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…
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…
