Phillips, Helen.
Roger Ellis and Ruth Evans, eds. The Medieval Translator, 4. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 123. (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1994), pp. 86-103.
Compares the diction of Chaucer's Ven with that of its sources (three of Otto de Graunson's ballades) to explore how Chaucer reconceived "what de Graunson had written for a male speaker as an expression of a woman's feelings." The speaker of the…
Chaucer's catalog of women in LGWP contains attributes specifically chosen to reflect both the themes of the work itself and allusions to other literary works on the respective characters. Chaucer thus demonstrates his knowledge of previous…
Phillips, Helen.
Helen Cooper and Sally Mapstone, eds. The Long Fifteenth Century: Essays for Douglas Gray (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), pp. 71-97.
Attempts to define fifteenth-century "Chaucerian poetry," commenting on the historical use of the term and positing several thematic and formal features, especially the "meta-fictive and self-reflexive virtuosity" that results from various kinds of…
Phillips, Helen.
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne et al., eds. Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts in Late Medieval Britain: Essays for Felicity Riddy (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2000), pp. 83-99.
Examines how the epithets and titles applied to Mary disperse and fictionalize her powerful humanity. Discusses various Marian lyrics, including ABC, in which Chaucer subtly but significantly alters the theology of Marian praise.
Phillips, Helen.
New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.
Discusses all of the Tales in Ellesmere order, surveying past and current critical approaches. Emphasizes the diversity of CT, discusses the narrative voice, and places the work in historical, political, and economic contexts. Concludes that Chaucer…
Phillips, Helen.
Nottingham French Studies 38: 120-36, 1999.
Summarizes how contemporary intertextual theory complicates traditional notions of source relations. Surveys intertextual relations in Chaucer's works, especially examples where, by failing to "include the conclusion" from his source(s), Chaucer…
Chaucer's political commentary is often disguised by ambiguity--the refusal ever to mean one thing--and the multiple nuances of his words. In revising LGWP, Chaucer inserted allusions to the "dangerous talk" of his day--to texts and interpretation…
Explores Sir Walter Scott's knowledge of Chaucer and the novelist's use of themes and techniques reminiscent of those in BD and the apocryphal "Flower and the Leaf." Alluding to these works in "The Antiquary," Scott emphasizes their concerns with…
Phillips, Helen.
Ruth Evans, Helen Fulton, and David Matthews, eds. Medieval Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Stephen Knight (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 123-37.
Phillips explores verbal, narrative, and thematic parallels between FrT and Robin Hood tales such as "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisburne." Emphases on "grenewode," archery, disguise, commercialism, ecclesiastical corruption, oppression of the poor, and…
Phillips, Helen.
Marios Costambeys, Andrew Hamer, and Martin Heale, eds. The Making of the Middle Ages: Liverpool Essays. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007, pp. 71-92.
Phillips gauges Romantic responses to LGW and the "Flower and the Leaf" (attributed to Chaucer in the Romantic age), indicating that Keats, Tennyson, William Morris, Pre-Raphaelite artists, and others admired the poems for their depictions of Nature…
Phillips, Helen.
Rosalind Field, Phillipa Hardman, and Michelle Sweeney, eds. Christianity and Romance in Medieval England. Christianity and Culture: Issues in Teaching and Research (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 3-25.
Surveys the treatment of classical material in medieval romances (arranged by topic), exploring where and how the romance authors engage the status and validity of their pre-Christian material. Comments on KnT and TC.
Phillips, Helen.
Dee Dyas, ed. The English Parish Church Through the Centuries: Daily Life and Spirituality, Art and Architecture, Literature and Music. York: University of York; Nottingham: St. John's College, 2010, n.p. [Interactive CD]
Describes key clerical figures in CT and exemplifies details of worship, parish social life, and the Church in daily life. Includes color illustrations and hypertext links to key terms and concepts.
Phillips explores the proverbial and biblical background to ManT, identifying links between its plot and its teller, an untrustworthy servant. In popular tradition, crows were regarded as unfaithful servants and unreliable messengers, an association…
Phillips, Helen.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Companion to Medieval Poetry (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 414-34.
Describes the nature and legacy of the dream vision genre and assesses Chaucer's four dream poems (BD, HF, PF, and LGW), exploring the dynamics of courtliness and learning, experience and authority, endings and implications,…
Phillips, Helen.
Helen Phillips, ed. Chaucer and Religion (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010), pp. 65-80.
Contends that Chaucer's romances, including KnT, MLT, WBT, SqT, FranT, Th, and TC, "exhibit . . . interest in adversity, or philosophical or religious contempt" for suffering as a primary theme.
Phillips, Helen.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 75-91.
Examines Chaucer's use of sun-king imagery and references to Apollo in a variety of works. Compiles historical connections among Chaucer's allusions and Richard II and other political figures' iconography, suggesting a multivalent portrayal of…
Phillips, Helen.
Susanna Fein, ed. The Auchinleck Manuscript: New Perspectives (York: University of York, 2016), pp. 139-55.
Examines "what looking from Auchinleck to Chaucer might reveal about Chaucer." Considers how in Th Chaucer may have been influenced by the "romance formulae exemplified in Auchinleck."
Phillips, Helen.
Beatrice Fannon, ed. Medieval English Literature (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 79-94.
Addresses Chaucer's discourse on medieval political principles, including kingship and hierarchical order. Examines SqT, Mel, KnT, ClT, LGW, PF, and Sted.
Phillips, Helen.
In Jamie C. Fumo, ed. Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess": Contexts and Interpretations (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2018), pp. 177-97.
Studies the rhetorical topos of exemplary lists of famous antique figures in BD, in comparison with contemporary uses of the device. Chaucer's lists are more than simply didactic or conventional, affirming "chivalric and regal identity" and thus…
Phillips, Helen.
Yearbook of English Studies 53 (2024, for 2023): 36-51.
Addresses shouting in Chaucer's narratives, focusing on "the hue and cry," which, "strikingly frequent," engages "with questions about the reliability of narratives, and also with problems of rape and sexual consent, misogynistic narratives and…
Phillips, Kim M.
Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2003.
Examines how the "experiences and voices" of young, unmarried women in late-medieval England reflect ideals of femininity and the social processes of becoming adult women. Focuses on social history and literature, with recurrent mention of CT, TC,…
Phillips, Noëlle H.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017. Relocated 2025 at https://opencanterburytales.lsusites.org/
Describes the events and social impact of major historical events in fourteenth-century England: war with France, Black Death, the Uprising of 1381, Wycliffite reform, and their interrelations. Designed for classroom use.
