McCormick, Betsy.
Eileen A. Joy, Myra J. Seaman, Kimberly K. Bell, and Mary K. Ramsey, eds. Cultural Studies of the Modern Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 91-117.
McCormick compares LGW and Christine de Pisan's "Le livre de la cité des dames" with the reality TV show "Manor House," exploring how each poses a "liminal space" from which to "contemplate societal stereotypes and strictures by revisiting the…
Introduces "Social and Religious Backgrounds" to Old English and to Middle English literatures in separate chapters, along with one chapter each on developments in the medieval English language, "Popular Christian Doctrine" of the era, and the…
Beichner, Paul E.
Modern Language Quarterly 22 (1961): 367-76.
Describes how the quarrel between the Friar and Summoner in WBP sets up the vituperative exchange of FrT and SumT, commenting on audience expectations and the motives and techniques of the two narrators, but focusing particularly on the cleverness of…
Farrell, Thomas J., ed.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995.
Eleven essays by various authors including three on Chaucer. Each essay applies the critical theory of Mikhail Bakhtin to one or more works of medieval literature. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Bakhtin and Medieval Voices…
In response to William McClellan's article and drawing on an earlier article of his own, Engle sketches how Bakhtin can function as a mediating figure in the current politics of theory and interpretation, particularly with ClT.
Ganim, John M.
John V. Fleming and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 2, 1986. (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1987), pp. 59-71.
Examines the appropriateness and limitations of the "anthropological" approach in Chaucer criticism, specifically the "carnivalesque"--implicit in monastic satire, popular culture and folklore, goliardic parody, and the social dynamics of Chaucer's…
Sadlek, Gregory M.
Chaucer Yearbook 3 (1996): 87-101.
Defines TC as a novel because it partakes heavily of the linguistic qualities that Bakhtin associates with novelization, including contemporaneity, fusion of genres, and open-endedness. Most important, TC is dialogic in its adaptations of…
Reading ClT in its social and historical context is reason for employing Bakhtin's theoretical framework, since Bakhtin recognizes the complexity and riches of poetic discourse as connected to the diversity and complexity of socio-ideological…
Argues that Chaucer uses rhyme words in the ballade form (Ros, Ven, For, Purse, Sted, Gent, Wom Nob, Buk, Scog, Truth, Wom Unc) for stylistic effects, not because of linguistic limitation. As a translator, Chaucer employs several methods of…
Hinnie, Lucy R.
Chaucer Review 55, no. 4 (2020): 484-99.
Traces how "Chaucer is invoked and"utilized in the 1568 Bannatyne Manuscript,” suggesting that the manuscript participates in the "querelle des femmes" and "interrogates the idea that Chaucer becomes a ‘straw man’ for the writers included in…
Drout, Michael D. C.
Prince Frederick, Md.: Recorded Books, 2005.
Designed as a college-level academic course, with a series of fourteen lectures by Drout on Chaucer's life, language, and works. Lectures 1-2 pertain to biography, language, and style; lectures 3-4 to the dream visions and translations; 5-6 to TC;…
Lynch, Kathryn L.
Peter Brown, ed. Reading Dreams: The Interpretation of Dreams from Chaucer to Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 99-124
Examines Renaissance views of Chaucer and argues that Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" was influenced by LGW. Discusses Chaucer's and Shakespeare's complex treatment of dreams and the treatment of Theseus in KnT, HF, and LGW.
Schieberle, Misty.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 20.2 (2013): 19-40.
Describes a pedagogy for teaching NPT that guides student discussions "beyond basic descriptive understandings . . . into critical arguments," using genre and background material, performative readings, gender concerns, the politics of revolt, and…
Introduces Chaucer’s life and works, with a brief selected bibliography. Includes plot summaries and/or descriptions of BD, Rom, HF, PF, TC, LGW, each of the CT, and several lyrics.
In Chaucer's RvT and Malory's "Morte D'Arthur," illegitimacy is not a negative notion. The Reeve is unorthodox in his negative view of the illegitimacy of Symkyn's wife and of the sexual liberation of Symkyn's daughter. Chaucer however, discloses a…
Renoir, Alain.
Orbis Litterarum 36 (1981): 116-40.
TC's first three images (peacock, stairs, Bayard) assume an affective function and create a context for reader response. Passages from the "Iliad," the "Aeneid," and "Chanson des quatre fils Amyon" explain the strong affective element of the allusion…
Cohen, Jeremy.
Ithaca, N.Y. and London: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Surveys the historical understanding and application of Gen. 1.28, tracing its "career" in Scripture, its interpretations in Hebrew and Christian traditions, and its roles in such literature as Bernard Silvestris's "Cosmographia," Alain de Lille's…
Mahaffy, Mary Caitlin.
Ph.D. Dissertation. (Indiana University, 2022),
Dissertation Abstracts International A83.12(E).
“[E]xplores how understandings of nonhuman animals and the environment shaped which human behaviors were labeled natural prior to the Enlightenment." Includes comments on animals, animal imagery, and environmental idealism in Form Age, MilT, and…
Parsons, Ben.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 37 (2015): 163–94.
Identifies relations between domestic and pedagogical violence in WBP, establishing that its vocabulary is "redolent of the classroom" and arguing that Jankyn's treatment of Alison grants her agency, albeit unintentionally. Describes the motivations…
Horobin, Simon.
Carol M. Meale and Derek Pearsall, eds. Makers and Users of Medieval Books: Essays in Honour of A. S. G. Edwards (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014), pp. 214-23.
Beaupré Bell (1704-45), member of a noble Norfolk family, was known as a careful, if not exhaustive, annotator of Chaucer manuscripts (Cambridge,Trinity College, MSS R.3.19 and R.3.15). Now it is clear that two printed editions of Chaucer in the…
Nolan, Maura.
Paul Strohm, ed. Middle English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 207-21.
Nolan argues that the description of Alison in MilT is Chaucer's means to "stage an investigation or exploration of the relationship of beauty to individual perspectives . . . and the idea of a universal aesthetic." The passage also confronts the…
