Identifies a variety of tones in NPT, identifying interplay among the voice of the "rhetor," a "sermonizing" voice, and the outlook of a "sophisticated fabulist," exploring the "quality of their combination" by observing their relations with…
Argues that in Book 4 of TC Chaucer presents a "conflict between reason and desire" (amplified from Boccaccio's "Filostrato"), helping to characterize and evaluate Troilus as, simultaneously and ambiguously, "both strong and weak," reasonable as a…
Explores the characterization of the Canon in CYP and the first part of CYT, arguing that he is embarrassed at being a "simple puffer" and not an illuminati of the alchemical arts--"a pathetic if not a tragic figure, broken through following a…
Traces Chaucer's attention to his own authorial fame, putting it in the context of medieval anonymity, book production, and the "idea of authorship." Compares and contrasts the narrators and attendant "fictive illusion" in his works, especially HF.…
Explores "the complex thematic and structural functions" of the Pluto-Proserpina episode in MerT, treating it as a fit denouement in the traditional pear-tree plot, and arguing that it deepens the unifying thematic dimensions of the Tale by…
Assesses Gower's virtues and achievements as a narrative poet rather than as a moralist in "Confessio Amantis," occasionally comparing and contrasting his techniques and accounts with analogous ones by Chaucer. Considers the frame of LGW to be…
Argues that Chaucer uses portions of Pope Innocent's "De Miseria" in MLPT to "further characterize" the Man of Law, deepening the "concern with wealth" found in the GP description of the Sergeant. Furthermore, the portions from "De Miseria" unify the…
Contrasts the moral seriousness of MLT with the comic mode of MLP and MLE, arguing that they combine to present the Man of Law as Chaucer's "ironic portrait" of pedantic, dogmatic, or moralistic readers and critics (perhaps John Gower) who would…
Concentrates on the links between the Tales in Part 7 of CT, arguing that this "Literature Group" is concerned primarily with the "art of storytelling," particularly the responsibilities of audience and author as dramatized in the directions and…
Argues that the reference to ale and cake in PardP (6.321-22) is a "device operating on three levels": 1) creating cohesion in PardPT; 2) introducing the theme of gluttony; and 3) reinforcing the irony of the portrait of the Pardoner through a…
Doyle, A. I., and George B. Pace.
PMLA 83 (1968): 22-34.
Provides a full description of the Coventry manuscript (City Record Office, Coventry) that includes six of Chaucer's Short Poems (ABC, Buk, Gent, Purse, Sted, Truth), along with works by Hoccleve, Lydgate, Mandeville, and others). Edits the text of…
Rejects exegetical readings of BD that construe the poem as a wholesale Christian allegory, but argues that Christian consolation is nevertheless conveyed through resurrection imagery (birds, horns, harts, etc.) and details of "sleeping, dreaming,…
Argues that MerT should be read in light of MerP (for which there is strong manuscript evidence) and that the two are unified by a "cool, controlled, acidulous" tone and a "persistent interest in sexual activity . . . that frequently borders on the…
Assesses modern "unease" with Chaucer's "pathetic" tales, focusing on the combination of the "superficially tragic and the slightly comic" aspects of MLT in which the subject matter invites audience sympathy or empathy while the style encourages…
Critiques Morton W. Bloomfield's "The Man of Law's Tale: A Tragedy of Victimization and a Christian Comedy," commenting on the artistic quality of MLT and the Man of Law as narrator.
Reads the Man of Law's materials in CT as an unfolding characterization of the lawyer, commenting on the relationship of tale to teller, the narrator's use of law and legalistic rhetoric, and the relation of MLT to other rhyme royal tales in CT. The…
Articulates various "levels of perception" manipulated by Chaucer to create comic irony through his personae in BD, HF, PF, LGW, and CT. The "Chaucerian pose" is relatively constant in the early poems where the narrator is a "reasonable man" (but "no…
Contrasts the "opposing principles of conduct" that underlie the main characters in FranT and MerT, arguing that the "values" expressed there are "dramatized and explored" throughout CT. Moreover, the view of "gentilesse" expressed in FranT sums up…
Verbal echoes and character parallels such as the Wife's hag and the Friar's yeoman/fiend indicate that the Friar's purpose is parody. He uses his theme of moral "maistrie" to debunk the Wife's marital "maistrie." His view of human nature is…
Compares relations between cosmology and psychology in medieval and modern understandings of poetry, emphasizing the concentric and expanding perspectives prompted by Middle English imagery and world views, exemplified in several lyrics. Includes…
Chaucer elaborately constructs the pagan love story as an epic, a romance, and a philosophical demonstration, but simultaneously undercuts all three frames of reference; however, the Christian epilogue decrying earthly existence is modified by the…
Kretzschmar, William A., and Rodney Delasanta.
PMLA 93 (1978): 1007-08.
An exchange of letters in the PMLA Forum section, discussing the tone and details of Delasanta's essay, "Penance and Poetry in 'The Canterbury Tales," published earlier in 1978 in PMLA.
"Pace" Allen's and Sayce's ironies, dramatic and symbolic propriety for ParsT require penance, and predict, by the figure of the supper and the Host's unwitting use of Pauline imagery, an eschatological end.
