Brockman, Bennett A.
Children's Literature 2 (1973): 40-49.
Discusses the "sentimental reverence for the child's innocence" in a variety of medieval texts, including the account of Hugolino in MkT, compared with the version in Dante's "Inferno" 33, In both versions, the children have "precocious knowledge"…
Suggests that Chaucer's LGW is part of a "counter-tradition" (also including Shakespeare, Milton, and Lucy Hutchinson) that develops against the epic's "images of sexual violence against marginalized females," and that this counter-tradition provides…
Brodie, Alexander H.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 72 (1971): 62-68.
Explicates details and images of the Cook in ManP to argue for a "three-fold elaboration": the besotted Cook is a "victim of obsession with drink" who exhibits the pallor of the love-lorn knight which is also the paleness of the alchemical…
Brodnax, Mary Margaret O'Bryan.
Dissertation Abstracts International 29 (1969): 2667A.
Concentrates on Old English poems and Middle English plays that are analogous to Milton's "Paradise Lost," but includes in an appendix "[s]some relationships with The Canterbury Tales and . . . description of seven Middle English poetic analogues."
Brody, Saul N[athaniel].
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Religion in the Poetry and Drama of the Late Middle Ages in England (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 133-48.
Discusses "Chaucer's feeling for the openness of questions, his distrust of final answers" in TC, NPT, and PF. Chaucer has an "unsettling ability to make every alternative attractive, even clearly sinful ones."
Assesses Pandarus's house and its literary functions in light of architectural details of fourteenth-century houses such as the "privy," "stewe," and "trappe" and in relation to conventions of medieval dramatic staging. Pandarus, leading Troilus…
Brody, Saul N[athaniel].
Ferrante, Joan M., and George D. Economou, eds. In Pursuit of Perfection: Courtly Love in Medieval Literature (Port Washington, NY, Kennikat, 1975), pp. 221-61.
Compares Chaucer's satire of courtly love with similar depictions in "Frauendienst" by Ulrich von Lichtenstein, "De Guillaume au Faucon," and "Flamenca," all of which reflect awareness of the fading of the courtly ideal and the dissolution of noble…
By his choice of stanza Chaucer invites us to compare four tales: SNT, PrT, MLT, ClT, each an elevated tale of saintly suffering involving impingement of secularism upon the saintly ideal. Completed earlier, PhyT is not in rhyme royal.
By constantly breaking the dramatic illusion, the Nun's Priest forces his audience to consider the implications not only of his storytelling but of storytelling itself. The interruptions of his narrative, the comparisons of chickens and people, the…
The questioning of the fiend by the Summoner in FrT echoes "Purgatorio" 25. Both humans (Dante and the summoner) ask material questions of their supernatural guides; both guides direct the questions to the realm of the spiritual. The place of both…
Argues that the "artistic unity" of NPT is evident in "light of the [Nun's] Priest's personality," a man who is dissatisfied with "his position in life as a servant to a group of women." Differences between NPT and its source in the "Renart"…
Brogan, Terry Vance F.
Dissertation Abstracts International 43 (1983): 3917A.
Models for English prosody have been seen as Latinate, Romance, and Germanic, but eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reevaluations of Old English Verse, popular ballads,and Chaucer's poetry led to the "standard theory" of accent and foot.
Brondell, William J.
Dissertation Abstracts International 25.10 (1965): 5901-02A.
Uses ParsT as a standard by which to assess the morality of CT, discussing the "ubiquity of sin in the Canterbury pilgrims," the "prominence of Pride" in especially the Wife of Bath and Pardoner materials, and the balancing virtues found elsewhere in…
Bronfman, Judith.
Dissertation Abstracts International 38 (1977): 2105A-06A.
When the Griselda legend first appears in English literature, in ClT, Griselda is praised for her patience. In subsequent versions, as the centuries pass, her patience loses its moral worth and comes to be equated with unhealthy submissiveness.
Bronson, Bernice.
[Rowayton, Conn.], [New Plays for Children], 1971.
Item not seen. The WorldCat record states that this drama for children was "Created through improvisation by the Looking Glass Theatre, Providence, R.I."
Bronson, Bertrand H.
Studies in Philology 58 (1961): 583-96.
Argues that MerT "was composed before and independent of" MerP, initially addressed orally by Chaucer to a "courtly audience." Such listeners were familiar with the "humorous antifeministic tradition" into which the "senex amans" convention,…
Bronson, Bertrand H.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960.
Engages several critical approaches to Chaucer works and incorporates them into appreciative commentaries, with particular attention to the poet's "habit of working" or process of composition, his narrative techniques (not inorganic, but…
Brook suggests that Sir Paon de Ruet may have been "a cadet of the family of the Lords of Roeulx" and part of the entourage of Philippa of Hainaut. He was probably born about 1309.
Brooke, Christopher (N. L.)
David M. Smith, ed. Studies in Clergy and Ministry in Medieval England. Purvis Seminar Series; Borthwick Studies in History, no. 1 ([York]: University of York, 1991), pp. 1-19.
Explores the life of Edmund Gonville--cleric, shrewd land agent, and man of affairs--and Chaucer's depiction of the Parson. Despite his considerable financial successes, Gonville was like the Parson in that he did not rent out his benefice.
Brooke, Christopher N. L.
Christopher N. L. Brooke. The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 211-27.
Comments on the theme of marriage in Chaucer's works to indicate the poet's "capacious view of love and sexuality." Chaucer's representations of marriage range from bawdy humor in WBP to the sublime in BD, often combining more than one view, as in…
Brookhouse, Christopher
Medium Ævum 34.1 (1965): 40-42.
Identifies several instances of Chaucer's uses of lists of impossibilities (rhetorical "adynata" or "impossibilia") in "personal laments and exclamations of fidelity and sincerity" (TC, BD, Anel), giving classical precedents in Virgil's "Eclogues"…
Brookhouse, Christopher
Notes and Queries 210 (1965): 293-94.
Shows that the humor of applying the phrase" flower of chivalry" to Sir Thopas (Tho 7.901-2) results from Chaucer's change of a "traditionally metaphoric phrase into a literal one."
