Biggins, Dennis.
Studies in Philology 65 (1968): 44-50.
Argues that the name Simond/Symkyn in RvT "involves a pun on the Latin word 'simia,' meaning 'ape'," exploring Symkyn's multiple associations with apes, along with those of Robin the Miller.
Proposes punctuation for CkT 1.4394-96 that renders Perkyn's "sober-living master" as "not altogether above reproach," offering the reading as "yet another token of Chaucer's sophisticated art."
Offers evidence from medieval naturalists and bestiaries to clarify that the she-ape simile in ParsT 10.424 means that the "proud dandy . . . is ridiculously like a wretched ape sticking up its bare bottom when the moon is full."
Biggio, Rosemary.
Dissertation Abstracts International 44 (1983): 164A.
Chaucer's work evolved structurally from circular (dream visions) to spiral (TC; CT), developing closure through "thematic resolution" and metaphoric symbols.
Biggs, Frederick M.
Review of English Studies 56 (2005): 497-523
Difficulties in dealing with the role of the three tubs (along with other issues) suggest that Chaucer's MilT is the source for the Flemish version. Chaucer may have originated this Tale to reflect on the theme of God's control, an idea also…
Peter G. Beidler identifies "Heile van Beersele" as a likely source for MilT, supporting his argument with seventeen words he ascribes to Middle Dutch origin in MilT. Only one "or perhaps two" of those words prove to be "distinctively Dutch,"…
Biggs, Frederick M.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 108 (2009): 59-80.
Biggs argues that Decameron 3.4 is a source for MilT, inspiring the latter's density of detail, its religious sentiment, and many of its narrative features, particularly the Flood story. MilP also echoes Boccaccio's "Conclusione dell'autore" and its…
Biggs, Frederick M.
Notes and Queries 254 (2009): 340-41.
Among the four fabliaux in London, British Library Harley MS 2253, "La gageure," featuring the "misdirected kiss" motif, is an analogue of MilT, while "Le chevalier e la corbeille" is a possible source, providing not only a container that forces "the…
Biggs, Frederick M.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017.
Addresses connections between Boccaccio's "Decameron" and CT, with particular focus on ShT, MilT, and WBT. Presents a "hermeneutic argument" that explores areas including "alchemy, domestic spaces, economic history, folklore, Irish/English politics,…
Biggs, Frederick M.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 40 (2018): 289-330.
Argues that "gnof" (MilT 1.3188) is Chaucer's neologism, clarifying the trouble his scribes had with the word, detailing its later use in English (especially in association with Kett's Rebellion of 1575), and establishing the likelihood that Chaucer…
Item not seen. A WorldCat record indicates that the four essays, addressed to high school students, consider CT under the following titles: "Chaucer, Society and the General Prologue," "Chaucer and Medieval Thought," "Chaucer and Medieval Tradition,"…
Bildhauer, Bettina, and Chris Jones, eds.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Collection of essays that address medieval and medievalism themes and how they continue to impact contemporary perspectives. The introduction includes a history of medievalism from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries, and remarks how…
Bilynsky, Michael, ed.
New York: Peter Lang, 2014.
Collection of essays reflecting contemporary topics in linguistic and literary research on the Middle Ages. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Studies in Middle English: Words, Forms, Senses and Texts under Alternative Title.
Binkley, Peter.
Scintilla: A Student Journal for Medievalists 2-3 (1985-1986): 66-100.
Cotton Titus A. XX, an anthology of fourteenth-century Latin poems, contains no. 19, "Proprietaties multorum animalium et aliarorum," some antimedical satires and bestiary poems. One of the latter, a poem on the sparrowhawk, may be the source of the…
Records a Latin poem written by Clemens upon visiting Chaucer's tomb. The poem indicates that Clemens was familiar with Chaucer through Sir Frances Kynaston's Latin version of TC 1-2.
Binski, Paul, and Patrick Zutshi, with the collaboration of Stella Panayotova.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Comprehensive catalog of western European illuminated manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library. Includes several indices of iconography, scribes, artists, binders, and authors (with Chaucer listed under "G" for Geoffrey), along with…
Binski, Paul.
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 74 (2011): 121-54.
Discusses biblical kings represented in the "camera depicta" of the Westminster Chamber, also treated in several literary works on kingship, including MkT and a short passage in ParsT. The Chamber's murals proclaim the Plantagenet kings to be "ideal…
Binski, Paul.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
Describes and illustrates the "visual arts as a whole" in late medieval England. The index records some twenty references to Chaucer, including a section on HF (pp. 345–48) that shows that "the two largest passages of writing about architecture at…
Includes discussion of the treatment of KnT, WBT, NPT, and "The Floure and the Leafe" in Dryden's "Fables Ancient and Modern," arguing that he adjusted his sources to suit his neo-classical audience.
Its fierce anti-Semitism notwithstanding, "Titus and Vespasian" is an important document of cultural uses of the "fall-of-Jerusalem narrative" and of attitudes toward Jews and Judaism in late medieval England. Thus, it deserves scholarly attention…
Birhanzel, Candace.
[Jay Ruud, ed.] Papers on the "Canterbury Tales": From the 1989 NEH Chaucer Institute, Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota ([Aberdeen, S.D.: Northern State University, 1989), pp. 112-25.
Comments on reading ClT as both "realistic and religious, tied to the character of . . . the Clerk."
Birney, Earle.
Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1985.
Eight previously published essays (1937-61) by Birney, arranged as chapters in a study of Chaucer's experiments and development as an ironist. Treats Chaucer's use of "structural irony" in MilT, FrT, SumT, and ManT. Updates bibliographies for each…
Explores details, emphases, ironies, and double ironies in the GP description of the Manciple and in ManPT, characterizing him as "shrewd," "smug," and "indiscrete"--a "successful rascal" who aspires to "gentil" status, is "insecure," and overly…
Explores the diction and imagery of MilT, focusing on oral and olfactory instances for the ways that they ironically anticipate details of the plot, particularly the misdirected kiss received by Absolon and colter-burn he directs at Nicholas.
