Benson, C. David.
American Notes and Queries 22 (1984): 62-66.
The Physician's being "grounded in astronomye," i.e., astrology, is not a slighting gibe at his abilities. The publication of Nicholas of Lynn's "Kalendarium" (ed. Sigmund Eisner, Chaucer Library) offers "convincing evidence that Chaucer intended no…
WBP contains two quotations from Ptolemy (3.180-81, 326-27), setting up a system for classifying knowledge according to practica (the Wife) and theorica (Ptolemy). The Wife recontextualizes and trivializes Ptolemy's efforts to achieve a vision of…
O'Connor, John J.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 55 (1956): 556-62.
Argues that the astronomical conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in TC 3.624-25 does not allude to a specific event in 1385 (by which the central book of the poem has been dated) but to a more "general tradition" of foreboding, thematically appropriate…
Parr, Johnstone,and Nancy Ann Holtz.
Chaucer Review 15 (1981): 255-66.
Recently computerized astrological tables permit faster and more accurate computation. Chaucer describes events that took place in 1385, but the unusual planetary configurations would undoubtedly have been predicted before that date; hence one…
Anthologizes a wide range of selections from British and American literature--poetry, fiction, drama, and translations, with brief, appreciative introductions to individual authors and their works. Includes description of Chaucer as a "poet of…
Sommer, George J.
New York-Pennsylvania Modern Language Association Newsletter 1.2 (1968): 1-5.
Describes Chaucer's use in TC of the "Editorial Omniscient" point of view, comments on the relationship between the narrator and the writer, and exemplifies the various and changing attitudes of the narrator: compassion, helplessness in the face of…
Kaske, R. E.
Richard J. Schoeck and Jerome Taylor, eds. Chaucer Criticism, Volume II: Troilus and Criseyde & The Minor Poems (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1961), pp. 167-80.
Describes the Continental lyric genre of the "aube," linking it with the German "tagelied," assessing Chaucer's use of the form in Book 3 of TC, and addressing his use of source material derived from Boccaccio's "Filostrato." Concludes that Chaucer…
Includes essays that define current Auchinleck manuscript studies. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search for The Auchinleck Manuscript: New Perspectives under Alternative Title.
Van Dyke, Carolynn.
Modern Philology 115 (2017): 1–30.
Examines manuscript rubrics and glosses that engage ideas of authorship, specifically those that cite an "auctor" or "aucteur" in manuscripts of the "Roman de la Rose," Machaut's "Judgment of the King of Navarre," TC, and CT. Gauges the kinds and…
Hanning, Robert W.
Yearbook of English Studies 11 (1981): 1-28.
Extrinsic models for twelfth-century audiences of chivalric romances (Duly, Bezzola, Legge) should be complemented by indirect evidence that defines such audiences as literary virtuosos, humanists able to evaluate romances to discover the poet and…
Davidoff, Judith M.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 5 (1983): 103-25.
Frame and vision are linked according to late-medieval literary expectations which establish in the dreamer a state of "need" and in the audience the expectation of that need to be "fulfilled."
Mehl, Dieter.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Chaucer and Middle English Studies in honour of Rossell Hope Robbins (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974), pp. 173-89.
Explains how TC "creates its own audience" through the narrator's addresses to readers/listeners that help to involve them as putative lovers, as judges of the characters, and, most importantly, as participants in the making of historical fiction and…
Despite the textual authority of the half line (GP A 164) "and preestes thre," arguments from an analysis of Chaucer's practice in the portrayal of other pilgrims suggest that the words should be suppressed in a modern edition. There were probably…
Furrow, Melissa [M.]
Forum for Modern Language Study 33 (1997): 244-57.
Uses extracts from the Middle English "Mirrur," the fourteenth-century translation of Robert de Gretham's thirteenth-century sermon collection, to explore the context and significance of Ret.
Questions assumptions about Chaucer's authorial practices and challenges J. L. Lowes's theory that F is the earlier version of LGWP. G may be earlier, a hypothesis that accounts for structural differences in the two versions and for numerous lexical…
Reads the Pandarus/Troilus relationship in TC as a variation on the priest/pupil motif also found in works by Ovid, Andreas Capellanus, Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun, and John Gower.
Wright, Sylvia.
British Library Journal 18 (1992): 190-201.
Identifies and describes portraits of authors in initials of British Museum MS. Add. 42131. Two of the three depictions of Chaucer are by the same hand as the miniature accompanying Hoccleve's Regement of Princes (Arundel MS. 38).
Wood, Chauncey.
Patrick J. Gallacher and Helen Damico, eds. Hermeneutics and Medieval Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 51-60.
"Medieval authors mistrusted their readers' potential responses and felt obliged to direct that response accordingly"; in medieval literature, the author's address to the reader was "a device to activate the critical intelligence, while deactivating…
Minnis, A. J.
P. R. Robinson and Rivkah Zim, eds. Of the Making of Books: Medieval Manuscripts, Their Scribes and Readers. Essays Presented to M. B. Parkes (Aldershot, Hants: Scolar Press; Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1997), pp. 259-79.
Explores the "complicated medieval matrix of ideas concerning the relationship between authority and fallibility," commenting on representations of the topic from Petrarch's depiction of Cicero to Chaucer's depiction of the Pardoner. As a preacher…
Woehling, Mary-Patrice.
Dissertation Abstracts International 52 (1991): 1742A.
By manipulating his presumed sources and through the voices of the narrator and his characters, Chaucer develops reader-response strategy with such rhetorical devices as repetition and wordplay. The reflexive TC shows both love and language as…
The central question for NPT is not whether it is allegorical or ironic but how it uses allegory and irony to refigure its own past. This tale was composed for a court audience at the beginning of a new vernacular tradition. What kind of authority…
McQuain, Jeffrey Hunter.
Dissertation Abstracts International 44 (1983): 761A.
Although both Chaucer and Shakespeare inherited the classical misogynist tradition, their works reflect a belief in the equality of the sexes, the value of marriage, and the association of virtue with with women.
The hermeneutic method in Nicholas of Lyra's "Postilla" gave new richness to the understanding of the biblical "sensus literalis," expanding it to include parabolic senses and typology, and fostered more interactive reading. Similar principles seem…
