Staley, Lynn.
Thomas Hahn and Alan Lupack, eds. Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck (Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 293-320.
Manuscript environment (in the case of Huntington 140, the copying of ClT alongside several pious poems by Lydgate and circulation with a paraphrase of Job, the "Libelle of Englyshe Polycye," and several edifying narratives), combined with the…
Staley, Lynn.
David Aers and Lynn Staley. The Powers of the Holy: Religion, Politics, and Gender in Late Medieval English Culture (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), pp. 179-259
Revises, and reprints as one, the following essays: "Inverse Counsel: Contexts for the 'Melibee'" and "Chaucer's Tale of the Second Nun and the Strategies of Dissent."
English political poetry of the 1380s and 1390s was deeply marked by the self-image of the monarch, which shifted about the time of the Merciless Parliament (1388), as Richard II became more experienced and less playful. Chaucer's PF and revision of…
Examines the related topoi of the man in foul clothing and the wedding guest with no robe as they are depicted in "Cleanness," "St. Erkenwald," Langland's "Piers Plowman," Julian of Norwich's "The Showings," and CYPT, arguing that the texts confront…
Staley, Lynn.
University Park : Pennsylvania State University, 2005.
Explores how late medieval English literature helps us to understand contemporary political events and aristocratic efforts to develop a successful rhetoric of power amid shifts in control. Chapter 1 focuses on Richard II, political discourse, and…
Staley, Lynn.
David Scott Kastan, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. 5 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, vol. 1, pp. 450-56.
Treats Chaucer as a "means of entry" into the political and cultural world of late fourteenth-century England, surveying Chaucer's works (CT most extensively) and summarizing his life and reception. Includes a brief bibliography.
Staley, Lynn.
Brian Cummings and James Simpson, eds. Cultural Reformations: Medieval and Renaissance in Literary History (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 113-33.
Explores the trope of England as an idealized garden/island in imagery of homes in various medieval and Renaissance works, including NPT.
Staley, Lynn.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.
Beginning with Gildas' depiction of England as a beautiful garden, explores metaphorical and physical gardens in medieval English cultural history, arguing that Chaucer indicates "awareness of nation as landscape" in CT. Chapters 2 and 3 emphasize…
Staley, Lynn.
Jenny Adams and Nancy Mason Bradbury, eds. Medieval Women and Their Objects (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), pp. 97-122.
Examines works that focus on Queen Anne by Clanvowe, Maidstone, and Chaucer (LGW and PF). Claims that these works function "chronologically, thematically, and politically" as a means to articulate the female power and agency of Anne, giving her a…
Contrasts Custance of MLT with her source in Trevet's "Cronicles," exploring the depictions of the sea in the two poems as well, arguing that women and water are tamed by "providential control" in Chaucer, especially when seen in light of Alatiel of…
Staley, Lynn.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020.
Concentrates on Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer and the trinity, and the figure of the medieval merchant: "three 'offices' of the active life as they underpin Chaucer's growing understanding of the relationship between individuals and their communities."
Considers the young child who watches the wife and monk in ShT, arguing that Chaucer's construction of narrative perspective, which the child embodies, anticipates more modern handling of narrative perspective, including that of Henry James.
Staley, Lynn.
Amy N. Vines and Lee Templeton, eds. New Directions in Medieval Mystical and Devotional Literature: Essays in Honor of Denise N. Baker (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 2023), pp. 183-202
Suggests John of Gaunt commissioned BD to elegize Blanche of Lancaster and to claim a "new future," a move inspired by Edward I's memorialization of Eleanor of Castile. An "important commission for Chaucer," BD gave him "opportunity to begin to…
Stallcup, Stephen.
Bonnie Wheeler, ed. Feminea Medievalia I: Representations of the Feminine in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Academia Press, 1993), pp. 43-68.
Examines Anelida's complaint in relation to the genre of amatory complaint, considering the role of gender in the genre. Anelida reclaims lyric space for herself by reworking the courtly, traditionally masculine form, balancing the illogic of…
Stallcup, Stephen.
Dorsey Armstrong, Ann W. Astell, and Howell Chickering, eds. Magistra doctissima: Essays in Honor of Bonnie Wheeler (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016), pp. 43-58.
Explores textual and lexical ambiguities in the scene of Arcite's mortal fall in KnT (I.2684–91), discussing "furie" (forty manuscripts read some form of fire), "pighte," and "pomel" (neither of which is lexically certain). Suggests that emending…
Stallworthy, Jon, ed.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Arranged chronologically, this anthology of 259 poems and excerpts about war ranges from the Bible and Homer to Peter Porter, including a selection from John Dryden's translation of the description of the temple of Mars in KnT.
Stambusky, Alan A.
Lock Haven Review 5 (1963): 43-60.
Compares MerT, MilT, and ShT with works by Moliére, arguing that Chaucer's "dramatic impulse" is clear in light of "Comedy Proper," a dramatic form in which intellectual error leads to folly and just, comic punishment. Both writers succeed through…
Stanbury, Sarah.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 13 (1991): 141-58.
Feminist film theory and psychoanalytic theory clarify how acts of looking and the arrangements of personal space establish power relations in TC. Explores how power is gained and lost in Troilus's initial gaze at Criseyde, her view of him from her…
Stanbury, Sarah.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 224-38.
Troilus and Criseyde fall in love through looking, here analyzed through medieval optical science, as a literary convention, and as a gendered social taboo. Stanbury contrasts the activity, passivity, and willfulness of Criseyde's gaze with that of…
Chaucer's accounts of women who write and read letters in TC, MerT, and MLT reveal female privacy and autonomy to be sites of profound anxiety concerning the control of domestic space, women's actions, and women's bodies.
Stanbury, Sarah.
New Literary History 28 (1997): 261-89.
ClT is about visual investigation. Contemporary manuscript illumination, panel painting, and statuary are instructive for understanding Chaucer's representations of lines of sight framing the female body. Relying on complex tensions between an…
Depicting nature as an "active force," Chaucer encourages the reader to explore nature's "effects on social institutions and human drives." In so doing, he balances "a dis-enchanted skepticism about nature's benevolence" with "a canny understanding"…
Stanbury, Sarah.
Bonnie Wheeler, ed. Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 211-24.
Accusations of eucharistic host desecration in Prague in 1389 may be read as a backdrop for PrT. Stanbury summarizes the events of mob violence that led to a massacre of Jews.
Stanbury, Sarah.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
Stanbury describes late medieval English attitudes toward images, icons, and devotion, exploring how the tensions among these attitudes are represented in art and literature. Reformist distrust of images co-existed with newly intensified devotional…
