Nowlin, Steele.
Studies in Philology 103 (2006): 47-67.
Nowlin contends that FranT "offers an interpretation of the forces that shape the ability to imagine beyond exempla." Draws on Victor Turner's notions of liminality to discuss the concern with genre as frame in FranT, which shows how frames of…
Bleeth, Kenneth.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006): 221-24.
Argues that written texts are not the only valid sources of PhyT and acknowledges the need to consider "remembered texts, semantic fields, and pictorial images" - "intertexts" theorized by Michael Riffaterre.
Late medieval literary and historical attitudes toward pardoners suggest that the depictions in "Piers Plowman" and PardPT are exaggerated. Shaffern documents ecclesiastical efforts to control abuse of the office.
Trigg, Stephanie.
Ruth Evans, Helen Fulton, and David Matthews, eds. Medieval Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Stephen Knight (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 166-78.
Trigg addresses relationships among the reading audience, the pilgrim audience, and the "lewed peple" of PardPT. Set against the GP description of the Parson and his flock, the Pardoner's description of his preaching to the people may indicate their…
Read in the light of late medieval letter collections and conduct manuals for women, the comedy of ShT springs from a recognition of the merchant's wife's "clever manipulation of her roles: as hostess, social networker, housekeeper, business…
Bale, Anthony.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
A study of the "reiteration, instability and changing valence of the Jewish image as inscribed in medieval English books," focusing on four generic narratives: the Jew of Tewkesbury, the Marian miracle of the boy singer, the cult of Robert of Bury…
PrT and SNT mirror each other but "with a telling difference." The two stand in relation to each other as Old Testament figura to New Testament fulfillment (the shadow and substance of the title). Ironically, in this figural scheme, PrT takes the…
Stanbury, Sarah.
Bonnie Wheeler, ed. Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 211-24.
Accusations of eucharistic host desecration in Prague in 1389 may be read as a backdrop for PrT. Stanbury summarizes the events of mob violence that led to a massacre of Jews.
Børch, Marianne.
European Journal of English Studies 10.2 (2006): 131-48.
Børch discusses Th as an "oral romance," surveying its oral characteristics and exploring how these characteristics - when they are written - help to parody the "chivalric ethos" that underlies the genre of romance. Th also exposes for consideration…
A study of five Middle English lists of romances, including the list in Chaucer's Th (7.897-902). Liu uses the "prototype theory of categorization" from cognitive linguistics to provide the rationale for a flexible yet rigorous definition of the…
Houwen, Luuk.
Andrew James Johnston, Ferdinand von Mengden, and Stefan Thim, eds. Language and Text: Current Perspectives on English and Germanic Historical Linguistics and Philology (Heidelberg: Winter, 2006), pp. 97-111.
Exemplifies text/image relationships by examining a number of misericords depicting scenes from the beast fable tradition of Reynard and other sly foxes. Considers the role of NPT in the development of this visual tradition.
Little, Katherine C.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 36 (2006): 103-34.
Little reevaluates the Christian iconography in SNT in light of the Wycliffite debate over the use of images and their potential to become idolatry. Despite the importance of visual images, SNT shows a shift toward words and texts.
Collette, Carolyn P.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006): 243-48.
Collette offers Umberto Eco's notion of a "rhizome labyrinth's indefinite structure" as a heuristic tool for describing the relationship of a text to its "cultural matrix" rather than to specific sources. Focuses on CYT.
Huxtable, Michael J.
C. P. Biggam and C. J. Kay, eds. Progress in Colour Studies: Volume I. Language and Culture (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2006), pp. 199-217.
Huxtable surveys medieval philosophical and religious understanding of sight and color as background to commentary on social concerns with color in sumptuary habits and heraldry. In ParsT 10.424-27, colorful clothing indicates a sinful nature.
Little, Katherine C.
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
Centers on medieval self-definition rather than subjectivity and studies examples of Wycliffite lay instruction. The Lollards rejected auricular confession and emphasized personal contrition for sin. Lollard pastoral texts disrupted traditional…
Smith, Nicole D.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006): 117-40.
The indictment of fashionable male clothing in ParsT (10.422-30, "Superbia") is a "homoerotic moment" reflecting the Parson's own "scopophilic" pleasure, although the "turn to the fashionable female neutralizes any homoerotic tendency."
Eagleton, Catherine, and Matthew Spencer.
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 37 (2006): 237-68.
Applies a technique from evolutionary biology - phylogenetic "neighborhood-joining" - to the witnesses to the text of Astr to produce a stemma, test the fragments and sections of longer versions against the stemma, and discuss the scribal conflation…
Ogura, Michiko.
Akio Oizumi, Jacek Fisiak, and John Scahill, eds. Text and Language in Medieval English Prose: A Festschrift for Tadao Kubouchi (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 183-206.
Ogura examines the lexicon of emotion (anger, fear, joy, pleasure, sorrow, wonder) in translations of Boethius by Jean de Meun, Chaucer, and Elizabeth I. Chaucer effectively uses three levels of word pairs: native, foreign, and combinations of…
