Argues that the "organization and success" of MilT depends upon the "dramatic irony" of tensions between its courtly and common, sacred and profane, and realistic and fantastic elements, exploring such tensions in the signifying names of the…
Hall, Louis Brewer.
Mediaeval Studies 25 (1963): 148-59.
Describes five medieval redactions of Virgil's "Aeneid," "widely separated geographically and chronologically," assessing how they "medievalized" the material in conventional ways, and using these "conventions" to discuss Chaucer's successful…
Beichner, Paul E.
Mediaeval Studies 25 (1963): 160-72.
Contrasts medieval and modern charitable giving, indulgence granting, and false relics, and assesses the Pardoner as a "professional collector," and "high-pressure fund raiser," reading PardPT as "an exposition" of the Pardoner's "fund-raising…
Severs, J. Burke.
Mediaeval Studies 25 (1963): 355-62.
Locates in Old French love poems sources for various aspects of BD, citing previously unnoticed parallels with passages from Guillaume de Machaut and Jean Froissart, and arguing that similar parallels and the "general situation and conduct" of…
Clarifies the conventionality of Chaucer's references to allegorical and/or exemplary animals and their significances, offering numerous examples to show that Chaucer's allusions are "brief" and generally similar to and/or derived from "the most…
Aligns Chaucer's juxtaposition of owls and apes in NPT 7.3092 with the "moral obliquity" of the two animals in medieval art and sculpture, identifying origins in patristic commentary.
Hartung, Albert E.
Mediaeval Studies 29 (1967): 1-25.
Evaluates MerT in light of its sources and analogues, including the "Miroir de Mariage," Boccaccio's "Ameto," and the "Elegies of Maximianus," the latter identified here as an analogue for the first time, with its presentation of "amorous senility…
Levy, Bernard S., and George R. Adams.
Mediaeval Studies 29 (1967): 178-92.
Identifies patterns, details, images, and wording in NPT that direct the "reader's attention not only to basic biblical narrative of Adam and Eve, but also to the theological commentary on the Fall." The overall moral of the Tale is the universality…
Explores the "ambivalent status" of clerks in the Middle Ages and the significance of clerkly success in "quiting" (defeating, taking vengeance on) carpenters and millers in MilT and RvT. In the latter, Chaucer avoids "quiting" the Reeve and thereby…
Summarizes various problems in dealing with Chaucer's imagery, and examines the imagery in KnT and MilT. In both tales, images tend to "appear in clusters" and they are oftentimes linked in "iterative" patterns to reinforce theme. Considers animal…
Assesses the likelihood of Chaucer's familiarity with Peter Abelard's "Historia Calamitatum" and his knowledge of the story of Heloise and Abelard via Jean de Meun, arguing that the "Historia" has parallels with Chaucer's treatment of virginity…
Wimsatt, James I.
Mediaeval Studies 34 (1972): 388-400.
Summarizes similarities between BD and Jean Froissart's "Dit dou Bleu Chevalier," and argues that Froissart imitated Chaucer's poem, commenting on the occasions of the poems and their relative chronology, narrative and linguistics details, and the…
Engelhardt, George J.
Mediaeval Studies 36 (1974): 278-330.
Argues that in his characterizations of the non-ecclesiastical pilgrims of CT Chaucer emulated the devices and techniques of medieval ethology, based in the "contemptus mundi" tradition, and variously prescriptive and descriptive. Comments on GP as a…
Engelhardt, George J.
Mediaeval Studies 37 (1975): 287-315.
Each of the ecclesiastical pilgrims of CT is related to a type of ethos codified in church commentary. The Clerk, who gladly teaches and learns, is a kind of "hilaris dator". The Monk is a "praelatus puer" whose passion for hunting makes him a…
Kibler, William W.,and James I. Wimsatt.
Mediaeval Studies 45 (1983): 22-78.
These poems from the University of Pennsylvania MS French 15 show what was happening to the pastourelle and serventois in France from 1300 to the time when Froissart began writing similar lyrics in London, before 1364.
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Mediaeval Studies 51 (1989): 313-28.
The Clerk's dismissal of Petrarch's opening "descriptio" is ironic--for the "king of rivers" would be understood by knowledgeable pilgrims to signify rhetorical powers and divine wisdom. In fact, the Clerk deploys a full range of rhetorical figures…
Ruud, Jay.
Mediaevalia 10 (1988, for 1984): 199-212.
Although Buk appears to be a condemnation of marriage, Chaucer may have been experimenting with the philosophy of Ockham and Williams in presenting two paths to "knowing": experimentation and trusting authority. Buk reflects Chaucer's concerns…
Johnson, Lynn Staley.
Mediaevalia 11 (1989, for 1985): 121-28.
The Clerk's "apparently subversive narration" draws the reader away from pathos toward "harder wisdom." ClT is a "gem of narrative irony." The Clerk manipulates reader response by exploiting "techniques of irony" and pointing out inconsistencies in…
Carlson, Paula J.
Mediaevalia 11 (1989, for 1985): 139-50.
In LGWP, Alceste is a more complicated character than is suggested by references to her in TC: "Alceste's truth, goodness, and faithfulness are offset in the Prologue by her obstinance, petulance, and fickleness." Critical readings ignore the…
Wurtele, Douglas J.
Mediaevalia 11 (1989, for 1985): 151-68.
Those similarities to Lollard doctrine--protest against blasphemy, unwillingness to "curse for tithes," and distaste for storytelling--that have been used to argue that Chaucer's Parson was a Lollard or Wycliffite were not peculiar to the Lollards;…
Brown, Murray L.
Mediaevalia 11 (1989, for 1985): 219-44.
Conjectures that, while Deschamps may have met Chaucer in 1360, his "Ballade to Chaucer" was probably written in 1391 and reflects the association of Chaucer and Deschamps with the Order of the Passion of Jesus Christ in the late 1380s and early…
Delany, Sheila.
Mediaevalia 13 (1989, for 1987): 275-94.
A twelfth-century "lai" and its fourteenth-century moralization, both in the 'Ovide moralise,' provided Chaucer verbal details and a general concept for his treatment of "Thisbe" in LGW. Echoing the fissure between the 'lai' and the…
