Donavin, Georgiana.
Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012.
Investigates "constructions of Mary as Lady Rhetorica, 'magistra' for language studies, muse for poetry, and exemplar of perfected speech in a fallen world." Chapter 4, "Chaucer and Dame School," considers how ABC, PrT, and SNT "depict a hierarchy of…
Reads CT, TC, and LGW in the context of late medieval courtesy books, advice literature, and epistolary collections. Considers public and private marital honor in the Paston letters and FranT, and wifely obedience in ClT, "Menagier de Paris," and…
Kamath, Stephanie A. Viereck Gibbs.
Cambridge: Brewer, 2012.
Chapter 2 analyzes CT briefly, and connects Chaucer's allegorical tradition with Thomas Hoccleve, John Lydgate, and earlier pilgrimage allegories of Guillaume de Deguileville. Discussion of Chaucer's "mediation" of Rom.
Owing to waning interest, the Chaucer Library, which had sought to present the works Chaucer knew, will cease following the publication of Boccaccio's "Teseida."
McTaggart, Anne.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
HF, TC, and CT more commonly represent shame (an exterior phenomenon) than guilt (an interior one); in dialogue with late medieval penitential theology, they suggest the narrative invisibility of guilt. HF and TC tackle the plausibility, in pagan…
Partridge, Stephen, and Erik Kwakkel, eds.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
Collection of essays related to medieval concepts of authorship, focusing on a variety of vernaculars, languages, and literatures, and the "relationship of authorship to readership." For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Author, Reader,…
Obermeier, Anita.
Stephen B. Partridge and Erik Kwakkel, eds. Author, Reader, Book: Medieval Authorship in Theory and Practice (Toronton: University of Toronto Press, 2012), pp. 80-105.
Describes Gower's and Chaucer's "metaphorical and historical connections to Richard II," as reflected in ManT.
Partridge, Stephen.
Stephen B. Partridge and Erik Kwakkel, eds. Author, Reader, Book: Medieval Authorship in Theory and Practice (Toronton: University of Toronto Press, 2012), pp. 106-53..
Argues that Ret elevates Chaucer's status as author, and creates the "illusion of Chaucer's presence and agency" for the reader of CT. Connects Chaucer's use of Ret to French literary culture, which helped define Chaucer's own sense of authorship.
Sánchez-Martí, Jordi.
Cuadernos del CEMYR 20 (2012): 93-102.
Analysis of literary patronage from the Anglo-Saxon times until the end of the fourteenth century, when royal patronage was essential for authors such as Chaucer.
Tallies Chaucer's depictions of hunting in BD, LGW, and FranT, and argues that these, in contrast with other works in Middle English, show a "marked lack of sympathy for animals as quarries."
Addresses how Chaucer's bawdiness is perceived in the United States. Includes issues of censorship related to CT, with focus on curricula changes over the past few decades.
Smith, Nicole D.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.
Studies clothing in imaginative literature, arguing that writers of romances redirect the negative depictions of the courtly body found in clerical chronicles and penitential writings into positive images that convey virtue. While religious and…
Spearing, A. C.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.
Suggests we cannot necessarily assume that, in medieval texts, every instance of an "I" must represent a fictionalized narrator who has a persona that can be analyzed and ultimately held responsible for various details of, or problems within, the…
Details the patience genre in medieval literature. Chapter 5 focuses on Chaucer's female patience figures, including Griselda in ClT and female characters in LGW, and compares how Christine de Pizan and Chaucer treat the patience literature genre…
Van Dyke, Carolyn, ed.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Sixteen essays by various authors examine animals in Chaucer, with an Introduction and Afterword that describe the grounds for challenging the "anthropocentric perspective" and align this challenge with feminism and the rejection of hierarchical…
Fradenburg, Aranye.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 13-31.
In some modern views, and in John of Trevisa's "On the Properties of Things," animals have feelings and communicate. Similarly, CT and PF demonstrate "the value and pleasure of minds speaking to other minds," whether human or avian. Late medieval…
Gutmann, Sara.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 69-83.
Although some falconers were female, the activity of training (often female) falcons is highly gendered. The necessity of the falcon to be tamed is paralleled in the need for Emelye in KnT to submit to heterosexual marriage, and for Canacee in SqT to…
Withers, Jeremy.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 173-83.
In KnT, warriors are compared to animals, a seemingly desirable condition that would allow warriors to "discharge at will their power and violence." However, several references to shackled, confined, or endangered animals create a contrast between…
Wang, Laura.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 131-42.
Classical and medieval antifeminist texts disparagingly compare women and animals. In WBP, Alisoun "redeploys animal similes" to claim the privileges of animal-like status because she is naturally crafty and sly, impatient, and cannot be held…
Stock, Lorraine Kochanske.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 85-100.
Themes of "trouthe" and "gentillesse," as well as the threat of suicide, in the SqT falcon episode (5.409-631) anticipate major themes of FranT. Because SqT is prior in the narrative sequence, the human language of FranT parodies avian language…
Schotland, Sara Deutch.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 115-30.
In SqT Chaucer practices a form of anthropomorphism that acknowledges its representational limits. The relationship of Canacee and the falcon shows "a commonality among living creatures" and offers a model of female friendship. Canacee nurses the…
Feinstein, Sandy, and Neal Woodman.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 49-66.
The Pardoner is compared to a hare, goat, and horse, and PardT refers to smaller animals usually considered vermin. The three gluttonous rioters are appropriately called shrews, and the poison used to kill them is ostensibly bought for rats and a…
Browne, Megan Palmer.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 203-15.
NPT demonstrates the danger of reading "for a single abstract moral" by means of its emphasis on Chauntecleer's humanlike qualities. Among his most human attributes are experiencing and expounding a dream. If "men" refers to both humans and chickens,…
Freeman, Carol.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 33-47.
Describes the specific appearance of vellum, the types of quills used in creating a medieval manuscript, and animal-inflicted damage to manuscripts by mice, bugs, etc. Intersperses discussion of NPT with regard to Chauntecleer's appearance and…
Judkins, Ryan R.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 159-72.
Although anthropocentric, BD emphasizes the similarity of animals and humans under the law of "kynde." They share an "embodied state and an ethical system as a result of their shared creation." The hart, object of the hunt, parallels the Black…
