Ortego, Philip D.
Chaucer Review 9 (1974): 182-89.
Surveys efforts to explain the meaning of "phislyas" (MLE 2.1189; here attributed to the Shipman), summarizing contextual concerns, manuscript variants, and several etymological hypotheses; agrees with those who treat it as a term related to…
Proposes a new sequence for the parts of CT, one in which the tales of the Physician and Pardoner follow that of the Man of Law and in turn are followed by those of the Shipman, Prioress, etc. In light of this sequence and its arrangement of…
Beichner, Paul E., C.S.C.
Chaucer Review 8 (1974): 198-204
Through line-by-line comparison shows that in the trial scene of SNT Chaucer improves upon the Latin original by compression and emphasis which increase dramatic impact, Cecilia's contentiousness, and Almachius's stupidity.
Establishes that the suggestion of amorousness is implicit in the basting of (tight-fitting) sleeves in the "Roman de la Rose," Rom, and related illustrations.
Proposes that the first line of HF derives directly from Tibullus (III.iv.95) and hypothesizes that Chaucer may have had access to a manuscript of Tibullus's work (Codex Ambrosianus) held by Coluccio Salutati in 1373.
Dwyer, Richard A.
Chaucer Review 8 (1974): 221-40.
Savors the indeterminacies of manuscript transmission, treating them as a form of "anonymous or indeterminate revision" in contrast with strict, modern notions of authorial revision. Exemplifies the variety found in manuscripts of "Piers Plowman," CT…
Reads Saturn and the saturnine elements of KnT as the attitudes and qualities that oppose free will, reason, and Theseus's new age of proper order, moderation, and pity. Chaucer's addition to Boccaccio, Saturn represents the strict and unfortunate…
Argues that Chaucer encourages his audience to "view the affair between Troilus and Criseyde as a clandestine marriage rather than as an illicit love affair," different from the analogous relationship in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and consistent with…
Discusses the dating of BD, correcting previous scholarship by adducing evidence from a letter by Louis de Mâle, count of Flanders, that helps to establish the death of Blanche of Lancaster as 12 September 1368. Comments on the identity of the…
Ryan, Lawrence V.
Chaucer Review 8 (1974): 297-310.
Argues that the "ritual outlined in the confessional manuals" underlies the depiction of the Canon's Yeoman's "psychological predicament." Still attracted to alchemy and disguising the connection between his Canon and the canon of his tale, the…
Uses the analytic methods of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss to argue that KnT "embodies in the syntax of its plot the basic rules and taboos of a perfectly structured and unchallenged social and cosmological order"--in short, a "mythic…
Helterman, Jeffrey.
Comparative Literature 26 (1974): 14-31.
Explores how Dante and Petrarch provide a "schema for understanding" the modifications Chaucer made to the view of love in Boccaccio's "Filostrato." The "Vita Nuova" offers a "hierarchy of love," analogous to that in TC even though Chaucer may not…
Amoils, E. R.
English Studies in Africa 17 (1974): 17-37.
Explores the complementary thematic interconnections of PhyT and PardPT (integrity and fraudulence, spiritual fertility and sterility, virtue and vice, defeat of death), reading their interdependence in light of ParsT and the section of the "Roman de…
Attributes the metaphors of blindness and light in TC to the direct influence of Statius's "Thebaid" (unmediated by the "Roman de Thébes"), suggesting that the pattern of imagery culminates in Troilus's comparison of himself to Oedipus (TC 4.300).
Engelhardt, George J.
Mediaeval Studies 36 (1974): 278-330.
Argues that in his characterizations of the non-ecclesiastical pilgrims of CT Chaucer emulated the devices and techniques of medieval ethology, based in the "contemptus mundi" tradition, and variously prescriptive and descriptive. Comments on GP as a…
Hatton, Thomas J.
Language and Style 7 (1974): 261-70.
Generalizes that John Dryden's compositional technique (in which abstractions precede concrete details) has precedent in the medieval "rhetorical poetic." Then shows how the details of KnT are "the vehicle for the presentation of certain Boethian…
Hoffman, Richard L.
English Language Notes 11 (1974): 165-67.
Suggests that a portion of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5.23-24) is a source for the Wife of Bath's comments on precedence at the offertory (GP 1.449-522).
Pearcy, Roy J.
English Language Notes 11 (1974): 167-75.
Documents various "medieval representations of Hell's Mouth," and suggests that the example in ManP (9.35-40) complements the concern with Last Judgment in ParsP.
Neuss, Paula.
Essays in Criticism 24 (1974): 325-40.
Comments in critics' "pun-hunting" in Chaucer's works and describes two kinds of bawdy puns in MilT (those that carry connotations of subtlety and secrecy and those that connote pleasure and entertainment), tracing their complex interrelations and…
Scattergood, V. J.
Essays in Criticism 24 (1974): 124-46.
Shows how concern with lack of "self-control in speech" unifies ManP and ManT, especially in its traditional association with anger, one of the "sins of the tongue." The theme also occurs in SumT and MerT, but it is presented with greater "subtlety"…
Characterizes the Franklin in light of his social status, administrative and judicial offices, his "Epicurean concern for externals," and his association with the Sergeant at Law. Then reads FranT as an ironic indictment of the narrator's foolish…
