Pearcy, Roy J.
Leeds Studies in English 20 (1989): 119-41.
Surveys the tradition of the "prayer of the greatest peril" from Old French "chansons de geste" to Middle English adaptations of "romans d'aventure," arguing that the tradition underlies one of the prayers of Custance in MLT and several of the…
Discussion of Anglo-Norman fabliaux and their Latin antecedents. Elements of Anglo-Norman fabliaux are found in MerT, while MilT, RvT, and ShT follow Continental French fabliaux. Assessments of Anglo-Norman fabliaux are needed.
Dialectical and textual evidence suggests that the simile in RvT 1.3964 means "'she is as worthy as ditch-water is stinking' that is to say 'very worthy,' with no pejorative implication."
Differences between eschatological and historical time in TC pose parallel differences between Troilus's personal Boethian tragedy and the epic tragedy of the fall of Troy. Similarities between Criseyde and analogous women in other siege stories (in…
When Troilus kisses only Criseyde's eyes in TC 3.1352-55, the gesture marks a departure from Boccaccio, whose lovers kiss eyes, lips, and breasts. Following thirteenth-century French literary convention, the behavior may illustrate Chaucer's attempt…
Pearcy, Roy J.
English Language Notes 41.4 (2004): 1-10.
Pearcy traces the history and literary use of amphibology-'in Chaucer, a statement capable of two interpretations, uttered by a speaker with supernatural or oracular powers to a listener who can perceive only a meaning at variance with the true…
A study of works featuring the test-of-love motif argues for including FranT among them rather than among narratives employing the motif of the "maiden's rash promise." However, by devising a "test" for Dorigen's suitor that expresses her concern for…
Pearcy, Roy J.
English Language Notes 11 (1974): 167-75.
Documents various "medieval representations of Hell's Mouth," and suggests that the example in ManP (9.35-40) complements the concern with Last Judgment in ParsP.
Pearcy, Roy J.
Notes and Queries 213 (1968): 43-45.
Attributes the sexual suggestiveness of the NPE (CT 7.3447-62) to the Host's familiarity with a commonplace association of a "man in a convent with a cock in a hen-run," citing parallels from French, Latin, and Italian sources, and exploring how the…
Pearcy, Roy J.
Notes and Queries 212 (1967): 322-25.
Explains the use of "impossible" as a noun in SumT 3.2231, discussing the term as a label for classroom examples of logical sophistry and commenting on Chaucer's familiarity with such academic practice.
The psychological condition of ClT must be understood in terms of fourteenth-century, not twentieth-century, psychology. The relationship between Griselda and Walter can be compared to a man-to-God, child-to-parent, or colonial-to-colonizer…
Pearman, Tory Vandeventer.
Essays in Medieval Studies 23 (2006): 31-40.
The language used to describe Hippolyta in KnT undermines the praise of Theseus and exposes "the dramatic irony in the Knight's perception of Theseus's military exploits and subsequent exchange of ethnic women."
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…
Pearman, Tory Vandeventer.
Dissertation Abstracts International A70.07 (2010): n.p.
Arguing that medieval thought links disability with the feminine, Pearman examines "medieval female disability" in works of Chaucer (WBPT, MerT), Marie de France, Henryson, and Margery Kempe, among others.
Pearman, Tory Vandeventer.
Joshua R. Eyler, ed. Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 25-37.
Explores a "gendered model of disability" in MerT, where the carnivalesque grotesqueness of May's performed pregnancy replaces January's blindness and impotence as a kind of disability.
Pearsall, D. A.
University of Toronto Quarterly 34 (1964): 82-92.
Characterizes the Squire as a "young man among his elders" on the pilgrimage, describing his "nervous, apologetic tone" that derives from his uses and abuses of "rhetorical decorum, "tinged with "self-regard" and snobbish "anti-intellectualism." The…
Edits these two examples of Chaucerian apocrypha, with introduction, textual and critical notes, glossary, and bibliography, observing that the "only reason for the attribution" to Chaucer is "their inclusion in the sixteenth-century collected…
Pearsall, Derek
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 13 (1991): 5-14.
Justifies writing a new biography of Chaucer despite objections that it may be impossible, useless, or superfluous. The exceptional nature of Chaucer's life and the richness of his historical context make the undertaking worthwhile.
Pearsall, Derek
Rosemary Horrox and Sarah Rees Jones, eds. Pragmatic Utopias: Ideals and Communities, 1200-1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2001, pp. 11-25.
Late-medieval changes in monastic life affected the presentation of monks in secular English literature, including works by Langland, Chaucer, and Lydgate. Chaucer's presentation of monks in GP, MkT, and ShT reflects the "new monk," who uses…
Pearsall, Derek, and Elizabeth Salter.
Mt. Vernon, N.Y.: Gould; Townsend: Sussex Tapes, 1971.
Item not seen; WorldCat records indicate that there are two lectures included (Salter: Side 1, "Problems of reading and understanding Chaucer". Pearsall: Side 2, "Realism and convention in the Canterbury tales."); the booklet summarizes the…
Thirteen essays by diverse hands discuss what Pearsall describes as the largest manuscript "the student of vernacular literature will ever be likely to have to deal with"--"a comprehensive programme of religious reading and instruction" (x). Five of…
Pearsall, Derek, ed.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
Follows the general format of the Variorum Edition with text based on Hengwrt and collations with early manuscripts and most printed editions . Surveys earlier criticism with extensive notes.
