Two documents in the National Archives (London) show that Alice Perrers was married to Janyn Perers, possibly an Italian, before becoming Edward III's mistress. These records hint that she was "a person of lower birth who made her fortune essentially…
Parallels between Criseyde and the women of WBPT "interrogate the following issues: equality between the sexes, possessions (ownership), possession (jealousy), and appearance." Rosenfeld reads the loathly lady as a "synthesis" of the Wife of Bath…
Jones, Terry, Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher, and Juliette Dor.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004; London: Methuen, 2003.
A biography and social history of Chaucer's final years, focusing on Henry Bolingbroke's Lancastrian overthrow of Richard II and the political and social turmoil from which the usurpation resulted and to which it contributed. The book presents Thomas…
Dane, Joseph A.
Huntington Library Quarterly 57 (1994): 99-123.
Discusses variants in editorial and antiquarian reports of the Latin inscription engraved on Chaucer's tomb and the verses "about the ledge" of the tomb. Suggests that the "snowy tablet" supposedly fixed by Surigone to a pillar near the tomb on…
Dane, Joseph A.
East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1998.
Eleven studies on the publishing history of Chaucer's works attempt to correct misconceptions about the nature of book production, extant editions and issues of Chaucer's works, and the reliability of bibliographical descriptions.
Reed, Shannon L.
Journal x: A Journal in Culture and Criticism 5:109-16, 2000-2001.
Assesses critical responses to the Host's verbal assault on the Pardoner at the end of PardT, identifying the common assumption that the Host fears the Pardoner's sexuality. Such readings are complicitous in the "abjection" of the Pardoner and…
Burger, Glenn D.
Chaucer Review 55, no. 4 (2020): 422-40.
Traces the struggles of Dorigen in FranT as a kind of conduct literature for wives, as Dorigen's pain in Arveragus's absence is linked to "two contemporary French conduct texts--'Le Livre du chevalier de la Tour Landry' (1371) and 'Le Mesnagier de…
Berggren, Ruth.
Massachusetts Studies in English 6 (1977): 25-36.
Contrary to received opinion, the Wife of Bath argues implicitly for equality in marriage; she and the loathly lady in her tale gain dominance only to relinquish it. On the other hand, the Clerk, Merchant, and Franklin present views of women which…
Dressman, Michael R.
Walt Whitman Review 23 (1977): 77-82.
Identifies Walt Whitman's interest in Chaucer's use of French vocabulary, and suggests that this interest is "tied directly" to Whitman's self-conscious "role as 'Poet' in the tradition of Chaucer" and his desire to enrich American English.
Havely, Nicholas R.
Medium Aevum 61 (1992): 250-60.
The discourse of antifraternalism is important in understanding Pandarus's role in relation to Troilus and, especially, Criseyde. Havely examines words that form part of that discourse.
Blanch, Robert J., and Julian N. Wasserman.
Julian N. Wasserman and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 175-91.
The iconographic meaning of the colors red and white had been lost in folk traditions by the time Chaucer wrote KnT. Meaning comes from the joining of the two colors--a symbol of unity. Palamon's and Arcite's choices of colors for their banners…
Travis, Peter W.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22: 1-66, 2000.
Reads BD as a psychoanalytic exploration of the nature of signification in which the dreamer achieves "his own talking cure." Surveys medieval and modern theories of signification, including those of Aristotle, Anselm, Duns Scotus, Ockham, Buridan,…
Madej-Stang, Adriana.
Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2015.
Includes discussion of WBPT as background to a survey of women as witches in contemporary British literature. Interprets WBP as evidence that, in Chaucer's time, a "woman, in order to claim her independence . . . has to speak of herself in negative…
The Vulgate's sheer availability offers compelling evidence that Chaucer used the Vulgate Bible, while faint lexical echoes of the "Bible historiale" suggest ancillary use of the "historiale." The Wycliffite Bible's candidacy may be ruled out on a…
Beidler, Peter G.
T. L. Burton and John F. Plummer, eds. "Seyd in Forme and Reverence": Essays on Chaucer and Chaucerians in Memory of Emerson Brown, Jr. (Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio Press, 2005), pp. 193-203.
Repunctuates several passages from CT and comments on the implications, encouraging classroom attention to modern editorial punctuation.
Considers the letter as a means of spoken and written transmission and demonstrates how the most important elements and functions of the letter prescribed by the "artes dictaminis" were put to creative use in medieval literary texts such as the…
Robinson surveys developments in electronic editing and comments on the strengths and limitations of electronic scholarly editions, calling for greater collaboration among scholars and for increased fluidity and interactivity in the editions. Draws…
Argues that the frontispiece to TC in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 61, was modeled on the scene in which Genius addresses Nature in the "Roman de la Rose." Focuses on the "lower register" of the frontispiece, arguing that it depicts Chaucer as a…
Haines, Victor Yelverton.
Florilegium 10 (1991, for 1988): 127-49.
A close reading of Ret, with attention to medieval meanings of such words as "revoke" and "guilt," suggests that Chaucer takes responsibility not for writing works of vanity but for wrong readings of his poetry made possible by his habits of ironic…
Baroodes, Benjamin S. W.
Neophilologus 98.03 (2014): 495-508.
Not just a pun on beef and burping, "buf" derives from French "buffer," which refers to puffing up one's cheeks and, later, to being stuffed with food.
The Knight may have been modeled on (and a compliment to) Henry, Earl of Derby. The expedition to Ruce was not to Russia but to Rossenia, where English crusaded in 1390 and before. The Knight is "the worn-out but noble example of the cherished…
Bland, D. S.
[London] Times Literary Supplement April 26, 1957, p. 264.
Suggests that Chaucer was in 1345-46, with several rejoinders in ensuing correspondence: Margaret Galway, May 10, p. 289 and July 12, p. 427; C. E. Welch, May 17, p 305; and G. C. G. Hall, June 28, p. 397.
Cawsey, Kathy.
Ada S. Jaarsma and Kit Dobson, eds. Dissonant Methods: Undoing Discipline in the Humanities Classroom (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 2020), pp. 33-49.
Exemplifies the theory and practice of "evental pedagogy," describing the classroom experience of teaching WBPT in the context of a "scandal" and "media uproar" at Dalhousie University (Halifax) in 2015. Comments on rape, "restorative justice"” and…
