Bellis, Joanna.
Isabel Davis and Catherine Nall, eds. Chaucer and Fame: Reputation and Reception (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2015), pp. 143-63.
Describes a change in Chaucer's "linguistic fame" from fifteenth-century praise of his rhetoric and aureate diction to sixteenth-century admiration of his plain speaking: a shift that reflects the early modern "Inkhorn Controversy" and efforts to…
Bellis, Joanna.
Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 2016.
Examines the narrative and linguistic effects of the Hundred Years War, and claims that the war functions similarly to the Conquest of 1066 as an event that shapes a relationship between word and war and emphasizes the mimetic relationship between…
Bello-Piñón, Nuria, and Dolores Elvira Méndez-Souto.
Isabel Moskowich-Spiegel and Begoña Crespo-García, eds. Bells Chiming from the Past: Cultural and Linguistic Studies on Early English. Costerus New Series, no. 174 (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 169-78.
The authors present statistical summaries of complex predicates in Astr and Equat and hypothesize about why such scientific texts contain a relatively low percentage of these predicates.
Benavides, Ronald Gabriel.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 3232A.
Penitential theology, as derived from St. Augustine and subsequent writers, holds humanity to be sinful yet possessed of reason and hence of responsibility. ParsT and Ruiz's Prologue examine this tradition with examples to reveal human nature; thus,…
Bender, John B.
Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1972.
Studies the "embodying [of] visual experience in poetic language," comparing Spenser's uses of various devices with those of other poets, Chaucer among them. Contrasts the "embellished and incrusted imagery" in Spenser's characterizations with…
Benjamin, Edwin B.
Philological Quarterly 38 (1959): 119-24.
Attributes the disruption of order in the plot of FranT to Dorigen's pride and "indecisiveness" and to Aurelius's "moral flaw" and use of "unlawful" magic. Order is reinstated by means of seriatim "self-sacrifice" triggered by the "manly firmness" of…
Compares the attitudes toward fame and poetic fame in HF and in Skelton's The Garlande of Laurell, arguing that Chaucer's willingness to accept the Boethian transience of fame contrasts a greater desire for certainty in Skelton.
Bennett, Alastair.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 28 (2014): 29-64.
Shows that the "blered" eye image in CYT (7.730) and "Piers Plowman" indicates covetousness, associated with "unkynde" or unnatural separation from community and knowledge.
Bennett, Alastair.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 41 (2019): 141-72.
Traces the history and implications of the rhetorical analogy between the effects of "persistent speech" and water eroding or imprinting stone, from Ovid through medieval erotodidactic and religious writing to Boccaccio's Tale of Menedon and FranT,…
Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle.
New York: Prentice Hall, 1995.
Comments (pp. 6-7) on T. S. Eliot's allusion to GP at the beginning of his "The Waste Land" and discusses (pp. 78-79) the comedy of MilT as "very specifically linguistic," turning on a double meaning of the word "water," as well as depending upon the…
Bennett, Helen T.
Medieval Perspectives 9 (1994): 24-40.
Bennett artues that the pilgrimage frame of CT was influenced by Gregory's "Liber," particularly in presenting "a range of human types" and in suiting pastoral care to individual exigencies. The "Liber" has particular applications to Chaucer's…
A series of studies that focus on Chaucer's clerks, particularly their university backgrounds and the social conditions that serve as backdrop to their activities. Includes four sections: "Life and Learning in Rolls and Records," "Town and Gown,"…
Bennett, J. A. W.
Boitani, Piero, ed.
Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer; Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1982.
Fifteen essays, some reprinted from earlier publications, including essays on Langland, Chaucer (one reprinted essay on PF), Gower, James I of Scotland, Henryson, the vernacular, liturgy, and the "nosce te ipsum" theme. For five essays that pertain…
Reads HF as Chaucer's "vindication of poetry," even though he comically proposes to eschew it. Identifies the various echoes of classical and medieval sources in HF, particularly Virgil's "Aeneid," Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Alain de Lille's…
Bennett, J. A. W.
J. A. W. Bennett. The Humane Medievalist (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura; Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer, 1982), pp. 89-103.
Bennett, J. A. W.
J. A. W. Bennett. The Humane Medievalist (Rome: Edizione di Storia e Letteratura; Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer, 1982), pp. 67-88.
Like various English poets, James I of Scotland was imprisoned in the Tower, where he read Chaucer and wrote poetry influenced by Chaucer, especially KnT, TC, PF, and BD.
Bennett, J. A. W.
J. A. W. Bennett. The Humane Medievalist (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura; Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer, 1982), pp. 13-29.
Diffident comparisons point out the "Englishness" of both Chaucer and Langland (though Chaucer gives us little of London city life, his limits being Dartmouth, Strother, Oxford, and Cambridge). Bennett discusses the down-to-earth tones, association…
Bennett, J. A. W.
J. A. W. Bennett. The Humane Medievalist (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura; Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer, 1982), pp. 49-66.
Defends Gower's "Confessio Amantis," with brief allusions to Chaucer's BD, ParsT, GP, and TC.
Bennett, J. A. W.
J. A. W. Bennett. The Humane Medievalist (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura; Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer, 1982), pp. 135-72.
Part 1 traces the classical and medieval tradition of the "know thyself" motif and Chaucer's uses in MkT, ClT, TC, and Rom.
Bennett, J. A. W.
Piero Boitani, ed. Chaucer and the Italian Trecento (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 89-113.
Chaucer rarely adopted inappropriate Danteisms from Boccaccio. Some of the differences between Chaucer's TC and KnT and Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and "Teseida" may be attributed to Chaucer's understanding and appreciation of Dante.
Bennett, J. A. W.
Review of English Studies 32 (1981): 294-96.
"The Meroure of Wisdom" (1490), by John of Ireland, contains a previously overlooked allusion to TC and ParsT. This work is followed in the manuscript by "Oracio Galfridi Chaucer," written by Hoccleve but possibly attributed to Chaucer because of…
Bennett, J. A. W.
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 132-46.
Reconsideration of passages not sufficiently considered in his 1957 edition of PF has led Mr. Bennett to comment on Chaucer's deep and searching study of the "Somnium Scipionis"; the structure of the main part of PF; the central sequence of the three…
Bennett, J. A. W.
S. S. Hussey, ed. Piers Plowman: Critical Approaches (London: Methuen, 1969), pp. 310-24 and 352-53.
Explores the affinities and "common sympathies" between William Langland and Chaucer, including their "Englishness," their views of religion and virtue, their shared sense of human variety, and the possibility that Chaucer may have read "Piers…
Bennett, J. A. W.
Review of English Studies 13.51 (1962): 283.
Suggests that "gonne" rather than "goune" is the correct reading in "O mosy Quince," a lyric ascribed to Chaucer in Cambridge, Trinity College MS 3.19 (no. 49); supports the reading by identifying St. Barbara, cited in the poem, as "patron saint of…
Bennett, J. A. W.
Oxford: Clarendon, 1957. 2d ed. 1965.
Reads PF as a thematic exploration of Christian love infused with Neoplatonic thought and imagery, and influenced by Cicero, Macrobius, Alain de Lille, John de Meun, and Dante. Demonstrates the poem's tight verbal structure and its allusiveness,…
