Explains that the medieval notion of "curiositas" (illicit pursuit of knowledge) entails concupiscence of the eyes, concupiscence of the flesh, and worldly pride, showing that these vices are a theme that links MilT and RvT, particularly evident in a…
Smilie, Ethan. K., and Kipton D. Smilie.
Postmedieval 09 (2018): 367-87.
Argues that Chaucer's poetry can inform contemporary discussions of teachers' bodies and their relative absence from the classroom due to online learning and sexual concerns. Focuses on "the power and purpose of poetry" in SNT, CYT, and ManPT.
Smith D. Vance.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Considers the household as a complex image central to understanding late-medieval England, exploring literary, historical, and economic representations for what they disclose about the "ethics of possession." Analyzes aspects of "Winner and Waster,"…
Smith-Laing, Tim.
Ph.D. Dissertation. Oxford University, 2014. Dissertation Abstracts International C74.06. Fully accessible via https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0f4305c6-3c62-4f89-a3b2-d8204893fdfb (accessed March 13, 2026).
Focuses on the "complex textual contingency" of the figure of Theseus in the "history of mythographical discourse," exploring "the fragmentary, fluid and polymorphous nature of mythology" in a wide variety of medieval and early modern texts--English,…
Proposes a method for classifying noun-plus-noun compounds and compiles all such compounds in Chaucer's works, showing that, with one exception, modern types of compounds were already in use in Chaucer's Middle English.
Smith, Charles R.
Chaucer Review 30 (1995): 101-06.
The Reeve's four burning coals ("Avauntyng, liying, anger, covetise" (CT 1.3884) are taken from the description of the spiritual old man in Ephesians 4:22-28.
Chaucer's audience would have considered the Miller's apparent lack of jealousy toward his wife in the context of a long-standing teaching that jealousy has a salutary side. According to that view, "[w]hoever is not jealous does not love."
Smith, D. Vance.
South Atlantic Quarterly 98: 367-414, 1999.
Like Freud and Boethius, Chaucer views tragedy as the temporal transformation of a literal or figurative space. Integral to this understanding of tragedy is the notion of memory as a function of death, a relationship apparent in BD, MkT, and HF.…
Smith, D. Vance.
Seth Lerer, ed. The Yale Companion to Chaucer (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 87-121.
Smith traces various threads of Chaucer's relationships with English poetic tradition: GP and Langland's "Piers Plowman"; Th and native romance; echoes of Sir " Orfeo"; alliterative verse in Chaucer; and the complex concerns of native tradition,…
Smith, D. Vance.
Cristina Maria Cervone and D. Vance Smith, eds. Readings in Medieval Textuality: Essays in Honour of A. C. Spearing (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2016), pp. 135-56.
Examines the "unresolved ending" of the "Legend of Philomela" in LGW.
Smith, D. Vance.
Minnesota Review 80 (2013): 131-44.
Argues that in PardT "allegory and form straddle the boundaries of finitude in order to raise the question of how finitude is constituted," thereby sharing or anticipating several concerns and questions raised by object-oriented, materialist…
Smith, D. Vance.
C. M. Woolgar, ed. The Elite Household in England, 1100–1550: Proceedings of the 2016 Harlaxton Symposium (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2018), pp. 110-28.
Unpacks allegorical aspects of "domus" (household, community, regulation, tradition, order) and "lingua" (speech, noise, murmuring, poetry, vernacularity) in Gower's "Vox clamantis" and in HF, using Fredric Jameson's notion of "national allegory" to…
Smith, D. Vance.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Explores a tradition of literature about dying that "combines medieval work
on the philosophy of language with contemporary theorizing on death and dying." Analyzes dying and tragedy in KnT, PardT, and BD.
Smith, Elton E.
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. 314-23.
Briefly describes the history of confession and the granting of indulgences in church tradition. Also explicates details of PardPT.
Smith, Esther M. G.
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. 256-62.
Comments on ecclesiastical reform of the late Middle Ages as background to the Parson's sketch in GP and presents ParsT as a confessional manual.
Smith, Francis J.
Ball State University Forum 14.1 (1973): 15-22.
Reads PF as a "poem of love and marriage, touching upon the question of pleasure versus the duty of procreation, realistically set in the framework of a dream, and seasoned with wit." Emphasizes the poem's balanced sensibility and "refreshing…
Smith, J. J.
J.J. Smith, ed. The English of Chaucer and His Contemporaries: Essays by M.L. Samuels and J.J. Smith (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988), pp. 96-113.
Working from an "archetypal" corpus of Gower's spelling forms,Smith explores the continuity and dissolution of these forms in manuscript tradition, as well as the relation of the corpus to the progress of Standard Written English and to practice in…
Smith, J. J.
J.J. Smith, ed. The English of Chaucer and His Contemporaries: Essays by M.L. Samuels and J.J. Smith (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988), pp. 51-69.
Analyzes the dialectical "Mischsprachen" (linguistic mixture) in Harley 7334 and Corpus Christi, Oxford, 198, and in products of the Gower D-Scribe. Since all three show an "idiosyncratic mixture of West Worcestershire forms and the learnt form,…
Smith, James L., ed.
.[Santa Barbara, Calif.]: Punctum, 2017.
Offers six essays that treat medieval texts "as transit systems in which we can glimpse the mobility of objects, figures, mentalities, tropes and other 'matter' in vibrant intermediate networks." For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for…
Smith, James.
Essays in Criticism 22 (1972): 4-32.
Focuses on close analysis of words and details in GP description of the Knight ("worthy") and in KnT ("erthely," 1.1166) to argue that Arcite is a morally flawed lover, Theseus is an "anti-hero," and the Knight pompous--especially when read in light…
Smith, Jeremy (J.)
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 95 (1994): 433-37.
Some northernisms in RvT have been dismissed as quasi-northern or as scribal misreadings. However, these forms are genuine attempts by post-Shift southern scribes to reflect a pre-Shift northern pronunciation.
Smith, Jeremy J.
Martin Stevens and Daniel Woodward, eds. The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library; Tokyo: Yushodo, 1995), pp. 69-86.
Argues for the superiority of Hengwrt over Ellesmere on metrical and dialectical grounds.
Smith, Jeremy J.
Jacek Fisiak, ed. Studies in Middle English Linguistics (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997), pp. 551-60.
Although the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts were both copied by "Scribe B," their differences indicate how a variety of factors affect textual transmission.
