Simpson, James.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
The volume surveys the literature of late medieval and early modern English writers in relation to political institutions contemporary with the literature, tracing an arc of "diminishing liberties." Simpson characterizes the shift in literature from…
Horobin, S. C. P.
Neophilologus 86 : 609-12, 2002.
In RvT, Chaucer's "treatment of the Northern dialect" is fairly consistent, but the Reeve's dialect includes "distinctive features characteristic of the Norfolk dialect."
Walker, Greg.
Elaine Treharne, ed. Writing Gender and Genre in Medieval Literature: Approaches to Old and Middle English Texts (Cambridge: Brewer, 2002), pp. 61-91.
Absolon's rejection of Alison's sexuality in MilT suggests the kind of masculinity invoked by Mariology and by popular representations of the Annunciation.
Walker, Greg.
Roberta Mullini, introd. Tudor Theatre: For Laughs? Puzzling Laughter in Plays of the Tudor Age/Tudor Théâtre: Pour Rire? Rires et Problèmes dans le Théâtre des Tudor (Bern: Peter Lang, 2002), pp. 1-20.
According to Walker, the three males in MilT anticipate familiar types of masculine "fool" in English dramatic tradition: John as cuckolded senex amans, Nicholas as the punished "Priapic fool," and Absolon as the "squeamish, infantalised male."…
Johnston, Andrew James.
Manfred Pfister, ed. A History of English Laughter: Laughter from Beowulf to Beckett and Beyond (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2002), pp. 17-33.
Johnston assesses the interactions between religious allusion and satire in MilT, exploring the exegetical traditions of God's private parts, the Flood, and Absolon's use of the Song of Songs. The Tale generates laughter that ridicules religion and…
Assesses payment and revenge in MilT and RvT as economies of sexual exchange following Aristotelian notions of "distributive" justice, reflected in the "poetic" justice of the Tales. Women are the commodity in MilT and RvT, as in KnT and CkT. Edwards…
Bishop, Louise M.
Texas Studies in Literature and Language 44 : 231-46, 2002.
Augustine's glossing of God's corporeality (especially pertaining to Exodus 33) underlies the comments on the limitations of human knowledge in MilP. Confusion about the nature of flesh and about orifices hints at the ultimate ineffability of God's…
Greenwood, Maria Katarzyna.
Roberta Mullini, introd. Tudor Theatre: For Laughs? Puzzling Laughter in Plays of the Tudor Age/Tudor Théâtre: Pour Rire? Rires et Problèmes dans le Théâtre des Tudor (Bern: Peter Lang, 2002), pp. 21-39.
Bakhtinian analysis of references to garlands and garlanding in KnT and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Greenwood traces the classical traditions of garlands of love and glory, arguing that depictions of both "veer towards negative criticism" in these two…
Green, Richard Firth.
Emily Steiner and Candace Barrington, eds. The Letter of the Law: Legal Practice and Literary Production in Medieval England (New York: Cornell University Press, 2002), pp. 105-14.
Legal diction and references in KnT reflect concern in the 1380s with the growing influence of the Court of Chivalry and the revival of trial by battle.
In GP the Parson and the Plowman are polysemic figures that emerge from the expression of conflicting, dialogic voices--not idealized role models. Free indirect speech in the Parson's description allows the audience to suspect that he is a whitened…
Patristic and scholastic writers condemn flattery as misuse of speech and an activity conducive to fraud. Chaucer's stricture on flattery initially appears comic, yet it is more direct and explicit than Langland's harsh condemnation, which Chaucer…
Chaucer's use of the Vulgate parables influenced the frame structure of CT, provided a number of images, and strongly affected PardT. Wheeler tallies allusions to and quotations from the parables throughout CT.
Webb, Diana.
Houndmills, Basingstoke; and New York : Palgrave, 2002.
An introduction to pilgrimage in medieval western Europe that describes motives for pilgrimage, kinds of pilgrims, geography, relics and souvenirs, responses to pilgrimage, etc. Webb pays recurrent attention to CT, especially as a depiction of social…
Straus, Barrie Ruth.
Eve Salisbury, Georgiana Donavin, and Merrall Llewelyn Price, eds. Domestic Violence in Medieval Texts (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), pp. 122-38.
Straus explores how ClT, MLT, and PrT adapt and accommodate the traditions and conventions of the family romance to "articulate a profound cultural anxiety about paternity."
Sheridan explores ways that language is like money in acts of interpretation, examining the role of the Host in CT, readers' valuations of various tales, patronage and interpretive control, and the "mercantile" strategies of May (MerT) and the Wife…
Osborn, Marijane.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
Osborn explores how Chaucer used an astrolabe in his composition of CT and explains the use of the instrument in celestial navigation; includes a cutout astrolabe. Throughout most of CT, Chaucer's references to time and place are realistic. Such…
Burger explores how MerT scrutinizes developments in class and gender identities and valuations of marital love and subjectivity that grew out of twelfth-century Gregorian Reform. In direct contrast to WBPT (and in response to ClT), the Merchant…
Jones, Malcolm.
Timothy S. Jones and David A. Sprunger, eds. Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles: Studies in the Medieval and Early Modern Imaginations (Kalamazoo, Mich: Medieval Institute Publications, 2002), pp. 203-21.
Jones surveys in medieval and early modern art and literature the figures of starving and fatted beasts that eat, respectively, obedient wives and complaisant husbands, presented as background to Chaucer's reference to Chichevache in ClT. Includes…
Treharne, Elaine.
Elaine Treharne, ed. Writing Gender and Genre in Medieval Literature: Approaches to Old and Middle English Texts (Cambridge: Brewer, 2002), pp. 93-115.
Compares the Wife of Bath's speech in WBP and Otto Jespersen's folk-linguistic stereotyping of women's language, showing that Chaucer replicates stereotypes of women's language, ultimately undermining the Wife of Bath's authority.
Salisbury, Eve.
Eve Salisbury, Georgiana Donavin, and Merrall Llewelyn Price, eds. Domestic Violence in Medieval Texts (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), pp. 73-93.
"Daungerous," the term Alisoun uses to describe Jankyn's love, reflects an ambiguous relation between courtly love and marriage; canon and civil law clarify the nature of physical and psychological violence in WBP and FranT.
Surveys critics who argue that the Wife of Bath murdered her fourth (and perhaps her fifth) husband, compares details of WBP with those of the trial of Alice Kytelar in 1324, and suggests that the Kytelar trial may have influenced Chaucer's creation…
Sanok, Catherine.
New Medieval Literatures 5 : 177-201, 2002.
PhyT and Pearl both explore the assumption that the communal and anagogical can subsume the individual and ethical, an assumption underlying Fredric Jameson's historicist theorizing. The ending of PhyT indicates the "hermeneutic limits" of virgin…
