Horrox, Rosemary.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 443-59.
Surveys current and past scholarship on Chaucer's Pardoner. Provides historical background on the office and practices of pardoners in the late medieval Church and reviews debate over Pardoner's "sexual ambiguity."
Childs, Wendy R.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 277-96.
Discusses the ambiguity of Chaucer's Shipman, connecting ShT to estates satire and contending that Chaucer combined an "ideal craftsman and the flawed individual" in the character of the Shipman.
Lewis, Katherine J.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 94-113.
Places the Prioress and the Second Nun in the context of late medieval female monasticism, contrasting the roles of female agency and the "representations of female holiness" of the Prioress and the Second Nun.
Heale, Martin.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 137-55.
Explores how recent scholarship of late medieval monastic practices informs a deeper understanding of the characterization of Chaucer's Monk. Contends that the Monk can be viewed as a "target of Chaucer's satire."
Oliva, Marilyn.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 114-36.
Presents case studies and historical background of the nuns' priests in medieval society, and interprets literary tradition of Chaucer's Nun's Priest. Includes an appendix on the Diocese of Norwich Nuns' Priests.
Ramsey, Nigel.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 386-98.
Reviews the history of medieval manciples, lawyers, and stewards. Reads Chaucer's Manciple as "ironic and allusive" and an "indispensable middleman" in ManT.
Lepine, David.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 334-51.
Provides historical background about the English Church in the late fourteenth century, and on several religious controversies, including the "culture of anticlerical complaint and the challenge of Wyclif and the Lollards," that contributed to…
Argues that CT provides an aesthetic of irony and parody, where part of the pleasure of the experience entails ironic interpretation on the reader's part, thereby both entertaining and instructing.
Klassen, Norman.
Christianity & Literature 64.01 (2014): 3-20.
Analyzes the rhetorical structure, themes, and wordplay of the first thirty-four lines of GP, arguing that in CT Chaucer maintains "his commitment to the coherence of creation within the narrative framework of Christianity."
Klassen, Norman.
New Chaucer Society Newsletter 36.01 (2014): 4-5.
Notes that Liddell's 1901 and Pollard's 1903 editions of GP end line 13 with a full stop. This "aligns with the conclusions of Bernhard ten Brink and Otto Jespersen and solves a difficulty with the syntax that Julius Zupitza noted after 'serve' was…
Klassen, Norman.
Modern Philology 111 (2014): 585-92.
Placement of a semicolon at the end of GP 1.13, rather than at the end of 1.14 is syntactically correct. The meaning is that both "folk" and "palmeres" wish to go "to ferne halwes."
Lee, Dongchoon.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 22.01 (2014): 21-47.
Applies Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the "carnivalesque," which provides a "context for understanding the importance of laughter" in CT. The Miller focuses on physical pleasure and natural instinct in MilT; his disregard for rules of social hierarchy…
Jones, Dylan.
Studies in Medieval Language and Literature 29 (2014): 85-101.
Identifiess medieval and Renaissance characteristics of RvT and an early modern analogue,"The Mylner of Abyngton," and concludes that the two works share much in common.
The Reeve's dialect is usually considered a rendering of Norfolk dialect. However, Knox argues that the word "ik" indicates a Norfolk joke, revealing the Reeve's anachronistic and backwards speech.
Arguing that translations may be used to shape and define community identities, considers MLT as an effort to establish a "multicultural English Christianity." Other examined texts include "Orosius" and Aelfric's "Lives of the Saints."
As part of a larger discussion of "loathliness" and the transformation away from loathliness in the context of marginalization of women, examines WBPT. Particular attention is paid to "the implications of disembodying a Loathly Lady in a tale that…
Considers Thomas Aquinas's "Summa theologica" as a source of the concern with demons' bodies in FrT, arguing that Chaucer followed Thomas's account of this question with intelligent and close attention.
Uses "thing theory" to posit that having things conferred subjectivity upon the holder in the Middle Ages. Applies this premise as a way to read Walter's treatment of Griselda in ClT, arguing that "Poor Griselda's selfless submission grows out of a…
Suggests that Griselda's excesses of bodily humiliation, self-sacrifice, and assent to contractual obligations, in response to her husband's rational program of complete control, actually represent a mystical negation of the self as subject that in…
James, Sarah.
Review of English Studies 65, no. 270 (2014): 421-37.
Observes parallels between the failed sight of Katherine's guide Adrian and that of January in MerT. Argues that Capgrave's use of such problems of vision highlights the human tendency to rely on "oculi carnis" rather than "oculi mentis."
Contextualizes MerT by looking at medieval scientific writings on "pica" ("deviant pregnancy cravings") and the medieval "pathology of pregnancy," assessing May's pregnancy and her "sexual longings."
Murrin, Michael.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Traces the development, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, of a "new trend in western European literature," a concern with trade between Europe and "Farther Asia": i.e., from Iran and the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Focuses on…
