Lerer, Seth, ed.
New Haven, Conn., and London : Yale University Press, 2006.
An introduction and ten essays by various authors, with several appendices (chronology, a guide to textual studies, order and pattern within CT, and maps), plus a bibliography and an index. Aimed at an American audience, the volume seeks to "combine…
Matthews, David.
Ruth Evans, Helen Fulton, and David Matthews, eds. Medieval Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Stephen Knight (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 9-22.
Explores historical formulations of "medieval studies" and "medievalism," arguing that they are inseparable, and encouraging awareness of their interdependencies. Draws examples from Tyrwhitt's edition of CT and Helgeland's film, "A Knight's Tale,"…
McSheffrey, Shannon.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 2006.
An introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion study marriage in London in the second half of the fifteenth century. The "fundamental argument is that bonds of marriage and sex were . . . intimate, deeply personal ties and matters of public…
Ogura, Michiko, ed.
Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006.
Sixteen essays by various authors on linguistic topics in Old and Middle English, including a survey of the teaching of medieval English in Korea. The papers were presented at the first international conference of the Society of Historical English…
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…
Pearsall, Derek.
Ardis Butterfield, ed. Chaucer and the City (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2006), pp. 95-108.
Argues that a substantial turn away from the topic of idealized love in Chaucer's writing after 1387 demonstrates a shift in his real and imagined audiences. In the second half of his career, Chaucer's audience may have been an almost exclusively…
Robertson, Elizabeth.
English Language Notes 44.1 (2006): 77-79.
Robertson introduces a series of seven essays responding to Nicholas Watson's Speculum essay "Censorship and Cultural Change in Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel's Constitutions of 1409" (Speculum 70…
Salih, Sarah, ed.
Rochester, N.Y.; and Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2006.
Seven essays by various authors and an introduction by the editor. The book discusses late medieval English saints from a number of perspectives (readership, shrines and festivals, gender, historiography), with recurrent references to Chaucer,…
Saunders, Corinne [J.]
Helen Cooney, ed. Writings on Love in the English Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 45-61.
Apart from Chaucer's works, most romances in Middle English "rewrite" their French and Latin analogues, representing the virtuous aspects of love rather than the conventions of the courtly game. Chaucer's writing exemplifies the "extremes of fin…
Thirteen essays intended for the new and returning student of Chaucer. Following the editor's introduction (pp. 1-10) describing facets of Chaucer's art and life and the contents of the collection, the work is divided into parts: Chaucer in Context,…
Schaefer, Ursula, ed.
Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006.
Nine essays by various authors with an introduction and epilogue that discuss literary and linguistic aspects of early standardization in English. For five essays that consider Chaucer specifically, search for Beginnings of Standardization under…
Schibanoff, Susan.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.
Schibanoff challenges the notion that Chaucer escaped from the decadent, "unmanly" influence of French verse to achieve his status as "father" of English poetry. In BD, Chaucer adopts the persona of "the weak, puerile, and loveless poet - the 'queer'…
Schultz, James A.
Journal of the History of Sexuality 15.1 (2006): 14-29.
Schultz critiques uses of "heterosexual" as a term and as an ahistorical concept in queer studies of medieval literature. Chaucerian critics (and others) use the term in ways that "distort the very object" of their studies, "thwart" history, and…
Turner, Marion.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 13-33.
Divided into three sections - "Politics and Discourse," "London Life and Chaucer's Poetry," and "Chaucer's Social Circle" - this essay surveys a variety of Chaucer's narratives and short poems, showing how they reflect urban and political elements in…
Vander Elst, Stefan Erik Kristiaan.
DAI A67.04 (2006): n.p.
Reads the Knight and Squire (and their respective tales) as embodiments of differing philosophies toward the Crusades. The Knight is linked to the Crusades' earlier origins, while the Squire is seen as embodying a more romanticized approach to 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…
Cartlidge, Neil.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 218-40.
Cartlidge examines the range of attitudes toward marriage, sexuality, and the family in CT - including questions of marriage as an ordering principle, sexuality as a threat to marriage, and sexuality as a form of aggression outside of marriage. Also…
Cooper, Helen.
Ardis Butterfield, ed. Chaucer and the City (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2006), pp. 109-28.
Cooper discusses the poetic confraternities called "puys," devoted to competitive writing of poetry. An edition and translation of Renaud de Hoiland's "Si tost c'amis" serves as an example of the kind of civil performance being rejected by the…
Craig, Robert M.
Claudette Stager and Martha Carver, eds. Looking Beyond the Highway: Dixie Roads and Culture. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006, pp. 267-87.
Compares people and places of twentieth-century journeys on the Dixie Highway to several medieval pilgrimages, real and fictional, including CT.
Eyler considers the Pauline concept of "spiritual athleticism" (a means of struggling with temptation) in hagiographic literature and in canonical medieval English texts, including CT. Argues that the spiritual athlete moves from "trope in early…
Ferster, Judith.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 179-98.
Ferster explores the importance of genre for understanding CT, a collection of different genres. Discusses how Chaucer stretches, plays with, and interrogates genre by combining features of genre and the expectations they create. Concentrates on the…
Green, Richard Firth.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 199-217.
Green confronts "the interpretive function of morality in medieval literature" and discusses why Chaucer's "moral horizons" in CT are elusive. Many of the Tales include competing morals; frameworks such as estates satire and the seven deadly sins…
