Patterson, Lee, ed.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Ten previously published essays or excerpts from longer works by various authors, with an introduction and a brief bibliography of suggested readings. Topics include GP and estates literature (Jill Mann); design and chaos in KnT (Robert W. Hanning);…
Thompson, N. S.
Jay Parini, ed. British Writers Classics. Vol. 1 (New York: Scribner, 2002), pp. 41-63. Electronic edition, 2003.
Summary description of CT, commenting (in the Ellesmere order) on each of the fragments, source materials of the tales, and the ways that Chaucer combines traditional and innovative concerns. The CT is a "work held together by contrast." Includes a…
Simpson, James.
Frank Bezner and Beate Kellner, eds. Alanus ab Insulis und das europäische Mittelalter (Paderborn: Brill, 2022), pp. 179-94.
Assesses how Chaucer's references to Alain de Lille's works in HF, 985–89 and PF, 315–18 distinguish his own poetic project from the Neoplatonic ideals that Alain represents, preferring worldly tidings to the spiritual wisdom of the empyrean, and…
Cornelius, Michael J.
Zachary Michael Jack, ed. Black Earth and Ivory Tower: New American Essays from Farm and Classroom (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005), pp. 143-55.
Assesses Chaucer's respect for the work of medieval farmers and medieval students (as evident in GP and ClT), interspersed with Cornelius' recollections of his decision to leave farming for academic study.
Keller, Wolfram R.
Thomas Honegger and Dirk Vanderbeke, eds. From Peterborough to Faery: The Poetics and Mechanics of Secondary Worlds; Essays in Honour of Dr. Allan G. Turner's 65th Birthday (Zurich: Walking Tree, 2014), pp. 1-24.
Describes the medieval understanding of "faculty psychology"--the three cells or ventricles where imagination, logic, and memory reside--and argues that HF "takes the audience" through the three ventricles, while exploring the creative potential of…
Yıldız, Nazan.
[Yildiz, Nazan]
Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi (Hacettepe University) 32.2 (2015): 299-312.
Explores the social status of the Prioress as someone caught between "her former and present estates, the nobility and the clergy respectively," exploring her "hybrid identity" at this interface Includes an abstract in Turkish and in English.
Cornelius, Michael G.
Jerilyn Fisher and Ellen S. Silber, eds. Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2003, pp. 69-71.
The stereotypes depicted in Cecilia, the Wife of Bath, and Griselda reflect the continuing conflict between women who want to escape submissive roles and those who accommodate abusive relationships. Cornelius encourages classroom discussion of SNT,…
Study guide to the CT, with synopses, character descriptions, suggestions or research papers and sample tests, backgrounds on Chaucer's life and times, and bibliography.
Powers, Tom.
Carmina Philosophiae 26-27 (2020 for 2017–18): 1-194.
Presents a modern English translation of the facing-page 1868 edition of Chaucer's Bo. Claims in introduction that "this is not a work of scholarship but of love and gratitude." Adjusts "punctuation and paragraphing of the Middle English text in…
Hernández Pérez, M. Beatriz.
I. Moskowich-Spiegel Fandiño, ed. Re-Interpretations [sic] of English. Essays on Literature, Culture and Film (I) ([La Coruña]: Universidade da Coruña, 2001), pp. 85-101.
Explores issues of persona, authorship, and reception in Th and Mel, focusing on the links between Tales, the Host's role, and the "evolution" of the pilgrim Chaucer.
The anti-Robertsonian introduction (pp. 1-7) rejects "systems of codes." If Chaucer had been writing in modern times, he would have written "The TV Evangelist's Tale." Chaucer's Pardoner is "obscenely formidable and a laughable charlatan."
Wicher, Andrzej.
Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture 3 (2013): 42-57.
Discusses MerT; Boccaccio's "Decameron," 7.9; and "Sir Orfeo" as "slightly different" varieties of the enchanted-tree motif, emphasizing their structural similarities, their uses of enchantment, and the relative happiness of their endings.
