Documents a formal "profeminine"--though not "feminist"--tradition in medieval literature, exploring its origins and sustaining arguments. Rooted in the apocryphal biblical book of Esdras, the tradition developed in the high Middle Ages in works…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Review of English Studies 51: 523-39, 2000.
Chaucer responds to the uprising of 1381 by shifting blame for the underlying oppression from the ruling and judiciary figures to the Reeve, a rigorous despot over the lower classes. Chaucer does not write from a classless position; rather, he…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees. eds. Gender in Debate: From the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance (New York and Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 57-78.
Connects Alison's sexual liberality in WBP with the loathly lady's liberality of counsel in WBT, arguing that Chaucer "redoctrinates" his audience by converting notions of feminine excess into the positive virtue of generosity. Also considers…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Blamires elucidates ways in which CT and, to a lesser extent, TC engage moral and ethical discourse and shows this discourse at times to be gendered. Grounded in a range of Christian and classical sources, especially Stoic texts, Chaucer's "spectrum…
Chaucer's special contribution to the fabliau genre is the design whereby apparently disconnected, often spontaneous plot incidents are suddenly "knit up"--that is, perceived by readers as belonging to a providential master plan. Although MilT is the…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Elaine Treharne and Greg Walker, with the assistance of William Green, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 478-95.
Discusses representations of individuality in medieval literature, exploring concepts of "singularity" and the Chaucerian notion of "condicioun." Comments on BD, ClT, and the descriptions of the pilgrims in GP, along with a range of medieval works.
Comments on the concern with propagating robust and pure lineages in numerous areas of medieval culture--including Chaucer's ClT, KnT, and MerT in particular. The denouement of the latter may be read as May's inserting herself into January's family…
Blamires, Alcuin.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Companion to Medieval Poetry (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 335-51.
Blamires introduces TC as Chaucer's "longest finished poem," commenting on sources, fusion of genres, suppleness of verse form and diction, the characters' sympathies, and the poem's "emotional trajectory."
Blamires, Alcuin.
Helen Phillips, ed. Chaucer and Religion (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010), pp. 3-23.
Discusses how Chaucer deals with "regulations and expectations of fourteenth-century Christianity," especially in relation to Chaucer's views on sex, virginity, gender, and marriage. Focuses on BD, PF, TC, ClT, MerT, WBP, NPT, MilT, and PardT.
Blamires, Alcuin.
Isabel Davis and Catherine Nall, eds. Chaucer and Fame: Reputation and Reception (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2015), pp. 344-51.
Surveys classical and medieval skeptical views of the significance of fame and contrasts the attitudes toward reputation expressed by Criseida in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and Criseyde in TC, focusing on the heroines' views about infamy before leaving…
Blanch, Robert J.
Studia Neophilologica 57 (1985): 41-51.
The Wife's portrayal of the rape, the judgment, and punishment of the knight reflect wish fulfillment, legal anachronism, and the inversion of the natural order of legitimate authority, though the tale ends in "true freedom and order."
Blanch, Robert J.
Lock Haven Review 8 (1966): 8-15.
Demonstrates the presence of three kinds of irony in MerT: verbal irony in the Merchant's double entendres and introductory comments on marriage, rhetorical irony in the deflation of courtly ideals by means of distorted or exaggerated figures and…
Blanch, Robert J., and Julian N. Wasserman.
Julian N. Wasserman and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 175-91.
The iconographic meaning of the colors red and white had been lost in folk traditions by the time Chaucer wrote KnT. Meaning comes from the joining of the two colors--a symbol of unity. Palamon's and Arcite's choices of colors for their banners…
Blanch, Robert J., ed.
Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, 1970.
Textbook edition of MerT, with brief introduction and notes, accompanied by ten selections from previously published criticism of the Tale by various authors, all from the twentieth century. Includes suggestions for student essay topics and "General…
Blanchot, Jean-Jacques.
Andre Crepin, ed. L'imagination medievale: Chaucer et ses contemporains (Paris: Publications de l'Association des Medievistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Superieur, 1991), pp. 71-80.
In TC, Chaucer is both a translator and a creator. He combines the model of ancient authors with a mythological world and a symbolic construction.
Blanco, Karen Keiner.
Dissertation Abstracts International 56 (1995): 920A.
Writing for an audience that knew animals and animal lore well (from physical interaction, folklore, and religious tradition), Chaucer appealed to, influenced, and manipulated this lore in HF, PF, PT, and TC.
Bland, Cynthia Renee.
Charlotte Cook Morse, Penelope Reed Doob, and Marjorie Curry Woods, eds. The Uses of Manuscripts in Literary Studies: Essays in Memory of Judson Boyce Allen (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992), pp. 213-35.
John of Cornwall's "Speculum grammaticale" uses English as well as Latin sentences for examples, and such vernacular pedagogy seems to have been widely established by late fourteenth century. The unidiomatic phrase "conservatyf the soun" (HF 847)…
Bland, D. S.
[London] Times Literary Supplement April 26, 1957, p. 264.
Suggests that Chaucer was in 1345-46, with several rejoinders in ensuing correspondence: Margaret Galway, May 10, p. 289 and July 12, p. 427; C. E. Welch, May 17, p 305; and G. C. G. Hall, June 28, p. 397.
Blandeau, Agnès.
Leo Carruthers and Adrian Papahagi, eds. Prologues et épilogues dans la littérature anglaise du Moyen Âge (Paris: Association des Mdivistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Suprieur, 2001), pp. 171-82, 2001.
Pasolini's Racconti di Canterbury uses ellipsis and expansion to produce cinematographic transformations of CT. Adjustments of narrative structure and original visual effects produce "tales told only for the pleasure of telling them."
Blandeau, Agnès.
Wendy Harding, ed. Drama, Narrative and Poetry in The Canterbury Tales (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003), pp. 35-50.
Though Pasolini's visualization of CT chooses to emphasize "solaas" rather than "sentence," both the filmmaker and the poet offer metafictional reflections on their art and the "discourse of the narrative."
Blandeau, Agnès.
Adrian Papahagi, ed. Métamorphoses (Paris: Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2003), pp. 229-43.
There is more to Pier Paolo Pasolini's film version of CT than mere adaptation, for the shift from one semiotic system to another implies some puzzling metamorphoses. Yet, paradoxically, the spirit of the original is cleverly restored on the screen.
