LaPorte, Charles.
David Latham, ed. Writing on the Image: Reading William Morris (Toronto and Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 2007), pp. 209-19.
Morris's decision to present Chaucer's works in "clear-text" format (without editorial apparatus) conflicts with Victorian theories of editing. Yet, his presentations of Ret and the envoy to TC belie his efforts to imitate medieval traditions.
Includes BD, HF, PF, LGW, Anel, ABC, Adam, MercB, Ros, Truth, Gent, Sted, Scog, Buk, and Purse, with a general preface, an introduction for each of the longer works, selected background works and critical assessments (focusing on the dream visions),…
Matthews, David.
Gordon McMullan and David Matthews, eds. Reading the Medieval in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 74-88.
Matthews focuses on Thomas Speght's 1598 and 1602 editions of Chaucer and their role in re-imagining Chaucer as an Early Modern rather than a medieval author. The prefatory poem, "The Reader to Geffrey Chaucer," suggests that early editions had…
Mosser, Daniel W.
Chaucer Review 41 (2007): 360-92.
Scribal glosses in a copy of this third incunabular edition of CT (STC 5084) provide further evidence of manuscript W, a hypothesized manuscript affiliated with Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R.3.15, and Wynkyn de Worde's edition of CT. They also…
The glosses to Mel and ParsT in Wynkyn de Worde's CT (1498, STC 5085) are closely related to those in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R.3.15, suggesting that they shared a common exemplar, W. That hypothetical exemplar clarifies aspects of the history…
Da Rold, Orietta.
Chaucer Review 41 (2007): 393-438.
Systematic analysis of corrections disproves the notion that the Dd scribe was either careless or meddling, suggesting instead that his corrections were executed in the course of checking his copying against his exemplar. The remaining corrections…
Fletcher, Alan J.
Review of English Studies 58 (2007): 597-632.
Evidence suggests that Chaucer's careless scribe in Adam is Adam Pynkhurst. The Trinity College manuscript, containing prose tracts evincing Wyclif's influence, may be in Pynkhurst's hand. Chaucer's connection with this scribe could account for…
Horobin, Simon.
Gail Ashton and Louise Sylvester, eds. Teaching Chaucer (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 96-104.
Argues that analyzing Chaucerian manuscripts and comparing them with edited versions can help students discover important principles of variation and evidence.
A heretofore unrecognized reference to KnT in the "Index Britanniæ Scriptorum," compiled by sixteenth-century antiquarian John Bale, provides evidence of a lost manuscript containing Hoccleve's "Regiment of Princes" plus at least Chaucer's KnT and…
Rust, Martha Dana.
New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Explores relationships between texts and their paratexts in English and Scottish books produced between 1400 and 1490, considering a "variety of pre- and extralinguistic modes of interacting with and thinking through books." Examines letter-forms,…
Stubbs, Estelle.
Review of English Studies 58 (2007): 133-53.
Codicological analyses of the structure and details of Corpus Christi 198 support early suggestions by Carleton Brown, Charles Owen, and John Fisher about Chaucer's ongoing revision of CT, especially when considered in light of other early…
Boitani, Piero.
Giuseppe Galigani, ed. Italomania(s): Italy and the English Speaking World from Chaucer to Seamus Heaney. Proceedings of the Georgetown and Kent State University Conference Held in Florence in [sic] June 20-21, 2005 (Florence: Mauro Pagliai, 2007), pp. 15-25.
Boitani surveys Chaucer's "ongoing dialogue" with Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, discussing how Chaucer's borrowings reflect his "prodigious memory and striking associative and intertextual skill." Draws examples from PF, TC, KnT and ClT and…
Bowers, John M.
Notre Dame, Ind. : University of Notre Dame Press , 2007.
Chaucer's preeminence over Langland is an effect of historical and social forces and must be revised, because tradition is a conflicted notion that helps construct understanding of past, present, and future. Chaucer was a medium of this process, "the…
Cook, Alexandra Kollontai.
DAI A67.10 (2007): n.p.
Like many of his predecessors, Chaucer explores risks in dealing with pagan sources, but he renders such risks pleasurable as a means to "destabilize Christian constructs of safety."
Studying CT alongside early and late versions of the Wycliffite Bible reveals examples of Chaucer's nearly direct quotations from LV and of his sympathy with developments in translation theory from EV to LV, which favored more idiomatic renderings of…
Galloway, Andrew.
Annette Harder, Alasdair A. MacDonald, and Gerrit J. Reinink, eds. Calliope's Classroom: Studies in Didactic Poetry from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Dudley, Mass.: Peeters, 2007), pp. 245-67.
Chaucer and Gower compete in seeking to articulate political and moral ideals. Whereas Gower endorses "communal governance of the ideology of self-interest," Chaucer explores a less certain "ideal union" among political, moral, and personal forms of…
Chaucer and Gower distance themselves from French influence in the 1380s and 1390s as a way to criticize Richard's "predilection for French literature" and to train their readers to read and interpret.
Surveys British literary responses to "some aspects of the Muslim spiritual system," identifying instances in which British literature was influenced by Sufi mysticism or reflects awareness of it. Includes summary (pp. 37-39) of parallels between…
Jeffrey, David Lyle.
Jeffrey P. Greenman, Timothy Larsen, and Stephen R. Spencer, eds. The Sermon on the Mount Through the Centuries (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2007), pp. 81-107.
Jeffrey explores Chaucer's allusions to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), arguing that they reflect Chaucer's distrust of glossing and that the Sermon underpins theological themes of CT most evident in Mel and ParsT: peacemaking and obedience.
Kamath, Stephanie Anne Viereck Gibbs.
DAI A67.08 (2007): n.p.
Kamath traces "the impact of the innovative form of the Roman de la Rose in French and English history," considering the use of "vernacular first-person allegory" by writers such as Deguileville, Chaucer, Lydgate, and Hoccleve.
Fragment 1 of CT (KnT, MilT, and RvT) "posit[s] contra-factual histories" for Chaucer's source texts while employing imagery of "sodomy, rape and monstrous hybrids" as refutations of those histories' threats to the structure of a salvation comedy.
Taylor, Karla.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 29 (2007): 43-85.
Using the image of a volume of collected leaves, Chaucer explores the "twin problems of rivalry and rehearsal" in his sequence of MilP (the narrator's apology), MLP (the Man of Law's comments on Chaucer's writings), and WBPT (the tearing of Jankyn's…
Alexander, Michael.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007.
Alexander traces the "set of ideals" underlying English medievalism, commenting on art, architecture, politics, and religion but focusing on literature. The study contains recurrent references to Chaucer's influence, including investigation of Walter…
