Explores the role of virginity in notions of late-medieval bodies, genders, identities and social practices. The study, focusing on female religious versions of virginity, is structured around decreasing degrees of enclosure, examining hagiographic…
A literal journey and lifelong spiritual experience, pilgrimage involves new surroundings and new levels of understanding. Dyas discusses pilgrimage in early Christian tradition and in Old and Middle English literature, including Chaucer's choice of…
Treharne, Elaine, ed.
Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2002.
Six essays by various authors treat the Old English "Judith," Veronica in Anglo-Saxon England, the treatment of women in Middle English romances, and three tales in CT. For the three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Writing Gender and Genre…
Horobin explores how linguistic issues affect questions of attribution, reception, and manuscript authority, focusing not only on lexicon but also on orthography, phonology, and grammar. The language of the Hengwrt manuscript of CT (perhaps produced…
Duby, Georges, ed.
Cambridge and London: Belknap-Harvard University Press, 1988.
English version of of Phillipe Aries and Georges Duby, gen. eds. De l'Europe feodale a la Renaissance, vol. 2 of Histoire de la vie privee. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1985, translated by Arthur Goldhammer.
Scase, Wendy.
Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 1989.
The anticlericalism of "Piers Plowman" and its time period is not traditional, as has been assumed, but new and requires fresh examination. It transforms and unifies traditional attacks on monastics, friars, and secular clergy into an attack on all…
McCully, C. B,and J. J. Anderson,eds.
Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Thirteen essays (plus an introduction) from the 1991 G. L. Brook Symposium on Old and Middle English Metrics. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for English Historical Metrics under Alternative Title.
Cannon, Christopher.
Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Historical analysis of Chaucer's complete lexicon, arguing that his English is traditional rather than innovative. Chaucer naturalizes French and Latin words in ways similar to those of his English predecessors, often fusing foreign and native forms.…
Wallace, David, ed.
Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Analytic survey of the literatures produced in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland between the Norman Conquest and the death of Henry VIII. Contributions from thirty-three authors on topics ranging from the "afterlife" of Old English to Reformation…
Morris, Colin, and Peter Roberts, eds.
Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Nine essays by various authors explore the activities and significance of pilgrimage in medieval and early modern England, focusing on "shrine-seekers," Thomas Becket, regional and international practice, and related topics. None of the essays…
Ferster, Judith.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Ferster argues that modern literary and hermeneutical theory (Gadamer and Ricoeur, etc.) can shed light on medieval works: Chaucer's characters "interpret texts and each other as texts," in readings influenced by literary tradition, prejudice,…
Mehl, Dieter.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
A revised, expanded translation of "Geoffrey Chaucer: Eine Einfuhrung in seine erzahlenden Dichtungen" (1973), with studies on BD, PF, HF, and CT; an updated bibliography; and an added chapter on LGW.
Allmand, Christopher.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
This distillation of modern scholarship traces not only the causes and conduct of the Hundred Years' War but also its effects and reflections, including literature, in both societies, England and France.
Tambling, Jeremy.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Rejecting unity theories and reductive allegorization, Tambling draws on "medieval theories of reading and understanding a text" and compares them with Derridean critical theories and hermeneutics (with several references to Chaucer).
Dyer, Christopher.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Bridging the social and economic histories of medieval England, Dyer examines the inequalities of English society as inherent rather than as economically shaped among the upper classes, townsmen, and peasants. GP offers criticism of a simplistic…
Nolan, Barbara.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Nolan analyzes continental verse narratives from which Chaucer borrowed for KnT and TC--namely, the Roman de Troie, Roman de Thebes, Roman d'Eneas, and Boccaccio's Filostrato and Teseida. TC uses Ovidian fine amor as a "fulcrum," and history as a…
Kruger, Steven F.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Analyzes medieval theory of dreams, tracing development from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages. In theory, in literature, and in life, dreams were regarded as both potentially deceptive and potentially illuminating. The work concentrates on…
Meyer-Lee, Robert J.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Many causes contributed to the change in climate, particularly Bolingbroke's seizure of the throne from Richard II in 1399 and the concomitant changes in relationships between princes and poets, between poets and audiences, and between audiences and…
Burrow, J. A.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Burrow explores the functions and rhetoric of praise in classical, medieval, and Renaissance poetry, with commentary on its relative paucity in modern tradition. Focuses on medieval English panegyric verse, love poetry, and devotional poetry, with…
Considine, John.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Surveys the making of English, German, Latin, and Greek dictionaries from 1500 to 1650, including the contributions of Franciscus Junius (among others). Discusses the unpublished manuscript of Junius's glossary to Chaucer and the place of Chaucer's…
Breen, Katharine.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Describes late medieval efforts to "formulate vernacular languages that could stand in for Latin grammar as a first and paradigmatic 'habitus'," i.e., as a rule-based discipline of the mind that shapes cognition and moral action. Dante, the…
Sims, David
Cambridge Quarterly 4.2 (1969): 125-49.
Uses TC to show why Boethius "so compelled Chaucer's imagination" and demonstrates that the outcome of Chaucer's plot is "fitting" to the characters as established earlier in the poem. Focuses on Troilus's Boethian soliloquy and on Criseyde's…
Reads Dryden's version of WBT (from his "Fables") and his comments on the tale as reflections of his sensitivity to Chaucer's wit, humor, "genial irony," "gentle sarcasm," and especially his clever juxtapositions--the "imaginative setting of one…
Whiting, Bartlett Jere, with the collaboration of Helen Wescott Whiting
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1968.
Lists proverbs, proverbial phrases, and sententia from early English writings, arranged alphabetically by topic, with quotations and citations of multiple occurrences in chronological order and indexes of important words and proper nouns. Chaucer is…
