Luxon, Thomas H.
Chaucer Review 22 (1987): 94-111.
Frequent proverbs prevent the discovery of true comfort. The reader is "distanced" from the events in KnT and reminded that true "solaas" is found only through very long, very difficult, and individual struggle.
Robertson, Kellie Paige.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1998): 4645A.
Explores conflicts between theories and practice of translation from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Thomas Hoccleve, focusing on how Lollard debates about translation provoked orthodox claims that the vernacular was "pestilential."
Guthrie, Steven R.
English Studies 73 (1992): 481-92.
In TC, "shall" and "will" are important "to the characterization and overall modal texture." Chaucer appears to adumbrate John Wallis's seventeenth-century formula that "shall" expresses the speaker's determination to perform the intended action,…
D'Arcens, Louise.
Philologie im Netz, Supplement 4 (2009): 21-40.
Focusing on the role of Hermiene Ulrich in formulating the modern language curriculum at Queensland in 1911, D'Arcens notes the "frustrating" historical pattern of exclusion of women scholars from medieval studies, particularly Chaucer studies.
Nickinson, Patricia Anne.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 2482A, 1999.
The romance knight needs chances to prove himself and achieve fame; he must act. The damsel needs words, often to ask for help. Nickinson treats "Beues of Hamtoun," "The Sowdone of Babylone," Malory's Alysaundir episode, KnT, and FranT, with…
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.
English Studies 75 (1994): 303-21.
Examines implications of Griselda's problematic promise of obedience (which she should have rescinded once she realized that it meant consent to the murder of her children) from the perspective of theologians and religious writers such as Aquinas and…
Questions the traditional gloss of "shot wyndowe," arguing that the words refer to a window that opens inward, that is unglazed, and that, in MilT, is a window to a privy.
DuVal, John.
Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association 1.3 (1975): 15-24.
The French story is only a part of the larger whole of the fox's adventure; the English is not, though linked thematically with the Marriage Group. Love for Pertelote makes Chauntecleer ignore his dream; in the French it is pride. Narrative…
Fourteenth-century nominalist challenges to realism also challenged the universalizing truth of proverbs. Through his treatment of proverbs in NPT, WBP, and TC, Chaucer contrasts the "sic" of dominant realist discourse with the "non" of nominalist…
Sasamoto, Hisayuki.
Hisayuki Sasamoto et al., eds. Hearts to the English-American Language and Literature: Essays Presented to Emeritus Professor Sutezo Hirose in Honour of His 88th Birthday (Osaka: Osaka Kyoiku Tosho, 1999), pp. 315-28 (in Japanese).
Analyzes MerT, SNT, and CYT in the context of Ockhamist thought, focusing on physical sight and blindness.
Throughout TC, the words "sikernesse" and "fere" are repeated and echoed in other words that "complicate their apparently stable meaning." Thus, the "characters' fear of circumstances" cannot be separated from the "narrator's fears about the…
Di Pasquale, Pasquale, Jr.
Philological Quarterly 49 (1970): 152-63.
Contends that both Troilus and Criseyde submit to Fortune in TC by pursuing a form of worldly "sikernesse" (security), reflecting their lack of the awareness advised by Philosophy in Boethius's "Consolation." Only after leaving the world does Troilus…
Burrow, J. A.
Middle English Studies Presented to Norman Davis in Honour of His Seventieth Birthday (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 69-91.
Deals with critical testimonies regarding Th by readers and imitators of Chaucer: Dunbar, ballad composers, the author of "Gamelyn," Skelton, Warton, Puttenham, "E. K.," Drayton, Spenser, Harvey, Lyle, Shakespeare, and Speght.
Burrow, J. A.
Review of English Studies 22 (1971): 54-58.
Adduces textual and rhetorical evidence to show that Tho divides into three fits of proportionately diminishing size: eighteen stanzas, nine stanzas, and four and one-half stanzas, achieving a "mathematical harmony of form."
Bovaird-Abbo, Kristin.
CEA Critic 76.01 (2014): 84-97.
The Prioress's portrait in GP and NPT both draw from aspects of the Lancelot story. The Prioress partially models her own life on that of Guinevere without the full religious conversion that Guinevere undergoes after the death of Arthur. The Nun's …
Simmons-O'Neil, Elizabeth.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1989): 135A.
Draws contrasts between Sir Gawain, who attempts to act the part of standard knight of romance, and the protagonists of WBT and MerT. The Wife sets her tale in the medieval antifeminist matrix; the Merchant, building on her insight, mingles romance,…
Chaucer uses the word "syn" in TC ninety-nine times; the word "sith," thirty-one times. The former not only designates "since," but also reinforces the morality--or lack thereof--in the poem. The final "syn" clause is connected with Christ to…
Dietrich, Stephanie.
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the "Canterbury Tales" and "Troilus and Criseyde" (Toronto, Buffalo, and New York: University of Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 205-20.
The characterization of the male hero in the four portraits of Troilus exhibits "gender slippage" through "linguistic slippage." The second and third portraits show Chaucer subverting gender assumptions, while the other two are more "essentialized"…
Fries, Maureen.
Arlyn Diamond and Lee R. Edwards, eds. The Authority of Experience: Essays in Feminist Criticism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977), pp. 45-59.
Although the heroine speaks bravely in TC of being her "owene womman," Chaucer's "would-be feminist" is continually victimized by the male-dominated society largely responsible for her limited views about sexual roles.
Tejera Llano, Dionisia.
Antonio Leon Sendra, Maria C. Casares Trillo, and Maria M. Rivas Carmona, eds. Second International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval Language and Literature (Cordoba: Universidad de Cordoba, 1993), pp. 197-206.
Perhaps because of their proximity in time (fifty years apart), Chaucer and the "Arcipreste de Hita" present love in similar ways. Both depict lovers' laments, the pleasures of the flesh, nuns willing to have love affairs, and so forth.
Hyman, Eric.
Essays in Literature (Macomb, Ill.) 16 (1989): 155-71.
HF might best be perceived "as a comic monologue, as a series of jokes with comic business instead of a controlling theme." It is thus closer in tone and intent to W. S. Gilbert than to Dante or Boethius.
Sturges, Robert S.
Jessica Munns and Penny Richards, eds. Gender, Power and Privilege in Early Modern Europe (Harlow, U.K.: Pearson/Longman, 2003), pp. 40-54.
Focuses on John Heywood's "The Foure PP" and on the "Tale of Beryn" for their uses of the figure of the "Chaucerian Pardoner" and his "irreducible ambiguity" as a means to explore the "rule of the phallus" and the ways that each of the two texts…
