Passmore, S. Elizabeth.
Medieval Feminist Forum 36: 36-40, 2003.
Passmore discusses three examples of "written women," whose stories are "filtered through the impressions and words of a male writer." The Wife of Bath's question about who painted the lion (WBP 3.692) indicates that women's writings, if unmediated…
Crocker, Holly A.
Medieval Feminist Forum 39 (2005): 29-37
The proverbs signed "Impingham" in Harley 7333 derive from Chaucer, but the emphases and arrangement of the proverbs present a more reductive view of women than is found in Chaucer's works.
Federico, Sylvia.
Medieval Feminist Forum 43.1 (2007): 72-75.
Discusses, on the one hand, psychoanalytic approaches to literature, femininity, and various aspects of Troilus and the narrator of TC; and, on the other hand, historicism, masculinity, and other features of Troilus and the narrator. Points out…
Bestul, Thomas H.
Medieval Feminist Forum 45.1 (2009): 68-92.
Biographical sketch of Bressie, focusing on her work with John M. Manly, Edith Rickert, and Lilian Redstone on the Chaucer life-records and her unsuccessful competition with Martin Crow to publish works related to Chaucer. Bestul admires Bressie's…
Magnani, Roberta.
Medieval Feminist Forum 50 (2014): 90-126.
Discusses Emily's subjectivity and "empowered devotional femininity" in KnT. Contends that Chaucer's "queer hermeneutics" adjusts "traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity" within KnT.
Waymack, Anna.
Medieval Feminist Forum 53.1 (2017): 150-75.
Contemplates the pedagogical issues involved in confronting rape in Chaucer's life and works, with emphasis on the life-records that pertain to Cecily Chaumpaigne--especially their ambiguities--and attention to the experiences of modern students and…
Otaño Gracia, Nahir I., and Daniel Armenti.
Medieval Feminist Forum 53.1 (2017): 176-201.
Includes comments on MLT, arguing that it "demonstrates the belief that not everyone can become a true Christian and that true Christianity can only be acquired by the right kind of pagans, such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings," but not Muslims.
Argues that the "bond" between Canacee and the falcon in SqT is "grounded in the theme of female friendship" although seen from the "avian perspective"--an "intersectional" approach that "interprets Canacee as avian, rather than the falcon as…
Petrosillo, Sara.
Medieval Feminist Forum 54, no. 1 (2018): 9-33.
Observes how the "tension between control and release" in premodern falconry is "salient for feminist approaches to representations of gender when birds stand in for women's sexual bodies," exploring the implications of associations between women and…
Elmes, Melissa Ridley.
Medieval Feminist Forum 54.1 (2018): 50-64.
Reviews the scholarship concerning the bond between Canacee and the falcon in SqT and argues that this posthumanist bond "derives from their femaleness, which for the tale-teller transcends species in favor of a gendered sameness borne of similar…
Tracy, Larissa.
Medieval Feminist Forum 54.2 (2018): 64-108.
Explores the implications of reading the Pardoner as a cross-dressing female, arguing that Chaucer leaves "her" characterization ambiguous, plays on "cultural associations of cross-dressing," and "legitimiz[es] the rhetorical power of female…
Pedersen, David.
Medieval Feminist Forum 55, no. 2 (2019): 98-114.
Argues that the Wife's non-congenital deafness signifies not spiritual deafness, but damage done to her by the contents of Jankyn's book, which she, ironically, destroys. Compares Alison's interpretations of Scripture in WBP with those of Jerome in…
Morrison, Susan Signe.
Medieval Feminist Forum 56, no. 2 (2020): 73-92.
Uses "lessons from trauma studies concerning silence, as well as new materialist and ecocritical approaches," to explore the resistance of Griselda's patient silence. "[T]hrough a preponderant use of negative words"--a "poetics of negation"--Griselda…
Alberghini, Jennifer.
Medieval Feminist Forum 57 (2022): 7-34.
Explores Criseyde's role as daughter in TC, Calkas's putative authority over her in marital matters, and the views of other characters concerning her ambiguous, conditional consent to her father's wishes. Treats Criseyde's "feminine virtue" and…
Zygogianni, Maria.
Medieval Feminist Forum 58 (2022): 106-27.
Examines May of MerT as a version of the motif of the healing woman, familiar "across medieval literary genres from romance to hagiography." The fabliau setting of the tale, however, inverts a range of "courtly and religious hierarchies" as May…
A "center-free analysis" of MLT discloses that Donegild is "an embodiment of a folklore motif," while the Sowdanesse (Sultaness) is a hostile ideological construct.
Brief comments about "pairing" WBP and Christine de Pizan in the classroom; mentions the Wife's "deliberate misreading, invective, and outright mockery" of misogynistic writing, and Chaucer's irony that "slices Jerome and the Wife with a single…
Chaucer leaves both suffering and heroism "open to ambiguous interpretation" in KnT, prompting readers to go beyond disorder and hopelessness and discover Boethian consolation, which is anchored in recognition of the true good.
Creates in reconstructed Middle English a description, prologue, and tale for an additional pilgrim, the warrener. The description and prologue are in couplets (including speeches by the Host and Prioress), and the prose tale is an adaptation of the…
Reads Mel as a narrative of anger and anger management in which Prudence's "transformative" advice helps Melibee resolve his personal and political anger, even though his fundamental anger against God is not reconciled.
