Zilleruelo, Erica L.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. "The Canterbury Tales" Revisited--21st Century Interpretations (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 27-43.
Considers several features of MilT, including diction, arguing that MilT is a "Chaucerian fabliau."
Chaucer's audience would have considered the Miller's apparent lack of jealousy toward his wife in the context of a long-standing teaching that jealousy has a salutary side. According to that view, "[w]hoever is not jealous does not love."
Facing-page version of MilPT and the GP description of the Miller, with modernization in iambic pentameter facing the Middle English text from the Riverside edition. Contains a descriptive introduction, brief notes (pp. 53-55), and a biographical…
Bromyard's denunciation of "popular views on sex" in the Luxuria section of his "Summa Predicantium" resonates verbally and structurally with WBP, suggesting that the Wife's performance functions in part as a counterattack to such sermonizing by …
Contrasts WBT to popular romance narratives of the period, arguing that notions of "sentence"--i.e., of "meaning that is inscribed into a narrative by its author"--force high cultural glossing onto popular texts that may not be best suited to such…
Cole, Meghan R.
Sigma Tau Delta Review 5 (2008): 17-25.
Cole examines the "intricate relationship between sex, money, and power" in WBP, particularly as reflected in the sequence in which the Wife recalls her husbands.
Brandolino examines reciprocity between faith and interiority in a number of late medieval English vernacular texts, including WBPT and SNT. After 1215, when Pope Innocent III "issued a decree requiring all Christians . . . to make an annual private…
Aloni, Gila.
Danielle Buschinger and Arlette Sancery, eds. Mélanges de langue, littérature et civilisation offerts à André Crépin à l'occasion de son quatre-vingtième anniversaire (Amiens: Presses du Centre d'Études Médiévales, Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, 2008), pp. 1-10.
Explores how Chaucer's reflections on maternity expose a relationship between Christianity and other religions in MLT.
Argues that Chaucer's representation of the widow in FrT anticipates the "cursing hag" of Early Modern tradition, especially in responding to the summoner's refusal of her request for charity. The curse and the summoner's refusal to repent help to…
Steiner, Wendy.
Rosemary Feal, ed. Profession 2008 (New York: Modern Language Association, 2008), pp. 24-32.
Personal narrative about Steiner's composition of an opera inspired by WBT, intended for production as a full-length animated film. Includes sketches and storyboards by John Kindness.
Normandin argues that a "surplus of urine in the absence of fecal matter affects the tone" of WBP. Chaucer "associates the Wife of Bath with urine because antifeminist traditions often represented females as liquid, dripping creatures and because…
Martin, Jennifer L.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. "The Canterbury Tales" Revisited--21st Century Interpretations (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 60-74.
Cites instances in which the Wife of Bath crosses over between binary sets (male/female, sex/gender, authority/experience), and suggests that she cannot be seen simply as a feminist. Nor is she simply a victim.
In the fourteenth century, rape was perceived as "natural," a relatively minor social infraction. In WBT, the ladies of the court do not dispute the verdict assigned the rapist-knight; they dispute only the penalty. The knight is socially…
Yoon, Minwoo.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 16 (2008): 113-41.
Although Griselda is "translated" in three different ways in ClT (language, place,and social class), her labor is constant throughout. Her labors (domestic, wifely, and public) define her essential selfhood and grant her a kind of power that Walter…
Rossiter, William.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. "The Canterbury Tales" Revisited--21st Century Interpretations (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 166-93.
Complex intertextual relationships among ClT and its multiple sources, as well as the complex political implications of ClT, reinforce the Tale's "habit of returning its readers to the multiplicity of interpretation."
Pugh, Tison.
Sexuality and Its Queer Discontents in Middle English Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 75-99.
The Clerk's submission to the Host's tale-telling game parallels Griselda's submission to Walter: the two are queerly faithful in ways that bring into focus their "contractual hermaphroditism" and deconstruct traditional gender categories. Griselda's…
Harkins, Jessica Lara Lawrence.
DAI A69.05 (2008): n.p.
Looks at ClT and Boccaccio's "Decameron" 10.10, along with works of St. Jerome, Apuleius, and Petrarch, to examine assumptions about Griselda and versions of her tale, arguing that Chaucer was aware of the Boccaccio text.
Denny-Brown, Andrea.
Lisa H. Cooper and Andrea Denny-Brown,eds. Lydgate Matters: Poetry and Material Culture in the Fifteenth Century (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 35-56.
Denny-Brown explores roots of the medieval legends of Bicorn and Chichevache, examining how Chaucer develops the "themes of beastly appetites" in ClT and how Lydgate expands the theme of appetite in his "Bycorne and Chychevache."
Beyond her concern to remain bodily faithful to her husband, Dorigen also exhibits a commitment to keep faith with her word. But the Tale's denouement suggests that Dorigen's ultimate interest lies less with honoring her promises than with having a…
Finlayson, John.
English Studies 89 (2008): 385-402.
In FranT, Chaucer reshapes the source material found in Boccaccio's "Filocolo" and "Decameron," adding the "pre-story" of a courtly love marriage, increasing the pathos of Dorigen, undercutting Arveragus's "self-serving" views of honor and truth, and…
Dor, Juliette.
Florence Alazard, ed. La plainte au Moyen-Âge (Paris: Champion, 2008), pp. 181-93.
Comments on Chaucer's ventriloquist complaints (in LGW and TC) and examines the length, structure, position, tone, and function of the genre in FranT. While they were initially types, major characters gain dimension. Dorigen's second soliloquy…
Heretofore noted for its allusions to TC, the romance "Amoryus and Cleopes" also develops many of the themes, motifs, and stylistic traits of Fragment 5 of CT (SqT and FranT), in particular "its portrayal of pagan religion, its treatment of…
Robertson, Kellie.
Literature Compass 5.6 (2008): 1060-80.
Surveys materialist "thing theory" as background on how objectivities and subjectivities interacted in medieval and early modern cultures. Summarizes work to date on the topic and considers how the accoutrements of the Merchant (especially his hat)…
