Rossiter, William T.
Isabel Davis and Catherine Nall, eds. Chaucer and Fame: Reputation and Reception (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2015), pp. 21–42.
Explores how Chaucer used Petrarch, Petrarch used Dante, and Dante used Virgil: a sequence of influence that underpins Chaucer's "conception of renown" and encouraged him to lay claim to belonging to the schiera (band) of famous poets. Discusses…
Rossiter, William T.
Alison Yarrington and Stefano Villani, eds. Travels and Translations: Anglo-Italian Cultural Transactions (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013), pp. 231-50.
Expands upon Harold Bloom's concept of the "anxiety of influence" to explore agonistic revisionism through translation in medieval literature, focusing on transmission from Italy to England and illustrating in detail how "verbal, phrasal,…
Rossiter, William T.
Helen Fulton, ed. Chaucer and Italian Culture (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2021), pp. 17-44
Emphasizes Chaucer's diplomatic experience in Italy to "show how Chaucer drew on the work of Petrarch and Boccaccio to experiment with fictionalised
forms of the ambassadorial process."
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."
Rossiter, William.
Interculturality and Translation (Universidad de León) 2 (2006): 177-99.
Analyzes Chaucer's use and adaptation of Petrarch's sonnet as the "canticus Troili" in TC, exploring prosodic and contextual features in light of R. A. Shoaf's description of translation as either rape or marriage.
Rossiter, William.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. Standing in the Shadow of the Master? Chaucerian Influences and Interpretations (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), pp. 2-27.
In his courtly verse, Lydgate elevates Chaucer's established topoi and discourse to bolster his own unique reformations and enhancements of Chaucerian style.
Rossiter, William.
Sabine Coelsch-Foisner and Wolfgang Görtschacher, eds. Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' in English Poetry (Heidelberg: Winter, 2009), pp.69-88.
Opens with a consideration of Wyatt's relation to the "Chaucerian tradition" of Ovid in English.
Describes and assesses the presence of the comic mode in English literature, including a discussion (pp. 42-51) of portions of CT (especially MilT, RvT, and WBP) that explores how Chaucer achieves comedy without negating the "seriousness of the…
Roth, Elizabeth.
American Notes and Queries 17 (1978): 54-55.
Fisher's reading "wight" (1977) in WBT 117 is preferable to Donaldson's "wrighte." FranT 867-72 contains phrasing which is reminiscent of Fisher's proposed meaning of WBT 117: "And created by so wise a Being."
An anthology of appreciative poetry, narratives, and essays (some in excerpts) that pertain to organs, organ music, and organists, including a selection from SNT in Middle English (pp. 5-6; lines 8.120-40) and a brief commentary.
Rothman, Irving N.
Papers on Language and Literature 9 (1973): 115-27.
Observes structural and thematic parallels between ClT and its Envoy, arguing that both refute the Wife of Bath's attitudes, one through alternative perspective and the other through mockery.
Rothschild, Victoria.
Review of English Studies 35 (1984): 164-84.
The symbolic structure of PF reinforces meaning; its three sections mirror the divisions of time; allusions to time and nature point toward a natural rather than social hierarchy. As an epithalamium, PF involves the natural world in a…
Rothwell, W[illiam].
Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 74 (1992): 3-28.
Examines thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Anglo-French, noting that Chaucer was steeped in an Anglo-French environment. This very Anglicized French--a second language of culture used to keep records--was the French Chaucer knew best, and his lexis…
Rothwell, W[illiam].
Modern Language Review 80 (1985): 39-54.
Despite earlier movements to standardize French, from which English borrowed heavily, the language of Chaucer's Prioress would have been nonstandard both in pronunciation and in morphology. Analysis of Anglo-Norman documents is needed to assess…
Rothwell, W[illiam].
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 16 (1994): 45-67.
Examines the relations among Latin, French, and English in late-medieval England, using evidence from documents of the twelfth-fourteenth centuries, the "Chaucer Life-Records," and Chaucer's works. Argues that the Latin of the time was often…
Rothwell, W[illiam].
English Studies 82: 539-59, 2001.
Anglo-Norman should be considered "a coherent, if constantly changing, entity from 1066 to the middle of the fifteenth century" (559), with widely different forms that influenced English in the fifteenth-century, when scribes were working both in…
Rothwell, W[illiam].
Modern Language Review 99 (2004): 313-27.
Henry of Lancaster is usually treated in the context of medieval English history; Chaucer, of medieval English literature. Better understanding of the Anglo-French language and culture familiar to both men helps us appreciate Anglo-French and assess…
Rothwell, W[illiam].
English Studies 87 (2006): 511-38.
Identifies in RvT lexical evidence of a culture permeated with French linguistic influence, evidence that could be reinforced by a more thorough linguistic study of RvT and the rest of Chaucer's corpus: "Far from being 'ephemeral and localized' or…
Rothwell, William.
D. A. Trotter, ed. Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 213-32.
Studies the "York Memorandum Book" for examples of the ways Latin, French, and English "intertwined" in medieval England. Rothwell opens with commentary on the vocabulary of a passage from MLP in which Chaucer "Englishes" several French words and…
The Prioress's French of "Stratford atte Bowe" (as opposed to the French of Paris) has drawn considerable speculation, but it can be examined more effectively in light of "a wider background," including Chaucer's characterization of Madame Eglantine,…
Reads the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 as an inspiration for the relationship between textual authority, bibliophobia, and violence in WBPT. Compares Alisoun to rioters who destroyed writings they deemed threatened their personal rights. Argues that the…
Round, Nicholas G.
Hispanic Research Journal 11.1 (2010): 82-93.
Argues that Perez Galdos's "El amigo Manso" (1882) echoes TC in its concern with philosophical consolation, the theme of kinds of knowledge, and the narrator protagonist's mocking of his mourners in the afterlife. Like Troilus, Manso is an idealistic…
Rouse, Margitta.
Andrew James Johnston, Margitta Rouse, and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, eds. Transforming Topoi: The Exigencies and Impositions of Tradition (Göttingen: V&R, 2018), pp. 59-88.
Argues that Shakespeare's exploration of the "nature of literary adaptation-as-innovation" in "The Rape of Lucrece"--conducted by means of "competing versions of the Troy story"--engages with the "Chaucerian poetics" of HF and TC, particularly…
Argues that Gavin Douglas's construction of Honour and Venus in the "Palyce of Honour," though misogynistic, constitutes a complex allegorical response to Chaucer's model of literary renovation in the HF.
