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Reading Like a Man: The Critics, the Narrator, Troilus, and Pandarus
Dinshaw, Carolyn.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 47-73.
Abridged version of a portion of Dinshaw's Chaucer's Sexual Politics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), pp. 28-64.
Ending a Poem Before Beginning It, or The 'Cas' of Troilus
Koff, Leonard Michael.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 161-78.
In TC 1, the narrator's initial confidence that Troilus is an exemplary figure conflicts with the reader's growing awareness of the narrator's limited knowledge of love and its conventions, paralleling Troilus's own movement from confidence to…
Meaning and Ending in a 'Paynted Proces': Resistence to Closure in Troilus and Criseyde
McGerr, Rosemarie P.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 179-98.
The unresolved ending of TC capitalizes on concern with means and ends throughout the poem, encouraging readers to resist the illusion of closure in any act of interpretation.
'Troilus and Criseyde': Another Dantean Reading
Neuse, Richard.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 199-210.
Echoes of Dante's "Commedia" in TC are not ironic. In each poem, love is religious, even theological, reflected in the characters' Christian references in TC. The poems are distinct not as Christian is distinct from pagan but as comedy is distinct…
Sweet Persuasion: The Subject of Fortune in Troilus and Criseyde
Scanlon, Larry.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 211-23.
Explains Fortune as a figure that embodies historical flux and affirms aristocratic privilege. In TC, references to Fortune do not provide a philosophical norm against which to test the attitudes of the characters; the references assert politically…
The Lover's Gaze in Troilus and Criseyde
Stanbury, Sarah.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 224-38.
Troilus and Criseyde fall in love through looking, here analyzed through medieval optical science, as a literary convention, and as a gendered social taboo. Stanbury contrasts the activity, passivity, and willfulness of Criseyde's gaze with that of…
Pandarus's 'Unthrift' and the Problem of Desire in Troilus and Criseyde
Edwards, Robert R.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 74-87.
Contrasts Chaucer's depictions of desire in TC with source passages in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and with a passage in Dante's "Purgatorio." Chaucer's depiction is based on the "impoverished" view of desire presented in Boethius's "Consolation" and…
'Our owen wo to drynke': Loss, Gender, and Chivalry in Troilus and Criseyde
Fradenburg, Louise O.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 88-106.
Examines the roles of loss and violence in the construction of feminine figures in chivalric literature, considering such constructions in light of fourteenth-century social history. In TC, Chaucer considers the relation between heroism and suffering…
Constructing the Author
Mowat, Barbara A.
R. B. Parker and S. P. Sitner, eds. Elizabethan Theater: Essays in Honor of S. Schoenbaum (Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1996), pp. 93-110.
Assesses how the sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer by Thynne and Speght helped to create and monumentalize a view of the writer. Renaissance notions of authors, evident in Speght's Chaucer, Holland's Livy, and Harrington's Ariosto, are not the…
Falconry and Fantasy in Guillaume de Machaut's 'Dit de l'Alerion'
Hieatt, Constance B.
R. Barton Palmer, ed. Chaucer's French Contemporaries: The Poetry/Poetics of Self and Tradition (New York: AMS Press, 1999), pp. 163-86
Assesses Machaut's knowledge of falconry and his depiction of the falconer/falcon relationship in "Dit de l'Alerion" as an extended metaphor of love. Also explores the influence of Machaut's metaphor, including its impact on Chaucer (TC, LGW, WBP,…
Poets, Peace, the Passion, and the Prince: Eustache Deschamps' 'Ballade to Chaucer'
Brown, Murray.
R. Barton Palmer, ed. Chaucer's French Contemporaries: The Poetry/Poetics of Self and Tradition (New York: AMS Press, 1999), pp. 187-215
Deschamps's "Ballade" dates from Sir Lewis Clifford's diplomatic mission to the French court in 1391, when France and England were closer to peace than they had been in almost a decade. Both Chaucer and Deschamps were associated with the Order of the…
Machaut's Legacy : The Chaucerian Inheritance Reconsidered
Calin, William.
R. Barton Palmer, ed. Chaucer's French Contemporaries: The Poetry/Poetics of Self and Tradition (New York: AMS Press, 1999), pp. 29-46
The most important source for Chaucer's BD is not Machaut's Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne but his Dit de la fonteinne; for LGWP, not the French "Marguerite poems" but Machaut's Jugement dou Roy de Navarre. Moreover, the belief that Chaucer drifted…
Het vogelparlement van Geoffrey Chaucer
Kooper, Erik.
