Considers evidence from ParsP (10.42-44), KnT (1.2605-16), and LGW (635-58) that Chaucer may have been familiar with Middle English alliterative romances, arguing that the proposition is unlikely. While he may have known alliterative religious…
Blake, N. F.
Leeds Studies in English 1 (1967): 19-36.
Gauges William Caxton's appreciation of Chaucer's literature by exploring why Caxton printed the works of Chaucer that he did, how he treated the texts, and to what extent his decisions reflect his own tastes or those of patrons, poets, and the likes…
Blake, N. F., and Peter Robinson, eds.
Oxford: Office for the Humanities Communication Publications, 1993.
A preface and five essays describe the goals and methods of the "Canterbury Tales" Project, an endeavor to replace Manly and Rickert's textual analysis of CT (Chicago, 1940). Long-range goals include facsimile reproduction of portions of the…
Blake, N. F., ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Chapters by various authors treat phonology and morphology, syntax, dialectology, lexis and semantics, literary language, and onomastics. Includes an introduction by Blake, a bibliography, an index, and a glossary of linguistic terms. The chapter…
Following Manly and Rickert, Blake sees Hengwrt as the most reliable early manuscript, but omits links for fragments E-F, which Blake believes were added by someone other than Chaucer--i.e., those links joining SqT to MerT and MerT to FranT. Blake…
Blake, N. F.,and Peter Robinson,eds.
London: King's College, Office for Humanities Communiciations, 1997.
Nine essays by various authors and a preface by the editors, all of which pertain to textual issues of CT or to the principles and practices of the "Canterbury Tales" Project. For individual essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Canterbury…
Examines HF and other medieval dream-visions from a stand-point of performance theory, while considering the role of the narrator/dreamer as perceiver and creator of meaning, with ramifications for how narrative may be viewed as process, rather than…
Blake, Norman F.
Antonio R. Celada, Daniel Pastor García, and Pedro Javier Pardo García, eds. Actas del XXVII Congreso Internacional de AEDEAN = Proceedings of the 27th International AEDEAN Conference (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2004), n.p. CD-Rom.
Proposes that Chaucer probably started with a provisional notion of the overall order of CT, which he experimented with, adjusted, and had not completely sorted out before he died. The scribes copied the text in stints as the best way to adapt…
Blake, Norman F., ed
Okayama : University Education Press, 1994.
A comprehensive concordance to CT based on Blake's text from the Hengwrt manuscript. Includes an alphabetical and frequency word list; describes spellings, words, syntax, and metrics.
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…
