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,"…
Identifies WBP as the inspiration for Harriet Byron's burning of a prayer book in the second act of Jane Austen's play, "Sir Charles Grandison," noting in both works the importance of hyperbole, the manipulation of language, and ironic commentary on…
Gillespie, Alexandra.
Paul Strohm, ed. Middle English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 86-103.
Focusing on perspectives evident in Chaucer's Adam (and the career of Adam Pinkhurst) and "Mum and the Sothsegger," Gillespie explores the importance of "the book" as a technology that spans the oral-print divide.
Yeager, R. F.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 51-67.
Yeager summarizes Chaucer's education and career for the purpose of identifying the books, languages, and classical and vernacular literatures with which Chaucer was clearly acquainted. Discusses Chaucer's strategies for keeping literary authority at…
Gillespie, Alexandra.
Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 81-97.
Reassesses D. S. Brewer's claim about the relative paucity of the book in the fourteenth century, suggesting instead that "in Chaucer's time, new technologies and new social circumstances were making it easier, faster, and cheaper to produce and…
Crews, Michael Lynn.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017.
Locates a quotation from PardT in Cormac McCarthy's notes for his novel "Blood Meridian"; links McCarthy's penchant for "the stories-within-stories motif" to Chaucer; and identifies echoes of PardT in the old Mennonite episode of "Blood Meridian" and…
Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn.
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
Studies the cultural, literary, and codicological contexts for English late medieval works of revealed writing - apocalyptic, visionary, mystical, prophetic, etc. - considering the reception of Continental works in England and works composed in…
Explores "imperfect analogies between Chaucerian poetics and border theory/pedagogy," reporting on classroom experiences and discussing what Chaucer can teach us about "inhabiting borderlands."
Otaño Gracia, Nahir I.
English Language Notes 58.2 (2020): 35-49.
Includes the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa in conceptualizing the global North Atlantic, and argues that in several places in CT (e.g., GP description of Knight, MLT, Pedro in MkT) Chaucer uses paradigms that are similar to those of "settler…
Watts, Cedric.
Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey, ed. Critical Essays on The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales (Harlow: Longman, 1989), pp. 94-103.
Sketches a range of evaluative criteria (moral, social, hedonistic, materialistic, and artistic) to explore how in literature--and in the GP in particular--"moral judgements are largely subverted by artistic judgements," in part the result of the…
Berry, Craig A.
Studies in Philology 91 (1994): 136-66.
Reads two sections of Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene" (the opening lines and Arthur's dream, 1.9) as examples of inscripted biographical details and the poetic anxiety of the work. Considers Spenser's adaptations of PF and, especially, Thop, reading…
Wasserman, Julian N.
Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, eds. Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1989), pp. 194-222.
Treats the "ambiguous relationship between 'aventure' and 'tydynges'" mentioned in HF, or one of Chaucer's most frequent themes: Fortune (or Providence) versus necessity, divine prescience, and free will, as seen in KnT and TC. Discusses the…
Friedman, John Block.
Chaucer Review 54.2 (2019): 119-40.
Focuses on a study of status in MilT and traces the positioning of Nicholas and Alisoun and their displays of their buttocks in the window toward Absolon. Fleshing out the context and history of bottom-kissing as well as the averting of demons by…
