Seaman, David M.
English Language Notes 24:1 (1986): 12-18.
The common assumption by critics that the Franklin purposely interrupts the Squire's tale is justified neither by context nor by rubric. Critics often attribute to CT a state of completion it does not have.
Seaman, Myra, Eileen A. Joy, and Nicola Masciandaro, eds.
Brooklyn, N. Y.: Punctum Books, 2012.
A collection of essays highlighting "dark," unsettling, and culturally unsavory elements across the Chaucer canon. For individual pieces, search for Dark Chaucer under Alternative Title.
Seaman, Myra.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59 (1998): 1156A.
Medieval romance generally assumes that action is inherently a masculine activity and speech feminine, with both supporting patriarchy. Various English romances examine these assumptions (sometimes ambiguously). WBT employs them to subvert not only…
Seaman, Myra.
Myra Seaman, Eileen A. Joy, and Nicola Masciandaro, eds. Dark Chaucer: An Assortment (Brooklyn, N. Y.: Punctum Books, 2012), pp. 139-49.
Rejects conventional readings of BD as a demonstration that art can transcend suffering; instead shows how BD "enacts . . . a disconsolate poetics, in which pain and suffering perdure."
Seaman, Myra.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017. Relocated 2025 at https://opencanterburytales.lsusites.org/
Explores the "powerlessness of the voiceless" in ManPT, focusing on Phebus's wife, who has no voice in the Tale, in contrast with the speaking crow whose voice is taken from him and the ventriloquized mother of the Manciple. Designed for pedagogical…
Argues that complex acrostic anagrams in PF reveal that it was written on the occasion of negotiations for a marriage between Lionel of Clarence and Violanta Visconti; identifies French analogues to this intricate practice, and helping to date…
Sebastian, John T.
Literature Compass 3.4 (2006): 767-77.
Surveys recent historicist and psychoanalytic approaches to Chaucer's writing, positing an impending turn toward "an emerging norm of multi- and post-theoretical criticism."
Sebastian, John T.
Seeta Chaganti, ed. Medieval Poetics and Social Practice: Responding to the Work of Penn R. Szittya (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), pp. 95-108.
Looks at the public aspect of devotional poetry, referring to Chaucer and PF.
Practical handbook to literacy training, with exercises that include using lines from GP to inspire literacy, from a chapter titled "Exploring Geoffrey Chaucer: A Start" (pp. 181-84).
Inspired by CT and designed for 2-3 players, aged 10 and above. Players are "medieval pardoners who travel the Road to Canterbury tempting Pilgrims with the Seven Deadly Sins--and then pardon these sins for a fee," with the goal of winning the most…
Séguy, Mireille.
Claire Vial, ed. 'Gode is the lay, swete is the note': Résonances dans les lais bretons moyen-anglais / Echoes in the Middle English Breton Lays (2014): n.p. (web publication).
Compares FranT with Breton lays, and centers on how memory, and the unreliability of the past, weaken the connection between Middle English lays and Breton lays.
Sell, Jonathan P. A.
Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 48 (2004): 193-204.
Sell identifies "verbal parallels" and "ontological similarities" between Criseyde and Chaucer's version of Boethius's Fortune. Association with Fortune undermines "sentimental views of Criseyde" that Chaucer the narrator may share though Chaucer…
Sell, Roger D.
Studia Neophilologica 57 (1985): 175-85.
Stylistic or linguistic thickening is a key to meaning, as in selectional politeness. Abrupt shifts of topic, disruption of narrative frames, and lack of deference to the reader's expectations make MilT more "impolite."
Making the improbable seem momentarily probable, Chaucer risks offending his audience by telling a bawdy story, but he excuses himself and blames the Miller for any breach of good taste. Chaucer catches the reader off guard with the abrupt…
Item not seen. WorldCat records indicate that this includes adapted versions of GP and five tales from CT, with texts, notes, and activities designed to improve reading and langauge skills. Released in several languages for English-learning children.
Sells, A. Lytton.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955.
Assesses the influence--direct and mediated--of Italian literature on English poetry from Chaucer to Robert Southwell (excluding verse drama), considering issues of meter and style as well as plot, atmosphere, and theme. Opens with appreciative…
Selvin, Rhoda Hurwitt.
Studia Neophilologica 37 (1965): 146-60.
Comments on the varieties of love in PF, describing how the initiating concern with heavenly love in the summary of Scipio's dream is recalled and reinforced through the structure and details of the poem, conveying the need for "caritas," "common…
Sembler, Elizabeth Mauer.
Laura C. Lambdin and Robert T. Lambdin, eds. Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the "Canterbury Tales" (Westport, Conn.; and London: Greenwood, 1996), pp. 135-44.
The ambiguous social and legal status of franklins in fourteenth-century England makes it difficult to know whether Chaucer's Franklin was a member of the gentry or an aspirant to the gentle class. Sembler surveys critical opinions about the…
Semenza, Gregory M. Colón.
Chaucer Review 38: 66-82, 2003.
Members of the aristocracy and the middle class engaged in wrestling. Thus, Chaucer's reference to the Miller as a wrestler cannot be dismissed as a reference to the lower class.
Semper, Philippa.
Gail Ashton and Louise Sylvester, eds. Teaching Chaucer (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 120-38.
Describes efforts at the University of Birmingham (between 2000 and 2005) to incorporate web-based materials (computer-mediated materials and virtual learning environments) into teaching Chaucer and Middle English. Also considers methods of assessing…
Sepherd, Robert K. .
Sederi: Journal of the Spanish Society for English Renaissance Studies 4 : 229-36, 1993.
Considers Shakespeare's Cressida to be a "delicate literary graft" of the ambiguous aloofness of Chaucer's Criseyde and the "frankness personified" of Henryson's Cresseid.
Sequeira, Isaac.
K. P. K. Menon, M. Manuel, and K. Ayyappa Paniker, eds. Literary Studies: Homage to Dr. A. Sivaramasubramonia Aiyer (Trivandum: St. Joseph's Press, for the Dr. A. Sivaramasubramonia Aiyer Memorial Committee, 1973), pp. 34-43.
Explores seven aspects of Chaucer's satiric presentation of the Monk and his failure to follow monastic ideals: claustration, hunting, Benedictine rule, monastic study, poverty, asceticism, and celibacy.
Abbreviated prose adaptations of selections from CT, interspersed among modernizations in verse of the descriptions of the pilgrims in GP and following the GP order (with slight adjustments). Included are KnT, NPT, ClT, ShT, MLT, FranT, WBT, ManT,…
