Symons, Dana M.
Sandra M. Hordis and Paul Hardwick, eds. Medieval English Comedy (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007), pp. 83-109.
Symons compares and contrasts the comic inaction of Th with comic spectacle in MilT and in the popular romance "Sir Tristrem." A "sophisticatedly 'bad' poem," Th depends for its success on expectations that differ from those of popular literature.
Forhan, Kate L.
Henrik Syse and Gregory M. Reichberg, eds. Ethics, Nationalism, and Just War: Medieval and Contemporary Perspectives (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 2007), pp. 99-116.
Forhan summarizes the "dynastic quarrel" of the Hundred Years' War and describes the pacifist recommendations as prudent in Chaucer's Mel and in several works by Christine de Pizan. Treats the two writers as "catalysts" in the late medieval…
Despite their diverse emphases, critical responses to the Monk's portrait in GP evince the same "close reading instinct" that generated E. Talbot Donaldson's "Chaucer the Pilgrim" essay and that has persisted "in an almost universal unwillingness . .…
Fizzard, Allison D.
Journal of British Studies 46 (2007): 245-62.
Fizzard considers Chaucer's GP description of the Monk among other satires and accounts of monastic dress, exploring in particular debates about standards of dress among Augustinian monks.
Brantley, Jessica.
Paul Strohm, ed. Middle English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 315-34.
Brantley describes "texts that record acts of looking" as a "distinct medieval literary genre and a distinctly medieval way of knowing," addressing dream visions (including BD, PF, HF, and LGWP), mystical visions, and the parody of a visionary…
Compares "The Owl and the Nightingale" and NPT as the "best beast fables" in Middle English, examining how the diction of each poem helps to create "voice" and thereby engage an audience.
Bishop, Louise M.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007.
Surveys medical metaphors and the rise of English vernacular writing to trace diminution of belief in the "intrinsic healing quality" of words. As the healing power "evaporates," we find the separation of material and immaterial things, healing and…
Davis, Isabel.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Davis explores "intersections between medieval masculine subjectivity and the ethics of labour and living" in Langland's "Piers Plowman," Usk's "The Testament of Love," Gower's "Confessio Amantis," the poetry of Hoccleve, and Chaucer's CYPT. Reads…
O'Connell, Brendan.
Kathy Cawsey and Jason Harris, eds. Transmission and Transformation in the Middle Ages: Texts and Contexts (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), pp. 131-56.
Chaucer addresses the "late medieval attack on analogical thought through his discussion of the failure of alchemy." SNT presents analogical thinking through its clear, but bridgeable, contrasts of spirit and body, whereas CYT offers an uncertain…
Phillips, Susan E.
Paul Strohm, ed. Middle English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 476-90.
Gossip transgresses the servant-master relationship in CYP, and CYT indicates that gossip underpins the discourse of official culture as well. Gossip is also fundamental to the exemplarity of Robert Mannyng's Handlyng Synne.
McCormack, Frances.
Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007.
Investigates Lollard vocabulary, translation strategies, and rhetorical tropes, arguing that the Parson and ParsT cannot categorically be identified as Lollard. Nonetheless, unmistakable elements of Lollardy undercut the hermeneutic stability of what…
Eagleton, Catherine.
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 38 (2007): 303-26.
Evidence from diagrams in the manuscripts of Astr suggests that the diagrams may have influenced construction of later extant medieval astrolabes, perhaps encouraged by Chaucer's "posthumous fame." Includes black-and-white and color illustrations.
Given its resonance with references to duties of friendship that preface many astrolabe treatises, Chaucer's reference to his young son Lewis as his "frend" may accede to the wishes of adult friends who also wished for "a companionable guide to…
Johnson examines Chaucer's attitudes about and representations of the "workings of the soul in stirring itself towards God," comparing Bo to its Boethian original in light of late fourteenth-century pastoral instruction and tracing similar sentiments…
Facing-page translation of BD, based on the Riverside edition and rendered in modern octosyllabic couplets. Includes brief notes, a biographical note about Chaucer, an introduction by the translator, and a foreword by Bernard O'Donoghue.
Templeton, Willis Lee, II.
DAI A67.07 (2007): n.p.
Compares the "displays of masculine grief" in BD, the "Alliterative Morte Arthure," and "Sir Orfeo" with "norms of chivalric masculinity," investigating them in light of theories of Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida.
Zeeman, Nicolette.
Paul Strohm, ed. Middle English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 222-40.
Zeeman treats the "chanson d'aventure" as an imaginative (rather than expository) articulation of literary theory, focusing on use of the device in BD, LGWP, the opening of Piers Plowman, and other works.
Lydgate's poetic trial of Brunhilde indicates a conviction that poets have a central role in shaping and transmitting "fama." In sharp contrast, Chaucer depicts fama as a function of "aventure" in HF.
Fumo, Jamie C.
Janet Levarie Smarr, ed. Writers Reading Writers: Intertextual Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Literature in Honor of Robert Hollander. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007, pp. 89-108.
Fumo compares and contrasts Chaucer's invocation of Apollo in HF to its source in Dante's "Paradiso," arguing that Chaucer shares with Dante a "fundamental interest in defining the poet's role" as a "vessel of prophetic truth." Both poets are…
Warren, Nancy Bradley.
Paul Strohm, ed. Middle English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 369-85.
The "transubstantiation" of the word being made flesh underlies the autobiographical impulse in Julian of Norwich's "Showings," Langland's "Piers Plowman," and Chaucer's HF. Warren also comments on Chaucer's Ret as autobiography.
Coleman, Joyce.
R. F. Yeager, ed. On John Gower: Essays at the Millennium. Studies in Medieval Culture, no. 46. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007, pp. 104-23.
Coleman considers the first recension of Gower's "Confessio Amantis" and the F version of LGWP for evidence of royal patronage, arguing that both were inspired by Anne of Bohemia and by the popularity of the "Flower and Leaf" conventions that Anne…
Each of the legends makes use of "the metonymic possibilities of objects and bodies" to represent the difficulty of discerning truth from fable in written sources available to the historiographer.
McCormick, Betsy.
Eileen A. Joy, Myra J. Seaman, Kimberly K. Bell, and Mary K. Ramsey, eds. Cultural Studies of the Modern Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 91-117.
McCormick compares LGW and Christine de Pisan's "Le livre de la cité des dames" with the reality TV show "Manor House," exploring how each poses a "liminal space" from which to "contemplate societal stereotypes and strictures by revisiting the…
