Chapter four (pp. 89-127) treats together Chaucer, Gower, and "Piers Plowman," presenting Chaucer in his time but arguing that, as an artist, he transcends it. Introduces Chaucer's life and offers summary comments on each of his major works,…
Daiches, David.
New York: Ronald; London: Secker & Warburg 1960.
Describes Chaucer as the "brilliant culmination of Middle English literature," commending his "metrical craftsmanship" in English, his "European consciousness," and his "relaxed, quizzical attitude that let him contemplate the varieties of human…
Horvath, Richard P.
English Language Notes 24:1 (1986): 8-12.
The Host's comment to the Monk about his tale, "For therinne is no desport ne game," has a significant variant that should be recorded in editions: "Youre tales don us no desport ne game," attested to in several manuscripts, including Hengwrt.
Van, Thomas Anthony
Dissertation Abstracts International 28.02 (1967): 697A.
Summarizes portions of Boccaccio's "Teseida" and assesses parallel portions of KnT in light of these summaries, emphasizing Chaucer's "reworking" of his source in characterizing Palamon, Arcite, and Theseus through "symbolic imagery."
Baker, Donald C.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 60 (1961): 59-64.
Focuses on Chaucer's selection and arrangement of exempla drawn from Jerome's "Adversus Jovinianum" to argue that Dorigen's complaint (4.1367-456) is a "carefully shaped and molded passage of rhetoric designed to illuminate the character of Dorigen,…
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.
Studies in Philology 106 (2009): 285-98.
Focuses on the city of Thebes, the Athenian grove, and Theseus's First Mover speech in KnT to define and explore implications of the "elastic ontology" of KnT. Unlike the city in Boccaccio's "Teseida," in KnT Thebes is mysteriously whole after having…
Keenan, Hugh T.
American Notes and Queries 16 (1978): 66-67.
The 29 pilgrims may allude to Becket's feast day, December 29. The etymology of "Thomas" in Mirk's "Festial" as "alle mon" corresponds to the representative range of pilgrims and sounds like the Knight's description. Readers might add this…
Chaucer's changes to the Ovidian version of Hypermnestra in LGW--exchanging the names of Danaus and Aegyptus and then reducing the number of daughters from fifty to one--were not an "error." Chaucer both indicates that men are not "stably positioned…
Evans, Ruth.
Myra Seaman, Eileen A. Joy, and Nicola Masciandaro, eds. Dark Chaucer: An Assortment (Brooklyn, N. Y.: Punctum Books, 2012), pp. 29-41.
Concentrates on Ceyx and Alcyone's encounter in BD as a communication failure that aligns with a series of other failed attempts at communication throughout the poem.
Line 1314 begins a series of topical references to the real as opposed to the poetic world. Allusions to the king and Gaunt establish the terminus a quo before the end of 1371, although most of the poem may predate 1371. Accepting 1371 as the date…
A murder mystery set in medieval London, told by Geoffrey Chaucer recounting events in the first person. Includes various historical persons and provides chapter notes at the end of the narrative.
Lloyd, Michael.
English Miscellany 10 (1959): 11-25
Argues that Arcite is as much a romantic hero of KnT as is Palamon, both as a "Chaucerian idealization of love" and as a representative of humanity's "proper relationship to Fortune." Includes comparison of Arcite with Boccaccio's analogous Arcita in…
Rather than an incoherent outpouring of emotions, Dorigen's Complaint (FranT, 5.1355-456) is a coherent, moral response to the random world Aurelius presents her. Chaucer manipulates "exempla" from Jerome's "Adversus Jovinianum" to compose a…
The Summoner's highly-qualified reference to Sittingbourne does not imply that the pilgrimage has progressed past Rochester. The shift of fragment B2 is not justified.
Garbaty, Thomas J.
Mediaevalia 19 (1996, for 1993): 319-43.
Examines illumintions in manuscripts of Gower's "Confessio Amantis," arguing that they reflect contemporary difficulties in distinguishing between the author and the fictional persona. Includes depictions of Chaucer in miniatures and comparisons…
Kline, Barbara Rae.
Dissertation Abstracts International 52 (1991): 533A-34A.
This first in-depth description of MS. Harley 7333 provides textual information, lists editions, and describes relationships to other medieval texts. The contents shed light on scribal editing in CT.
Abraham, Lyndy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Alphabetical arrangement of alchemical terms and images from "ablution" to "zephyr." The entries define the terms and illustrate the images, citing works in which they appear, including CYPT.
De Weever, Jacqueline Elinor.
DAI 32.08 (1972): 4559A
Provides historical and literary background to names used and mentioned in Chaucer's works, identifying their Arabic, Greek, and/or Latin equivalents, exploring the relations of the names to their contexts in Chaucer's works, and commenting on…
The entry for Chaucer (pp. 168) includes brief biographical information, critical bibliography, a list of editions, and a tally of individual works with dates of first publication. Accompanied by a b&w plate from Thynne's 1532 edition, the first page…
Suggests several revisions to traditional classifications of the typefaces of William Caxton, drawing evidence, in part, from the digital reproductions of British Museum copies of Caxton's two editions of CT.
Mosser, Daniel W.
Birmingham, [Eng.]: Scholarly Digital Editions, 2010.
2d edition, revised, updated, and corrected, with David Hill Radcliffe, 2014, available at <http://www.mossercatalogue.net>; accessed 17 February 2024.
Comprehensive description of the eighty-four manuscript witnesses to CT and four pre-1500 editions, each including contents, tale order, progress of copying, materials, page size, collation, format, hands, illumination, binding, date, language,…
