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,…
Bennett, J. A. W., ed.
London: George G. Harrap & Co, [1954]. 2d rev. ed., 1958.
Edits KnT, with an Introduction, bottom-of-page textual notes, end-of-text explanatory notes and glossary, and appendices (by R. T. Davies, reprinted), on Chaucer's language and meter, astrology and astronomy, and suggestions for further reading. The…
Bennett, Jim, and Giorgio Strano.
Nuncius: Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science 29 (2014): 179-29; 9 color and b&w figs.
Describes the ownership history and details the physical features of a fourteenth-century English astrolabe in the Koelliker Collection, Milan, assessing its status as the "Chaucer Astrolabe" (here called the "Tomba-Koelliker astrolabe") by gauging…
Contrasts the historical status of late-medieval plowmen with their literary status, considering Chaucer's Plowman in GP, Langland's "Piers Plowman," and the "other more minor plowmen poems" of late-medieval England.
Bennett, Kristen Abbott.
This Rough Magic 2.2 (2011): 1-24.
Contends that the SqT explores "rhetorical imitation" as a means to confront the postlapsarian "fallen" nature of language, "multiplying the rhetorical conventions 'imitatio,' inexpressibility, and 'translatio'" in order to "probe the idea of poetic…
Bennett, Kristen Abbott.
Upstart: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies, August 10, 2015: n.p.
Includes discussion of the influence of Chaucer's Purse and Thomas Hoccleve's "La male regle" on Thomas Nashe's "Pierce Penilesse," examining the elements of comedy and "moral uncertainty" in Chaucer's poem and its "accretion of polygeneric…
Bennett, Matthew.
Christopher Harper-Bill and Ruth Harvey, eds. The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood (Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer, 1986), pp. 1-11.
Historical background: assesses the "social and military role of the squire" in England and northern France.
Bennett, Michael [J.]
J. S. Bothwell, ed. The Age of Edward III. (Rochester, N.Y.; and Woodbridge: York Medieval Press and Boydell Press, 2001), pp. 215-25.
Seeks to "reveal a little more fully the world" in which Chaucer was trained as a page, examining the household accounts of Isabelle (BL MS Cotton Galba E.14) in the context of better-known household accounts. Bennett comments on pageantry,…
Bennett, Michael J.
Barbara A. Hanawalt, ed. Chaucer's England: Literature in Historical Context (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), pp. 3-20.
Richard's court was important as a cultural force in England's first "golden age" of literature. Members of his coterie were the first audience of poets such as Chaucer and Gower, and it seems likely that his travels were related to the production…
Bennett, Robert Russell.
Mauricetown, N.J.: Maurice Press, 2018.
Item not seen. WorldCat records indicate that this vocal–piano score, composed by Bennett for Percy E. Fletcher, was edited by Janet Schlein Somers and Paul Mack Somers. Sets MercB to music in three parts: "Captivity," "Rejection," and "Escape,"…
Benoit-Dusausoy, Annick, and Guy Fontaine, ed. Trans. Michael Wooff.
New York and London : Routledge, 2000.
Comprehensive survey of European literatures, writers, genres, motifs, and themes, from Homer to contemporary figures and trends. J. Smith, "Chaucer (c.1340-c.1400)," pp. 142-46, describes Chaucer and his works, discussing him as a humanist and a man…
Benson L[arry] D.
English Studies 42 (1961): 65-77.
Explores the "stylistic rationale" for Chaucer's uses of the historical present tense, identifying the fundamental "connotation of continuing action" of the grammatical form, and assessing its rhetorical, semantic, and tonal effects in various…
Benson, C. David
Philological Quarterly 58 (1979): 16-25.
The letter read by Helen and Deiphobus is an example of "special foreshadowing"; it pertains to King Thoas of Greece (derived by Chaucer from Guido delle Colonne), who later (4.138) will be part of the prisoner exchange that sends Criseyde to the…
Benson, C. David, ed.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991; Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991.
Anthologizes previously published essays and extracts from longer discussions of TC, BD, HF, and PF. Originally published between 1915 and 1986, the essays are arranged chronologically by work, with the majority (twelve of nineteen) dedicated to TC.
Benson, C. David,and David Rollman.
Modern Philology 78 (1981): 275-77.
The three anonymous stanzas that Wynkyn printed at the end of his 1517 edition of the poem suggest that neither the sympathy for Criseyde felt by moderns nor the poet's view of TC as a religious work would have been found in an early reader. Wynkyn…
