Collects excerpts documenting how "the modern study of Middle English became the way it is." Thirteen excerpts discuss language, from George Hickes (1642-1715) to James A. H. Murray (1837-1915), and nineteen consider literary criticism and…
A study of Chaucer's simultaneous employment of, and challenge to, comparative language and thinking. Chapter 1 explores dissimilarity and its "taxonomic force" in academic and religious traditions, while chapter 2 focuses on this subject in HF.…
Alamichel, Marie-Françoise.
Bulletin des Anglicistes Médiévistes 58: 5-37, 2000.
Examines medieval English widows. While Old English literature shows a general lack of interest in marriage and widowhood, Middle English literature is rich in various forms of testimonies. None of the widows surveyed shows true sorrow after the…
Alexander, Michael.
New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.
A narrative introduction to English literature from Old English to postmodernism, designed for the general reader. The discussion of Chaucer (pp. 55-62) emphasizes biography, PF, TC, and the ironies of CT.
Amtower, Laurel.
New York and Houndsmill, Basingstoke : Palgrave, 2000.
Analyzes depictions of reading in books of hours and assesses the theme of reading in Dante, Petrarch, Chaucer, and Christine de Pizan, examining a new "reflexive relationship" between "reading habits and the shaping of identity" in the late Middle…
Ashton, Gail.
London and New York : Routledge, 2000.
Analyzes the voices in medieval vernacular saints' lives: the controlling masculine voice and the submerged and subversive feminine voice. Defines female hagiography as a genre separable from male hagiography. French feminist critics (Cixous and…
Baker, Denise N., ed.
Albany : State University of New York Press, 2000.
Eleven essays examining the reciprocity between literature and history in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Inscribing the Hundred Years' War under Alternative Title.
Baule, Cynthia Anne.
Dissertation Abstracts International 61: 2293A, 2000.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the English laity became increasingly literate, in part because readers consumed religious literature to increase their devotion and to achieve personal relationship with God. PrT and SNT, among other…
Beal, Rebecca S.
Annali d'Italianistica 18: 175-98, 2000.
Concerned with issues of closure in texts of Guillaume de Lorris, Dante, and Boccaccio. Introduction notes recent criticism treating Chaucer's "open endings."
Benoit-Dusausoy, Annick, and Guy Fontaine, ed. Trans. Michael Wooff.
New York and London : Routledge, 2000.
Comprehensive survey of European literatures, writers, genres, motifs, and themes, from Homer to contemporary figures and trends. J. Smith, "Chaucer (c.1340-c.1400)," pp. 142-46, describes Chaucer and his works, discussing him as a humanist and a man…
Boenig, Robert, and Kathleen Davis, eds.
Lewisburg, Penn. :
Eleven essays by various authors, a bibliography of Bolton's publications, and an index. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Manuscript, Narrative, Lexicon under Alternative Title.
Bowers, John M.
Denise N. Baker, ed. Inscribing the Hundred Years' War in French and English Cultures (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), pp. 91-125.
Using postcolonial theory, events of the 100 Years' War, and speculations about Chaucer's war experiences, Bowers analyzes Chaucer's literary productions--from his early translations from French through LGW--as a reaction against French literary…
Twenty-nine essays on the literary, social, political, and geographical contexts within which Chaucer produced his work, as well as his response to contemporary ideologies. Each essay includes a survey of existing scholarship in a given area,…
Burrow, J. A., and Ian P. Wei, eds.
Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y. : Boydell, 2000.
Nine essays by various authors on topics related to common attitudes toward the future in the Middle Ages, i.e., theories and practices rather than apocalyptic concerns. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Medieval Futures under…
Burrow, John.
J. A. Burrow and Ian P. Wei, eds. Medieval Futures: Attitudes to the Future in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell, 2000), pp. 37-48.
The image of Prudence's third eye signifies looking to the future and implies that such prudential anticipation of implications and outcomes had "moral and even spiritual significance." Discusses the image and its implications in TC and Mel, as well…
Childress, Diana.
North Haven, Conn. : Linnet, 2000.
An introduction to the social, political, and intellectual history of Chaucer's age, aimed at a general audience. Individual chapters pertain to fourteenth-century England and its relations with the Continent, social hierarchy, "cracks" in the social…
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, ed.
New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.
Fourteen essays by various authors and an introduction by Cohen, using and critiquing postcolonial theory in discussing medieval texts. Topics include the idea of the Orient; notions of time (temporalities) in postcolonial studies; Christian…
Earnshaw, Steven.
Manchester and New York : Manchester University Press, 2000.
Explores drinking establishments (inns, taverns, alehouses, pubs) in English literature for how they have helped to constitute what is thought to be particularly English, starting with CT and Langland's "Piers Plowman" and ending with Martin Amis's…
Analyzes the development of th- forms of pronouns (as opposed to h- forms), suggesting that they have less to do with Scandinavian influence than with linguistic generalization and assimilation.
Horobin, Simon.
Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, and Matti Rissanen, eds. Placing Middle English in Context (Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 2000), pp. 199-207.
Compiles spelling variants of 'though' (thirteen manuscripts) and the verb 'work' (ten manuscripts) as they occur in CT, seeking to establish Chaucer's basic orthography and to explore scribal habits.
Jucker, Andreas H., and Irma Taavitsainen.
Journal of Historical Pragmatics 1: 67-95, 2000.
Anatomizes numerous examples of insults in English, from Unferth's challenge of Beowulf to "flaming" in e-mail communication, including examples from SNT, exchanges between the Host and the Cook, and exchanges between the Host and the Pardoner in CT.…
Knapp, Peggy A.
New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.
The words Corage/Courage, Estat/Estate, Fre/Free, Gloss, Kynde/Kind, Lewid/Lewd, Providence, Queynt/Quaint, Sely/Silly, Thrift, and Virtu/Virtue are time-bound. Like all other language, they are bound to and bounded by the social formation in which…
