Benson, Larry D.
English Manuscript Studies, 1100-1700 03 (1992): 1-28.
Doubtful of M. L. Samuels's argument that Equat is Chaucer's work, Benson examines dominate and recessive spelling forms to argue that it is not. Compares spelling in Equat with that of various manuscripts of TC and CT.
Benson, Larry D.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Genres, Themes, and Images in English Literature from the Fourteenth to the Fifteenth Century (Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1988), pp. 11-30.
Argues that Chaucer was the "Father of English Prudery" because (fabliaux notwithstanding) he elevated and purified the English language by inventing a language of circumlocution and courtly indirection and by substituting Latinate terms for the…
Benson, Larry D.
Julian N. Wasserman and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 3-22.
By dating HF's composition and first public reading in December, 1379, we can see the unfinished last lines as a joke purposely played on Cardinal Pileo's messenger, Nicolo,whose news that no marriage would take place between Richard II and Caterina…
Benson, Larry D.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 23-47.
Discusses bawdy words, obscenities, and euphemisms in Chaucer,exposing fallacies in overzealous scholarly search for obscene puns.
Benson, Larry D.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 77-120.
By analysis of manuscript traditions Benson argues that there were at most two early orderings of CT. All later orderings in manuscripts are scribal rearrangements or distortions of these two. Both orders, one of which is the Ellesmere order,…
Benson, Larry D.
Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel, eds. The Wisdom of Poetry (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University, 1982), pp. 123-44.
Offers new support for the old theory that PF represents Anne of Bohemia as the "formel eagle" and King Richard, Charles of France, and Friedrich as her three suitors, presenting new ararguments for dating the poem in 1380 and new evidence that both…
Benson, Larry D.
Hamden, Conn.: Garland Press, 1993.
A complete concordance to Benson's "Riverside Chaucer," excluding only titles, glosses, implicits, and explicits. Includes brief definitions of words and references to definitions in the OED and MED.
Benson, Larry D.
Ian Lancashire, ed. Computer-Based Chaucer Studies (Toronto: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, 1993), pp. 141-60.
Describes the production of a computer-generated "glossarial concordance" to Chaucer in which meanings, variant spellings, and occurrences are presented; see Benson's "Glossarial Concordance." Describes the uses of such a concordance and the…
Benson, Larry D.
Theodore M. Anderson and Stephen A. Barney, eds. Contradictions: From "Beowulf" to Chaucer (Aldershot, Hants: Scolar; Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1995), pp. 243-65.
Surveys the lyric and romance traditions of England and France that most likely influenced Chaucer's early writing, commenting on how Rom, ABC, and BD reflect the possible sources and development of Chaucer's colloquial English style.
Includes thirteen essays by Benson, all but one reprinted from earlier publications. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Contradictions: From "Beowulf" to Chaucer under Alternative Title.
Benson, Larry D., and Theodore M. Andersson, eds.
Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971.
An anthology of sources and analogues of MilT, RvT, MerT, and ShT, with more limited analogous materials for SumT, ManT, and FrT, in all cases providing facing-page translations of non-English materials. Each section includes an introduction that…
Benson, Larry D., ed.
Boston and New York : Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Based on The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edition, providing a corrected text and set of glosses, with essentially the same apparatus, updated and adapted for beginning students.
Benson, Larry D., ed.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974.
Twenty-five essays by various authors, plus an appreciation of the teaching of Bartlett Jere Whiting, a list of his publications, and a poetic analogue to "Thomas of Erceldoune." For nine essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Learned and the…
Benson, Larry D., gen. ed.
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
A compilation by thirty-three Chaucerians (based on "The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer," edited by F. N. Robinson [2d ed., 1957]), this new edition updates, expands, and revises its predecessor while generally preserving its sequence. Entirely rewritten…
Interlinear translation in modern English of the selections from Chaucer in the 8th edition of the "Norton Anthology of English Literature" (2006), edited by Alfred David and James Simpson. Includes GP, MilPT, MLE, WBPT, PardPT, NPT, ParsP, Ret,…
A series of interlinked webpages that provides a variety of texts, translations, glossaries, selected essays and graphics, instructional aids, and supporting information about language, analogues, social conditions, and other backgrounds to Chaucer's…
Benson, Robert G.
Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Batter, 1980.
Treats Chaucer's use of and experimentation with conventional gesture as modified by genetic considerations in CT, TC, PF,HF, Anel, LGW, BD, Rom, and minor poems. Includes an appendix of relevant passages.
Benson, Robert G., and Susan J. Ridyard, eds.
Rochester, N.Y., and Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2003.
Ten essays by various authors and a descriptive introduction by Derek Brewer. The papers were originally delivered at the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium at the University of the South in April 2000; the colloquium was devoted to Chaucer's work on the…
Considers the uses of gestures in Chaucer's poetry: "simplistic" uses in HF and PF, broad variety in CT, and the complex characterization of Pandarus in TC. Focuses on expressive movements and postures of body and face, along with laughing, moaning,…
Bentick, Eoin.
Dissertation Abstracts International DAI C81.04 (2019): n.p.
Studies the portrayals of alchemy and alchemists in fourteenth-and fifteenth-century English verse, including discussion of Chaucer's negative depiction of alchemy and its practitioners in CYPT, and John Gower's positive view in "Confessio Amantis."
Surveys medieval and early modern study of alchemy and writing about alchemy, with particular attention to its obscurities of language and limited potential for progress. A section called "Playing with Obscurity: Chaucer's Manipulation of the 'Tabula…
A biography of Blake, "William Blake, ein ausgezeichneter Künstler, Dichter und Narr," mentions his work on his "Canterbury Pilgrims" and his troubled relationships with Thomas Stothard and Robert Cromek.
