Kuczynski, Michael P.
Chaucer Review 37: 315-28, 2003.
Scriptural injunctions underlie Chaucer's apology in MilP 1.3172-81 and his encouraging the audience to be cautious when judging his poetic enterprise.
Kolve, V. A.
Donka Minkova and Theresa Tinkle, eds. Chaucer and the Challenges of Medievalism: Studies in Honor of H. A. Kelly (Frankfurt and New York : Peter Lang, 2003), pp. 31-71.
Kolve investigates the iconic importance of Criseyde's dream of the eagle and Troilus's dream of the boar and their embedded affiliations with the sun. In TC, these images illustrate the gap in the worth of two men and underscore the poor choice…
Using numerous small allusions to TC, Spenser situates himself within the English literary canon through a strategy of association with an "uncouthe, unkiste" Chaucer.
Newman, Barbara.
Mary C. Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, eds. Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 2003, pp. 135-55.
Traces two medieval constructions of Nature as goddess: the antifeminist tradition that runs from Alan de Lille through Jean de Meun to Chaucer's PF, and the relatively profeminist legacy of Heldris of Cornwall ("Roman de Silence") and Christine de…
Examines how women are presented in medieval satire as gossips, scolds, and cursing witches, all manifestations of women with orality. Assesses works by Chaucer, Dunbar, and Kempe and material from cycle plays.
Nachtwey, Gerald R.
Essays in Medieval Studies 20: 107-20, 2003.
Nachtwey applies the "vertical" social relations of chivalry as understood by Geoffroi de Charny to MLT and FranT. As a perfect Christian, Constance "muddles" the chivalric ideal of a wife, and Dorigen's rashness makes her somewhat inconsistent with…
A range of medieval literary portraits derive techniques from rhetorical memory devices and, in turn, shape notions of subjectivity. Mulligan considers Langland's Lady Meed, the Green Knight, Henryson's Cresseid, and various Chaucerian characters,…
Charles Cowden Clarke, Charles Knight, and John Saunders were the most effective popularizers of Chaucer for the common reader in nineteenth-century England. These individuals translated Chaucer into modern English and bowdlerized his language in…
Morgan critiques modern claims for Chaucer's innovation in GP, arguing that Chaucer's methods resulted from the moral and artistic training of his time. We should read the pilgrim Chaucer both as earnest and as effective in displaying the sins of his…
Moore, Stephen G.
Chaucer Review 38 : 83-97, 2003.
The narrative structure of Mel compels the reader to read backward and forward between scenes and episodes, encouraging affective involvement in the universal sentential wisdom of the Tale. The purpose is not that Melibee learn, but that the reader…
Mooney, Linne R., and Lister M. Matheson.
Library, 7th ser., 4 : 347-70, 2003.
The Northumberland manuscript of CT (Alnwick Castle 455) shows evidence that the scribe had access to a manuscript of CT that included the Prologue and Tale of Beryn and that he worked in a scriptorium that produced multiple copies of popular texts.
Noting the heritage of critical commentary about the Pardoner's sexuality, Minnis calls for refocusing attention on the central issue: the Pardoner's immorality. The Pardoner, probably a lay person, is placed within the context of medieval indulgence…
Minkova, Donka, and Theresa Tinkle, eds.
Frankfurt and New York : Peter Lang, 2003.
Twenty-three essays by various authors examine intellectual currents in medievalism, arranged in six categories: Text, Image, and Script; Text and Meter; Reception; Chaucer; Hagiography; and Lay Piety and Christian Diversity. For the nine essays that…
Minkova, Donka, and Robert Stockwell.
Donka Minkova and Theresa Tinkle, eds. Chaucer and the Challenges of Medievalism: Studies in Honor of H. A. Kelly (Frankfurt and New York : Peter Lang, 2003), pp. 129-39.
Of roughly 30,000 lines of Chaucer's iambic pentameter, only a tiny subset are variant. The majority of his lines follow a template of ten syllables, each foot beginning with a weak syllable. The essay refers specifically to FranT.
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.
Mehl, Dieter.
Boika Sokolova and Evgenia Pancheva, eds. Renaissance Refractions: Essays in Honour of Alexander Shurbanov (Sofia: St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, 2001), pp. 47-54.
Compares how Chaucer's Criseyde and Shakespeare's Cressida reflect each respective author's concerns with literary and historical authority.
McGowan, Joseph P.
Chaucer Review 38 : 199-202, 2003.
The Prioress's ambiguous motto--"love conquers all"--is only half of a quotation from Virgil. The remainder--"and we must give in to it"--does not lessen the equivocal nature of the portrait.
McGarrity, Maria, ed. and introd.
Appendix 2 in William K. Finley and Joseph Rosenblum, eds. Chaucer Illustrated: Five Hundred Years of the Canterbury Tales in Pictures (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll; London: British Library, 2003), pp. 379-422.
Edition (with notes) and brief introduction to Carey's "assessment and portrait of Stothard's visual interpretation" of CT.
Semenza, Gregory M. Colón.
Chaucer Review 38: 66-82, 2003.
Members of the aristocracy and the middle class engaged in wrestling. Thus, Chaucer's reference to the Miller as a wrestler cannot be dismissed as a reference to the lower class.
Schutz, Andrea.
Jean E. Godsall-Myers, ed. Speaking in the Medieval World (Boston: Brill, 2003), 105-24.
Language itself is important in FranT, but so is the intention of the speaker. Moreover, authorial intention in CT as a whole affects how we use language for our own ends, because we learn from everything we read. Authors must consider consequences…
Schlaeger, Jürgen.
Werner Röcke and Helga Neumann, eds. Komische Gegenwelten: Lachen und Literatur im Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Paderborn: Schningh, 1999), pp. 123-31.
Short introduction to various theories of laughter, followed by a brief analysis of laughter in MilT and TC.
Sauer, Michelle M., ed.
Minot, N.D.: Minot State University, 2003.
Twenty essays by various authors on topics in British literature before 1800: five essays on Shakespeare; three on medieval uses of Christ's death (in Beowulf, Song of Roland, and El Cid). Other topics include Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe,…
Watt, Diane
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Reads John Gower's Confessio Amantis as a work that "encourages its audience to take risks in interpretation, to experiment with meaning, and to offer individualistic readings." The work pursues a "negative critique of ethical poetry" and enables…
