Zhang, Deming.
Journal of Zhejiang University: Humanities and Social Sciences 40.4 (2009): 159-66.
Mandeville's "Travels," Chaucer's CT, and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" together established the "narrative strategies and structural patterns" of English travel literature, impelling the formation of the "space imagination, subject consciousness,…
Thundy, Zacharias P.
Michigan Academician 31: 385-99, 1999.
Using scientific chaos theory to clarify the changeable complexity of CT, Thundy argues that disunity is a fundamental feature of the work. Also argues that the Persian poem Manteq-at-Tair ("Language" or "Parliament" of the Birds), by Farid-ad-Din…
Cunningham, John E.
Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey, ed. Critical Essays on The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales (Harlow: Longman, 1989), pp. 29-37.
Explicates numerous details of GP to demonstrate Chaucer's techniques of characterization. Includes significant attention to the Wife of Bath, the Physician, the Host, and others.
Speed, Diane.
Sydney Studies in English 15 (1989-1990): 3-30.
Speed gives a careful reading of FranT based on the Franklin's statement of contradictory intentions in his prologue: to tell a Breton lay and to render his tale plain and simple because he has never studied rhetoric. Presenting a romantic fairy…
Colmer, Dorothy.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 72 (1973): 329-39.
Argues that the WBT is appropriate to the "Marcien" Wife, who represents a rising social class that challenges the "old courtly privilege." This class challenge parallels the Wife's sexual challenge, and her speech on "gentilesse"--a "complaint…
Gillie, Christopher.
New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965.
Traces the development of characterization in representative works of English literature from the Middle Ages to Joyce and Lawrence, emphasizing the change from universalized figures to individual psychology. Includes a chapter entitled "Women by…
Spiegel, Harriet.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1976): 2855A.
The romances of Chretien and Chaucer introduced the psychologically self-conscious character into medieval literature. KnT and TC make a distinction between the socially defined male, and the psychologically individualized female.
Jambeck, Thomas J.
Journal of Narrative Technique 5 (1975): 73-85.
The Miller's narrative manner is adapted to the level of discourse expected of his social status. The disorganized syntax suggests a disorganized world view.
Milowicki, Edward J.
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 11:1 (1984): 12-24.
Through the virtue of hope and a sense of penance, Troilus's courtly love and death in TC parallel divine love and salvation, showing the influences of Dante's "Commedia" and Boethius's "De consolatio philosophiae."
McGalliard, John C.
Philological Quarterly 54 (1975): 1-18.
Chaucer's characterization is sophisticated. The monk, merchant, and wife are complex personalities rather than flat stereotypes. The merchant is not duped or punished because of character flaws; he has none. The tale emphasizes the success of the…
Beichner, Paul E.
Richard J. Schoeck and Jerome Taylor, eds. Chaucer Criticism, Volume I: "The Canterbury Tales" (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1960), pp. 117-29.
Praises the "high organic unity" of MilT, attributing it to effective characterization of the major actors: "by making him 'hende' in one sense or another, Chaucer has motivated each incident of the plot involving Nicholas; and similarly, he has…
Russell, Nicholas.
Notes and Queries 211 (1966): 50-52.
Argues that Chaucer's characterization of the lovers in TC is marked by their relationships with public opinion, especially with that of "the impersonal mass of Trojans and Greeks" who are the "anti-characters" of the poem. As fortune turns against…
Argues that Chaucer's representation of the widow in FrT anticipates the "cursing hag" of Early Modern tradition, especially in responding to the summoner's refusal of her request for charity. The curse and the summoner's refusal to repent help to…
Perry, R. D., and Mary-Jo Arn, eds.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020. .
Collects ten essays by various authors and an introduction by Perry, together showing that, in his "Fortunes Stabilnes," Charles d’Orléans was "one of the great formal innovators of English poetry," examining the genres he engaged, his metrical…
Boffey, Julia.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Mediaevalitas: Reading the Middle Ages (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), pp. 43-62.
Explores possible influences of Chaucer's dream poems on the works of Charles of Orleans, especially on the dream episodes in the English poems of British Museum MS Harley 682 attributed to Charles. Similarities in pattern and verbal detail may have…
Bowers, John M.
Pacific Coast Philology 30 (1995): 15-26.
Chaucer exposes the Ricardian practice of chaste marriage "for what perhaps it really was: sexual hypocrisy posing as virtuous Christian abstinence." The false romantic passion and comic fusion of the clerkly and courtly in male characters such as…
From the perspective of new historicism, this brief introduction to Chaucer's writing reconstructs his ideological milieu and explores his representations of society in GP, PF, ShT, KnT, ClT, and Mel; of religion in SumT, FrT, PardP, PardT, SNT, PrT,…
Bolton, W. F.,S. S. Hussey, D. S. Brewer, and D. A. Pearsall.
W. F. Bolton, ed. The New History of Literature, Vol. I: The Middle Ages (New York: Peter Bedrick, 1986), pp. 169-266.
Introductory essays on Chaucer's life, the minor poems and the prose, TC, and CT.
Kane, George.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.
With no notes and a brief index, the book glances at Chaucer's life, times, and work in chronological order. Exploring Chaucer's identity as poet ironically, HF concerns truth in report and poetry. As mirror for princes, PF fuses poetry and…
Lawler, Traugott.
A. S. G. Edwards, ed. Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1984), pp. 291-313.
Summarizes the last twenty years' scholarship on Bo, Mel, ParsT, and Astr, with bibliography and desiderata.
Ando, Shinsuke.
Eigo Seinen (Tokyo) 128 (1983): 722-23.
Surveys recent Chaucer studies in Japan, introducing literary or philological studies of N. Ueno, M. Masui, K. Miyake, S. Ono, T. Oiji, K. Ogoshi, I. Saito, H. Nojima, and F. Kuriyagawa.
