Lumiansky, R. M.
Tulane Studies in English 9 (1959): 5-17.
Focuses on the opening section of BD, arguing that it depicts a "Narrator suffering excessive grief resulting from bereavement, who within the poem moves toward a means of consolation based chiefly upon a conception of Nature as Life, and whose…
Mooney, Linne R., and Lister M. Matheson.
Library, 7th ser., 4 : 347-70, 2003.
The Northumberland manuscript of CT (Alnwick Castle 455) shows evidence that the scribe had access to a manuscript of CT that included the Prologue and Tale of Beryn and that he worked in a scriptorium that produced multiple copies of popular texts.
Fleming, John V.
Robert G. Benson and Susan J. Ridyard, eds. New Readings of Chaucer's Poetry (Rochester, N.Y., and Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 51-74.
Fleming examines Chaucer's mixture of sacred and secular texts and illustrates how Chaucer's idea of the Wife of Bath grew from an amalgamation of Le Roman de la Rose, Ovid, and St. Jerome, particularly in WBP.
Includes selections from GP, WBP, and PardP in Middle English, with glosses, and an introduction in which Bloom comments on Chaucer's characterizations, his influence on Shakespeare and Spenser, and reading Chaucer in its original Middle English.
Recent debates over editing of "Canterbury Tales" reflect "best-text" (Hengwrt) versus "best-book" (Ellesmere) views, but both sides continue to make editorial assumptions about unity and closure.
A frame-tale narrative modeled on and adapted from CT, with tales told by a range of individuals traveling by bus in 1969 to attend the "Woodstock Music and Art Fair." The introduction acknowledges Chaucer's inspiration in form, styles, and…
Boitani, Piero.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999.
Studies of how Scriptural narratives and their themes have been "re-Scriptured" in particular works of Western literary tradition. Chapter 3 (pp. 77-100) explores how NPT prompts and resists the exegetical potential in reading and leads to…
Fowler, David C.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984.
Sequel to the author's "The Bible in Early English Literature," this volume surveys literary trends using biblical traditions: examines medieval drama, lyrics, PF, works of the "Pearl" poet, and "Piers Plowman."
Green, Margaret, ed.
Grabianski, Janusz, illus.
New York: Franklin Watts, 1965
Anthologizes animal fables from worldwide cultures and various historical periods, classical to modern, including a modernized prose adaptation of NPT, here titled "The Tale of Chanticleer" (pp. 158-64), accompanied by five pen-and-watercolor…
Saito, Shun'ichi.
Bulletin of the Daito Bunka University: The Humanities 22 (1984): 119-28.
Discusses parallels between the Birds' Parliament and the Good Parliament in 1376. In PF, Chaucer probably parodied the obstreperous Commons that played an active part in this historic parliament.
Loschiavo, Linda Ann.
Chaucer Review 13 (1978): 128-32.
Argues for the later date on two counts. First, discrepancies in the records allow only the conclusion that in 1361 Blanche was at least 14 years of age. Second, the custom of early marriage makes plausible that Blanche was only 12 when married in…
Antonelli, Roberto.
Piero Boitani, ed. The European Tragedy of Troilus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 21-48.
Compares the treatment of love in the "Roman de Thebes," "Brut," and "Eneas" to that in Benoit's "Roman de Troie," a twelfth-century romance and apparently the first work to introduce Briseis-Cressida. A product of Anglo-Norman love debate, Benoit's…
Hinton, Norman.
Donald E. Hayden, ed. His Firm Estate: Essays in Honor of Franklin James Eikenberry (Tulsa Okla.: University of Tulsa, 1967), pp. 72-78.
Argues that the Plague, or Black Death, "stands behind" BD, helping to "give it a shape and a meaning," describing late-medieval attitudes toward death and fortune as described in commentaries on plague.
Williman, Daniel, ed.
Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982.
Six essays by various hands on the plague and its effects: demographics, millenarianism, iconography of death, the "Decameron," and Middle English literature.
Armstrong, Dorsey.
San Francisco: Kanopy Streaming.
Includes commentary on "Piers Plowman"; Boccaccio's "Decameron"; and the impact of the plague on Chaucer's life, CT (especially PardT), and BD, claiming that Chaucer "could not have been Chaucer" if not for the plague.
Wurtele, Douglas. J.
Annuale Mediaevale 21 (1981): 91-110.
Proceeding by "oblique allusions and undertones," the treatment of the Virgin in MerT is "mordantly ironic," leading up to January's "brazen parody of the 'Canticum Canticorum'." This blasphemy is appropriate to the Merchant's bitter cynicism.
Studies the uses, meanings, and nuances of the concept of magnanimity in the English Middle Ages and Renaissance, including discussion of Chaucer, who, although "he makes no full-scale attempt to portray the magnanimous man in his wholeness,"…
The parallel between Griselda and Mary, from preelection and marriage through maternal suffering to final coronation, is integral and pervasive in ClT. Mary embodies the canonical myth of the life of the Christian soul from baptism to heaven;…
Dundes, Alan, ed.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.
A collection of essays treating the legend of Jews killing Christians, particularly children. Fourteen essays cover such areas as case histories, folkloristic tales and literary texts, surveys of the legend in different locales, ritual-murder…
Kruger Steven F.
James M. Dean and Christian Zacher, eds. The Idea of Medieval Literature: New Essays on Chaucer and Medieval Culture in Honor of Donald R. Howard (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992), pp. 301-23.
Considers how the bodies of Jews are related to Christian bodily miracles in Chaucer's PrT and the Croxton "Play of the Sacrament." Kruger clarifies the relation between the positive valuation of the body in late-medieval spirituality and the attack…
Zarins, Kim.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017. Relocated 2025 at https://opencanterburytales.lsusites.org/
Cautions that what we say about the Pardoner's body "might say something about ourselves"; summarizes critical discussion of the Pardoner's sex, sexuality, and rhetoric; and comments on the Old Man, Death (compared to Terry Pratchett's Mort), the…
Boitani, Piero,and Anna Torti, eds.
Woodbridge, Suffolk; Rochester, N.Y. : D. S. Brewer, 1999.
Ten essays by various authors, originally presented at a symposium on "The Body and Soul in Medieval Literature." Most of the essays focus on Middle English literature, including some comparisons with medieval French and Italian works and some later…
Kao, Wan-Chuan.
Stephen Ahern, ed. Affect Theory and Literary Critical Practice: A Feel for the Text (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 25-43.
Describes "premodern theories of affect rooted in humoral theory and faculty psychology," and explores the affects of wonder and shame in FranT as well as its queered futurity, focusing on Aurelius's brother, who occupies "the position of the…
