Lachs, Stephen.
Western Folklore 19.1 (1960): 61-62.
Quotes PrT 7.684-86 at the beginning of a report about a "new version" of the information plaque at the tomb of Hugh at Lincoln Cathedral, one that castigates "Trumped up stories of 'ritual murders' of Christian boys by Jewish communities."
Argues that Daniel 13.20 is a source of or influence on details of MerT 5.2138-48, and suggests that pictorial representations of Susannah and the Elders and details from the alliterative poem "Susannah" reveal ironic dimensions in Chaucer's scene of…
Kellogg, Alfred L.
Mediaeval Studies 22 (1960): 204-13.
Traces from Jerome to Frère Lorens's "Somme le Roi" the legacy of commentary on Isaiah 40 which links spiritual ascent and contempt for the world, discussing Lorens's "Somme" as the source for the rise of Arcite in Boccaccio's "Teseida" and as a…
Suggests that Chaucer's self-characterization in Pr-ThL 7.695-97 derives from Dante's "Purgatorio" 19.52 and that the one follows the other in using the "dual first-person singular" and in separating Poet and Pilgrim as a narrative technique.
Kaske, R. E.
Modern Language Notes 75.1 (1960): 1-4.
Observes in MerT several commonplaces of the "aube" in the description of January and May's wedding-night, suggesting that they help "to point up the bitterly comic incongruities in January's marriage," and echo details of RvT and TC.
Jordan, Robert M.
Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 2 (1960): 278-305.
Challenges the universal applicability of the "organic" ideal (form equating to content) of New Criticism, arguing that it is applicable to modern novels but not earlier narratives. Explores Chaucer's and his audience's "lively consciousness of his…
Howard, Donald R.
Modern Philology 57 (1960); 223-32.
Reviews medieval ideas of degrees or grades of perfection, particularly as related to virginity as the "highest form of chastity" and marriage, a compromise even when admirable as in FranT. PhyT and SNT, both of which may follow FranT in the order of…
Offers in parallel columns passages from ParsT, the "Moralium Dogma Philosophorum," and the French translation of the Latin text to argue that the "Moralium" is the ultimate source of portions of ParsT (especially the "Remedia" of the vices), even…
Explores the range and depth of Chaucer's familiarity with the "Liber Catonis," its commentaries and glosses, and the likelihood that he memorized portions as a schoolboy. Identifies verbal echoes of "Catoniana" in Chaucer's works; then focuses on…
Halverson, John.
Studies in Philology 57 (1960): 606-21.
Reinforces studies of structural and thematic order in KnT, identifying a threefold pattern of ordering principles: a backdrop natural order of cycles, rituals, folk customs; the noble social ordering of chivalry and tournament; and the universal,…
Green, A. Wigfall.
University of Mississippi Studies in English 1 (1960): 1-11.
Considers aspects of Th that are "burlesque," commenting on diction, meter, details, various rhetorical figures, and rhymes that convey irony and comedy. Poses many of these examples in contrast with parallels elsewhere in CT.
Gill, Sister Anne Barbara.
Washington, D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1960
Surveys critical opinion about the relation of the palinode in TC to the body of the poem, and then focuses on the characters' various views of love and the narrator's "ironic mask." In contrast with the "pragmatic limitations" of Pandarus's view of…
Gaylord, Alan Theodore.
Dissertation Abstracts International 20.09 (1960). Princeton University Dissertation, 1958. 592 pp. Full text available at ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
Surveys the intellectual and social backgrounds of medieval understandings of nobility and "gentilesse," and analyzes noble birth and noble action in TC and CT, especially the ironies of failed "noble potential" in TC, the framing noble ideals of the…
Gaylord, Alan.
Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters 43 (1960): 341-61.
Provides historical background to the characterization of the Squire in GP 1.85-88, focusing on the economics, politics, and tactics of the so-called "Crusade of 1383" (or "Despenser's Crusade"), the implications of the word "chivachie," and ways…
Garbáty, Thomas Jay.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 59 (1960): 691-709.
Comments on previous scholarship that seeks to clarify the GP description of the Guildsmen (1.361-78) and describes the possible political, economic, and religious affiliations among individuals of such professions as Chaucer assigns to them. Shows…
Galway, Margaret.
Modern Language Review 55 (1960): 481-87.
Offers historical, onomastic, and contextualizing evidence to support the argument that Philippa Paon (or "Panetto," abbreviated "Pan⸱" in the documents) married Chaucer, tracing their affiliations with English royalty, particularly Queen Philippa;…
Enck, John J., Elizabeth T. Forter, and Alvin Whitley, eds.
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1960.
Textbook anthology of "theories and examples of the comic" that includes John Dryden's adaptation of NPT under the title "The Cock and the Fox or, The Tale of the Nun's Priest," attributing it to Chaucer.
Examines HF as a literary satire, a comic send-up of the love vision genre, evident in the naiveté of the narrator and his failure to attain love or information about it. The poem's "central structural idea" is "comic disillusionment," underscored…
Discusses unity in PrP, PrT, and the GP description of the Prioress, focusing on their liturgical references and allusions: the canonical hours, the Prioress's "service dyvyne" (1.122), and the plea for aid from Hugh of Lincoln at the end of the tale…
Examines "ironic foreshadowings, ambiguities and reversals" in SumT, arguing that they give it "a subtle and satisfying unity." Focuses on overturned expectations, dramatic ironies, and poetic justice in the plot, in the friar's lecture to Thomas,…
Danby, John F.
Critical Quarterly 2 (1960): 28-32.
Comments on stylistic and tonal aspects of GP 1.1-18, focusing on their harmonious energy and "generalized vocabulary." Also comments Chaucer's sympathetic irony elsewhere in GP.
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…
