Green, Richard Firth.
Simon Horobin and Linne Mooney, eds. Middle English Texts in Transition: A Festschrift Dedicated to Toshiyuki Takamiya on His 70th Birthday (York: York Medieval Press, 2014), pp. 1-20.
Connects Chaucer's possible scribe Adam Pinkhurst to the London Scrivener's Guild. Provides historical background of Pinkhurst's connection with the guild.
Grassnick, Ulrike.
Simon Rosenberg and Sandra Simon, eds. Material Moments in Book Cultures: Essays in Honour of Gabriele Muller- Oberhauser (New York: Peter Lang, 2014), pp. 3–15.
Argues that as a mirror for princes Mel offers an "implicit critical view of Richard II," especially when read in the context of CT, which elsewhere provides a "complex analysis of advisers, advice, and the handling of counsel." Comments on the…
Reconsiders the 127 Irish analogues to RvT cited in Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson's "Types of Folktale" and reduces them to four. Comments on the transmission of the various motifs in the Tale, suggesting that Chaucer may have gotten the Tale from…
Identifies "new Romance analogues" for details in GP, MilT, WBPT, PardT, ShT, and ParsT in three fifteenth-century Catalan narratives: "Disputa de l'ase" ("The Argument of the Ass") by Anselm Turmeda, the "Llibre de fra Bernat" ("Book of Friar…
Comments on brief selections from a translation of PardT as evidence that Chaucer accepts the validity of the True Cross even though he rejects the Pardoner's "fraudulent" practice. Discusses how John Calvin "took the matter several steps further"…
Astr (and probably Equat) may serve to show that Chaucer was not merely curious about astronomy but was, in the modern sense, an active amateur who made astronomical observations.
Weitzenhoffer, Kenneth.
Sky and Telescope 69 (1985): 278-81.
In late November, 1984, Jupiter, Venus, and the crescent moon were in the same configuration Chaucer may have seen May 12,1385, and mentioned in TC 3, associated with the torrential downpour. The terminus a quo for TC 3 is 1385.
Olson, Donald W.,and Laurie E. Jasinski.
Sky and Telescope 77 (1989): 376-77.
Chaucer is assumed to have had a high level of astronomical knowledge, unusual for medieval times. Olson and Jasinski used an Apple IIe microcomputer to investigate certain celestial constellations and to prove that Chaucer was correct in his…
Olson, Donald W., Edgar S. Laird, and Thomas E. Lytle.
Sky and Telescope 99.4: 44-49, 2000.
Correlates the disappearance of the rocks in FranT to an extremely high tide that occurred on December 19, 1340, perhaps the year of Chaucer's birth. Calculates the date using the Toledan or Alfonsine Tables known to Chaucer. The clerk in FranT knows…
Douib, Mohamed Karim.
SLOAP International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Culture 7.2 (2021): 70-81.
Argues that "the discarded historical event" of the Peasants' Revolt "surfaces" in NPT "not to record the cracks and crevices in the dwindling feudal system, but to participate in the bestialization and grotesquing of the 1381 insurgents and the…
Describes the pedagogical use of museum objects (from the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame) in support of a Freshman Seminar in medieval literature, with particular focus on CT, Santiago de Compostela, and pilgrimage.
Ambrisco describes teaching SqT as an "unsolved problem in Chaucerian reception"--SqT is a work favored by the Franklin and early readers such as Spenser and Milton, but decried or ignored by formalist critics. Opening class discussion to the…
Describes a freshman writing course that focuses on late-medieval social history, structured by means of GP and eight of the tales in CT. Includes a complete syllabus, writing exercise, and supplemental information.
Watts explains the pedagogy of teaching the dream vision at the undergraduate level, covering texts that include Macrobius, the "Dream of the Rood," the" Roman de la Rose," Dante, "Pearl," "Piers Plowman," Christine de Pizan's "Book of the City of…
Describes a pedagogical experiment featuring a mock trial of Chaucer--asking students to prosecute and defend Chaucer on the charge of perpetrating medieval antifeminism through his characterization of women in CT and TC.
Argues for exposing students to a greater range of medieval perspectives than is afforded by traditional single-author courses on Chaucer, explaining the pedagogy of teaching Chaucer in conjunction with the TEAMS Middle English Texts anthology "The…
Pedagogical strategies for exploring how Chaucer's early reception and apocrypha can be used to "engage students in some of the larger issues of literary history and canon formation," with comments on how to use twentieth- and twenty-first century…
Pedagogy, syllabus, sample assignments, and itineraries for a semester-long, London-based excursion course on English medieval literature, including Chaucer.
Pugh explores opportunities for defining gender conventions of romance by examining parodies: knightly masculinity in Guerin's "Long-Assed Berenger" and in Th, and gender construction in episodes from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
Advocates the use of translation and translation exercises in teaching Chaucer's works in surveys of British literature. Criticizes major anthologies for promoting original-language study only and offers a syllabus, description of in-class…
Describes a series of six short assignments (three pages each) designed for a Chaucer class, intended to introduce students to the major methods and tools used by professional scholars. The assignments focus on diction analysis, tale/teller…
Summarizes experiences and experiments in teaching Chaucer in several venues, noting how Chaucer's language and humor seem to transcend cross-cultural boundaries.
