Magoun, Francis P. Jr.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
Identifies and describes geographical names and places used by Chaucer or evidently known to him. Arranged alphabetically, the dictionary lists names, describes the places, and their occurrences in Chaucer's works, offering etymologies for British…
Magoun, Francis P., Jr.
Traditio 11 (1955): 409-20.
Quotes, translates, and anatomizes the Latin "arguments" of the "books" found in Statius' "Thebaid" that underlie Cassandra's summary of the Statius' work in TC 5.1457-1533, with its twelve-line Latin summary interpolated in most TC manuscripts.…
Magoun, Francis P.,Jr.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 77 (1976): 253.
The so-called original "Dunmow Oath" quoted by G.E.L. Johnson in the quarterly "This England" V (1972), 53, col. 3 is much more recent than the Dumdow [sic] Flitch spoken of by Chaucer's Wife of Bath in her prologue.
Magoun, Francis P.,Jr.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 78 (1977): 46.
"Townes end" translates, literally, as "the town's end," a concept that has lost its meaning in our modern society of expanding cities. Chaucer's "estres" has a much broader meaning than merely "the ins and outs of a building." Virtually the entire…
Magoun, Francis P.,Jr., and Tauno F. Mustanoja.
Speculum 50 (1975): 48-54.
The portrait is more static and less chimerical than its sources in the "Aeneid" and the "Apocalypse." By focusing on one detail as others recede in a flexible irrational dream vision, Chaucer surrealistically blends elements of chimera and goddess…
Magoun, Francis, P., Jr.
Mediaeval Studies 16 (1954): 131-51.
Alphabetical gazetteer of "names in Great Britain. mainly England" found in Chaucer's works. Entries include modern equivalents, Chaucerian forms, and explanations of references and allusions in his works to sites and locales.
Magoun, Francis, P., Jr.
Mediaeval Studies 15 (1953): 107-36.
Alphabetical gazetteer of "geographical and ethnic names of the ancient and biblical world as reflected in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer," along with "names pertaining to . . . the geography of Greek mythology" and the "names of languages" found…
Argues that Chaucer encourages his audience to "view the affair between Troilus and Criseyde as a clandestine marriage rather than as an illicit love affair," different from the analogous relationship in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and consistent with…
Surveys representations of Helen in literature, assessing the characterization in light of prevailing attitudes towards such topics as beauty, sexual culpability, and rape. Includes a summary of Chaucer's Helen in TC as an example of ambiguity, where…
Maguire, Laurie.
Rory Loughnane and Andrew J. Power, eds. Early Shakespeare 1588–1594 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 121-46.
Explores relations between Franklin--the tale-telling character of "Arden of Faversham"--and Chaucer's Franklin as narrator of FranT, concentrating on scenes in the play attributed to Shakespeare, and focusing on the "subject matter and literary…
Mahaffy, Mary Caitlin.
Ph.D. Dissertation. (Indiana University, 2022),
Dissertation Abstracts International A83.12(E).
"[E]xplores how understandings of nonhuman animals and the environment shaped which human behaviors were labeled natural prior to the Enlightenment." Includes comments on animals, animal imagery, and environmental idealism in Form Age, MilT, and PF.
Mahameed, Mohammed, and Al-Quran Raji.
Nebula 8.1 (2011): 199-208.
Asserts that details of astrology, astronomy, and mythology in BD, TC, and CT evince Chaucer's confused and skeptical views of Christianity, commenting on passages from LGW and CT. Available at http://nobleworld.biz/images/Mohammed_Raji.pdf (last…
Tabulates liturgical references within CT and argues that the poem depicts the secularization of liturgy and its appropriation for social control, while also presenting a carnivalesque celebration of the reversal of social hierarchy.
Comments on food-producing labor as a motif in GP (and elsewhere in CT), in contrast with idleness, wealth-seeking, or nonproductive labor, especially among clerics. Associates these concerns with English history and ideological struggle.
Mahdipour, Alireza.
Literature Compass 15.6 (2018)
Explores cultural, prosodic, and personal aspects of translating selections from CT into Farsi verse, with sustained attention to GP, the translatability of Chaucer, and parallels between his work and Persian literature and culture.
Mahler, Andreas.
Andrew James Johnston, Russell West- Pavlov, and Elisabeth Kempf, eds. Love, History and Emotion in Chaucer and Shakespeare: "Troilus and Criseyde" and "Troilus and Cressida" (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), pp. 32-45.
Maintains that Chaucer in TC and Shakespeare in "Troilus and Cressida" present love as detached from history or topicality, depicting it through irresolvable plural discourses--Platonic, Petrarchan, courtly love-sickness, and more--and thereby…
Mahoney, Dhira B.
Douglas Kelly, ed. The Medieval "Opus": Imitation, Rewriting, and Transmission in the French Tradition. (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 405-27.
Discusses medieval English translation of Christine's works, focusing on Hoccleve's translation of "L'Epistre au Dieu d'Amours." Also considers the influence of LGW on Hoccleve's translation.
Mahoney, John F.
Annuale Mediaevale 3 (1962): 81-99.
Revisits the concept of "Chaucerian tragedy," considering KnT, MLT, and NPPT, as well as TC and MkT, and explores the faults or faultlessness of Fortune's victims in these works, the moral sophistication of the narrators of the tales, classical…
Study guide to PardPT and the Pardoner's description in the GP, with a running commentary (text not included), survey of topics and themes, suggestions for essay writing, a chronology, and supplemental materials
Accepts that the first eighty-eight lines of WBP are a late addition, and argues that they reflect comic awareness of the unorthodox movement, the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit, echoing its valorization of sexual activity and multiple marriages,…
Mahowald, Kyle.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 32 (2010): 129-50.
Similar to gift giving as theorized by Jacques Derrida (in response to Marcel Mauss), the dividing of the fart in SumT is "an impossible" that prompts logical deliberation and logocentric reflection. Linked via punning, the giving of money in SumT is…
Identifies the "Catholic Humanist rhetorical" ideal that combines "wit and wisdom" in Shakespeare's "As You Like It," examining ten individual scenes. Opens with background to this ideal in European humanism, especially Italian and English, including…
