Explores the generally negative connotations and nuances of the lexicon, details, and imagery of the Monk's description in GP, providing context from medieval literature and exegetical commentary to argue that the Monk is "corrupt, gluttonous,…
Asks why Chaucer uses a "Latin masculine name of the month to refer to his very feminine heroine" in MerT, answering that it contributes to the theme of healing in the Tale, much as does Damyan's association with St. Damian, patron saint of healing.
Rosenberg, Bruce A.
Chaucer Review 2.4 (1968): 278-91.
Provides point-by-point contrasting details and themes from SNT and CYT to argue that they were composed as a pair, wedded by a "theory of contraries." Focuses on fire, sight, work, the theme of God's will, the language and imagery of alchemy, and…
Brackets, linking rhymed lines, together with the position of tail rhyme and bob phrases, show how scribes in these authoratitative manuscripts perceived this drasty rhyme. Includes photos of folio from Ellesmere manuscript.
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.
Though some readers have seen the contract in this tale as evidence of Chaucer's acceptance of the male's dominance in marriage, the relationship of Dorigen and Arveragus is actually an ideal society in miniature.
McColly, William B.
Chaucer Review 20 (1985): 14-27.
The presence and function of the Knight's Yeoman have been neglected: to a contemporary audience he would represent a retainer of great authority and responsibility; hence the Knight's status is high indeed.
Williams, Michael E.
Chaucer Review 20 (1985): 144-57.
The three metaphors are the machine, the organism, and opposite poles of attraction. Applied to WBT, each reveals a truth about the narrative--the third of them resulting in a challenge to our assumptions and a reminder that "our 'truth' about a…
Though often viewed as the most unloved of the CT, ParsT is a fitting climax to the pilgrimage; it is a handbook for the play of the ultimate "sport," the race to salvation.
Chaucer portrays Criseyde both alone and with a family--a dualism of portrayal inherited from the rhetorical tradition of viewing things from both sides, as in Cicero's "De inventione."
In Brasdefer's "Pamphile et Galatee" appears Houdee, a professional go-between. Possibly Chaucer used Houdee as a basis for his Pandarus in TC, thus providing the earthy undercurrent beneath the Boccaccio source.
Farrell, Thomas J.
Chaucer Review 20 (1985): 61-67.
The introductory lines in question (Th-MelL *2143-54), if analyzed syntactically, lexically, and rhetorically, indicate that the "litel tretys" is Mel itself, rather than CT generally or the source of Mel.
"Thy wo and any wo man may sustene" is always printed thus, perhaps because the Ellesmere MS has a virgule between "wo" and "man." Hengwrt does not include a virgule, and a persuasive case can be made for printing "Thy wo, and any woman may…
William Empson writes of the concentrated imagery and controlled partial confusion in TC. In book 5, Chaucer manipulates the imagery of the voyage, star-steer, sun-son, etc., to bring the poem to its climax, wherein the narrator cannot indict…
Pairing three legends from LGW with three of the CT results in useful categories of Chaucer's pathos: Lucrece, PrT--naive portrayal of saintlike stereotype; Philomena, MLT--stock romantic figure of lady in distress; Hypermnestra, PhyT--pathetic, but…
The three Aristotelian modes of persuasion are ethos (character), pathos (emotion), and logos (reason). In his long poem, Chaucer fails as narrator-rhetor (ethos, logos) but succeeds as human (pathos) and is himself a rhetorical solution to a…
In CT, sentences are interlinked. Structures are repeated: MilT is a bawdy version of KnT; RvT, a nasty version of MilT. The structure may reflect interlinked concepts in the Great Chain of Being.
Tripp, Raymond P.,Jr.
Chaucer Review 20 (1986): 208-21.
Absolon's intentions in MilT are uglier and darker than realized by readers who recognize the non-Boethian nature of the tale. Absolon's plowshare, for all its sexual symbolism, is a murderous weapon intended for Alison.
The century between Dante and Boccaccio saw the poet's role as prophet deteriorate. Boccaccio and Chaucer found a middle road between blasphemy and reverence wherein language has its own independent set of standards, as one sees in comparing the…
Matthews, Lloyd J.
Chaucer Review 20 (1986): 221-34.
Chaucer's acquaintance with Dante and his return from the Italian journey in 1373 provide termini of 1372-74 for Mel. Later, Mel was included among the CT to be narrated by the Man of Law. Finally, it was moved to its place in fragment 7 or B2.
Form Age, For, Sted, Gent, and Truth show a progression from a strict Boethian adaptation to a more Christian or specifically Augustinian view. The tension appears in the pervasive irony.
The "Clementine Recognitions" and "Apollonius of Tyre" were probably known to Chaucer. He eschews their incest motif but reminds readers of it by his reference to Apollonius in the introduction of MLT.
If we recall the Thomistic distinctions among vows, oaths, and promises and if we focus on action rather than on character, the long complaints in FranT can be seen as essential to the structure rather than as excrescences.
