Maintains that the Summoner's fondness for "overheating foods" conveys lechery, adducing evidence from Reginald Pecock's fifteenth-century "The Reule of Crysten Religioun."
Biggins, D.
Philological Quarterly 42 (1963): 558-62.
Examines the statement about alliterative verse in ParsP 10.42-46, arguing that the "rum, ram, ruf" sequence has its source in French and helps to constitute a "meaningful . . . and technically adroit comment on alliterative poetry."
Explores the denotative, connotative, figurative, and ironic implications of the GP description of the Wife of Bath as one who knows "muchel of wandrynge by the weye" (1.497).
Clarifies the reference to Christ catching Peter as he sailed in GP 1.696-98, focusing on the figurative meaning of "hente" and its implications regarding the Pardoner's faux relic, Peter's sail-cloth.
Explicates GP 1.673 (not 1.163, as in title), adding depth to the multiple, generally sexual innuendoes of the "stif burdoun" borne by the Summoner to accompany the Pardoner's song.
Though we cannot recover the facts of Chaucer's versification,his lines in CT are basically iambic pentameter. Of the first hundred lines of GP in the Ellesmere MS., eighty may be so scanned with little difficulty.
Biggins, Dennis.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Chaucer and Middle English Studies in honour of Rossell Hope Robbins (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974), pp. 249-54.
Interprets various details in WBP and in the GP description of the Wife of Bath to determine whether she is a five-time widow or still wedded to Jankyn, finding the evidence to be inconclusive, perhaps richly ambiguous.
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.
