Surveys the characteristics of the genre of the Breton lai in French and English, and argues that Chaucer labeled FranT as such in order to "minimize the religious implications of certain elements in the story" and encourage response to its courtly…
Arnovick, Leslie K.
Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Pivi Pahta, and Matti Rissanen, eds. Placing Middle English in Context (Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 2000), pp. 411-25.
Argues that lines 81-120 of HF are Chaucer's adaptation of the topos of the "book curse," tracing the "speech act origin" of the curse and exploring Chaucer's use of the device to "tease his audience and manipulate its expectations."
Reflects on the newly discovered documents in the case of Cecily Champagne, and contends that, regardless of whether Chaucer was to blame, medieval studies and Chaucerian critics remain at fault if they excused Chaucer on account of his poetry.…
Hicks, Michael A.
London: Shepheard-Walwyn; Chicago: St. James, 1991.
Biographical dictionary of some 200 political and cultural people of late-medieval England, "Englishmen" and "Englishwomen," along with "foreigners prominent in English history," arranged chronologically by life-dates, with descriptive and…
Scott, A. F.
London: Elm Tree; New York: Taplinger,1974.
An annotated glossary of personal names, arranged alphabetically within sections. CT is treated separately from BD, HF, LGW, PF and TC. Each of these sections is followed by a list of animal and personal names, with the line references for their…
Moore, Marilyn L. Reppa.
Chaucer Review 33 (1998): 43-59
Troilus's character should be viewed not in the light of medieval romance but within the context of medieval "devotion," such as that advocated in St. Anselm's "Proslogion." It is more important to realize that Troilus learned to love with constancy…
Howard, H. Wendall.
Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 18.3 (2015): 15-32.
Considers the historicity of St. Cecilia, her association with music, and various accounts of her life and legend, including the "Passio Caeciliae," SNT, an opera by Licinio Refice and Emidio Mucci, John Dryden's "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day,"…
Trigg, Stephanie.
Frank Grady, ed. The Cambridge Companion to "The Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 250-54.
Traces the problem of compensation and the rationale for dedicating funds to the study of Chaucer. Offers a case study of how a previous attempt at funding worked in 2010 in Australia when the Centre for the History of Emotions was awarded funding by…
Williams, George G.
Rice Institute Pamphlet 44, no. 1 (1957): 126-46.
Argues that the "chief characters" of TC "were probably modeled from real people" and, exploring alterations from Boccaccio's "Filostrato," speculates that Troilus is based on John of Gaunt, Criseyde on Katherine Swynford, and Pandarus on Chaucer…
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…
Contzen, Eva von.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 53 (2023) 597-622.
Focuses on three different approaches to CT, examines the ways that scholars have attempted to avoid ascribing intention to Chaucer, and concludes that "when engaging with Chaucer, critics need to embrace intention as a key generator in the…
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,…
