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…
Bertolet, Craig E.
Brian Gastle and Erick Kelemen, eds. Later Middle English Literature, Materiality, and Culture: Essays in Honor of James M. Dean (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2018.), pp. 167-88.
Compares ShT and FranT as works that assign different values to "the transaction for a woman's body . . . couched in the tale-teller's understanding of his own economic system." ShT reflects the coin-based economy of the "Atlantic maritime commercial…
Bertolet, Craig E.
Anna Riehl Bertolet and Carole Levin, eds. Creating the Premodern in the Postmodern Classroom: Creativity in Early English Literature and History Courses (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018), pp. 83-93.
Describes how to use Pierre Bourdieu's notion of "habitus" and the modern idea of public relations to help students explore how and to what extent the punishments in MilT are or are not "fair"; students are grouped as PR advocates for each of the…
Bertolet, Craig E.
Yearbook of English Studies 53 (2024, for 2023): 7-20.
Uses Giorgio Agamben's discussion of "homo sacer" to argue that the "bare life" of imprisonment for Emelye, Palamon, and Arcite in KnT serves Theseus's sovereignty. Justifying exceptions to previous rulings, Theseus maintains his power through…
Bertolet, Craig E., and Robert Epstein, eds.
Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Ten essays by various authors and an introduction by the editors. "Introduction: 'Greet prees at Market'-- Money Matters in Medieval English Literature" comments on recent critical interest in the social and political aspects of late medieval…
Bertolotti, Georgene Mary.
DAI 33.09 (1973): 4330A.
Considers Chaucer's diminishing use of classical stories in various stages of his "development as a creative artist," focusing on the rise of realism in his works.
Bertonèche, Caroline. Trans. Jonathan Fruoco.
Jonathan Fruoco, ed. Polyphony and the Modern (New York Routledge, 2021), pp. 206-16.
Argues that the polyphonies of John Keats's poetry (as identified by Helen Vendler) are attributable to his engagements with Chaucer's works and Chaucerian apocrypha, reflecting a particular kind of "Englishness," underpinned by travel and encounters…
In the Middle Dutch "Wrake van Ragisel" (adapted from the Old French "Vengeance Raguisel"), "Walewein, who is transformed into a dwarf, learns what women are exclusively led by their sexual desire," a different answer to the life question than is…
Besamusca, Bart.
Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 76 (2016): 89-122.
Offers six case studies of multi-text manuscripts to investigate "medieval concepts of authorship and . . . constructions of authority." Shows that Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Arch. Selden B.24 (including TC, PF, Truth, Mars, Venus, LGW, and…
Bessent, Benjamin R.
Studia Neophilologica 41 (1969): 99-111.
Considers Chaucer's "references to time" in TC in light of parallel passages in Boccaccio's "Filostrato," considering variants in TC manuscripts and arguing that Chaucer's concern with time in the poem results from his "desire to portray Criseyde as…
Besserman, Lawrence [L.]
New Literary History 22 (1991): 177-97.
Chaucer intended to entertain and edify Bukton by means of a network of biblical allusions that also provide an oblique comment on late-fourteenth-century biblical interpretation.
Besserman, Lawrence [L.]
Hugh T. Keenan, ed. Typology and English Medieval Literature (New York: AMS, 1992), pp. 183-205.
Chaucer uses biblical exegesis and typology for thematic purposes. In ClT, Griselda is portrayed as "pharmakos," a "figura Christi," through Chaucer's addition of biblical colorings and the typological juxtaposition of her character and actions with…
Besserman, Lawrence [L.]
Chaucer Review 24 (1990): 306-308.
Not only does Troilus's address to the "paleys desolat" of Criseyde echo the lament over the deserted Jerusalem in the first two chapters of Lamentations, but also Troilus's fixation upon that house is designed to evoke the self-punishing behavior…
Besserman, Lawrence [L.]
New York and London: Garland, 1988.
The main text consists of "Index I: Chaucer's Biblical Allusions--An Annotated List," arranged by Chaucer's works, and "Index II: Scriptural References," a reverse index. The apparatus includes an introduction; an essay, "Research on Chaucer and…
