Notes that the visual imagery of falling rocks and millstones Pandarus uses to convince Troilus of his future success is associated with death and destruction in the Bible, which actually undermines Pandarus's argument in TC.
Bessinger, J. B., Jr., reader
New York: Caedmon, 1967. (TC 1226)
A reading in Middle English of PF, MerB, Ros, Sted, Purse, Adam, and Scogan, accompanied by a companion booklet that comprises the text, notes, and glosses based on E. T Donaldson's "Chaucer's Poetry" (1958).
Bessinger, J. B., Jr., reader.
New York: Caedmon, 1967. (TC 1223)
A reading in Middle English of MilPT and RvPT, accompanied by a companion booklet that comprises the text, notes, and glosses based on E. T. Donaldson's "Chaucer's Poetry" (1958).
Bessinger, J. B., Jr., reader.
New York: Caedmon, 1962. (TC 1151). Available at archive.org; accessed June 29, 2024.
A reading in Middle English of GP, ParsP, and Ret., accompanied by introductory liner introduction and a 12-booklet that includes the text of the poetry from F. N. Robinson's 1957 edition, withour notes or glosses.
Bessinger, Jess B., Jr., and Robert P. Creed, eds.
New York: New York University Press, 1965.
Includes 26 essays on Germanic, Old English, Middle English, and Renaissance literary and linguistic topics, along with a dedicatory poem, a brief Introduction, and a list of Magoun's publications between 1924 and 1964, including reviews. For two…
Bessinger, Jess B., Jr., and Robert R. Raymo, eds.
New York: New York University Press, 1976.
Fifteen essays by various authors, commemmorating Hornstein's retirement. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Medieval Studies in Honor of Lillian Herlands Hornstein under Alternative Title.
Gives examples of the traditional humor that derives from exaggeration in depictions of giants in Middle English romance, and argues that, in Th, Chaucer goes "one step further" in making Oliphaunt ridiculous, largely because this giant is seen from…
ParsT makes use of a tradition of penitential mediation (cf. ParsP 55 and 69) on the virtues and vices. In the plan of CT, ParsT abandons the emotive fiction and fables of the earlier tales for the solid ground of meditation, transforming an earthly…
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…
Bestul, Thomas H.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 82 (1983): 500-14.
Chaucer's close attention to Griselda's and Walter's faces throughout ClT makes allegorical interpretation insufficient. Walter's false faces emphasize his duplicity and cruelty, contradicting his correspondence to a higher beneficent order;…
Bestul, Thomas H.
Chaucer Review 14 (1980): 366-78.
Like other late medieval art, TC exhibits a growing concern with the portrayal of emotions, especially through the shifting role of the narrator. He sometimes resorts to "occupatio," claiming inability to describe an emotional state, and eventually…
Bestul, Thomas H.
Ian Lancashire, ed. Computer-Based Chaucer Studies (Toronto: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, 1993), pp. 177-87
Describes formats of existing compendia of Chaucer's sources and analogues, emphasizing their limitations. Uses MkT materials to exemplify potential advantages of a hypertext source-and-analogue compilation for Chaucer's corpus.
Bestul reexamines the relevant evidence and shows that Chaucer lived at 179 Upper Thames Street rather than at 177. The study illuminates the history of scholarly politics and of conflicting "historical paradigms" behind the 1966 "Chaucer…
Bestul, Thomas H.
Medieval Feminist Forum 45.1 (2009): 68-92.
Biographical sketch of Bressie, focusing on her work with John M. Manly, Edith Rickert, and Lilian Redstone on the Chaucer life-records and her unsuccessful competition with Martin Crow to publish works related to Chaucer. Bestul admires Bressie's…
Anthologizes a selection of works by Chaucer and by Shakespeare, with a brief general introduction to each and bottom-of-page glosses and notes. The selection from Chaucer, edited by Bethurum and based on the text by Walter W. Skeat, includes GP,…
Presents SqPT and the description of the Squire from the GP in Middle English (based on the Ellesmere manuscript), with bottom-of-page textual notes, end-of text notes and glossary, an Introduction (pp. vii-xxxv), and a description of Chaucer's…
Bethurum, Dorothy, ed.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.
Six essays by various authors and a summary Introduction by the editor. For five essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature under Alternative Title.
Traces developments in Chaucer's "attitude to love" as reflected in his narrative personae in BD, LGWP, PF, HF, and TC, assessing this attitude in light of the courtly, Chartrian, and neo-Platonic standards of works by Alain de Lille, Jean de Meun,…
Bethurum, Dorothy.
Essays in Honor of Walter Clyde Curry (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1954), pp. 39-50.
Reads PF as Chaucer's "most voluptuous poem," a love poem with the Garden of Love as its unifying center where Nature and Priapus serve as its "presiding deities." Comments on the poem's range of attitudes toward love and its source materials.
Bettridge, William Edwin, and Francis Lee Utley,
Texas Studies in Literature and Language13 (1971): 158-208.
Explores the sources of Boccaccio's version of the Griselda story, assessing international oral and literary versions and commenting occasionally on features of ClT. Includes as an appendix summaries of nine Greek and Turkish analogues.
Bettridge, William Edwin.
Ph.D. Dissertation. Ohio State University, 1967.Dissertation Abstracts International 27.09 (1967): 3005A. Fully accessible via https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/etd/r/1501/10?clear=10&p10_accession_num=osu1486725362005711 (accessed April 21, 2026).
Studies fourteenth- and fifteenth-century versions of the Griselda story, including ClT, arguing that it does not derive from the Cupid and Psyche myth and that several versions thought to be analogues are not in fact so.
Bevan, E. Dean.
Ulrich Müller and Kathleen Verduin, eds. Papers from the Fifth Annual General Conference on Medievalism 1990 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1996), pp. 435-41.
Comments on Bevan's efforts to represent in a film script various aspects of Chaucer's art in TC: Chaucer's sense of history, the subtleties of his diction, and his "world view."
Explores the unity of HF evident in the "evolution of the narrator, Geffrey," arguing that the poem "is essentially a humorous and all-embracing review of man's frantic quest for fame, learning, and love" that follows the educating of [a] drudging…
