Jost, Jean E.
Albrecht Classen, ed. The Book and the Magic of Reading in the Middle Ages. (New York and London: Garland, 1998), pp. 171-217.
Chaucer involves his readers in a romancelike quest of introspection. By way of infinite regression, they encounter first the text, then a reading character, and finally themselves. The process encourages both Socratic self-knowledge and pleasurable…
Coss, Peter R.
Phoenix Mill, Gloucestershire : Sutton, 1998.
Defines the late-medieval idea of a "gentilwoman," its evolution, its relation to male gentility, and its representations in medieval art and literature. Briefly considers Chaucer's Prioress as a depiction of the "behavioural traits" of a medieval…
Sauer, Walter.
Heidelberg : Universittsverlag C. Winter, 1998.
An introduction to the phonetics and phonology of Chaucer's language in two parts: first, the reconstruction of the phonetic and phonemic system of Chaucer's English and its diachronic development; second, the text of GP with a phonetic…
Cannon, Christopher.
Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Historical analysis of Chaucer's complete lexicon, arguing that his English is traditional rather than innovative. Chaucer naturalizes French and Latin words in ways similar to those of his English predecessors, often fusing foreign and native forms.…
Schulz, Herbert C.
San Marino, Calif. : Huntington Library, 1998.
Revised reprint of 1966 original; a description of the Ellesmere manuscript, its illuminations, and its history. Includes a new "Bibliographical Note" by Joseph A. Dane and Seth Lerer, plus their additions to Schulz's list of reproductions of…
Windeatt, Barry, trans.
Oxford and New York : Oxford University Press, 1998.
Prose translation of TC aimed at the general reader, with introduction (30 pp.), explanatory notes (35 pp.), and indices of proverbs and names. The introduction comments on themes, date, sources, genre, and characterization.
Although both were Londoners, Chaucer and Langland did not share a common readership. Chaucer was acknowledged as a founder of a literary tradition; Langland was appropriated less often and more in ideological than aesthetic terms. Ownership of…
Dane, Joseph A.
Studies in Bibliography 51 (1998): 48-62.
Argues that the printer's copy for most of Thomas Speght's 1602 edition of Chaucer's works was not only a copy of the 1561 edition but "the same copy as was previously marked up to serve as printer's copy for the 1598 edition."
Carnegie, Teena A. M.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 2472A, 1998.
Experience, here defined in the context of feminist criticism, gives women the capacity to differentiate themselves from others as well as to identify with them. Gendered experience is examined in the works of many authors from antiquity to the…
Kaye, Joel.
S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon, eds. Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice. (Leiden, New York, and Köln: Brill, 1998), pp. 371-403.
Discusses the "impact on . . . consciousness" of late-medieval European economic expansion, focusing on evidence in French and English chronicles and on reflections of the rise of bourgeois power in fabliaux, in the "technical language of finance and…
Douglass, Rebecca M.
Studies in Medievalism 10: 136-63, 1998.
Ecocriticism is "a discipline that examines (criticizes) the relationship of texts to literal and figurative environments." Douglass's test case is an examination of how metaphors of nature are used in KnT and MilT to set off the person of Emilye,…
Wenzel, Siegfried.
Kent Emery, Jr., and Joseph Wawrykow, eds. Christ Among the Medieval Dominicans: Representations of Christ in the Texts and Images of the Order of Preachers. Notre Dame Conferences in Medieval Studies, no. 7 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), pp. 315-31.
Summarizes various kinds of influence Dominicans may have had on Chaucer, Gower, and Langland. From the lumping of Dominicans with other friars in literary portraits, to the influence of individual Dominican writers, to Dominican notions of salvation…
Fletcher, Alan J.
Portland, Ore., and Dublin : Four Courts Press, 1998.
A series of stand-alone studies, most reprinted in revised form from earlier publications. Includes a newly edited and translated Cistercian sermon and a new essay, "Langland and Preaching." Also includes, among other revisions, "Chaucer's Norfolk…
Hanawalt, Barbara A.
New York and Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1998.
Eleven essays by the author on establishing social control in late-medieval England, especially in London, considering topics such as class crime, rape, poaching, and family relations. The two essays that relate to Chaucer are printed elsewhere:…
Baumann, Eric James.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59: 483A, 1998.
Traces the development in English literature of attempts to "establish a poetic language mimetic of God's Logos." Explores writers from Chaucer to Eliot.
Ross, Trevor Thornton.
Montreal and Buffalo : McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998.
Describes development of the English literary canon in light of two parallel developments or "epistemological shifts": the development from a "rhetorical" to a "modern 'objectivist' culture" and the shift from an idea of "canonicity based on…
Wilson, Charles E., Jr.
Studies in Medievalism 10: 74-91, 1998.
Suggests that Naylor's novel "revises" CT by using Chaucer's frame technique to eliminate "unnecessary and arbitrary barriers, rules, and labels." Naylor makes the café, like the pilgrim fellowship, a kind of sanctuary.
Explores de Worde's multiple uses of the same woodcut (a depiction of an exchange of rings) in various books he produced. Found twice in de Worde's TC, the woodcut may reflect his reception of TC via the summary of it in John Skelton's "Phyllyp…
Rogers, Janine.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60 (1998): 4420A, 1998.
Professional book production and circulation in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, including Chauceriana, present courtly models for gender, eventually affecting rural gentry. The Findern MS revises femininity, and the female voice can be…
Beidler, Peter G., and Elizabeth M. Biebel, ed.
Toronto, Buffalo, and London : University of Toronto Press, 1998.
A comprehensive annotated bibliography of scholarly and critical discussion of WBPT, subdivided into the following categories: editions and translations (items 1-82), sources and analogues (items 83-206), the "Marriage Group" (items 207-56),…
Sylvester, Louise.
Studies in Medievalism 10: 120-35, 1998.
Reviews scholarship on the case of Chaucer and Cecilia Chaumpaigne, focusing on the meaning of raptus. Discusses recent treatments of rape as trope and explores its social and legal implications in medieval texts.
Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn, and Steven Justice.
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton and Maidie Hilmo, eds. The Medieval Professional Reader at Work: Evidence from Manuscripts of Chaucer, Langland, Kempe, and Gower (Victoria, British Columbia: U of Victoria, 2001), pp. 217-37.
Codicological analysis of the "Taylor Gower," produced by scribe D, who also produced two manuscripts of CT. This scribe and his "shadow" scribe (Scribe Delta) indicate possible entrepreneurial activity among English vernacular copyists.
Blake, N. F.
Hans-Jürgen Diller and Manfred Gorlach, eds. Towards a History of English as a History of Genres. Anglistiche Forschungen, no. 298. (Heidelberg: Winter, 2001), pp. 145-57.
The realism of fabliaux (and some drama) makes them valuable in studying the history of colloquial language, especially sexual colloquialisms. Blake draws examples from "Dame Sirith," MilT, RvT, WBP, and MerT, remarking on Chaucer's…
Dwyer, June.
Studies in Short Fiction 35: 307-18, 1998.
Two possible versions of women's attitudes toward violence appear in WBPT: WBT idealizes women as a civilizing force working to curb male violence; WBP portrays a woman who uses violence when other means of control fail. Both constructs of female…
Englade, Emilio.
Publications of the Medieval Association of the Midwest 5 : 34-57, 1998.
Dorigen of FranT is "more important as a figure that reflects back on men and their desires than as a distinct character in herself." Englade applies Georges Bataille's "expenditure" theory to show that there is "no place for Dorigen within the bonds…
