Blake, Norman, and Jacob Thaisen.
Special issue, Nordic Journal of English Studies 3.1 (2004): 93-107.
Evaluating two CT manuscripts--Christ Church, Oxford, MS 152 (single exemplar) and British Library MS Harley 7334 (two exemplars)--the authors contend that analysis of spelling can be used to determine changes in exemplars in textual study. Because…
Blake, Norman, F., ed.
Okayama : University Education Press, 1995.
A comprehensive rhyming dictionary showing a full line for each rhyme word (showing seven lines for rhyme royal), based on Blake's text from the Hengwrt manuscript.
Blake, Norman.
Susan Powell and Jeremy J. Smith, eds. New Perspectives on Middle English Texts: A Festschrift for R. A. Waldron (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 107-18.
Like individual tales, the links of The Canterbury Tales exist in several authorial versions, indicating that Chaucer prepared several versions of the whole during his lifetime. Thus, the notion of a single manuscript stemma is impossible or…
Blamires, Alcuin, ed. With Karen Pratt and C. W. Marx.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Documents the details and development of medieval generalizations about women, translating from biblical, classical, patristic, Latin, and vernacular works a wide variety of antifeminist and profeminist selections, each with a brief introduction. …
Shows that key passages in the Wife's monologue can be justifiably located in the context of Lollardy, focusing on her use of the word "expres" (WBP 27, 61, 719) and her insistence on the primacy of scriptural authority.
Blamires, Alcuin.
Karl Josef Holtgen, Peter M. Daly, and Wolfgang Lottes, eds. Words and Visual Imagination: Studies in Interaction of English Literature and the Visual Arts. (Erlangen: Universitatsbibliothek Erlangen-Nurnberg, 1988), pp. 11-31.
Medieval concepts of love and sex were derived from the worship of Venus, the goddess of love. Art of the period shows men worshipping Venus, as well as men and women trying to win each other's love.
Summarizes and evaluates critical approaches to CT; explores pervasive ideas of the work, notably "entente," and offers "excess and restraint" as keys to interpretation. Treats GP Franklin, WBT, CYT, MerT, KnT, PardP, MilT, and FranT.
Although the prevailing code of honor was belligerent, Chaucer's dissatisfaction with this aggressive style is subtly indicated in Truth, Mars, Th, and KnT by presentation of "heroic" actions and martial "worshippe" as slightly ridiculous. In Mel,…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Leeds Studies in English 25 (1994): 83-110.
Examining Chaucer's construction of gender roles and role reversals in light of contemporary medieval texts, Blamires argues that Chaucer manipulated gender stereotypes. The poet ingeniously contrived Troilus and Anelida to confound specific…
Documents a formal "profeminine"--though not "feminist"--tradition in medieval literature, exploring its origins and sustaining arguments. Rooted in the apocryphal biblical book of Esdras, the tradition developed in the high Middle Ages in works…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Review of English Studies 51: 523-39, 2000.
Chaucer responds to the uprising of 1381 by shifting blame for the underlying oppression from the ruling and judiciary figures to the Reeve, a rigorous despot over the lower classes. Chaucer does not write from a classless position; rather, he…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees. eds. Gender in Debate: From the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance (New York and Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 57-78.
Connects Alison's sexual liberality in WBP with the loathly lady's liberality of counsel in WBT, arguing that Chaucer "redoctrinates" his audience by converting notions of feminine excess into the positive virtue of generosity. Also considers…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Blamires elucidates ways in which CT and, to a lesser extent, TC engage moral and ethical discourse and shows this discourse at times to be gendered. Grounded in a range of Christian and classical sources, especially Stoic texts, Chaucer's "spectrum…
Chaucer's special contribution to the fabliau genre is the design whereby apparently disconnected, often spontaneous plot incidents are suddenly "knit up"--that is, perceived by readers as belonging to a providential master plan. Although MilT is the…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Elaine Treharne and Greg Walker, with the assistance of William Green, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 478-95.
Discusses representations of individuality in medieval literature, exploring concepts of "singularity" and the Chaucerian notion of "condicioun." Comments on BD, ClT, and the descriptions of the pilgrims in GP, along with a range of medieval works.
Comments on the concern with propagating robust and pure lineages in numerous areas of medieval culture--including Chaucer's ClT, KnT, and MerT in particular. The denouement of the latter may be read as May's inserting herself into January's family…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Companion to Medieval Poetry (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 335-51.
Blamires introduces TC as Chaucer's "longest finished poem," commenting on sources, fusion of genres, suppleness of verse form and diction, the characters' sympathies, and the poem's "emotional trajectory."
Blamires, Alcuin.
Helen Phillips, ed. Chaucer and Religion (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010), pp. 3-23.
Discusses how Chaucer deals with "regulations and expectations of fourteenth-century Christianity," especially in relation to Chaucer's views on sex, virginity, gender, and marriage. Focuses on BD, PF, TC, ClT, MerT, WBP, NPT, MilT, and PardT.
Blamires, Alcuin.
Isabel Davis and Catherine Nall, eds. Chaucer and Fame: Reputation and Reception (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2015), pp. 344-51.
Surveys classical and medieval skeptical views of the significance of fame and contrasts the attitudes toward reputation expressed by Criseida in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and Criseyde in TC, focusing on the heroines' views about infamy before leaving…
Blanch, Robert J.
Studia Neophilologica 57 (1985): 41-51.
The Wife's portrayal of the rape, the judgment, and punishment of the knight reflect wish fulfillment, legal anachronism, and the inversion of the natural order of legitimate authority, though the tale ends in "true freedom and order."
Blanch, Robert J.
Lock Haven Review 8 (1966): 8-15.
Demonstrates the presence of three kinds of irony in MerT: verbal irony in the Merchant's double entendres and introductory comments on marriage, rhetorical irony in the deflation of courtly ideals by means of distorted or exaggerated figures and…
