Lavezzo, Kathy, ed.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
An introduction by the editor and ten essays by various authors consider the presence and nature of nationalism in medieval England. Medieval scholarly tradition and political structures anticipate the nation state and the nationalist discourses of…
Matsuda, Takami, Richard A. Linenthal, and John Scahill, eds.
Cambridge: Brewer; Tokyo : Yushodo, 2004.
Thirty-eight essays and two commemorations celebrate the sixtieth birthday of Takamiya, focusing on "medieval manuscripts and early printed books, Arthurian literature, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century medievalism." Many of the essays pertain to…
An introduction to the study of proverbs (paremiology), covering definition and classification, several examples over time, scholarly approaches, and analyses of the contexts in which proverbs appear (e.g., song, advertising, cartoons, and…
Minnis, A. J.
Marianne Børch, ed. Text and Voice: The Rhetoric of Authority in the Middle Ages (Odense : University Press of Southern Denmark, 2004), pp. 138-67.
Considers the lack of extensive glosses and commentaries on late Middle English literature, including Chaucer, arguing that in England, unlike on the Continent, the concern with "translatio studii" (transferring the authority of the ancients to the…
Palmer, James Milton.
Dissertation Abstracts International 64 (2004): 2479A
Explores medieval attitudes toward the medical foundations of the emotions in MerT, TC, Gower's "Confessio Amantis," and Diego de San Pedro's "Cárcel de Amor."
Sadlek, Gregory [M.]
Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of America Press, 2004.
Bakhtinian analysis of the discourse of love's labor in classical and medieval love literature, focusing on two traditions: one, rhetorical, playful, and concerned with the labor of courtship; the other, serious, philosophical, and concerned with the…
Schoff, Rebecca Lynn.
Dissertation Abstracts International 65 (2004): 1773A
Examines the works of Chaucer, Langland, and Margery Kempe in the context of the standardization of textual discourse that accompanied the development of printed books.
Simms, Norman Toby.
Lewiston, N.Y. : Mellen, 2004.
Reads details of Chaucer's life and works as evidence that he can be viewed as a "fuzzy Jew," who acquired some kabbalistic knowledge through his travels and contact with Jews in London and who disguised this knowledge in ways that anticipate the…
Depicting nature as an "active force," Chaucer encourages the reader to explore nature's "effects on social institutions and human drives." In so doing, he balances "a dis-enchanted skepticism about nature's benevolence" with "a canny understanding"…
Troyan, Scott D. ed.
New York and London : Routledge, 2004.
Ten essays by various authors, addressing topics such as rhetorical tradition, accessus, and handbooks, especially their influence on Middle English literature. For six essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Medieval Rhetoric: A Casebook under…
Wallace, David.
Malden, Mass., and Oxford : Blackwell, 2004.
Wallace contemplates and reconstructs historical understanding of several locations, using visual and verbal texts to recapture perspectives of medieval and early modern witnesses or visitors.
Waters, Claire M.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Conflicted cooperation between authority and authorization is a manifestation of the fundamentally hybrid nature of the preacher's calling, one recognized in medieval handbooks as standing between earth and heaven. Significantly, women's preaching…
Williams, Deanne.
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Traces the "representations of, and responses to" France and Frenchness in BD and Chaucer's Prioress, the Corpus Christi plays, Caxton's publishing career, the poetry of Stephen Hawes and John Skelton, and Shakespeare's history plays. English…
Dawkins, Richard.
Boston and New York : Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Dawkins uses the frame-and-tale structure of CT to organize a series of excurses on evolution and the development of biological life. Recurrent references to Chaucer and CT, with brief discussion on evolutionary biology as a model in the Canterbury…
Higgins explores the "incidental affiliations" between CT and "The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy," demonstrating how flyting tradition informs CT, especially Part 1 and the debate between the Wife of Bath and the Clerk. The tale-telling contest is…
Six related essays on the interaction of words and images in English literary tradition: a theoretical introduction, plus essays on the Ruthwell Cross, Anglo-Saxon art, the Auchinleck and Vernon manuscripts, the manuscript of "Pearl," and the…
Mitchell, J. Allan.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004.
Examines the ethics of exemplarity in "Confesso Amantis" and in CT, arguing that reading for the moral--deliberating ethically--is improvisatory and reflexive and aims at practice rather than theory. Exemplarity involves the reader in its moral…
Nakao, Yoshiyuki.
Noboru Harano et al., eds. Travels Through Space and Time in Medieval Europe. (Hiroshima: Keisuisha, 2004), pp. 97-140.
Nakao discusses traveling as physical movement through space and mental movement through time. A dual space-time scheme is central to the structure of CT and contributes to the rise of dualistic interpretations of such words and phrases as "licour"…
Spearing, A. C.
Marianne Børch, ed. Text and Voice: The Rhetoric of Authority in the Middle Ages (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2004), pp. 21-45.
Critiques "dramatic" or Kittredgean readings of the prologues in CT, especially those "newly oiled by Lacan," and considers the prologues in light of the French dit--loosely defined as "speech imitated in clerkly writing" or the "illusion of speech…
ManT reflects Chaucer's awareness of the dangers of challenging authority, yet he repeatedly challenges Christian and Boethian orthodoxies concerning evil. KnT does not reconcile the existence of evil, and the orthodoxy of Christian Providence in MLT…
Utz, Richard [J.]
Zygmunt Mazur and Richard Utz, eds. Homo Narrans: Texts and Essays in Honor of Jerome Klinkowitz (Krákow: Jagiellonian University Press), 2004, pp. 193-206.
Chaucer's male narrators and characters are obsessed with ideas of linear/finite time, progression, arrival, and teleology. His female characters either silently subscribe to the male obsession or are dominated by cyclical/monumental and transcendent…
Ward Mather, Lisa Jeanette.
Dissertation Abstracts International 64 (2004): 2503A.
Discussing MilPT, ShT, WBP, and SumT, Ward Mather argues that "Chaucer engages with the medieval genre of fabliau" to "develop a new theory of identity and social order."