R. E. V. Stuip and C. Vellekoop, eds. Tuinen in de Middelleeuwen (Hilversum: Verloren, 1992), pp. 155-65.
In PF, personal happiness and community service result when proper choices are made. Lovers must be aware of their individual roles in society.
Social Class in the Classroom: Gower's Estates Poetry.
Lightsey, Scott.
R. F. Yeager and Brian W. Gastle, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower (New York: Modern Language Association,
2011), pp. 36-41.
2011), pp. 36-41.
Compares and contrasts the uses of estates literature in works by Gower, Chaucer, and William Langland, explaining the didacticism of Gower, Chaucer's "playful 'show--don't tell'" in GP, and Langland's allusive allegorizing.
The Hag Transformed: "The Tale of Florent," Ethical Choice, and Female Desire in Late Medieval England.
Dean, James M.
R. F. Yeager and Brian W. Gastle, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower (New York: Modern Language Association, 2011), pp. 143-55.
Compares and contrasts Gower's tale of Florent with WBT and "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle," arguing that Gower and Chaucer "grapple with ethical circumstances in human relationships" (matters of right conduct and governance,…
Chaucer by Default? Difficult Choices and Teaching the Sophomore British Literature Survey
Chewning, Susannah M.
R. F. Yeager and Brian W. Gastle, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower (New York: Modern Language Association, 2011), pp. 188-93.
Addresses issues of teaching Gower and Chaucer in college survey classes.
Teaching Gower's Reception: A Poet for All Ages,
Pearsall, Derek.
R. F. Yeager and Brian W. Gastle, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower (New York: Modern Language Association, 2011), pp. 31-35.
Surveys Gower's reception among fellow poets and critics, including comments on the effect of Chaucer upon Gower's reputation and the value of comparing their versions of individual stories.
Gower and 'The Canterbury Tales': The Enticement to Fraud
Bertolet, Craig E.
R. F. Yeager and Brian W. Gastle, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower (New York: Modern Language Association, 2011), pp. 83-90.
Offers recommendations for teaching Gower in relation to Chaucer's CT.
Gower before Chaucer: Narrative and Ethics in "The Tale of Tereus."
Koff, Leonard.
R. F. Yeager and Brian W. Gastle, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower (New York: Modern Language Association, 2011), pp. 83-90.
Comparative essay that includes commentary on Chaucer's "volatile response" to the story of Philomela in his LGW, suggesting that Chaucer's account may reflect anxiety about Gower's influence.
Boys Will Be Women : Musings on Classroom Nostalgia and the Chaucerian Audience(s)
Woods, Marjorie Curry.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 143-66.
Woods hypothesizes how Chaucer and the male members of his audience may have been affected by their experiences in an "all-male medieval classroom" and how, in turn, their encounters with female literary characters and the rhetorical exercises of…
Theseus T(h)reads the Maze : Labyrinthine Empowerment/Impairment and Ariadne's Absence
Doob, Penelope Reed.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 167-84; 4 b&w figs.
Surveys relations between female literary characters and labyrinths from mythic accounts to Lady Mary Worth's "Pamphilia to Amphilanthus," commenting on Virgil's "Aeneid," Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," Dante's "Commedia," WBPT, and the…
Chaucer, Suicide, and the Agencies of Memory : Troilus and the Death Drive
Goldstein, R. James.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 185-304; 3 b&w figs.
Goldstein assesses the "rhetoric of Troilus's suicidal death wish" in TC 1, 4, and 5, comparing passages with Boccaccio's version and challenging critical traditions that view Troilus's thoughts as merely rhetorical or absurd. Also evident in LGW and…
The Image of Chaucer's Knight
Jones, Terry.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 205-36; 15 color figs.
The GP description of the Knight suggests that he wore clothing and equipment typical of "military opportunism." More specifically, the Knight's dress and career call to mind Sir John Hawkwood, and changes to the Ellesmere portrait of the Knight may…
Speaking Images in Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale'
Mann, Jill.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 237-54; 3 b&w figs.
Mann explores Nicholas's verbal manipulation of John in MilT, the portrait of Alison, and the body language of the kiss scene (and some analogous fabliaux), arguing that language, imagination, and physical reality are in many ways inseparable or…
Playing Parts : Fragments, Figures and the Mystery of Love in 'The Miller's Tale'
Nolan, Barbara.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 255-99; 8 color figs.
"In-etched" reminiscences of the Annunciation strain against the dominant sexuality of MilT, simultaneously suggesting and denying the metonymic and synecdochaic relations between divine and earthly love. Nolan cites analogous examples of…
