Schmitz, Gotz.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
English translation, with a new preface, of Die Frauenklage: Studies zur englischen Verserzahlung in der englischen Literature des Spatmittelalter und der Renaissance (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1984). Investigates the relations between subject matter and…
Spurr, Barry.
Sydney Studies in English 37 (2011): 1-18.
Spurr cites A. E. Housman's lecture "The Name and Nature of Poetry" and calls upon the makers of the Australian National Curriculum not to excise CT and other canonical texts from the program.
Butterfield, Ardis.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Explores the political, linguistic, and cultural relations between "France" and "England" before the stabilization of the areas' geographical boundaries. Interdependence between the two areas challenges modern notions of nationality, linguistic…
Wu, Yu-Ching.
Review of English and American Literature 42 (2023): 31-73.
Focuses on "neighbor theory" and on uses of "neighebor(es)" in CT to argue that the "concept of community in Chaucer is constantly overshadowed by conflicts of interest and the presence of a loving/fearful neighbor." Assesses MilT as an extended…
A survey of fantasy literature in England, arranged topically in six categories: secondary world, metaphysical, emotive, comic, subversive, and children's. Includes commentary on various works by Chaucer in an opening chapter called "The Origins of…
Frakes, J. C.
Leiden and New York: E. J. Brill, 1988.
Examines Fortune in the Roman tradition, in Boethius, in Latin commentaries on the "Consolatione," in King Alfred's adaptation, and in Notker's exegesis.
By subtle allusions and a skillful balance of opposites, Chaucer reveals that the Wife of Bath conspired with Jankyn to kill her fourth husband, caused Jankyn's death by betraying him to her friends, and became a garish, cynical old woman incapable…
Focuses on the theological and comical elements of CT and its "beatific vision." Claims that Chaucer "provides a lyrical vision of the possibilities of poetry and pilgrimage" in GP.
Brooks, Freya Elizabeth Paintin.
Open access Ph.D. dissertation. University of Leicester, 2018. Available at EThOS: E-Theses Online Service (registration required). Accessed February 5, 2021.
"[R]evisits" the manuscripts of CT "in order to piece together the evidence of women's involvement in the consumption and circulation of this work," using "visualisations to map the social networks of women connected to the manuscripts and explore…
Ames, Ruth M.
Julian N. Wasserman and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 57-74.
Chaucer responds to the God of Love's charges against TC and the translation of Rom by avoiding confrontation. This response is not noncommittal but carries the message that one should be evenhanded, not extremist, when dealing with feminism.
Sinnreich-Levi, Deborah M.
Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi, ed. Eustache Deschamps, French Courtier-Poet: His Work and His World. (New York: AMS Press, 1998), pp. 123-30.
The misogynist female voices in a number of Deschamps's poems seem to share common sources with WBPT and MerT.
Hansen, Elaine Tuttle.
Sheila Fisher and Janet E. Halley, eds. Seeking the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writings, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), pp. 51-70.
LGW is a "poem for and about men and their anxieties about sex and gender." Courtly love is incompatible with the patriarchal drive to dominate. The subject of LGW is "male homosocial desire."
With the Host as a master of revels who cannot coerce the lower orders, CT develops wide audience appeal through the pilgrims as players in a medieval festival atmosphere, where both "gentils" and "churls" participate, often with role reversals and…
Rush, Rebecca.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.
Considers briefly Chaucer's influence on the revival of poetic couplets in early modern English verse, especially as mediated by George Puttenham's "The Arte of English Poesie."
Offers a theoretical model for representing language--both oral and literary--and analyzes various modes of discourse such as direct discourse, free indirect discourse, dual voicing, etc. Observes at one point (p. 369) that "Chaucer's free indirect…
The questioning of the fiend by the Summoner in FrT echoes "Purgatorio" 25. Both humans (Dante and the summoner) ask material questions of their supernatural guides; both guides direct the questions to the realm of the spiritual. The place of both…
Gasse, Rosanne.
E. L. Risden, ed. "Sir Gawain" and the Classical Tradition: Essays on the Ancient Antecedents (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006), pp. 121-34.
Gasse reads references to Achilles in TC as indications that the story of Achilles "is clearly the mirror of Troilus's narrative." References to Achilles in Gower's "Confessio Amantis" and in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" can help readers…
Exploring details and multilingual and multidialectical puns and etymologies through a "Proustian lens," Surber discovers sustained attention to homosexuality in CT. Critical uncertainty about specific meaning in Chaucer enables a queer reading that…
Godfrey, Mary F.
Thomas A. Prendergast and Barbara Kline, eds. Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority, and the Idea of the Authentic Text, 1400-1602 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999), pp. 93-115.
PrT is anthologized apart from CT in three fifteenth-century manuscripts (Harley 1704, 2251, and 2382) that indicate that the Jews of the Tale were mere "stock villains of Marian legends." The manuscripts (variants and glosses) provide no evidence…
Vila de la Cruz, (Maria) Purificacion.
Purificacion Fernandez Nistal and Jose Ma Bravo Gazalo, eds. Proceedings of the VIth International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1995), pp. 385-91
Explores different aspects of the love felt by Criseyde in light of the emotions expressed in BD. As a pragmatist, Criseyde thinks she will not suffer love's pains. Her feelings lack heroic grandeur.
Clogan, Paul (M.)
Medievalia et Humanistica 3 (1972): 213-40.
Surveys criticism of SNPT, describes the genre of hagiography, and summarizes the popularity of the St. Cecilia legend. Then argues that SNP heralds SNT in "theme, pattern, and imagery," effectively functioning "to focus and epitomize" its "figural…
