McCabe views Spenser's alleged completion of Chaucer in "The Legend of Friendship" as a move to represent himself as a "Bonfont" rather than a "Malfont" poet.
Fitzgerald places Tolkien's essay on RvT (1934) in its intellectual and professional context. She explores the role of Chaucer in Tolkien's scholarship and creative works, including the allusions to Chaucer's works that appear in Tolkien's satiric…
Driver, Martha W., and Sid Ray, eds.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2009.
Thirteen essays, plus several introductory commentaries, gauge Shakespeare's uses of medieval materials and how those materials are reflected in modern stage and film adaptations. Shakespeare's "medievalism" shapes modern notions of the Middle Ages.…
Driver, Martha W.
Martha W. Driver and Sid Ray, eds. Shakespeare and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Performance and Adaptation of the Plays with Medieval Sources or Settings (Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 2009), pp. 140-60.
Focusing on Oberon and the mechanicals, Driver explores how medieval romances influenced Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and twentieth-century adaptations of it, observing the influences of KnT, Th, and other romances.
Davis, Paul.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Davis surveys the aesthetics and politics of works by "Augustan poet-translators," including a description of William Cartwright's comments on Francis Kynaston's translation of TC into Latin and an analysis of the modernizations and adaptations of…
Curtis, Carl C. III.
Literature/Film Quarterly 36.1 (2008): 68-77.
Curtis summarizes the 1944 movie "A Canterbury Tale," gauging its successes and failures and commenting on the extent to which its sensibilities might be called "Chaucerian."
Butterfield, Ardis.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 31 (2009): 25-51.
Considers the relations among French, Anglo-French, and English in the linguistic and cultural conditions of Chaucer's time. Calls for a new sensitivity to translation as process, proposes more subtle awareness of interdependent etymologies (e.g.,…
Kumamoto, Sadahiro.
Masahiro Hori, Tomoji Tabata, and Sadahiro Kumamoto, eds. Stylistic Studies of Literature: In Honour of Professor Hiroyuki Ito (New York and Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2009), pp. 71-92.
Kumamoto examines eleven syntactical patterns used in conjunction with poetic enjambment. Chaucer's poetry contains more enjambment than do three anonymous romances included for comparison--and Chaucer uses enjambment more in his early poetry (BD,…
Dane, Joseph A.
Studia Neophilologica 81 (2009): 45-52.
Outlines a method for describing Chaucer's verse forms as syllabic, with accent overlaid secondarily on this base. Dane argues that this method is more simple than descriptions that give priority to accent and the iamb, as well as more useful in…
Burrow, J. A.
Essays in Criticism 59 (2009): 22-36.
"Laus" (praise) and "vituperatio" (rendered by Chaucer as "sklaunder") find their way into medieval "ars poetriae." Using the "idiom of odium" (e.g., traditionally disreputable animals and bodily functions), Chaucer focuses on reporting angry…
Ahl, Frederick.
Andrew Galloway and R. F. Yeager, eds. Through a Classical Eye: Transcultural and Transhistorical Visions in Medieval English, Italian, and Latin Literature in Honour of Winthrop Wetherbee (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), pp. 267-86.
Citing rhymes, wordplay, puns, and anagrams, Ahl proposes that Chaucer produces the "kind of wordplay found in classical Latin poets." Ahl compares Chaucer's uses with examples from Shakespeare and Milton, showing that such wordplay in Chaucer is not…
Pedagogy, syllabus, sample assignments, and itineraries for a semester-long, London-based excursion course on English medieval literature, including Chaucer.
Astell, Ann W., and J. A. Jackson, eds.
Pittsburgh, Penn.: Duquesne University Press, 2009.
Twelve essays by various authors, plus an introduction by the editors, consider interactions among Christian allegory, talmudic hermeneutics, and the interpretive theory of Emmanuel Levinas. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for…
Archibald, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Archibald, and Ad Putter, eds. The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 139-53.
Archibald surveys subversions and satires of Arthurian literature, commenting that Chaucer "seems to be fairly hostile to the Arthurian world," even if implicitly so.
Readings in social and cultural history for classroom purposes, arranged in eight sections: politics and ideology, social structures, daily life, religious life and prayer, knighthood and war, reading and education, sciences and medicine, and…
Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, and others, eds.
Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: York Medieval Press, 2009.
Thirty-four essays by various authors (and an introduction by the editor) on a variety of linguistic and literary topics. Essays are arranged in four categories: (1) Language and Socio-Linguistics; (2) Crossing the Conquest: New Linguistic and…
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Chaucer Review 44 (2009): 110-13.
The clear erotic context of the blacksmith's response to Absolon's late-night visit supports a gloss of "viritoot" as a derivation of "the Latin ablative cum virtute," meaning 'with manly ardor.'
Chaucer's uses of "verray felicitee parfit" and "verray parfit" evince his engagement with Boethius's concern with "the true and everlasting good, the 'summum bonum'" in the "Consolation of Philosophy." Whether meant ironically or used in the spirit…
Vennemann, Theo.
English Language and Linguistics 13.2 (2009): 309-34.
Traces idiomatic usage of "yes" and "no" in responses to questions in the English language, comparing it with German usage to illustrate the influence of the Celtic, Brittonic language. Concludes by exploring roots of the English method of response…
Butterfield, Ardis.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Explores the political, linguistic, and cultural relations between "France" and "England" before the stabilization of the areas' geographical boundaries. Interdependence between the two areas challenges modern notions of nationality, linguistic…
Galloway, Andrew, and R. F. Yeager, eds.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
Nineteen essays by students, friends, and colleagues of Winthrop (Pete) Wetherbee, along with an introduction by Galloway and a laudatory afterword by Robert Morgan. For seven essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Through a Classical Eye under…
Production, consumption, and profit have helped to define individuals in more recent eras; however, an "economy of need" was an aspect of late medieval identity. Galloway traces the economy of need in sermons and prose writing and comments on its…
Forgeng, Jeffrey L., and Will McLean.
Westport, Conn.; and London: Greenwood, 2009.
Updates and expands the first edition (1995), adding "primary source sidebars in all chapters" and a guide to digital resources. This social history of late medieval England has as its goal the creative re-creation of the period, providing a…
Dor, Juliette.
Philologie im Netz, Supplement 4 (2009): 55-66.
Dor examines Caroline Spurgeon's impact on England's postwar reconstruction of the education system through the reestablishment of English studies and her involvement in founding the International Federation of University Women, which protected and…
