Sottosanti, Danielle Lisa.
Dissertation Abstracts International A80.11 (2019): n.p.
Includes discussion of feigned conversion and the Sultaness in MLT, arguing that she "represents insecurity over the status of religious converts" rather than being merely villainous.
Sottosanti, Danielle.
Studies in Philology 172 (2020): 240-60.
Focuses on the Sultaness in MLT and argues that the text explores the ramifications of forced conversion and feigned baptism, along with larger issues of deception and truth.
Soules, Eugene Henri.
Ph.D. Dissertation. University of the Pacific, 1966. Dissertation Abstracts International 26.10 (1966): 6053A. Fully accessible via https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/2899/ (accessed April 21, 2026).
Studies the "three narrative parallels" of TC which complement the story and unify the theme: the "cosmic drama, the fall of Troy, and the performance of the narrator."
Southall, Robert.
Review of English Studies 15 (1964): 142-50.
Describes the Devonshire manuscript (Ds) and comments on its provenance. Newly identifies a Chaucer fragment in the manuscript (f. 59v) from TC 1.946-52.
Southmayd, David Edward.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1981): 3596A.
Chaucer develops original significances for birds, especially in HF, NPT, and PF. Birds variously represent the bestial in humanity, models for human society, objects of ridicule, and mediators between God and man. All four can be seen in the…
Southworth, James G.
College English 26.3 (1964) 173-79.
Critiques the editorial practice of "smoothing" Chaucer's verse to produce iambic pentameter rhythms by adjustments to final-"e," and advocates following medieval scribal practice of using the "'punctus elevatus'--the medial mark" to indicate the…
Southworth, James G.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962.
Supplements "Verses of Cadence" (1954) to reinforce arguments that Chaucer's prosody was rhythmic, not metrical, and that final -e should not be pronounced in reading Chaucer. Considers the influence on Chaucer's rhythms--in prose as well as…
Southworth, James Granville.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1954.
Challenges the theory that Chaucer wrote in iambic pentameter, assessing the evidence of Chaucer manuscripts, using them to argue that the prosody of Chaucer (and that of his fifteenth-century followers) depends upon length or duration rather than…
Southworth, John.
Woodbridge and Suffolk : Boydell & Brewer, 1989.
Traces the traditions and explores the functions of harpers, minstrels, fools, actors, acrobats, singers, magicians, and other entertainers from Anglo-Saxon times through the reigh of Henry VII.
Surveys 115 books threatened with censorship in the United States because of objections to their social (rather than political, religious, or sexual) depictions. Arranged alphabetically by title of the work, each entry includes a plot summary, a…
Summary (without text) and commentary on NPPT, arranged in sections, accompanied by glosses to Middle English phrases. Also includes a brief introduction to Chaucer and his literature; commentary on source materials of NPT, its characterization and…
Reads "The Churl and the Bird" as John Lydgate's self-conscious rumination on "the poetic and philosophical implications" of willfully refusing to accept confinement. Includes comments on SqT, ManT, and Chaucer's influence on Lydgate.
Situates the digital humanities (DH) within media history by arguing that DH depends upon collocation of visual, perspectivistic technology and artistic pursuit, as does anamorphosis. Exemplifies anamorphosis by means of Hans Holbein's "The…
Sparrow, Edward Harrison.
Dissertation Abstracts International 57 (1997): 3952A.
The proof of masculinity by man-to-man combat continues to fascinate modern writers, though as early as Chaucer the duel had been perceived as inherently wrong.
Twenty-one original woodcuts of birds and related scenes, each accompanied by a single poem of "suitable verse," by various authors. The first selection is from ManT (9.163-74). Printed in a limited edition of 180 copies.
Speaight, George.
New York: John de Graff, [1955].
A sweeping survey of puppets, puppeteering, puppet shows, and their cultural legacy in England. Surmises briefly (p. 52) that "popet" (Th 7.701) and "popelote" (MilT 1.3254) may evince knowledge of puppet performance in Chaucerian England, but also…
Spear, Anne.
Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Mississippi, 2020. Dissertation Abstracts International A82.04. Fully accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global; accessed August 19, 2025.
Examines "the way that gender, genre, form, and affect in late medieval devotion literatures, in the vernacular, provide varying degrees of access to spiritual reality for medieval women." Draws on "contemporary affect theory" and includes discussion…
Despite pressures of late-twentieth-century scholarship to make Chaucer's poetry as difficult and allusive as possible,scholars need to distinguish between Chaucer's use of sources that would have been obscure or unobtainable for his…
Spearing, A. C.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 234-48.
Disliking the unrealistic and the marvelous aspects of romance, Chaucer experimented with the genre in highly original ways in TC, KnT, FranT, SqT, and WBT. Chaucer comments on the romance through the inconsistency between the naturalistic…
Spearing, A. C.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
By eclectic approaches that borrow techniques from "modern literary theory, film analysis, sociolinguistics, and social anthropology" and that use historical views of medieval ideas and practice, Spearing illuminates a number of medieval poems,…
Spearing, A. C.
Chap. 4 in A. C. Spearing, ed. Readings in Medieval Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 83-106.
In BD, Chaucer relies on Latin "artes poeticae" and French courtly poetry for sources and models. "Amplificatio" is prominent: "expolitio," "circumlocutio," "collatio," "apostrophatio," "prosopopeia," "digressio," "descriptio," and "oppositio." …
Spearing, A. C.
John V. Fleming and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 2, 1986 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1987), pp. 169-77.
Examines the pervasiveness of love iconography and tradition in PF. Reviews various interpretations, political and social, and sees the "center" of the poem in the central line on the treacherous lapwing, a model for Chaucer's method with its many…
Spearing, A. C.
Chap. 4 in A. C. Spearing, Readings in Medieval Poetry. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 107-33.
It is not necessary to claim unity in the love, death, and heavenly reward of Troilus. Endings mark the boundaries between the work and the world (a central theme in modern social anthropology concerns boundaries or threshold crossing).
