Considers the acceptance of "spousal homicide" in ManT and the "perfunctory dismissal" of the Tale in ParsP, arguing that the shift from legal to penitential concerns eludes indictment for the murder.
Ruud, Jay.
Michelle Sauer, ed. Proceedings of the 11th Annual Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature (Minot, N.D.: Minot State University, 2003), pp. 43-55.
The dawn song in TC (3.1415-1526) stresses "contrast between the mundane love of the two lovers and the heavenly love associated with the dawn and the light in a Christian context."
Examines illustrations as cues to engage non-professional readers of the Ellesmere manuscript and the Kelmscott Chaucer. These techniques may suggest ways of engaging present-day non-professional readers of Chaucer as well.
Rosenthal, Joel T.
University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.
Provides close historical analysis of three groups of archives: proofs of age from the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV, depositions from the Scrope-Grosvenor controversy, and Margaret Paston's letters. Discussion of the depositions includes…
Rosenblum, Joseph, with William K. Finley.
Chaucer Review 38: 140-57, 2003.
The artists of the Ellesmere manuscript carefully deviated from Chaucer's descriptions of the pilgrims to deflect the satire from the upper and upper-middle classes to the lower orders. When Chaucer's own descriptions were ambiguous, the artists…
Rogers, William, and Paul Dower.
Robert G. Benson and Susan J. Ridyard, eds. New Readings of Chaucer's Poetry (Rochester, N.Y., and Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 119-38.
Rogers and Dower review considerations of money and its circulation in ShT, questioning whether Chaucer praises or blames money or whether the topic was as mixed for him as it is today.
The Canterbury Tales Project takes up where Rickert and Manly left off, presenting extant texts in ways that are accessible to and useful for all readers. Since the manuscripts derive from those copied by a select group of scribes a few years after…
Robinson, Duncan.
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. 274-310.
The essay describes the personal and social conditions that led to the 1896 production of the Kelmscott Chaucer by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Robinson compares preliminary sketches and final woodcut illustrations. Adapted from Robinson's…
Robertson, Elizabeth.
Wendy Harding, ed. Drama, Narrative and Poetry in The Canterbury Tales (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003), pp. 175-93.
Robertson considers KnT, WBT, and FranT in the light of contemporary marital law, Christian doctrine, and the question of mutual consent to marriage. Chaucer's profound interest in the legitimacy of the female subject is a subset of his larger…
Robertson, Elizabeth.
Sharon Farmer and Carol Braun Pasternack, eds. Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages. Medieval Cultures, no. 32 (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), pp. 322-51.
A revised version of the author's essay, "The 'Elvyssh' Power of Constance: Christian Feminism in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Man of Law's Tale" (SAC 23 [2001], pp. 143-80).
Richardson surveys various interpretations of the Old Man in PardT. Concentrates on the imagery of Mother Earth and of suicide, arguing that the Old Man can be seen as the Pardoner's undying soul.
Reed, Teresa P.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003.
Examines allusions to the Virgin Mary in connection to five literary characters: Chaucer's Constance and Wife of Bath, the medical woman of the English "Trotula," Saint Margaret of Antioch, and the "Pearl" maiden. Chapter 1 focuses on parallels…
Argues that spoken recordings of Chaucer's works (and other Middle English writings) are useful in the classroom. Surveys critical attitudes toward such recordings and comments on the products produced by the Chaucer Studio.
Zeitoun studies dreams and daydreams in TC, especially daydreaming in Book 1, Criseyde's dream of the eagle, and Troilus's dream of the boar. Violence in the poem has less to do with war than with the internal states of the characters; these states…
Describes a freshman writing course that focuses on late-medieval social history, structured by means of GP and eight of the tales in CT. Includes a complete syllabus, writing exercise, and supplemental information.
To understand Chaucer as a political court poet and a philosophical poet, we must read his prose as well as his poetry. Wong considers variations between Bo and its Boethian source, Mel as a model for how Chaucer treats his sources, Astr as a source…
Wilcockson, Colin.
Review of English Studies 54 : 308-12, 2003.
The subtlety of Arveragus's use of the second-person singular pronoun (FranT 5.1479-86) invites readers' sympathy. Here and in ClT, Chaucer adapts his source by varying the register between the formal (plural) and familiar (singular) forms of the…
Wein, Jake Milgram
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. 311-25.
Wein examines and appreciates the ways Kent's illustrations of the Canterbury pilgrims broke with formal and interpretive traditions. The essay focuses on the aesthetic impact of the lavish 1930 limited edition (published by Covici-Friede), later…
Olson, Mary C.
New York and London: Routledge, 2003
Proposes and applies several "reading strategies" for understanding the relationships between word and image in several Old English manuscripts and the Ellesmere manuscript of CT.
Olson, Mary C.
William K. Finley and Joseph Rosenblum, eds. Chaucer Illustrated: Five Hundred Years of the Canterbury Tales in Pictures (SAC 27 [2005], no. 105), pp. 1-35.
Olson describes the visual features of the Ellesmere manuscript and assesses its illustrations as schematic, metonymic, and stereotypic-representations of character types rather than realizations of fictional individuals. The juxtaposition of Th and…
Spencer, Matthew, Barbara Bordalejo, Peter Robinson, and Christopher J. Howe
Literary and Linguistic Computing 18 (2003): 407-22.
Drawing techniques from biology, the authors gauge the reliability of several aspects of textual stemmata: whether separate sections of a given text have separate histories, the quantity of text necessary for a reliable stemma, the levels of…
Simpson, James
Piero Boitani and Jill Mann, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003), pp. 251-69.
Changes in literary practice in the late fifteenth century helped modify reception of Chaucer's works. Remembered as a personal figure to be reckoned with by Hoccleve and Lydgate, Chaucer--like his works--was later objectified in the "philological"…
Provost, William.
Robert G. Benson and Susan J. Ridyard, eds. New Readings of Chaucer's Poetry (Rochester, N.Y., and Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 91-106.
The end of PF shows a flagging of spirits; the end of TC is complex and self-reflexive. Although several early poems indicate that Chaucer could not think of an ending or that he lost interest, ABC is notable as a return to the beginnings.
Plummer John F.
Robert G. Benson and Susan J. Ridyard, eds. New Readings of Chaucer's Poetry (Rochester, N.Y., and Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 107-18.
Plummer explores sexual references and innuendoes in the speeches of the Host, arguing that sexual and textual power are inseparable for the Host. The Parson's concern with spiritual productivity balances the Host's concern with physical generation,…
