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…
McGrath, Alister E., ed.
Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2001.
An anthology of selections and excerpts, arranged chronologically, from Clement of Rome to Garrison Keillor, each example accompanied by a brief biographical introduction and study questions. Includes a translation of PardP (6.329-462).
McGraw, Matthew Theismann,
Dissertation Abstracts International A75.05 (2014): n.p.
Includes discussion of FranT as one among several examples of late medieval English romances that explore "noble identity and chivalric values" and use magic to place these values in starker relief than can be accomplished realistically.
Although the initial description of the egalitarian marriage in FranT seems to open liberating possibilities for Dorigen,the ultimate concern is which man is most "fre." Dorigen's actions and intentions have been lost in the insistence of Arveragus…
Assesses the relations between universality and particularity as epistemological modes in MLT, exploring allegory and individuality, realism and nominalism, and generalization and specification in the characterization of Custance and how she is…
McGregor, James H.
Mediaevalia 9 (1986, for 1983): 181-203.
LGW's "Legend of Thisbe" paraphrases Ovid's story in "Metamorphoses," pt. 4, according to the rules of classical rhetoric. Chaucer's changes in Ovid's story resemble those of other medieval paraphrasers: his neutral narrative style is changed to…
McGregor, James H.
Chaucer Review 11 (1977): 338-50.
The Chaucer portraits in Hoccleve and TC are iconographic, not realistic, stressing Chaucer's role as artist-philosopher and teacher of poets and princes alike.
McGregor, James H.
Leonard Michael Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen, eds. The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: New Essays on an Old Question (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000), pp. 212-25.
The representation of history in KnT is dependent on postplague historiographical views of the Decameron. The Teseida and Chaucer's version of it are tragedies, but with a hope of reconciliation represented in the final marriage.
McGregor, James Harvey.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1976): 276A-77A.
Dante and Chaucer in effect parody classical tragedy while adapting their Ovidian imitations to a medieval notion of tragic form. They preserve the notion of suffering into truth, but they focus on the truth to be gained by the reader from the…
McGuire, Peter Joseph, III.
Ph.D. Dissertation. Brown University, 1975. Dissertation Abstracts International A42.12 (1982). Fully accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses; accessed August 20, 2025.
Argues that CT is "the source" of Part II of Melville's "Clarel," comparing the behaviors of the characters of the two works for the ways they reflect a "single perspective" among Chaucer's pilgrims and "totally different perspectives" among…
Considers the end of NPT and the Bible verse Romans 15:4. Claims the verse is used to bridge the two opposing views of Chaucer's intent in his writing, attempting to unite the morally serious poet with the subversive poet.
McGunnigle, Michael Gerard.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1980): 2616A.
The genres of history and romance in Middle English Troy poems are distinguished by contrasting attitudes towards sources and the historicity of the subject; by a corresponding contrast in attitudes towards the historical distance between past and…
McIlhaney, Anne E.
Chaucer Review 31 (1996): 173-83.
In CT, generally, and in MLT, FrT, PhyT, PardT, and PrT, specifically, devils act as agents of God to tempt evildoers. Although they fail, evildoers in CT are armed with the God-given ability to avoid such temptation through their reason,…
McInerney, Maud Burnett.
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the 'Canterbury Tales' and 'Troilus and Criseyde' (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 221-35.
Chaucer plays with Ovid's "Metamorphoses" in his characterization of Troilus in bk. 3, examining the nature of masculinity by depicting Troilus as a "man trapped between two literary modes of loving."
Suggests that Chaucer's TC influenced Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" before serving as the source of the playwright's "Troilus and Cressida." Shakespeare explores ways to respond to source material in the two works. His "Troilus," in particular,…
McIntosh, Angus, M. L. Samuels, and Margaret Laing.
Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1989.
Eighteen essays on dialects, scribes, transmission, word geography, and related topics. Only one essay has not been previously published: Margaret Laing's "Linguistic Profiles and Textual Criticism: The Translations by Richard Misyn of Rolle's…
McIntyre, Ruth Anne Summar.
Dissertation Abstracts International A69.08 (2009): n.p.
Examines the uses of memory and place to develop authoritative "ethos" in John Mandeville's "Travels," Margery Kempe's "Book," WBP, and WBT. The Wife relies on medieval commonplace texts and essentially turns her own experience into such a text.
Aligns Chaucer's style, themes, and characterization in TC with Renaissance humanism more than with medieval conventions, genres, and rhetoric, arguing that the poem anticipates the "poetry of Shakespeare's century" in its fusing realism, epic, and…
The Miller is a stereotypical Celt, disparaged by society; Oswald the Reeve is an Anglo-Saxon who resents the Celtic Miller's "specialized trade." The Prioress is distanced from secular society by her profession and distanced from her profession by…
Contains archival evidence and unpublished papers from Henry Bradshaw. Examines Bradshaw's "rhyme tests," which he used to establish Chaucerian authorship of the "Tale of Gamelyn" and Rom, and accounts for Walter W. Skeat's sometimes incorrect…
Exemplifies Chaucer's "control of proportion" of details in GP, observing a "middle-class tendency to conformity" in the generalized description of the Guildsmen.
Twelve essays by various authors on identity as reflected in medieval and early modern literature and history. Topics include bastardry in the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, linguistic identity and Spanish Jews, identity in the work of Langland, the…
