Everhart, Deborah Ann.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1993): 3206A-7A.
Middle English "hap" develops a network of meanings among texts--from providential in "Patience"; to Chaucer's Boethian applications in TC; to the varied ill luck, astrological destiny, and providence of Malory--thus demonstrating the impossibility…
Fisher, John H.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 464-76.
In this century discussions of LGW have centered on two points: the historical occasion of the poem and its significance as a stage in Chaucer's artistic development. Not until the last decade has criticism concerned itself with the artistry of the…
Von Kreisler, Nicholai.
Philological Quarterly 50 (1971): 16-22.
Shows that Chaucer's description of the garden in PF 204-10, part of the tradition of "locus amoenus," also "engages the conventional elements and rhetorical style of medieval pictures of heaven or paradise." Such adjustments to Boccaccio's…
Benson, Larry D.
Julian N. Wasserman and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 3-22.
By dating HF's composition and first public reading in December, 1379, we can see the unfinished last lines as a joke purposely played on Cardinal Pileo's messenger, Nicolo,whose news that no marriage would take place between Richard II and Caterina…
Overbeck, Pat Trefzger.
Modern Philology 73 (1975): 157-61.
Many sources and analogues for Chaucer's poem, including the "Roman de la Rose," "Panthere d'amours," "La dance aux aveugles," and "Trionfo d'amore," as well as a reference in his own LGW (G, 403-05), suggest that the "man of great authority" is the…
Calkin, Siobhain Bly.
Christopher Cannon and Maura Nolan, eds. Medieval Latin and Middle English Literature: Essays in Honour of Jill Mann (Cambridge: Brewer, 2011), pp. 1-24.
MLT engages with ideas found in Latin and French treatises advocating crusade and assesses the rhetoric and practices of crusades, critiquing their mercantile aims, the ignorance of cultural differences dooming efforts to convert Muslims, and poor…
The long tradition describing the relationship between rhetoric and emotion is reflected in Chaucer's pathetic tales. Particularly in MLT, narrative comment upon the action and vivid description are the conventional strategies used to lead the…
Johnson, William C.,Jr.
Chaucer Review 16 (1982): 201-21.
MLT is a test case of Chaucer's use of Christian materials directed toward a "new human center." Christ and Christianity are uniquely transformed into a pervasive humanism, through Chaucer's tolerant ambivalence.
Silar, Theodore I.
Notes and Queries 242 (1997): 306-9.
Citing examples from feudal law and practice, Silar argues that MLT 2.168 has a specific legal sense and should be translated "[Custance's] hand, in which the right to grant estates in the feudal tenure of frankalmoign."
ManT expresses ambivalence about verbal signification and asserts the power of poetry. The role of Phoebus (a figure of poetry), imagery of caging, the figure of the crow, and violations of poetic decorum affirm humanist poetics, despite the…
Gruber, Loren C.
William C. Johnson and Loren C. Gruber, eds. "New" Views on Chaucer: Essays in Generative Criticism (Denver: Society for New Language Study, 1973), pp. 43-50.
Argues that ManT contributes to the theme of the linguistic slipperiness in CT, depicting how language fails to reflect reliably the "actual nature of the world."
Lee, Brian S.
South African Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 15 (2005): 55-68.
Comments on the upbringing of young people in CT. Mentioned in only three lines, the "mayde child" in ShT exemplifies the late medieval practice of wardship. The words signify the callous immorality of the guardian who, like the governesses…
Miller, Robert P.
Chaucer Review 5.2 (1970): 147-60.
Assesses MilT as an "anti-authoritarian" complaint against the estates--the clergy, the courtly aristocracy, the "providers," and women--depicting "the kind of thing the Miller would like to see happen to such people."
Richards, Mary P.
Chaucer Review 9 (1975): 212-15.
Since chronicle accounts of St. Neot's habits are contradictory, three extant recensions of the saint's life provide the best explanation of Chaucer's allusion in MilT. These recensions suggest that the poet establishes an ironic parallel between…
Gaylord, Alan T.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 6 (1984): 65-84.
Th is analyzed in the context of CT and compared with PrT. The deliberate failure of Th to achieve the promised "miracle" is a comment on the difference between miracles and poetry: miracles "overwhelm" debate, while poetry evokes it.
While using the Italians' narrative structures in MkT, Chaucer twists the styles and themes of Dante and Boccaccio. The pathos and direct narrative of Chaucer's Hugelyn supplant the horror and ambiguities of Dante's Ugolino. Chaucer's Cenobia…
Thundyil, Zacharias.
Christianity and Literature 20.3 (1971): 12-16.
Gauges Chaucer's attitude toward "reason and revelation," and argues that "one of the structural principles" of CT is the "pursuit of moral wisdom," particularly in movement from KnT to ParsT and in the image of pilgrimage.
In ShT, Chaucer may have used the well-known text of Proverbs 31.10-31, which praises the valiant woman, in ironic fashion. The scriptural "mulier fortis" is praised for her "huswifery," her provision of food and clothing, her "rendering" to her…
NPT is indebted to the naturalistic and mock-heroic tone of the French "Roman de Renard," as well as to an indigenous English tradition of didactic beast fables and exempla. The Priest's concluding exhortation on humility marks the point of the…
Following medieval rhetorical tradition, Chaucer has hidden his own name in the tale in anagrammatic fashion: "Ge" (for Geffrey, Chaucer's spelling of his own name) plus "Chau"ntl"c"l"er" results in "gentele Chaucer," employing the roman letters…
Friedman, John Block.
Chaucer Review 7.3 (1973): 250-66.
Surveys approaches to NPT, and discusses its appropriateness as a homiletic exemplum to the Priest as narrator, discussing its rhetoric, its misogynistic depictions of females, and its allusions to mermaid song and Physiologus (7.3270-72)
