Bloomfield, Morton W.
Jerome Mandel and Bruce A. Rosenberg, eds. Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of Francis Lee Utley (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1970), pp. 205-11.
Contends that MilT differs from both KnT and RvT in its presentation of a world that lacks rational order or poetic justice. Alison escapes punishment and John is punished unfairly so that behind the jollity and illusion of order in the MilT lies…
Bloomfield, Morton W.
Thought: A Review of Culture and Ideas 39 (1964): 335-58.
Explores the narrative devices used by modern and premodern writers of fiction to establish "an air of truth or plausibility"--first-person point of view, intimate tone, details drawn from the real world, and various "tricks" used to compel readers…
Bloomfield, Morton W.
Modern Language Review 53 (1958): 408-10.
Argues that the correct reading of TC 5.1809 is the eighth sphere (not seventh as in some manuscripts), and that Chaucer's "making use consciously or unconsciously of an old tradition, placed his hero for all eternity in the sphere of the fixed…
Assesses the "artistic role" in TC of the narrator--a commentator and a "historian [who] meticulously maintains a distance between himself and the events in the story." Explores "temporal, spatial, aesthetic, and religious" devices in the poem…
Bloomfield, Morton W.
Modern Language Notes 70 (1955): 559-65.
Connects the use of "In principio" in the GP description of the Friar (1.254) with WBP 3.857-81, citing evidence from a wide array of material to show that the phrase, derived from the Gospel of John, evokes a "well-known apotropaic formula"…
Explores "varieties of the medieval unspeakable," from ineffability and mysticism to same-sex eroticism, in Old and Middle English literary tradition, employing an analytical method adapted from Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, and Giorgio Agamben,…
Blum, Martin Albert.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59 (1998): 163A.
Examines various ways gender, ethnicity, and disease interact with social class in selected texts. In MLT, race is less important than place in salvation history. The tale of Lucrece (LGW) seeks to keep women virginal for marital traffic. Erotic…
Blum, Martin.
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 37-52.
John, Nicholas, and Absolon are, each in his own way, feminized in MilT, while Alison is masculinized and thereby escapes punishment.
Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate, and Timea Szell, eds.
Ithaca, N. Y: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Adopting a variety of critical approaches, the fourteen essays range from detailed analyses of religious discourse to theoretical inquiries into the forces that shaped ideas of sanctity. Essays discuss representations of sainthood in the Middle…
Blurton, Heather, and Hannah Johnson.
Chaucer Review 50.1-2 (2015): 134–58.
Examines manuscript circulation of PrT showing Chaucer's reception as a Marian poet. This tale was not only used in devotional texts but was responded to in this register by Lydgate and Hoccleve.
Blurton, Heather, and Hannah Johnson.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017.
Explores the anti-Semitism of PrT, producing "a discussion animated by the ways in which antisemitism has emerged as the problematic that organizes scholarly response," and resists dismissing or excusing prejudice and hate in PrT. Tracks history of…
Blurton, Heather, and Hannah Johnson.
Miriamne Ara Krummel and Tison Pugh, eds. Jews in Medieval England:Teaching Representations of the Other (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 87-100.
Applies Freudian-based neighboring theory to PrT, comparing it with several medieval exempla about Jews, and explaining how such comparisons can help students to see the necessity of interpretation in determining affection and prejudice, crime and…
Considers PrT and its depiction of premodern antisemitism and relation to premodern race. Ties PrT's construction of Jews as a cursed monolith to the workings of structural racism. Discusses Agbabi's "Sharps an Flats," which demonstrates "how…
Sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer's works "reflect a gradual transition from text-based definitions of what constitutes Chaucer to author-focused ones." Bly considers Thynne's edition of 1532, Stowe's of 1561, and Speght's of 1602, discussing…
Blyth, Charles R., ed.
Kalamazoo, Mich. : Medieval Institute Publications, 1999.
A teaching edition of the Regiment, based on British Library MS Arundel 38 and, where Arundel is lacking, British Library MS Harley 4866, fully collated with all available witnesses, with spelling adapted from holographs of Hoccleve's writings.
An understanding of Virgilian tragedy, which entails not only a perspective but also a 'retro'spective, helps clarify Chaucer's description of TC as "tragedye."
Blythe, Hal,and Charlie Sweet.
Explicator 55:1 (1996): 49-51.
Argues that CT is a major source for O'Connor's story, evident in their shared motifs of pilgrimage and storytelling, the name Bailly/Bailey, and specific echoes of PardT
Boardman, Phillip C.
Francis X. Hartigan, ed. Essays in Honor of Wilbur S. Shepperson (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1989), pp. 239-51.
Boardman traces Chaucer's humanism in BD, HF, and PF, "where he evolved a language capable of serving both tradition and experience while reserving a critical, even skeptical, attitude toward them.... Chaucer is 'involved yet objective, detached yet…
In BD, Chaucer, working in a tradition of courtly style, composes a poem of consolation. Within a beautiful poem of human sympathy, Chaucer effects a critique of courtly language and exposes the inability of such language to express profound…
Studies the narrators of BD, HF, PF, and LGW for the ways that Chaucer uses them to examine "the task of revivifying the past" and explore the truth value of poetry and poetic traditions.
Includes chapters on Benoît, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Henryson, Shakespeare, and Dryden, treating Chaucer's Criseyde as "the most delightful of them all"--a character of "infinite complexity and infinite charm."
Bobac examines the "social life of medieval justice as discursively constituted," considering WBT as an example of a text that explores the "theory and purpose of the punishments for rape."
Boboc, Andreea D., ed.
Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2015.
Collection of essays exploring "legal personhood vis-à-vis the jurisdictional conflicts" of late medieval England. For an essay pertaining to Chaucer, search for Theorizing Legal Personhood in Late Medieval England under Alternative Title.
Suggests Chaucer's portrayal of Criseyde challenges the "traditional 'descriptio' as a restrictive benchmark of feminine beauty." Describes Criseyde's transformations in TC as an "experiential journey through love and war."
Bodden, M. C.
Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren Falk, eds. 'A Great Effusion of Blood'? Interpreting Medieval Violence (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2004), pp. 216-40.
Bodden reads ClT as Chaucer's deconstruction of the violence of hagiography. Plot and purported allegory clash in the Tale, and Walter is concerned not with Griselda's obedience but with her outward show. Virtue without will is no virtue at all. The…
