Awareness of narratological levels helps us understand differences in intent in Gower and Chaucer. Comparison of Gower's "Tale of Florent" and Chaucer's WBT illustrates these differences. Overall, Gower has a purpose and achieves closure; Chaucer…
Bowker, Alvin W.
Modern Language Studies 4.2 (1974): 27-34.
Comments on the "theatricality" of MilT and explores how the comic characteristics of each of the main characters have darker sides, especially in the cases of Nicholas, Alisoun, and Absolon.
Bowker, Alvin Willington.
DAI 33.09 (1973): 3336A.
Identifies the "dark spirit" in MilT, RvT, FrT, SumT, MerT, and ShT, focusing on their "violence, deception, and sense of continual flux rather than their comedy.
Bowler, Bill.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Pedagogical workbook for language learners of modern English, centered on modern prose adaptations of selections from CT (GP, KnT, MerT, ClT, FranT, WBT), with accompanying vocabulary exercises and comprehension activities. Illustrated by Natalia…
That the passage describing the Prioress's habit of wiping her mouth clean (GP, 133-36) has been misunderstood is shown in the translations by all modern translators, except Coghill, of "hir" in the phrase "hir coppe: (133) as "her" when it should be…
There is a distinct difference between Dorigen's sensibilities and those of the men who speak for and about her. Considered from her perspective, the "generous" male acts are less generous, serving only to exaggerate her emotional suffering.
Includes brief comments on MilT as an example of "a carnival-like rejection of hierarchies," aligning it with Alenca Zupančič's theory that "comedy creates what we understand 'human' to be."
Box, Terry.
College Language Association Journal 37 (1993): 42-54.
Chaucer's MilT and Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' are analogues because each satirizes the conventions of courtly love. Absolon, John, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are "genuine fools" because they can be so easily duped, while Orsino and Viola "manifest…
Boyar, Jenny.
Dissertation Abstracts International A78.01 (2016): n.p.
Traces "the creative potentials of technologies of memory in the rise of English lyric poetry," focusing on Chaucer and Thomas Wyatt, and including assessment of how "innovations of lyric form are introduced" in TC "at moments in which memory is most…
Discusses Marian identification in PrT, in particular Marian miracles, as well as connections to the Virgin Mary in SNT, Th, and WBPT. Emphasizes development of Middle English Marian miracle texts, and Mary's "symbolic connection to Jews." Claims…
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…
Boyd, Beverly, ed.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
Relying on Hengwrt as the basic text, Boyd--in the manner of all editors in this variorum series--surveys both manuscripts and printed editions, emending in light of both. The introduction provides critical and textual commentaries, the former…
Boyd, Beverly, ed.
Lawrence, Ks.: Allen Press, 1978.
Edits Caxton's earliest Chaucer publications, except for the first printing of CT, including PF (aka "The Temple of Brass"), Henry Scogan's "Treatise" that includes Chaucer's Gent, the lyric "Wyth empty honde" that Chaucer alludes to in WBP (3.415)…
Boyd, Beverly.
Florilegium 10 (1991, for 1988): 99-105.
Chaucer is more attentive to the noises produced by people and their actions than to those of natural phenomena. He often suggests noises rather than describing them directly. His noisiest passages involve tournaments, chases, and music.
In this study of Princeton MS 100.1, Boyd posits that the b-text, admittedly faulty, represents the parchment core of MS Helmingham, itself an effort to save CT through cutting and summarizing the text. Its errors might also lie in the fact that…
Boyd, Beverly.
Florilegium 9 (1990, for 1987): 147-54.
Almost all Chaucer's poetry specifically addressed to Mary includes translation, adaptation, or quotations from disparate sources brought together via "collage" technique. This layered effect has precedent in church liturgy and macaronic lyric.
Boyd, Beverly.
Fifteenth-Century Studies, 1. Ed. Guy R. Mermier & Edelgard E. DuBruck. (Kalamazoo: Medieval Inst., Western Michigan University): pp. 15-21.
The influence of Italian poets on Chaucer is but one of many illustrations that the Italian Renaissance had reached fourteenth-century England. But a prevailing conservatism prevented the Renaissance from flourishing in fourteenth- and…
Chaucer's frequent references to nagging wives and henpecked husbands have less to do with his personal views than with his awareness of audience; women as well as men could share the misogynistic joke because in Pauline theory the shrew was "some…
Boyd, Beverly.
Res Publica Litterarum: Studies in the Classical Tradition 17 (1994): 147-52.
Considers Emelye's prayer in KnT in light of both Boccaccio's "Teseida" and the fertility symbolism in Chaucer's tale, concluding that the prayer should be understood in terms of Diana's various mythological powers, while the answer should be…
Boyd, Beverly.
Anne Clark Bartlett, Thomas H. Bestul, Janet Goebel, and William F. Pollard, eds. Vox Mystica: Essays on Medieval Mysticism in Honor of Professor Valerie M. Lagorio (Rochester, N.Y.; and Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), pp. 99-105.
Traces a strain of Marian mysticism in Chaucer's works, including ABC and several aspects of SNT and PrT.
Boyd, Beverly.
Paul Ruggiers, ed. Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition (Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1984), pp. 13-34.
Summarizes the life of William Caxton and his place at the head of the English printing tradition, providing basic information about fifteenth-century printing, linguistic conditions, and orthographical practice. Focuses on the seven volumes of…
An introduction to "those aspects of Chaucer studies which involve manuscripts and incunabula," designed for classroom use, including discussion of binding, manuscript production and materials, decoration and illumination, paleography, book trade and…
Argues that as he grew older, Chaucer became disenchanted with the affectations of court life and with the mercantile life of his own father and developed an interest in his paternal ancestors who had been provincial taverners in Ipswich in the…
Explores the "predominant secularity" of Chaucer's "attitude" toward the liturgy in his various references to and uses of ecclesiastical calendars, legendaries (saints' lives, hagiographies, or lectionaries), sacramentals, breviaries, missals,…
