Arner, Timothy D.
Medium Aevum 79.1 (2010): 68-89.
In TC, Diomede, rather than Troilus, functions as the second Hector, and Diomede is the only hero who escapes the cycle of Theban and Trojan violence. At a dangerous time in English history, Chaucer desires a healing ideology for England; his turn…
Challenges the identification of Adam Pynkhurst with Scribe B (the "label nowadays given to the scribe" of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts of CT). Surveys the history of identifying Pynkhurst as Scribe B, examines paleographical and linguistic…
Tasioulas, Jacqueline.
Medium Aevum 82.2 (2013): 213-35.
Explores "the role of the imagination" in KnT, with attention also to MilT and RvT, focusing on the "cerebral process" in the "amorous desire" of the characters, especially Arcite, whose lovers' malady results from his "lack of imaginative control."…
Maintains that the referent for "my lord" at the end of NPT (7.3445) is Thomas Bradwardine, and identifies parallels between the ending and Bradwardine's "De causa Dei."
Bellis, Joanna.
Medium Aevum 83.02 (2014): 210-34.
Intentional scribal adaptations of the "Siege of Rouen" in continuations of the "Brut" demonstrate that manuscript differences are often intentional and not "innocent." Raises anew questions of what it means for Chaucer to insist that Adam write…
O'Connell, Brendan.
Medium Aevum 84.1 (2015): 16–39.
Unlike Constance in Trevet and Gower, Custance in MLT does not speak with her would-be rapist; further, she immediately struggles with him and receives divine aid in overcoming him. Asserts that Chaucer's treatment of this scene demonstrates…
Knox, Philip, Mark Griffith, and William Poole.
Medium Aevum 85.1 (2016): 33-58.
Proposes that prefatory verses published in Kynaston's Latin translation of TC demonstrate a high degree of academic interest in Chaucer in seventeenth-century Oxford. Several verses praise Kynaston by criticizing Chaucer's "rudeness," but others…
Explores multiple meanings of "game"--as transgression, violent activity, pleasure, source of food--in "Gamelyn " (which takes the place of CkT in several texts of CT). Identifies idea of boundaries (legal and social) and punning on the name of…
Strakhov, Elizaveta.
Medium Aevum 85.2 (2016): 236-58.
Contends that Deschamps's "Ballade to Chaucer" alludes to a poetic debate between Philippe de Vitry and Jean de le Mote, to Ovidian exile, and to a poet's oeuvre as a garden. Claims that Deschamps's emphasis on translation and use of French and…
Stadolnik, Joseph.
Medium Aevum 85.2 (2016): 314-18.
Maintains that the quoted maxim on friendship in Astr is misattributed to classical sources and actually comes from a twelfth-century medical treatise, "Practica brevis," attributed to Johannes Platearius. While Chaucer may have seen the line in…
Exemplifies how metrical phonology ("the linguistic forms that fill out metre") supports A. S. G. Edwards's claim (in "Chaucer and 'Adam Scriveyn,' " MÆ 81 [2002]) that Chaucer may not have written the lyric Adam. In line 3, "longe" and "lokkes"…
Defines "pronominatio" and traces its background in medieval rhetorical handbooks; then surveys instances in the works of Chaucer, Gower, and Skelton, analyzing individual uses that convey either praise or censure given to characters by associating…
Seymour, Michael C.
Medium Aevum 87.1 (2018): 23-40
Demonstrates the need for a reexamination of the physical description and linguistic analysis of University of Glasgow, MS Hunter 409 (MS V.3.7) of Rom. Manuscript study reveals the "canard" that a northerner translated Fragment B. Refutes the…
Argues that Equat exemplifies how late medieval writers blended "theoretical and practical material, exploiting the flexibility of the vernacular and moulding it to their needs." Following Kari Anne Rand, treats Equat as the work of John Westwyk…
Presents an understanding of the rules of law, chivalry, and inheritance in "The Tale of Gamelyn." Demonstrates how these rules account for its apparent narrative (and, by extension, aesthetic) inconsistencies by showing how a knowledge of…
Analyzes Chaucer's "universalizing doublets," such as "up and doun," with those appearing in the Auchinleck Manuscript to suggest that Chaucer was not simply
imitating the diction of medieval romance: his usage mirrors that of Middle English…
Argues that complex acrostic anagrams in PF reveal that it was written on the occasion of negotiations for a marriage between Lionel of Clarence and Violanta Visconti; identifies French analogues to this intricate practice, and helping to date…
Observes that NPT differs from most of its cock-and-fox analogues "in its explicit, reiterated warning against flattery," a traditional feature of, instead, "fox-and-crow" tales. Also, the explicitness of the moral in NPT is a "convention…
Brookhouse, Christopher
Medium Ævum 34.1 (1965): 40-42.
Identifies several instances of Chaucer's uses of lists of impossibilities (rhetorical "adynata" or "impossibilia") in "personal laments and exclamations of fidelity and sincerity" (TC, BD, Anel), giving classical precedents in Virgil's "Eclogues"…
Discussion of Anglo-Norman fabliaux and their Latin antecedents. Elements of Anglo-Norman fabliaux are found in MerT, while MilT, RvT, and ShT follow Continental French fabliaux. Assessments of Anglo-Norman fabliaux are needed.
Examines the contents and provenance of MS Digby 86 (Bodleian); MS Harley 2253 (British Library); MSS fr. 837 and 19182 (Bibliothque Nationale); and Carmina Burana MS (Munich), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 4460 and 4460a. The literary techniques…
Hanna, Ralph, [III].
Medium Ævum 69: 279-91, 2000.
Discusses the "household book" of Humphrey Newton and its relation to "central literary culture." MS Lat. Misc. C.66 includes a section of ParsT (10.601-29), a section of KnT (1.3047-56), and a letter imitating Troilus upon seeing Criseyde.
Questions the traditional gloss of "shot wyndowe," arguing that the words refer to a window that opens inward, that is unglazed, and that, in MilT, is a window to a privy.
Examines the manuscript and editorial traditions of BD to argue for a new edition, based on MS Tanner 346, sensitive to the poem's octosyllabic meter and aware of scribal contamination. Suggests a number of emendations.
