Surveys the tradition of English "old word" and "hard word" dictionary- and glossary-making, locating Chaucerian compilations (e.g., Greaves, Speght, Urry, etc.) at the beginning of the tradition and tracing developments in practice into the…
Examines GP portrait of the Monk, and his obvious infractions against monastic norms and regulations, in light of Giorgio Agamben's "The Highest Property: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life" (2011), stressing not only the Monk's disdain for monastic…
Examines CT structurally in the context of the fourteenth-century popular view of games and gaming. Also deals with the rules of CT, its game in action, violations of the rules, and Chaucer himself as the game's most important piece.
Melton, John L.
Philological Quarterly 35 (1956): 215-17.
Suggests that "charbocle" (carbuncle) in Th 7.871 may refer, not to part of the charge on Thopas' shield, but to his sword, with a jewel on its pommel.
Mendelson, Anne.
Dissertation Abstracts International 39 (1978): 2295A.
The incongruity of the method of theological "quaestiones" (humble) in WBP with the Wife's aggressive, arbitrary approach and some of her orthodox assertions create the comic effect. WBT exhibits a transformation: the intellectual authority of the…
Mendes, Fernanda Pereira.
Ph.D. dissertation (Universidade do Porto, 2023), Dissertation Abstracts International A86.06(E). 302 pp. Fully accessible via https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/handle/10216/153355 (accessed February 2, 2025).
Surveys "the wide influence exerted by the Islamic eschatological narrative known as 'Mohamme's Ladder' on European literary production until the 17th century." Discusses the possibility that Chaucer knew the work, and assesses correspondences…
Identifies "new Romance analogues" for details in GP, MilT, WBPT, PardT, ShT, and ParsT in three fifteenth-century Catalan narratives: "Disputa de l'ase" ("The Argument of the Ass") by Anselm Turmeda, the "Llibre de fra Bernat" ("Book of Friar…
The Canterbury tale not written by Chaucer operates both as fabliau and as folk tale, with the relentlessly stupid hero both laughed at by the nobility and empathized with by the bourgeoisie, for whom he represents a triumph of the simple classes…
Menmuir, Rebecca, Peter Buchanan, and Lucy Brookes.
Year's Work in English Studies 101 (2022): 283-315
A discursive bibliography of Chaucer studies for 2020, divided into four subcategories: general, CT, other works, and reception and reputation. Augmented by the bibliographies on "Middle English" in this volume of YWES.
Menmuir, Rebecca.
Buchanan, Peter.
Kask, Pamela.
Year's Work in English Studies 102 (2023): 264-94.
A discursive bibliography of Chaucer studies for 2021, divided into four subcategories: general, CT, other works, and reception. See also "Middle English," YWES 102 (2023): 171-263.
Focuses on Ovid's post-exilic poem "Ibis," now nearly forgotten in scholarship but once central to medieval readers. Catalogues the extant manuscripts of Ibis and compares this to the higher number of mentions in manuscript inventories, before…
Discusses classical, medieval, early modern, and modern examples of literary works that have been defined as "epic," seeking to demonstrate the uses and development of the term. Includes discussion of "Langland and Chaucer" (pp. 41-44) as part of…
Suggests that the comparison between Chauntecleer's and mermaid's singing in NPT (7.3269-72) is an "ironic joke" as well as being an "ironic anticipation" of the rooster's fate, connected with the theme of predestination in the Tale.
Merlo, Carolyn.
College Language Association Journal 25 (1981): 225-26.
The symbolic meaning of the color brown in Chaucer's works depends on the context in which the word is used. Examples can be noted in TC, BD, Rom, HF, and CT.
Merlo, Carolyn.
English Language Notes 17 (1979): 88-90.
Though "the rede" may be taken as referring to either Phaethon or his father Phoebus, Phaethon is in Ovid the red-haired boy burning in the sky, who falls to earth as a human torch;"rede Phaethon" shows fidelity to Chaucer's source and intensifies…
Merrill, Darin A.
Dissertation Abstracts International A70.05 (2009): n.p.
Analysis of the two fundamental CT manuscripts indicates "that the organization and theme of the individual tales affected" copy quality; for example, scribes copied moral tales more conscientiously than they copied bawdy ones, and prose tales were…
Merrill, Rodney
Eric Rothstein, ed. Literary Monographs, Volume 5 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973), pp. 1-62.
Challenges traditional perceptions of Mars and Ven as separate poems, arguing that they are better recognized as a single work, "The Broche of Thebes." Traces the history of scribal, editorial, and critical receptions of the complaints, analyzing…
Merrill, Rodney Harpster.
DAI 31.08 (1971): 4172A.
Considers lyric poems "not as statements but as imitation of statements," and includes discussion of the "Brooch of Thebes" (i.e., Chaucer's Mars and Ven). Also comments on Chaucer's relations with Eustace Deschmaps and Oton de Grandson.
Merrill, Thomas F.
Texas Studies in Literature and Language 4 (1962): 341-50.
Treats Friar John's "digression" on anger in SumT as an "instance of mistaken penitential preaching" that is, satirically, aimed at Huberd the Friar. The awkward, inappropriate length of the address is part of the Sommoner's riposte to his adversary…
Merrix, Robert P.
Chaucer Review 17 (1983): 235-49.
"Modern" medieval sermons, as contrasted with patristic sermons, are not structurally rigid, but PardT follows agreed-upon elements and sequences of material and relates theme to form.
Studies the uses of allegory in western literature--classical, continental, and English, from Prudentius to George Herbert--with emphasis on growth and variety in the tradition, signals to allegory in the texts, and embedded uses of allegory as well…
Mertens-Fonck, Paule.
Erik Kooper, ed. This Noble Craft: Proceedings of the Xth Research Symposium of the Dutch and Belgian University Teachers of Old and Middle English and Historical Linguistics.... (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1991), pp. 189-99.
Structurally, CT parodies the clerk-knight debate (an early type of courtly-love poem), especially The Council of Remiremont. The idea of a pilgrimage on horseback may derive from these debates as well.
Mertens-Fonck, Paule.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Poetics: Theory and Practice in Medieval English Literature (Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 105-15.
Chaucer's use of the name "Eglentyne" in the description of the Prioress in GP and in a scene of KnT emphasizes the disparity between reality and the courtly love tradition.
