McDonald, Rick.
Journal of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters 75: 76-8, 1998.
Chaucer's version of the Ceyx-Alcyone story differs from its predecessors in ways that emphasize how love can transcend death, helping to make the consolation of the poem particularly Christian.
McDonald, William C.
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fur Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 60 (1986): 543-71.
ParsT's statement of the medieval idea (of Peraldus) that true virtue derives from nobility of the spirit rather than from nobility of birth is examined in relation to its treatment by the late-medieval German authors Heinrich von Langenstein and…
Argues that genre and the discourses of desire in MerT prove too strong for the narrator, who is constantly conflicted about his presentation not only of linguistic and narrative desires but also of the psychoanalytic displacements of these desires.
McDuffie, Isaac
Ph.D. Dissertation. Louisiana State University, 2017.
Fully accessible at https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4182/; accessed February 5, 2025.
Argues that Chaucer's works "reflect an increasing awareness of the fragility of the author's implied voice and the dangers of misprision in a listening reception," largely an effect of the rise of English as a written language and tensions between…
McEntire, Sandra J.
Chaucer Review 31 (1996): 145-63
Aurelius usurps and reinterprets Dorigen's speech. Through such devices, Chaucer subtly makes listeners and readers aware that what may appear to be real, whether concrete or ideological, may be illusion. The Franklin's intent is to assert his…
McGalliard, John C.
Philological Quarterly 54 (1975): 1-18.
Chaucer's characterization is sophisticated. The monk, merchant, and wife are complex personalities rather than flat stereotypes. The merchant is not duped or punished because of character flaws; he has none. The tale emphasizes the success of the…
McGann, Jerome J.
New Literary History 12 (1981): 269-88.
William Blake avoided the normal publisher-author relationship. "To know the publishing options taken (and refused) by Chaucer...enables the critic to explain the often less visible, but more fundamental, social engagements which meet in and…
McGarrity, Maria, ed. and introd.
Appendix 2 in William K. Finley and Joseph Rosenblum, eds. Chaucer Illustrated: Five Hundred Years of the Canterbury Tales in Pictures (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll; London: British Library, 2003), pp. 379-422.
Edition (with notes) and brief introduction to Carey's "assessment and portrait of Stothard's visual interpretation" of CT.
McGavin, John J.
Chaucer Review 21 (1987): 444-58.
In ManT, Chaucer gives us no information about the crow's personality, motives, or style. He and the Manciple have paradigmatic significance as users of speech and tellers. However, the poet does focus on the narratorial personality of the…
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.…
McGeough, Jared.
European Romantic Review 30 (2019): 367-82.
Evaluates Godwin's "Life of Chaucer" and its impact on the Victorian reception of Chaucer, exploring how the biography critiques "the politics of thinking national literature historically" and challenges "conventional models of literary biography"…
McGerr, Rosemarie P.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 179-98.
The unresolved ending of TC capitalizes on concern with means and ends throughout the poem, encouraging readers to resist the illusion of closure in any act of interpretation.
First, McGerr reviews modern theories on closure and examines medieval theory on literary design and closure in Geoffrey of Vinsauf, John of Garland, Ludolf of Hildesheim, Brunetto Latini, Dante, and others to show that "medieval concepts of closure…
McGerr, Rosemarie P.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998.
Argues that all of Chaucer's major works "play with medieval concepts of closure" and that the inconclusiveness of these works self-consciously indicates that readers generate their own meanings.
McGerr, Rosemarie Potz.
Comparative Literature 37 (1985): 97-113.
Like Augustine in his "Retractiones," Chaucer uses Ret to survey his literary career, embodying ideas on the function of memory, experience, literature, and truth.
McGillivray, Murray.
Ian Lancashire, ed. Computer-Based Chaucer Studies (Toronto: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, 1993), pp. 1-15.
Explores the possibilities of representing medieval manuscripts within the present limits of technology and the normal scholar's finances, using TEI-SGML (Text Encoding Initiative-Standard Generalized Markup Language) and some graphic representation.…
McGillivray, Murray.
Florilegium 27 (2011 for 2010): 159-76.
Proposes that a "computer facilitated re-spelling of a reconstructed archetype" ought to be the basis for future editions of LGW, Anel, HF, PF, and BD because the textual situations of these poems are "precarious." The reconstruction would use the…
NPT makes fun of the Monk and the Prioress by combining hunting, rough handling of animals, sexual indulgence, and two morals. The "treading," the hunting, the near sacrifice and downfall, the injunction against flattery, touch upon the…
McGowan, Joseph P.
Chaucer Review 38 : 199-202, 2003.
The Prioress's ambiguous motto--"love conquers all"--is only half of a quotation from Virgil. The remainder--"and we must give in to it"--does not lessen the equivocal nature of the portrait.
Scholars need to reassess the extent of Sercambi's literary influence. A survey of some analogues of the framework and tales of his "Novelle" prove conclusively that his work was imitated in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. Parallels in ShT and…
Hubertis M. Commings' dissertation (1914) denying that Chaucer knew the "Decameron" and an influential article by Willard Farnham (1924) positing that the work was not known in England until 1566 both are speciously reasoned. Chaucerian echoes of…
