Language is used to reveal or conceal. Warping his own beliefs, Pandarus in his speech redefines or avoids moral issues; duplicitous Diomede thinks like Pandarus, speaks like Troilus; Troilus's speech is forthright, literal; Criseyde is capable of…
Stokes, Myra.
Studia Neophilologica 52 (1980): 287-97.
The repeated rhymes "trouthe"/"routhe," "serve"/"disserve," and "mente"/"entente" accentuate the poem's development. The first two pairs underscore the perversion of "fin amours." Troilus asks for his lady's "routhe" in exchange for his "trouthe,"…
Stokes compares the pledges of love-troth in the "Prose Lancelot" and TC, suggesting that they reflect a "specific kind of romantic relationship," neither marital nor illicit nor clandestine, but "solemn and binding" and based on the man's service to…
Opens with a section (pp. 1-6) on Chaucer's life and his role as a songwriter (one who "introduced the rondel into England from France"), and reprints, with glosses and comments, the words from Ralph Vaughan Williams's printed musical score of MercB…
Recounts the composition of a "troubadour-style" version of WBPT set to music (lyrics and link to audio recording included), describing its usefulness in teaching of Chaucer's work and various other benefits of using music in teaching English…
Stolz, Anne Crehan.
Dissertation Abstracts International 39 (1979): 5498A.
The signs of unfinishedness which appear most prominently in Chaucer's unfinished pieces are also present in the more finished pieces, where they make a major contribution to Chaucer's meaning. Chaucer's unfinishedness is due in part to the uses he…
Stone, Charles Russell.
Review of English Studies 64, no. 266 (2013): 564-73.
Considers Chaucer's attention to the city of Troy in TC, focusing on the Palladium festival in Book 1 and Troilus's ride through the city in Book 5, arguing that the scenes reflect the influence of Virgil's "Aeneid" and associate the fall of Troy…
Stone, David.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 399-420.
Considers the reality, ideology, meaning, and historical context of Chaucer's Reeve, assessing how in RvT Chaucer comments on "contemporary and social trends in a reactionary way."
Stone, Gregory B.
Gregory B. Stone. The Death of the Troubadour: The Late Medieval Resistance to the Renaissance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 143-98.
Deconstructs BD as an example of a work that resists the Renaissance impulses to individualism and the rise of narrative. In BD, lyricism is asserted by the failure of narrative to console, and individualism is undercut by recurrent verbal play on…
Stone, Gregory Bentley.
Dissertation Abstracts International 51 (1990): 159A.
Twelfth-century lyric employs a generalized, nonhistoric "I"; thirteenth-century composition represses this voice in favor of a specific and individualized narrator. BD, though it seems to endorse the latter, actually returns to the songlike,…
Stone, Kara M.
Dissertation Abstracts International A77.11 (2017): n.p.
Argues that the "bond between parent and child in late medieval England was deeply felt and often conflicted as demonstrated by the literature of the period," including MLT.
Stone, Russell.
Medievalia et Humanistica 42 (2017): 23-42.
Observes that Chaucer's treatment of Alexander in MkT is largely consistent with how Alexander is depicted in fourteenth-century romances and monastic allusions. Suggests that Chaucer declines to condemn Alexander as an unworthy pagan, despite being…
An anthology of translations from Greek and Roman by English writers, including a section on Chaucer (pp. 32-33) with a brief (and erroneous) biography and a selection from Chaucer's Dido legend (LGW 1180-1209), from Virgil's "Aeneid" 4.129-50,…
Stopford, J[ennifer], ed.
Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y. : York Medieval Press, 1999.
Ten essays on aspects of the anthropology and archeology of medieval and pre-medieval pilgrimage. Related to Chaucer studies are Ben Nilson, "The Medieval Experience at the Shrine" (pp. 95-122), which uses "The Tale of Beryn" as a source; and A. M.…
Storm, Mel.
Enarratio 14 (2010, for 2007): 139-51.
Storm surveys the debt to Chaucer's KnT in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," focusing on the works' mutual concern with hierarchy and order. In both works (and elsewhere in the authors' works), the figure of the Minotaur (parodied in…
Storm, Melvin
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 12 (1982): 42-65.
Allegorical traditions of the Mars and Venus myth were adopted and elaborated upon in the Middle Ages to demonstrate that "passion for woman encroaches upon the masculine cares of war," as in Troilus's shifts from warrior to lover. In the Epilogue…
Surveys the interrelated astrological, mythographical, and allegorical traditions of Mars in the Middle Ages, and focuses on the myth of his adultery with Venus and its representations in the plots and allusions of Chaucer's Complaint of Mars, KnT,…
Deliberately drawn links between Alisoun of MilT and the Wife of Bath enable Chaucer to carry forward the moral and spiritual implications of the scriptural allusions in MilT, using them to inform and reinforce the audience's response to WBP.
Storm, Melvin.
Yearbook of English Studies 22 (1992): 154-61.
In TC 3, Chaucer evokes the geography and atmosphere of Dante's "Inferno," while in Pandarus's actions he evokes Virgil's role as guide through hell. These associations provide a context for "judging Troilus's position at the poem's centre" and…
Storm, Melvin.
Modern Language Quarterly 48 (1987): 303-19.
Alison shares features with that "popular exemplar of medieval comic shrewishness," Noah's wife of the mystery plays, and especially the Uxor Noe of the Towneley cycle: old husbands, outspokenness, direct address to the audience, fondness of…
Storm, Melvin.
Jane Chance, ed. The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 215-31.
Examines the role of tone and narratorial voice in Chaucer's manipulations and distortions of the myth of Theseus in HF, Anel, LGW, and KnT. Theseus is vilified in HF and LGW as a betrayer of women; in KnT, he exemplifies mature "martialism…
The Pardoner's 100 marks (PardP 390) correspond strikingly to the amount stipulated by Lady Clare, Elizabeth de Burgh (grandmother to the wife of young Geoffrey Chaucer's lord, Prince Lionel) to have prayers and good works performed for her soul and…
Distraint, established in the thirteenth century, required that landholders whose lands produced 20 pounds a year must become knights, the rank involving both military and civil service. The remark that he would rather have a son with the Squire's…
