Chaucer Bibliography Online
Title
Chaucer Bibliography Online
Collection Items
The Age of Chaucer. Volume I of a Guide to English Literature: With an Anthology of Medieval Poems.
Anatomizes Middle English poetry, with fourteen essays by various authors on various literary topics (one on architecture by Nikolaus Pevsner), selections from Middle English verse, brief lives of the writers, suggestions for further readings, and a…
The Nonne Preestes Tale (from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales").
Appreciative interpretation of NPT, with attention to its stylistic dexterity, subtle ironies, and thematic range.
A Survey of English Verse.
Offers advice to modern readers on how to read Chaucer--and what to read of his works--as preparation for appreciating Middle English verse more generally, emphasizing his "civilized delicacy" and his variety while surveying his works. Then surveys…
A 1593 Chaucer Allusion.
Identifies a previously unnoticed--and apparently spurious--attribution of a proverb to Chaucer in Edmund Southerne's "A Treatise Concerning the Right Use and Ordering of Bees" (1593).
Miller's Head Revisited.
Offers an analogue to the Miller's breaking doors with his head (GP 1.551) in one of John Trevisa's additions to his 1387 translation of Ranulf Higden's "Polychronicon."
Middle English I: Chaucer.
A discursive review of Chaucerian scholarship and research published in 1952.
Chaucer's "Lusty Malyne."
Suggests that the physiological detail of her "kamuse nose" (RvT 1.3974) helps to characterize Malyne as "sexually attractive and promising."
Chaucer's Nameless Knight.
Compares and contrasts the rapist-knight of WBT with his analogous protagonist in John Gower's "Tale of Florent," arguing that Chaucer's knight "emerges as a very clear and a very strong character"--the "kind of young fellow who can commit rape and…
The Construction of Chaucer's "General Prologue."
Admires the structural patterns of GP--seven groupings, significant juxtapositions, alterations of detail and generalization, etc.--suggesting that they produce "a poetic realization of plenitude and diversity," underpinned by a concern with "degree"…
Chaucer's Eagles and Their Choice on February 14.
Compares and contrasts the relative courtliness of a range of Valentine's Day poems by Graunson, Gower, Lydgate, and Charles of Orleans to make clear that the First Eagle's address to the formel eagle in PF is comically inappropriate and pompous,…
Verses of Cadence: An Introduction to the Prosody of Chaucer and his Followers.
Challenges the theory that Chaucer wrote in iambic pentameter, assessing the evidence of Chaucer manuscripts, using them to argue that the prosody of Chaucer (and that of his fifteenth-century followers) depends upon length or duration rather than…
Chaucer--Translated or Obliterated?
Attributes the need to use translations of Chaucer's works in college classrooms to students' lack of "linguistic awareness," and assesses the relative virtues of eight translations or modernizations of NPT, commenting on fidelity to meaning,…
Did Chaucer Rearrange the Clerk's Envoy?
Argues that the version of the Clerk's Envoy (4.1177-1212) found in the Ellesmere manuscript is the original version, modified by a scribe to compensate for an eye-skip error. Reassesses earlier arguments that the Ellesmere version is itself the…
Author's Revision in Block C of the "Canterbury Tales."
Assesses manuscript variants and stemmata, relations with source material, and "scribal characteristics" of PhyT to explain that they indicate scribal rather than authorial alteration. Argues that similar evidence, plus comparison with alterations…
Katherine.
A romance novel of the life of Katherine Swynford, rich in psychological and historical detail. Includes a wide variety of historical characters, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Katherine's future brother-in-law, who she instinctively recognizes at their…
A Legal Reading of Chaucer's "Hous of Fame."
Develops an allusion to Chaucer building a "house of Fame" in Gerard Legh's "Accedence of Armorie" (1562) and combines it with Chaucer's "connections with" the Inner Temple to suggest that the poet may have written HF "for one of ritualistic…
An Emendation in Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess."
Suggests that the positions of the two initial half lines of BD 357058 be swapped to make better sense.
The Tragic Figure of the Wyf of Bath.
Describes a strong strain of morality in Chaucer's writing and emphasizes his "reticence" in expressing it. Then explores tragic dimensions of WBPT, focusing on Wife's early marriages (in comparison with May's and January's in MerT), her memory of…
In Defense of Criseyde
Comments on previous criticism of the character of Criseyde, and explores the "infinite suggestiveness" of her more positive characteristics such as self-knowledge, charm, and desire to please others.
Words into Images in Chaucer's "Hous of Fame": A Third Suggestion.
Suggests that Chaucer's description of the embodiment of human speech in HF (1068-81) was influenced by Dante's similar concern in "Paradiso" 4.37-48.
Why the Devil Wears Green.
Suggests that Pierre Bersuire's account--"or one like it"--of a hunter-devil dressed in green may account for Chaucer's similar description in FrT 3.1382ff.
A Love Epistle by "Chaucer."
Describes and edits an anonymous lyric, here titled "An epistle to his mistress for remembrance," spuriously attributed to Chaucer in Trinity College Cambridge 599 (R. 3. 19).
Chaucer's Second Nun's Tale: Tiburce's Visit to Pope Urban.
Argues that details and source material make clear that the description of Tiberce's visit to Pope Urban in SNT 8.352-53 indicates Tiburce received the sacrament of Confirmation as well as the sacrament of Baptism.
Notes on the Canterbury Tales (3)
Explores nuances of "tregetour" in FranT 5.1141 and 1143; HF 1260 and 1277, arguing that their magic would have been understood by Chaucer and his original audience to entail illusion rather than mechanical contrivance or sleight of hand.
Chaucer's "Cherles Rebellyng."
Resists editorial glossing of "cherles rebelling" (KnT 1.2459) as "an allusion to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381," offering other possibilities from commentaries on Saturn's astrological influence.