The artistry of Chaucer's poetry is influenced by his historical role as a "negociis regis" employed to argue, persuade, and "embrace opposing doctrines" in the name of the king. Chaucer's skill as a negotiator can be seen in TC, wherin Criseyde,…
Berry, Craig A.
Theresa M. Krier, ed. Refiguring Chaucer in the Renaissance (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998), pp. 106-27.
Assesses Spenser's appeal to Chaucer and his continuation of SqT as an aspect of the Renaissance poet's doubt about his place in English poetry. Chaucer "revels in the multiplication of doubt," but Spenser sought to work out his doubts about his…
Berry, Craig A.
English Literary History 68: 287-313, 2001.
Chaucer enhances the rhetorical authority of SqT by following classical authorities, using figures such as Pegasus, the Trojan horse, and Sinon's persuasive deception as models and figures for the poem's rhetorical operation. Chaucer understood and…
Berry, Craig A.
Studies in Philology 91 (1994): 136-66.
Reads two sections of Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene" (the opening lines and Arthur's dream, 1.9) as examples of inscripted biographical details and the poetic anxiety of the work. Considers Spenser's adaptations of PF and, especially, Thop, reading…
Berry, Craig A.
In Andrew Escobedo, ed. Edmund Spenser in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 246-53.
Describes the "audacity and intensity" of Spenser's debt to Chaucer, considering the later poet's archaisms, his allusions to and quotations of Chaucer (particularly in "The Faerie Queene"), and the importance of Chaucer to Spenser's English…
Berry, Craig A.
Rachel Stenner, Tamsin Badcoe, and Gareth Griffith, eds. Rereading Chaucer and Spenser: Dan Geffrey with the New Poete (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019), pp. 212-23.
Explores the thematic concern with poetic tradition in the narrator-Africanus exchange of PF and in Spenser's "Mutabilitie Cantos," arguing that Chaucer and Spenser share an "interest in rhetorically linking the earth-bound poet with a community of…
Berry, Craig A.
Steven Rozenski, Joshua Byron Smith, and Claire M. Waters, eds. Mystics, Goddesses, Lovers, and Teachers: Medieval Visions and Their Modern Legacies. Studies in Honour of Barbara Newman (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), pp. 261-76.
Reviews critical approaches to Ret, reading it as both confessional and aesthetic, comparing its duality with those in Purse and the ending of TC, and exploring resonances with ParsT. Assesses Ret as a recantatory formulation that asks its…
Berry, Craig Allen.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1992): 1920A.
As poets representing themselves in their works and as civil servants, Chaucer and Spenser shared much. Instead of misreading his predecessor, Spenser reveals more grasp than previously noted of Th, SqT, and PF.
Berry, Reginald.
Dissertation Abstracts International 40 (1979): 231A.
The poets' adaptations of Chaucer's work in this era reflect the nature and principles of Chaucerian transformation for the eighteenth century. In his "Fables" Dryden emphasized the moral nature of the original poems and thus established a tradition…
Berry, Reginald.
Notes and Queries 224 (1979): 522-23.
The discovery of Dryden's indebtedness to Chaucer (TC, V, 817: "That Paradis stood formed in hire yen") for a line in "Absalom" ("And 'Paradise' was open'd in his face") is attributed in the California edition of Dryden's works to an article…
Berry, Reginald.
University of Toronto Quarterly 43 (1974): 285-97.
Explains the association of the eagle and air (as the medium of sound) in HF by identifying a number of iconographic affiliations of eagles with air in medieval depictions of the four elements. Includes 6 b&w illustrations
Locates and assesses a prevailing irony in TC: the narrator and each of the major characters follows the "same pattern" of early knowledge of Fortune's instability, "followed by self-deception, and eventual submission to the facts." Love and truth…
Bertelot, Craig E.
Studies in Philology 93 (1996): 365-89.
Argues that "the character paradigm that Chaucer creates...specifically for the lower birds in PF originates from his understanding of the rising social importance of urban culture in England, even though these birds themselves do not come from…
Bertolet, Craig E.
Dissertation Abstracts International 56 (1995): 1766A.
Certain qualities of fourteenth-century London created a cultural atmosphere in which a new kind of poetry flourished, emphasizing urban community and its values.
Bertolet, Craig E.
Chaucer Review 33 (1998): 66-89.
Chaucer's envoys should be examined not within the context of history but within the context of the art of letter writing, the medieval concept of friendship, and the description of late medieval diplomacy. Chaucer's is a "public stance," which…
Bertolet, Craig E.
Studes in Philology 99 : 229-46, 2002.
CkT illustrates what can happen to the urban household that opens its "pryvetee" to strangers who could damage the family and ruin its reputatiion in the community.
Bertolet, Craig E.
R. F. Yeager and Brian W. Gastle, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower (New York: Modern Language Association, 2011), pp. 83-90.
Offers recommendations for teaching Gower in relation to Chaucer's CT.
Bertolet, Craig E.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 33 (2011): 183-218.
Reads CYP and ManPT in light of Agamben's theories of sovereignty and exclusion and de Certeau's notion of a "person in-between," considering as well several instances of slander and accusation in late-medieval London records. London, the Host, and…
Examines influence of commerce and trade in CT, Gower's "Mirour de L'Omme" and "Confessio Amantis," and Hoccleve's "Male Regle" and "Regiment of Princes." Looks at social and cultural implications of how market economies affect literary narratives…
Bertolet, Craig E.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017. Relocated 2025 at https://opencanterburytales.lsusites.org/
Comments on the possibly harmful and/or fraudulent aspects of "japes" in CkPT, offering information about the food trade in medieval London and considering the Cook's "mormel" (GP 1.386) to be a sign of his vulnerability. Designed for pedagogical…
