In contrast to the strong heroines in French romances, Criseyde is a weak, passive individual who does not act but is acted upon. Chaucer creates her this way deliberately to make her "magically attractive"--she is "lovely undefined responsiveness,"…
Despite old objections concerning the date of Deschamps ballade to Chaucer and the Frenchman's rudimentary knowledge of English, it is likely that in his use of "pandras" Deschamps was alluding to Chaucer's TC. This shows that, during his own…
In Brasdefer's "Pamphile et Galatee" appears Houdee, a professional go-between. Possibly Chaucer used Houdee as a basis for his Pandarus in TC, thus providing the earthy undercurrent beneath the Boccaccio source.
Gordon's translation of "Le Roman de Troie" distorts Benoit by omitting important passages. The most critical omission is one of a moralizing nature which emphasizes the fickleness of Criseyde and all women. Gordon must have been influenced by the…
Mieszkowski, Gretchen.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Western tradition bifurcates the go-between into two separate traditions: the first, working for idealized love; the second, working for lustful sexual conquest. Mieszkowski surveys go-between figures in medieval tradition and discusses how Pandarus…
In his analyses of the TC narrator as a character in his own right--most notably in "The Ending of Chaucer's Troilus" and "Criseide and Her Narrator"--E. Talbot Donaldson "created the most clear-cut paradigm shift in twentieth-century readings of the…
Mieszkowski, Gretchen.
Tison Pugh and Marcia Smith Marzec, eds. Men and Masculinities in Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2008), pp. 43-57.
Mieszkowski surveys masculine lovers in medieval romance, showing that fainting and passive love "acquired feminine gender" only after the fourteenth century. Modern discussions of TC that treat Troilus as "feminized" both mistake his role as an…
Mieszkowski, Gretchen.
Albrecht Classen, ed. Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Epistemology of a Fundamental Human Behavior, Its Meaning, and Consequences. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, no. 5 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter), 2010, pp. 457-80.
Mieszkowski contrasts the situational comedy of TC and the structural comedic techniques of MilT, MerT, and SumT. Chaucer generates "all the comedy" of TC by means of Pandarus, whose comic counterpoint compels readers to reconceptualize love without…
Mieszkowski, Gretchen.
Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 43 (1971): 71-153. [Reprinted separately: Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1971.]
Details the early, negative reputation of Criseyde in Chaucer's sources for TC, and discusses how Chaucer capitalizes upon this reputation in tension with the narrator's positive view of her in his poem in order to engage his audience. Also discusses…
Mieszkowski, Gretchen.
Dissertation Abstracts International 27.02 (1966): 459A.
Discusses Criseyde in "English, French, Latin, and some Italian literature between the middle of the twelfth and the end of the fifteenth century," establishing that she was "a type of the fickle woman long before" Chaucer wrote TC.
Miles, Laura Saetveit.
Watt, Diane..
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 42 (2020): 285-93.
Introduces the six essays in this cluster, clarifying distinctions between literary canon formation and literary archive, with particular attention to women's devotional writing and reading in Middle English. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer,…
Milhaud, Darius, composer and translator.
Paris: Heugel, 1962.
Score in six parts for orchestra and voices: Prélude I, Captivity, Prélude II, Escape, Prélude III, and Rejection. The text of the three parts between the preludes is MercB in Middle English with an interlinear French translation.
Miliaras, Barbara.
Liana De Girolami Cheney, ed. Pre-Raphaelitism and Medievalism in the Arts. (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1992), pp. 127-57.
Burne-Jones's use of the grotesque was influenced by Chaucer, among others. In KnT, Emelye unwittingly inspires destructive passion in Palamon and Arcite, creating disorder in society and leading to a "grotesque denouement."
Miliaras, Barbara.
Liana De Girolami Cheney, ed. Pre-Raphaelitism and Medievalism in the Arts (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1992), pp. 193-218.
Surveys the influence of courtly love on Burne-Jones, arguing for the special influence of Chaucer. LGW and love poetry inspired early Burne-Jones; his painting "Laus Veneris" is linked to MercB. The lady in "An Idyl" suggests Emelye of KnT. Like…
Miller, B. D. H.
Notes and Queries 205 (1960): 404-6.
Offers examples from the "Roman de la Rose" and Deschamps' "Ballade" that the word "bourdan" had the meaning "phallus," showing that the sense would have been familiar to Chaucer when he used "stif burdoun" to describe the Summoner's singing with the…
Miller, Clarence H.
Chaucer Review 30 (1995): 211-14.
It was commonly assumed in the Middle Ages that the devil carried arrows and shot them at his human prey. That the Friar's "yeoman" bears arrows "brighte and kene" (1.1381) is yet another clue that escapes the stupid summoner.
Miller, Clarence H., and Roberta Bux Bosse.
Chaucer Review 6.3 (1972): 171-84.
Examines the "distorted reflection or negative image" of the Christian mass in PardPT and in the GP description of the Pardoner, showing how the language, imagery, and details of the liturgy of the mass run throughout the Pardoner's materials,…
Miller tallies a number of "hybrid derivatives" from before 1500, focusing on top-frequency suffixes. Examples and conclusions involve Chaucerian usage, including Chaucer's tendency to develop "non-technical hybrids" and to use "non-prestige French…
Miller, Jacqueline T.
New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Investigates the "interaction between literary authority and authorship" and "how writers negotiate the related demands for creative autonomy and authoritative sanction." The dream vision is a form "generated by the poet's search for but failure to…
Miller, Jacqueline T.
Chaucer Review 17 (1982): 95-115.
A focus on book 1 of this dream poem shows the poet moving among several attitudes toward authority: they include meek acceptance and assertion of the author's own independence of it.
Miller, James.
Robert Taylor, James F. Burke, Patricia J. Eberle, Ian Lancashire, and Brian S. Merrilees, eds. The Centre and Its Compass: Studies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Professor John Leyerle (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1993), pp. 367-88.
The portrayal of "faire White" in BD reflects the double vision--physical and metaphysical--of rhetorical description in Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Joseph of Exeter, and Alain de Lille.
Miller, Margaret J., trans.
New York: David White, 1969.
Includes fourteen translations of materials from medieval British literary sources, from the "Mabinogion" to Thomas Malory, selected and adapted for a juvenile audience, and illustrated by Charles Keeping. Includes a translation of FranT (pp.…
