Examines the use of whiteness in a variety of medieval works, arguing that being "white" is a mark not merely of ethnicity but also of Christianity, "beauty," and rank. Examples include mystery plays, "Pearl," and BD.
Yoo, Inchol.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 18 (2010): 361-84.
Reads Bo as Chaucer's advice to young Richard on the subject of tyranny; later, Bo had "potential resonance" for opponents of Richard as king and may have served to support the usurpation of his crown.
Breen, Katharine.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Describes late medieval efforts to "formulate vernacular languages that could stand in for Latin grammar as a first and paradigmatic 'habitus'," i.e., as a rule-based discipline of the mind that shapes cognition and moral action. Dante, the…
Discussing fiscal metaphors for the state of the soul in the Middle English period, O'Neill suggests that Ret is Chaucer's effort to escape "the imperatives of stewardship," evoking instead "a relationship of mutual intercession with his readers."
Twenty-six essays and thirteen appendices explore how Christianity underlies Western attitudes. The section "Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)" (pp. 67-75) reads Ret in light of ParsT and Mel as a mild account of misconduct in which Chaucer is guided more…
Phillips, Helen.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Companion to Medieval Poetry (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 414-34.
Describes the nature and legacy of the dream vision genre and assesses Chaucer's four dream poems (BD, HF, PF, and LGW), exploring the dynamics of courtliness and learning, experience and authority, endings and implications,…
Fradenburg, L. O. Aranye.
Exemplaria 22 (2010): 65-83.
Fradenburg begins with a brief psychoanalytic view of the aesthetic of enjoyment as the communication of affect. The article explores the image of Alceste/daisy in terms of psychological and philosophical intersubjectivity. The individual stories,…
Bowers, John M.
Elisabeth Dutton, with John Hines and R. F. Yeager, eds. John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 276-87.
Bowers describes LGW as "work-in-progress" of the 1390s and dates the G-prologue between 1392 and 1394, offering various comments to help justify these datings and explore their implications: LGWP emulates Gower's Ricardian prologue to "Confessio…
Bidard, Josselin.
Danielle Buschinger, ed. Médiévales, 11-12: L'antiquité dans la littérature et les beaux-arts (Amiens: Presses du Centre d'Études Médiévales, Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, 2010), pp. 302-8.
Focuses on Chaucer's uses of Ovid, specifically his use of the legend of Pyramus and Thisbe in LGW.
As part of a discussion of Gower's trilingualism and his uses of history, science, and literature, Zarins contrasts the treatment of astronomy and literature in HF with Gower's "praise of science . . . for its own sake."
In playing on Alan's "theological epic" in HF, Chaucer projects a view of readerly interpretation as a key component of literary production, thus challenging the notions that poetry springs solely from inspiration and "that textual meaning could be…
Olson, Mary.
Enarratio 14 (2010, for 2007): 118-38.
Surveys classical uses and techniques of ekphrasis and explores how Chaucer uses it in HF to comment on the shifting nature of communication. In descriptions of the House of Fame, House of Rumor, and especially the House of Glass (Aeneas and Dido),…
Uses HF--along with Langland's "Piers Plowman," "St. Erkenwald," and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"--as evidence in a discussion of the medieval understanding of the memorialization process, suggesting that fame "becomes emblematic" of the…
Symons, Dana.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. Standing in the Shadow of the Master? Chaucerian Influences and Interpretations (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), pp. 123-59.
Also named "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale," "Boke of Cupide" was once considered one of Chaucer's great poems until it fell into obscurity when it was removed from the canon. The essay considers stylistic similarities to Chaucer's dream visions, the…
Spencer, Alice.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. Standing in the Shadow of the Master? Chaucerian Influences and Interpretations (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), pp. 204-23.
The anonymous author of "The Assembly of Ladies" counterdefines herself against a clearly Chaucerian courtly tradition by allying herself with a distinctly feminine textuality that is opposed to a traditional masculine hermeneutics.
Ortego, James N., II.
Fifteenth-Century Studies 35 (2010): 80-104.
Reviews several late medieval texts to demonstrate the "devolution of knighthood" before Shakespeare's time. Comments on the GP description of the Knight, on MerT, and on Th.
Given the numerous verbal parallels between Greene's work and "The Cobbler of Canterbury" (an avowed imitation of CT, published anonymously in 1590), it would seem that Greene "fibbed" when, in a separate publication, he "informed the spirits of…
Marshall, Simone Celine.
New York: Peter Lang, 2010.
Questions why "The Assembly of Ladies" has been in print for so long and explores the role of its anonymity in its publishing history. Addresses its attribution to Chaucer, affiliations with the corpus of his works, and surmises about female…
Scattergood, John.
Portland, Ore.: Four Courts Press, 2010.
Twelve essays by Scattergood, seven reprinted and five here published for the first time. Chaucer is cited in several of the reprinted essays, one of which is an extended analysis of Purse: "London and Money: Chaucer's Complaint to His Purse."
Matthews, David.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Matthews explores the English rhetorical device of writing about political topics as if the author were writing directly to the king, even though the works that used the device were intended for a wider audience. The device flourished in the late…
Johanson, Paula.
Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2010.
Introductory commentary on British poetry from Anglo-Saxon poetry to the works of John Keats, focusing on canonical works and writers. Chapter 2 (pp. 21-30) summarizes Chaucer's life and describes his iambic meter, explicating Truth (original and…
Robins, William.
Robert Epstein and William Robins, eds. Sacred and Profane in Chaucer and Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honour of John V. Fleming (Buffalo, N. Y.: University of Toronto Press, 2010), pp. 91112.
Reads "goter, by a pryve wente" (TC 3.787) literally--a passageway that passes a latrine--and comments on the poetic functions of Troilus's approaching Criseyde's bedroom by this means. The passage characterizes Pandarus's house as up-to-date and…
Patterson, Lee.
Lee Patterson. Acts of Recognition: Essays on Medieval Culture (Notre Dame, Id.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), pp. 198-214.
Considers Chaucer's understanding of "tragedy" in Bo, MkT, and TC, tracing this understanding to Dante's use of the term in his "Inferno," where it is affiliated with history. In TC, Chaucer chose to emulate Boccaccio's "Filostrato" because doing so…
Palmer, James M.
Marcelline Block and Angela Laflen, eds. Gender Scripts in Medicine and Narrative (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), pp. 292-312.
Investigates in TC Pandarus's attempts to cure Troilus's lovesickness, physically and psychologically. Pandarus's failure to effect a cure indicates that Chaucer rejects determinism and endorses free will, showing that Christian morals are…
Mieszkowski, Gretchen.
Albrecht Classen, ed. Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Epistemology of a Fundamental Human Behavior, Its Meaning, and Consequences. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, no. 5 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter), 2010, pp. 457-80.
Mieszkowski contrasts the situational comedy of TC and the structural comedic techniques of MilT, MerT, and SumT. Chaucer generates "all the comedy" of TC by means of Pandarus, whose comic counterpoint compels readers to reconceptualize love without…
