Compares the models of memory presented by the narrators of Chaucer's TC and Lavinia Greenlaw's "A Double Sorrow," her poetic adaptation of TC published in 2014. Argues that while Chaucer's narrator uses classical models of memory that involve the…
Rutherford, Charles S.
Papers on Language and Literature 17 (1981): 245-54.
Troilus's final speech in Book IV includes three of the only four proverbs he uses, suggesting a new-found "auctoritee." Troilus casts off idealism, speaking for the first time as a cynic and unhappy prophet. The Troilus who allows Criseyde to…
Rutherford, Charles S.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 78 (1977): 350-58.
Clanvowe uses Chaucerian themes and conventions with deftness. He recognizes irony based on logic, characterizes through rhetoric, and employs all three conventional endings of debate form.
Rutherford, Charles S.
Annuale Mediaevale 13 (1972): 5-13.
Characterizes Pandarus as "a public figure, a chameleon, a consummate actor" who plays various roles, including that of "unrequited lover." His unusual moment of private lovesickness at the beginning of Book 2 is Chaucer's device for underscoring the…
Argues that CT reflects "astrological schema" and traces the evidence of a single cycle of the twelve signs in GP (Aries and Taurus), KnT (Gemini), MilT (Cancer), RvT (Leo), CkT (Virgo), MLT (Libra), WBPT (Scorpio), FrT (Sagittarius), SumT…
Traces the history of the metaphor of Satan as a "fowler" who seeks to trap souls as he would trap birds. Discusses examples from the time of the Church fathers to Shakespeare, including three instances in which Chaucer employs related metaphors: WBT…
Explores how resonance with CT in '1 Henry IV, 1.2, "communicates the pre-Reformation otherness of the world" and raises questions about "cultural distance and appropriation" that circulate among the essays collected in this special issue of…
Ruud, Jay Wesley.
Dissertation Abstracts International 42 (1981): 2146A.
Chaucer's lyric mode developed from the conventional toward the original, from everyman-speaker toward individual voice,from vague to concrete, from realist toward nominalist in philosophical outlook.
Ruud, Jay, and Stacey M. Jones.
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.2 (2009): n.p. [Electronic publication]
Uses public relations theory ("concepts of relationship management") to examine the competitiveness of the Pardoner in PardPT and the combination of competiveness in WBP with the valuing of "communal relationship" in WBT.
An alphabetical one-volume encyclopedia of international medieval writers, their works, anonymous works, literary genres, and major cultural contexts, with entries by a dozen contributing authors, a time line of writers, a bibliography, and an index.…
Ruud, Jay.
Susanna Greer Fein, David Raybin, and Peter C. Braeger, eds. Rebels and Rivals: The Contestive Spirit in The Canterbury Tales. Studies in Medieval Culture, no. 29 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1991), pp. 125-48.
Examines the multiple meanings of "spirit" in SumT as clarified by scriptural and patristic tradition, exposing satire of friars.
In Wom Nob, Chaucer introduces a psychology of love new to English poetry that derives from Machaut's "'realist' scholastic psychology" and that parallels the works of "stilnovisti" such as Dante, Cavalcanti, and Guinizella.
Chaucer's lyrics have been neglected not because Chaucer was an incompetent lyric poet but because they have been overshadowed by his narrative poetry. Ruud introduces the lyrics to those not familiar with them, providing a separate "reading" of…
Ruud, Jay.
Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 9 (1988): 29-45.
Behind the grotesque circumstances of PhyT, Chaucer presents an ironic view of natural law: Nature gloats as she forms Virginia to glorify God in purity; yet, the Physician mocks the sheltering of perfection since natural law will soon corrupt her.
Ruud, Jay.
Mediaevalia 10 (1988, for 1984): 199-212.
Although Buk appears to be a condemnation of marriage, Chaucer may have been experimenting with the philosophy of Ockham and Williams in presenting two paths to "knowing": experimentation and trusting authority. Buk reflects Chaucer's concerns…
Those who insist on reading historical allusions into For's concluding stanza miss C̀haucer's subtle plea that charity, and not Fortune's favor, be the motivating force in human affairs.
"Toune" in line 17 of the poem means "predicament," not a literal place, just as it stands for an abstract condition in the Harley lyric, "Lenten is come with love to toune."
A heretofore overlooked list of internal evidence for Chaucer's authorship of Wom Unc concerns the source of the mirror image--the latter used by Chaucer in his Bo. Since Chaucer's lady is described in terms that smack of Boethius's Fortune, the…
Ruud, Jay.
Bruce E. Brandt, ed. Proceedings of the Third Dakotas Conference on Earlier British Literature (Brookings, S.D.: English Department, South Dakota State University, 1995), pp. 35-44.
Discusses the Old Man in PardT as a parody of the Resurrection, rather than simply interpreting him allegorically.
Ruud, Jay.
Barbara Olive and David Sprunger, eds. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Northern Plains Conference on Earlier British Literature (Moorhead, Minn.: Concordia College, 2002), pp. 8-21.
Explicates works by three twentieth-century poets who have made Chaucer the subject of their work: Benjamin Brawley's sonnet "Chaucer" (1922), e. e. cummings's untitled sonnet from his collection "Xaipé" (1950), and Ted Hughes's "Chaucer" (1998).…
Is PF realist or nominalist? Ultimately, the poem's debate and epistemological investigation of the two positions is more conducive to reader participation than a conclusive ending would have been.
Ruud, Jay.
Michelle Sauer, ed. Proceedings of the 11th Annual Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature (Minot, N.D.: Minot State University, 2003), pp. 43-55.
The dawn song in TC (3.1415-1526) stresses "contrast between the mundane love of the two lovers and the heavenly love associated with the dawn and the light in a Christian context."
