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…
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,…
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.
Dissertation Abstracts International 27.09 (1967): 3005A.
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…
Bevis, Richard.
Eighteenth-Century Life 10 (1986): 44-58.
Reevaluates Pope's adaptation of HF, "The Temple of Fame," focusing on how radically he reworks Chaucer's narrative, shifting it to a more "scenic" poem by introducing elements from "An Account of Several Late Voyages and Discoveries," a piece of…
Comments on HF and TC in chapter 2, "Medieval Literature: Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland" (pp. 47-86). Compares the three buildings that the dreamer visits in HF--the temple in the desert, the palace of Fame, and the twirling house of…
Focusing on literary depictions of maying activities in medieval records and the Roman de la Rose, Bezella-Bond assesses their depiction in Malory and in Chaucer's BD, PF, LGWP, KnT, MerT, and WBPT.
Bianciotto, Gabriel.
Rouen: Universite de Rouen, 1994.
Challenges Robert Pratt's view that "Troilus and Criseyde" was based on Beauvau's French "Troyle", comparing the similarities among Boccaccio's "Filostrato," TC, and the "Roman de Troyle." Includes a detailed historical analysis of the Beauvau family…
Bianco, Sue.
Helen Cooney, ed. Nation, Court and Culture: New Essays on Fifteenth-Century English Poetry (Dublin and Portland, Ore.: Four Courts Press, 2001), pp. 95-115.
Critical reception of Lydgate has been prejudiced by negative comparisons with Chaucer. Fuller appreciation of Lydgate's poetry depends on recognizing that, while moral and political issues in Chaucer are largely exemplary, Lydgate writes to effect…
Bice, Deborah Marie.
Dissertation Abstracts International 56 (1995): 2230A.
Not mere ornament, the "effictio,"or physical and spiritual portrait, had become a fixed literary convention by the time of Geoffrey of Vinsauf. Bice analyzes Chaucerian characters from GP, KnT, NPT, and MilT, as well as from "Sir Gawain and the…
Describes the models of verbal portraiture in the "Rhetorica ad Herennium" and works by Geoffrey of Vinsauf and Matthew of Vendôme and their impact on Chaucer, arguing that the portraits of Fortune and Blanche in BD reflect the Black Knight's state…
