Tisdale, Charles P. R.
American Benedictine Review 24 (1973): 365-80.
Commends BD for its reconciliation of extreme tones: despair derived from "earth-shattering sorrow" and "intellectual hope" derived from "heaven-sent consolation." Inspired by Bothus's "Consolation of Philosophy," Chaucer achieves consolation and…
Cherniss, Michael D.
Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1987.
Studies six medieval poems in a genre structured by the "Consolation of Philosophy," beginning with an exploration of Boethius's literary strategies and shaping influence and continuing to examine "De planctu naturae," "Roman de la Rose," "Confessio…
Fein, Susanna.
Wendy Harding, ed. Drama, Narrative and Poetry in The Canterbury Tales (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003), 195-212.
FranT describes a true-love marriage in Boethian terms and impossible contradictions, in a language that strains for comprehensibility amidst paradox and conditions that tend to undo prior terms. Stability and union replace oppositions, dualities,…
The limited success of Troilus' efforts to know the nature of love reflects a state of epistemology similar to certain skeptical trends in universities. A counterpoint to the skepticism and to Troilus' determinism leads, through a Boethian…
Chapman, Juliana Marie.
Ph.D. Dissertation. Pennsylvania State University, 2014. Abstract available at https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/23662. Accessed November 28, 2021.
Includes discussion of "a shared six-part musical structure, hitherto unnoticed" in the pairing of KnT and MilT.
Hartman, Ronald.
English Studies 79 (1998): 166-70.
Suggests a clear parallel between Boethius and Melibee: both have suffered an injustice, which is seen as a symptom of an illness that has to be cured and that has moved them away from God to where Fortune rules. They are thus subjected to punishment…
Shorter, Robert Newland.
Dissertation Abstracts International 26.01 (1965): 359A.
Treats TC as an "exemplum of" Bo, focusing on the extent of Boethian influence, the character of Criseyde, the ironic narrator, and the "appropriateness of the epilogue."
Kaylor, Noel Harold, Jr.
Chaucer Review 27 (1993): 219-27.
The "Canticus Troili," Chaucer's adaptation of Petrarch's Sonnet 132, alters words and phrases from the original and concentrates on Petrarch's content rather than his form. But it also contains syntax and subject matter from Bo, which Chaucer had…
Murton, Megan.
Carmina Philosophiae 25 (2016): 1-8.
Argues that Chaucer anticipates readings of Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" as centrally devotional rather than philosophical. Chaucer's word choices in Bo bring this emphasis to the fore, especially of the concluding lines of the work.…
Argues that Maximian's Third Elegy inspired the figure of Pandarus in TC. In Maximian, Boethius is a character who is "astonishingly iconoclastic" and "richly ironic," anticipating Pandarus in several ways.
Schildgen, Brenda Deen.
Leonard Michael Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen, eds. The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: New Essays on an Old Question (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000), pp. 102-27.
Through authorial intrusions into their texts, Boccaccio and Chaucer defend vernacular fiction as legitimate consolation and a necessary cultural medium. In doing so, both enter into a dialogue with Boethius. Schildgen discusses CT, in particular…
Williams, Deanne.
Catherine E. Léglu and Stephen J. Milner, eds. The Erotics of Consolation: Desire and Distance in the Late Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 205-26.
Williams considers adaptation of the Consolatio for courtly audiences in a number of works, including HF, WBT, and the "oft overlooked Boethian poems" Form Age, For, Truth, Sted, and Gent. These overlooked poems were particularly popular in…
Hoenen, Maarten J. F. M.,and Lodi Nauta,eds.
Leiden, New York, and Koln: Brill, 1997.
Twelve essays by various authors on the reception of Boethius's Consolatione Philosophiae--its medieval glosses, commentaries, and translations. Four essays pertain to the Middle Dutch tradition. Passim references to Chaucer's Bo. For an essay that…
Laird, Edgar S., and Donald W. Olson.
Modern Philology 88 (1990): 147-49.
The interpretation in Bo of how the constellation Bootes rises and sets indicates Chaucer's reliances on commentaries; he did not have the expertise in observational astronomy he would have needed for a more accurate translation.
Ebin, Lois A.
Philological Quarterly 53 (1974): 321-41.
Reads "The Kingis Quair" as a "direct response" to Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and to TC and KnT, taking up their concerns with Fortune. "Quair" shares the concern with worldly love found in Chaucer's two poems, although it presents love…
Yager, Susan.
Carmina Philosophiae 4 (1995): 77-88.
With the exception of Dorigen, the women in the Marriage Group (WBPT, ClT, MerT, FranT) are similar to Boethius's character Philosophy: they assume authoritative roles, echo some of her sentiments, and sometimes recall her voice. Dorigen's behavior…
Masi, Michael.
Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., and Philip Edward Phillips, eds. New Directions in Boethian Studies. Studies in Medieval Culture, no. 45. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007, pp. 143-54.
Traces the logic of paradox from its roots in Zeno through Boethius's Consolation to its uses in WBPT. Notes examples from Alain de Lille and Jean de Meun and discusses the Wife of Bath's uses of synthesis beyond contradiction and paradox.
Burke, Linda.
In R. Barton Palmer and Burt Kimmelman, eds. Machaut's Legacy: The Judgment Poetry Tradition in the Later Middle Ages and Beyond (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2017), pp. 192-216.
Reiterates traditional discussions of similarities between LGW and John Gower's "Confessio Amantis," develops recent arguments of the importance of Anne of Bohemia to both poems (emphasizing Gower's), and uses these connections and others to argue…
Douglas, Blaise.
Claire Vial, ed. "A noble tale / Among us shall awake": Approches croisees des "Middle English Breton Lays" et du "Franklin's Tale" (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris Ouest, 2015), pp. 17-25.
Explores the notion of commitment in connection with the contradictory and untenable verbal pledges in FranT.
Yvernault, Martine.
Danielle Buschinger, ed. Médiévales, 48 (Amiens: Presses du Centre d'Études Médiévales, Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, 2010), pp. 179-87.
Comments on the relationship between narration and food in CT.
Niebrzydowski documents "significant attention," positive and negative, paid to wives and wifehood in the literature and architecture of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England. The volume is structured to "follow the life cycle of a wife," from…
Morey, James H.
Urbana and Chicago : University of Illinois Press, 2000.
Bibliographical guide to Middle English biblical literature, including manuscript and publication information, descriptions of the works, and identification of the biblical sources, covering some 110 individual works or sets of related works.…
Griffiths, Jeremy, and Derek Pearsall, eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Fifteen original essays on such topics as early book design, book purchasing and ownership, Caxton, and production of various kinds of books. Includes C. Paul Christianson on "Evidence for the Study of London's Late Medieval Manuscript-Book Trade,"…
