Bowers, John M.
Nathaniel B. Smith and Joseph T. Snow, eds. The Expansion and Transformation of Courtly Literature (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980), pp. 141-55.
The visual image of Troilus on his horse, which Criseyde sees from her window, is connected to the earlier image of Troilus as a horse. The horse image, with its suggestions of lust and pride, is associated with both Troilus and Criseyde.
Bowers, John M.
Pacific Coast Philology 30 (1995): 15-26.
Chaucer exposes the Ricardian practice of chaste marriage "for what perhaps it really was: sexual hypocrisy posing as virtuous Christian abstinence." The false romantic passion and comic fusion of the clerkly and courtly in male characters such as…
Bowers, John M.
Chaucer Yearbook 5 (1998): 91-115.
Treats "Thebes" and the Prologue to "Beryn" (here called "The Canterbury Interlude") as "efforts to write what Chaucer had left unwritten" and to confront contemporary controversies. Lydgate's work rebukes those who would critique monasticism and…
Bowers, John M.
Thomas A. Prendergast and Barbara Kline, eds. Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority, and the Idea of the Authentic Text, 1400-1602 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999), pp. 13-44.
Argues that Chaucer chose not to develop the characters of his Yeoman, Plowman, Guildsmen, and Cook because of political concerns. Richard II's reliance on Cheshire yeomen, increased concern about farm laborers and Lollardy, and reaction against the…
Bowers, John M.
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ed. The Postcolonial Middle Ages (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), pp. 53-66.
Reads CT as a "decolonizing project" and a "narrative of nationhood" whereby Chaucer resisted Richard II's renewed attachment to French culture and took steps to invent English society. Assesses how several issues in CT reflect English postcolonial…
Bowers, John M.
Denise N. Baker, ed. Inscribing the Hundred Years' War in French and English Cultures (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), pp. 91-125.
Using postcolonial theory, events of the 100 Years' War, and speculations about Chaucer's war experiences, Bowers analyzes Chaucer's literary productions--from his early translations from French through LGW--as a reaction against French literary…
"Pearl" reflects the political and social turmoil of Richard's reign and is a product of the rich visual and verbal culture of his Cheshire coterie. Political and social allusions in the poem engage Lollardy, labor laws, court magnificence,…
Bowers, John M.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 301-24.
Examines the "same-sex union of adoptive brotherhood" between the Summoner and the Pardoner and assesses the economic underpinnings of sworn brotherhood in FrT and SumT. Chaucer's alignment of homosexual and heterosexual issues in the Marriage Group…
Assesses why Hoccleve, the first person who attempted to establish Chaucer as the Father of English poetry, failed to "claim his own position as direct lineal heir in this literary genealogy."
Bowers, John M.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 26: 113-46, 2004
Bowers describes the habits and activities of the two scribes, assessing what such factors can tell us about the scribes' careers and early fifteenth-century book production. Scribe D reflects "commercial opportunism" in producing works by prestige…
Bowers, John M.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34 (2004): 279-307.
Three variants of KnT--Sir John Clanvowe's reading of the story of Palamon and Arcite, Chaucer's KnT, and "The Kingis Quair" of James I--provide insight into the shifting ideologies of chivalric performance and the establishment of Chaucer as a…
Bowers, John M.
Notre Dame, Ind. : University of Notre Dame Press , 2007.
Chaucer's preeminence over Langland is an effect of historical and social forces and must be revised, because tradition is a conflicted notion that helps construct understanding of past, present, and future. Chaucer was a medium of this process, "the…
Bowers, John M.
Chantilly, Va.: The Teaching Company, 2008.
Audio-visual recording of thirty-six lectures by Bowers (on topics ranging from the Bible to Tolkien and postcolonialism), illustrated with occasional still pictures and linguistic examples. One thirty-minute lecture (Lecture 17, "Chaucer--The Father…
Bowers, John M.
Tison Pugh and Marcia Smith Marzec, eds. Men and Masculinities in Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2008), pp. 9-27.
Chaucer's "portrayal of Troilus as a soliloquizing, swooning lover . . . reads like a fulsome apologia" for Richard II. TC reflects Richard's relationship with Robert De Vere and reveals his "sexless marriage" with Anne. SNT and LGW defend sexless…
Bowers, John M.
Susanna Fein and David Raybin, eds. Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), pp. 116-31.
Bowers describes Chaucer's treatment of Latin texts throughout his "literary insurgency against [a] foreign incursion"--a kind of postcolonial resistance that is also consistent with Lollard vernacularization. Reads MLT as a "rejection" of Bede's…
Bowers, John M.
Elisabeth Dutton, with John Hines and R. F. Yeager, eds. John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 276-87.
Bowers describes LGW as "work-in-progress" of the 1390s and dates the G-prologue between 1392 and 1394, offering various comments to help justify these datings and explore their implications: LGWP emulates Gower's Ricardian prologue to "Confessio…
Bowers, John M.
R. F. Yeager and Toshiyuki Takamiya, eds. The Medieval Python: The Purposive and Provocative Work of Terry Jones (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 105-17
Dates HF in the mid-1380s, positioning it as a "transitional work" between TC and CT and a reflection of Chaucer's status at the time as a king's man. Argues that LGW was written concurrently with CT, with LGWP-F as early as 1392, and revised as…
Bowers, John M.
Andrew James Johnston, Ethan Knapp, and Margitta Rouse, eds. The Art of Vision: Ekphrasis in Medieval Literature and Culture (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2015), pp. 55–76.
Explores Chaucer's uses of ekphrasis as "expressions of an increasingly anxious desire to allow literary images to speak for themselves" in KnT, BD, and HF.
Bowers, John M.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2012.
Places the "Gawain"-poet "within the context of Richard II's court and its numerous intrigues" (ix), with chapters on each of his poems (including "Saint Erkenwald"); a life; "A Survey of Sources and Influences"; and a chronology, glossary of…
Bowers, John M.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Reconstructs Tolkien's efforts to co-edit (with George S. Gordon) a Clarendon student edition to have been titled "Selections from Chaucer's Poetry and Prose"--never finished and long lost. Observes how Tolkien's extant notes and glossary to this…
Bowers, John M., ed.
Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992.
Includes editions of Lydgate's Prologue to the Siege of Thebes, The Ploughman's Tale, an expanded version of CkT, eight spurious links, and a combination of The Canterbury Interlude and the Merchant's Tale of Beryn. For each, Bowers provides an…
Bowers, R. H.
Notes and Queries 205 (1960): 370-71.
Identifies several sixteenth-century statements of censorship of romances (one that mentions TC) and describes several early modern "justifications" for the "perennial itch to censor."
Bowers, R. H.
Modern Language Notes 73.5 (1958): 327-29.
Transcribes (with modern punctuation, capitalization, and commentary) a 26-line compilation of proverbial misogynistic sentiment from London, British Library MS Harley 7333, fol. 121v-122r, attributed there to "Impingham," identified by Manly and…
Assesses the first-person narrator of CT as a "portrayal of a poet in the act of constructing a poem," focusing on how diction and syntax call attention to the narrator.
