76.
Investigates the "moral version of Chaucer that emerges" in Hoccleve's "Regiment of Princes," arguing that it is a kind of poetic authority produced "in the face of an increasingly militant and repressive English Church," and that, unlike other early…
Langdon, Alison Ganze
Year's Work in Medievalism 28 (2012): 2-9.
Examines ClT and Maria Edgeworth's "The Modern Griselda" in light of their respective contemporaneous conduct manuals for women, arguing that the protagonist of each narrative becomes "monstrous" in "fulfilling too completely the ideals of womanhood…
Langdon, Alison, ed.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Questions the assumed "medieval distinction between humans and other animals" and explores language used by humans and nonhumans in the Middle Ages. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Animal Languages in the Middle Ages under…
Langdon, Alison.
Enarratio: Journal of the Medieval Association of the Midwest 17 (2010): 61-76.
Assesses ClT in comparison with its sources to argue that Chaucer's version critiques Griselda's complete submission of her will to Walter's, disclosing its ethical invalidity as lacking right reason.
Langenfelt, Gösta.
English Studies 36 (1955): 222-27.
Cites Bo and quotes portions of "The Former Age" as evidence of medieval transmission of ancient ideas about "about the happy age before the coming of civilization."
Surveys the tradition of a "fantasy of ritual murder" of a Christian boy by Jews, focusing on its manifestations in accounts of the death of Hugh of Lincoln and various sources and analogues, both historical and literary, including PrT and later…
Lanham, Richard A.
Lanham, Richard A. The Motives of Eloquence: Literary Rhetoric in the Renaissance (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. 65-81.
Chaucer's "detached role" in CT establishes his "characteristic attitude toward human behavior--the rhetorical attitude," which views social interaction as a series of roles played in accord with conditional games. Comments on the Host, the Wife of…
Lanham, Richard A.
Lanham, Richard A. Literacy and the Survival of Humanism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 41-57.
The "homo ludens" tradition from Erasmus to Huizinga and the recent development of sociobiology reveal three motives in life and art: play, purpose, and game. Critics focusing on allegory or "idea" see purpose as Chaucer's primary motive, but his…
Lanham, Richard A.
Studies in Medieval Culture 3 (1970): 169-76.
Assesses Pandarus, Troilus, and Criseyde as prisoners of their own rhetorics (proverbial wisdom, courtliness, and expediency, respectively) and the social conventions that attend them, reading TC as a "comedy about man's inevitable imprisonment in…
Lanham, Richard A.
English Studies 48 (1967): 1-24.
Challenges Matthew Arnold's assertion that Chaucer's poetry lacks "high seriousness," considering the issue in light of game theory and Chaucer's attitude toward characterization. Because Chaucer's viewed character as performative role-playing…
Lanham, Richard A.
Literature and Psychology 16 (1966): 157-65.
Challenges psychoanalytic approaches to ClT and rejects the approaches that read the poem either as a Christian parable of authoritarianism or a rejection of authority as a "disease of monarchy." Argues that Chaucer creates the Tale as an expression…
Lanier, Sidney.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1977): 5800A.
LGW provides an important statement of Chaucer's poetics. It recognizes his genuine debt to his French contemporaries. The poet-dreamer does not reject or parody the tradition of "fin amor," but under its direction he acknowledges the poet's duty…
Lankewish, Vincent A.
Victorian Poetry 60 (2022): 35-164; 10 b&w illus.
Introduces the activities and concerns of a Victorian "salon" conducted by John Ruskin and Edward Burne-Jones in which young women could "engage in serious conversations about medieval poetry, about art, and about humanitarianism and virtue." Focuses…
Lanoue, David G.
Dissertation Abstracts International 42 (1981): 1141-42A.
Medieval musical allusions provide an internationally shared set of signs for allegorical poetry and help unify medieval literature stylistically. Ruiz ironically conflates the fleshly and heavenly aspects of music, and Machaut employs harmony to…
