Assesses depictions of the working class by Langland, Chaucer, Gower, and the chronicler Walsingham, considering what they disclose about conditions and attitudes at the time of the 1381 Uprising (Peasant's Revolt). Sharply criticizes Gower's and…
Waterhouse, Ruth,and John Stephens.
Southern Review (Adelaide) 16 (1983): 356-73.
Since literature is linear and sequential, the reader must reassess each line in terms of all previous lines to influence the total effect and alter perspective. Comparing Chaucer's treatment of the past to "Beowulf," Gower, and Malory, refers to…
A postcolonial meditation on "what is Chaucer in the changing reality that is the context of Australia," which focuses on portions of four texts: a conversation between Meaghan Morris and Stephen Muecke, Ralph Elliott's 1968 comments on the…
Argues that PF is "much more critical of human life than has been thought [and] that it finally adopts and orthodox Christian Position." Explores how the structure, details, and style of the poem undermine the narrator's views and work "to suggest,…
Advocates a pedagogical approach that encourages students to regard "what happens to Troilus" as the central concern of TC, leading them to discover that the poem expresses a generally approving view of passionate love modified by the frustration of…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Speaking of Chaucer (New York: Norton, 1970), pp. 30-45.
Reads MerT as an "intensely bitter story," dilating upon the "central juxtaposition of the seemingly, or potentially, beautiful with the unmistakably ugly," examining the nuances of several words, discussing the "vacuity" of the marriage encomium,…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Speaking of Chaucer (New York: Norton, 1970), pp. 46-64.
Explores suggestive ambiguities in the characterizations of Emily in KnT, May in MerT, Criseyde in TC, and the Prioress in GP, considering narrative techniques, points of view, and ways that Chaucer adapts and manipulates the ideal of a romance…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Speaking of Chaucer (New York: Norton, 1970), pp. 65-83.
Shows how the narrator's "wildly emotional attitude" toward Criseyde contributes to her characterization in TC, describing how and where nuances of style and point of view raise questions for the reader despite--even because of--the narrator's…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Speaking of Chaucer (New York: Norton, 1970), pp.164-74.
Focuses on the single use of the word "sin" in MilT (1.3589), suggesting that the Tale and, more generally, the "best medieval literature" do not "necessarily have anything to do with sin," but offer "joy to the reader."
Caie, Graham D.
Special Issue Nordic Journal of English Studies 3.1 (2004): 125-44.
Caie describes how lay people gained access to the Bible in the late Middle Ages through sermons, compendia, and florilegia. Explores how Chaucer characterizes speakers through their uses of the Bible in CT (e.g., quotation, misquotation, selection,…
Hahn, Thomas, ed.
Special Issue of Exemplaria 2 (1990):1-353.
A collection of seventeen essays arising out of a conference entitled "History/Text/Theory: Reconceiving Chaucer," held at the University of Rochester on 21-23 April 1988. The essays use the discourses of modern literary theory to reconsider the…
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…
Provides historical background for Chaucer's associations of millers with bagpipes in GP 1.565 and in RvT 1.3927, assessing them as an important characterizing details--vivid, realistic, appropriate, and symbolically suggestive of lechery and…
Assesses manuscript variants and stemmata, relations with source material, and "scribal characteristics" of PhyT to explain that they indicate scribal rather than authorial alteration. Argues that similar evidence, plus comparison with alterations…
Exploring multiple intertextualities between versions of the story of Troilus and Briseida in Benoit and Guido, mentions points of similarity in the exchange-of-prisoners scene where both Boccaccio (Filostrato) and Chaucer (TC) "adapted and modified"…
Follows W. C. Curry (1926) in understanding the Pardoner to be a eunuch, and explores the Biblical and exegetical implications of this characterization, reinforced by animal imagery, and associated with the Pauline "vetus homo" (Old Man), arguing…
Shows how the theme of common profit and the figure of tolerant Nature bridge the opposing views of the love among the high- and low-class birds in PF. Other contrastive pairs in the poem--the two sides of the gate, Priapus and Venus,…
Reconstructs the layout and functions of the rooms and gardens of the households in TC, drawing on details in the poem and evidence from fourteenth-century English architecture, with connections to correlative structures and scenes elsewhere in…
Argues that, modifying poems by Machaut to establish the narrator of BD as a comic, "doctrinaire" servant of love, Chaucer reveals how such a perspective is inadequate to "experience the experience . . . of perfection itself." The Dreamer learns of…
Explains the exegetical tradition of associating Noah with astrological prediction of the Flood and suggests that in MilT "Hende Nicolas has built his entire scheme" to dupe John "around the astrological tradition of the Flood," thereby lending comic…
Provides detailed background for Petrarch's ekphrastic descriptions of pagan gods in his "Africa" (iii.138-264), and argues that Chaucer's related descriptions in HF (131-39) and in KnT (1.1955-66) derive from the "Libellus de deorum imaginibus"…
Argues that the Host's mention of "half-wey pryme" in RvP 1.3906 refers to the canonical hour of prime rather than "modern clock time" and means 6:30 am, rather than 7:30 as it is often explained. Compares other chronological references in CT…
