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…
Bodden, M. C.
Jennifer C. Vaught, ed., with Lynne Dickson Bruckner. Grief and Gender: 700-1700 (New Yorl: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 51-63.
In FranT and ClT, masculine grief is aligned with courtly ideals of gentility; feminine grief, with courtly suffering. By complicating these associations and disallowing consolation of grief, Chaucer intervenes in the "discursive practices" of the…
Bodden, M. C.
Susannah Mary Chewning, ed. Intersections of Sexuality and the Divine in Medieval Culture: The Word Made Flesh (Burlington, Ver.: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 51-73.
The carnal quest in MerT has as its goal an erotic union in the "paradys terrestre." This desire is fulfilled in an inverted via mystica, enforcing the ambiguity of mystical language as a mode of knowing.
Historical analysis of early women's speech; describes early modern England's regulations of women's speech and women's subversive strategies to represent themselves as subjects in masculine discourses (including court depositions). Examines speech…
Bodi, Russell John.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1997): 234A.
Literary uses of play and game both subvert and reinforce social order while encouraging readers to become involved. Medieval works tend to relate chivalry and war to game and play, while Platonism questions their value. Considers TC among works…
Boehler, Karl E.
Dissertation Abstracts Interbational 66 (2005):1348A
Boehler employs the concept of "shame culture" (which emphasizes satisfaction and honor over personal happiness, or even survival) as a means to examine medieval heroes (including those in KnT.) Ultimately, shame culture contributes not only to the…
Boehme, Timothy Howard.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60 (1999): 121A.
Analysis of WBPT, FrT, SumT, ClT, FranT and Ret indicates that Chaucer was "a realist with regard to religion and a nominalist with regard to language and epistemological issues."
Boenig, Robert, and Andrew Taylor, eds.
Buffalo, N.Y.: Broadview Press, 2008. Rev. ed. 2012.
Complete text of CT newly edited from the Ellesmere manuscript, with an introduction (pp. 9-38), brief bibliography, and eleven "background documents" that include selections from sources and historical records. Glosses to the Middle English are…
Boenig, Robert, and Andrew Taylor, eds.
Buffalo, N.Y.: Broadview Press, 2009.
Selections from Boenig and Taylor's 2008 edition of CT (SAC 32 [2010], no. 16), including GP, KnT, MilPT, RvPT, WBPT, SumPT, ClPT, SqE, FranPT, PardPT, PrPT, NPPT, and Ret. Also contains an introduction (pp. ix-lviii), brief bibliography, and fifteen…
Boenig, Robert, and Kathleen Davis, eds.
Lewisburg, Penn. :
Eleven essays by various authors, a bibliography of Bolton's publications, and an index. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Manuscript, Narrative, Lexicon under Alternative Title.
The Pardoner ironically depicts his musicians playing the wrong instruments for a successful performance, thereby indicating the inherent (and disastrous) competitive nature of their fellowship.
Boenig, Robert.
English Language Notes 28:1 (1990): 7-15.
Medieval convention and iconography support the view that the rebec is associated with the female voice (and thus suited to Absolon's effeminate character). It is implied that Absolon neither sings nor plays very well.
Traditions of simultaneous affirmation and negation found in pseudo-Dionysian mystical theology account for Ret's treatment of the reader and its relation to CT.
Boenig, Robert.
American Benedictine Review 36 (1985): 263-77.
Chaucer transforms Bede's commentary on the symbolism in Saint John's vision. Chaucer twists the beryl, the eagle, the four beasts, the seven stars, and numerology, giving a sense that Lady Fame is an unlawful ruler. HF is purposely unfinished.
