Joy, Eileen A., Myra J. Seaman, Kimberly K. Bell, and Mary K. Ramsey, eds.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Ten essays by various authors, along with a foreword, an introduction, an "otherword," and an afterword. Topics range from high to low culture and explore relationships between reality and performance, including comparisons of medieval literature to…
Patterson, Lee.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Reprints seven of Patterson's essays, with a new introduction, "Historicism and Postmodernity" (pp. 1-18), that explains why he pursues the "micronarratives" of New Historicism rather than those of psychoanalytic criticism. Patterson affirms the…
Wheeler, Bonnie, ed.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Seventeen essays by various authors on topics ranging from the Middle English St. Francis to the Passion plays, the York Cycle, John Wycliff, "Piers Plowman," Gower, Margery Kempe, and other medieval writers and their literature. For two essays that…
Robertson, Kellie.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Five chapters explore the "effects of labor laws" on vernacular writing in late medieval England: chronicles, anonymous dream visions, LGW, the Paston letters, and morality plays. Robertson focuses on interactions between theories of labor and…
Barrington, Candace.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Barrington studies examples of "Chaucer's appearances in American popular culture over the past two hundred years": Percy MacKaye's play, pageant, and opera; James Norman Hall's WWI memoir "Flying with Chaucer" (1930), Anne Maurey's pageant "May Day…
Horobin, Simon.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Discursive description of Middle English, focusing on Chaucer's dialect and usage, divided into eight chapters: (1) Why Study Chaucer's Language?; (2) Writing in English; (3) What Was Middle English?; (4) Spelling and Pronunciation; (5) Vocabulary;…
Lightsey, Scott.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Considers classical and medieval attitudes toward automata and mirabilia as context for analyzing their presence and depictions in late medieval English culture, especially in works by Langland, Chaucer, Gower, and Mandeville. Chapter 2, "Chaucer and…
White explores the role of literature in "peace studies," traces pacifist theory through the ages, and surveys pacifism in English literature from the Middle Ages to modern prose, poetry, and film. The chapter on the Middle Ages comments on Old…
Allen, Valerie.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Considers the imagery and implications of flatulence, wind, excrement, and refuse in medieval culture, considering anecdotes, visual imagery, religious commentary, and other literature. Occasional mention of Chaucer's works, with focused attention…
Kelen, Sarah A.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Kelen studies the reception of William Langland and "Piers Plowman" from the early modern period to the early twentieth century. She focuses on editions of the work and the works it inspired, efforts to identify Langland and construct his biography,…
Trim, Richard.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Describes the historical evolution of figurative language, especially metaphors, identifying patterns of development. Metaphors depend on images in the past; new metaphors are created through linkage to core concepts or "underlying conceptual…
Cooper, Lisa H., and Andrea Denny-Brown, eds.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Eight essays by various authors, an introduction by the editors, an afterword by D. Vance Smith, and an index. The essays consider Lydgate's poetry in relation to "the role of material goods and the material world in the formation of late-medieval…
Léglu, Catherine E., and Stephen J. Milner, eds.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Ten essays by various authors explore topics related to the "Consolatio" of Boethius and its impact within vernacular traditions. The essays are divided equally under two headings: "Consolation and Desire" and "Consolation and Loss." For two essays…
Knapp, Peggy A.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Applies Kantian aesthetic principles to "display the interanimation of sensible detail with intelligible order" in TC and CT and considers the two poems in light of Hans-Georg Gadamer (on art of the past), Ludwig Wittgenstein (intellectual play), and…
Pugh theorizes "the compulsory nature of queerness in creating heterosexuals," exploring how a number of masculine characters in Middle English literature are "rendered queerly normative due to external forces that reimagine their masculinity as…
Sylvester, Louise M.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Investigates how medieval romances have shaped heterosexual gender roles, studying the role of language in constructing sexuality. In close readings of TC, MilT, and MerT, Sylvester analyzes "transitivity" and maps dialogue between male and female…
Morrison, Susan Signe.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Morrison constructs a cultural poetics of excrement to suggest that Chaucer's treatment of fecal matter, in both its literal and figurative senses, illustrates the ways that the Middle Ages viewed excrement. This cultural poetics enables the modern…
Kennedy, Kathleen E.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Examines a variety of medieval social relations as forms of "maintenance," i.e., "being provided or providing the wherewithal to live." Lord-retainer, master-servant, and husband-wife relations are analogous forms of maintenance that inform one…
Gust, Geoffrey W.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Gust seeks to "reenergize persona theory" for future Chaucer scholarship, arguing that Chaucer's "autofictional" persona should be regarded as the central topic not only of Chaucer's works but also of studies of his reception and literary history at…
Scala, Elizabeth, and Sylvia Federico, eds.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Nine essays by various authors and an introduction by the editors "look beyond the absolute horizon of Marxist historicism in ways that display concern with how we know, with the limits of our knowledge, and with ourselves as presumably knowing…
Mitchell, J. Allan
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Mitchell explores the relationships among fortune, ethics, and validity in TC and other late medieval writings: Usk's "Testament of Love," "The Chaunce of the Dyse," Gower's "Confessio Amantis," Lydgate's "Fall of Princes," and Malory's "Morte…
Davidson, Mary Catherine.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
In late medieval England, "code-switching" among English, French, and Latin was linked to literacy and social prestige, not to aberrant or nonconformist behavior; code-switching was a means to articulate social identity. Chaucer distanced his…
Bryant, Brantley L.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
An eclectic collection of materials related to new-media play that focuses on Chaucer, including the following: a faux poem by "John Gower"; an introduction, by Bonnie Wheeler, to play and parody among medievalists at the conferences of the Medieval…
Pearman, Tory Vandeventer.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Theorizes how medieval medical and social discourses link the "categories of 'woman' and 'disabled,'" a linking anchored in the notion that women are defective men. Compares the notion of reproduction in MerT and "Dame Sirith"; punishment of women in…
Tinkle, Theresa.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Despite its antifeminist core, medieval exegesis is not "universally misogynistic or patriarchal." Focusing on three historical moments--the age of Augustine, the twelfth century, and the age of Chaucer, including his fifteenth-century…
