Blake, N. F.
A. S. G. Edwards, Vincent Gillespie, and Ralph Hanna, eds. The English Medieval Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths (London: British Library, 2000), pp. 135-53.
Critiques Thomas F. Dunn's analysis of Cx2 and extends it, describing the book's composition and comparing Cx2 with Cx1. Suggests a possible scenario for the preparation of Cx2, discussing the role of the unknown manuscript (designated Y by Dunn) and…
Kuskin, William, ed.
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
Ten essays by various authors and an introduction by the editor, exploring the relationship of Caxton to early Continental printing and the influence of Caxton and his practice on English printing, ideas of authorship, editing, and language. Includes…
Caxton's grouping of the Nine Worthies influenced later English perceptions of nationhood and history. Includes brief mention of MkT, and several notes pertain to Chaucer.
Green, Richard Firth.
Robert S. Sturges, ed. Law and Sovereignty in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 261-85.
Reassesses the implications of the two copies of the quitclaim pertaining to Cecily Champain and Chaucer, clarifying the meaning of "quitclaim," describing the process of issuing claims in the medieval period, and arguing that Champain issued two…
Surveys attitudes toward patriotism among early English writers. According to Stanley, Criseyde's claim to Diomedes that she loves the city of Troy (TC 5. 953-57) is untrue.
Includes discussion of FranT (pp. 282–93), tabulating historical astronomical data and arguing that Chaucer "used the configuration of the Sun and Moon in December 1340 as the inspiration for the time of year [late December] and for the central…
Robinson, Carol L.
Studies in Medievalism 5 (1993): 115-26.
Pasolini's reading of the Wife of Bath as "a rebellious heretic who is yet a sexual and clownish bully" challenges more sympathetic "readings" of the Wife rather than re-creating her Chaucerian self-presentation. The film "I racconti di Canterbury"…
Vennemann, Theo.
English Language and Linguistics 13.2 (2009): 309-34.
Traces idiomatic usage of "yes" and "no" in responses to questions in the English language, comparing it with German usage to illustrate the influence of the Celtic, Brittonic language. Concludes by exploring roots of the English method of response…
Obenauf, Richard.
Dissertation Abstracts International A77.01 (2015): n.p.
As part of a consideration of censorship, subjects several works, including PF, to a hypothetical "model of intolerance" based on Abelard, Ockham, and John of Salisbury.
Usk borrowed from TC for his Testament of Love, often using quotations to describe his spiritual love for Margarite. Usk is a kind of Pandarus (deceiving, flattering, and self-serving), and his employment as a clerk sheds light on the reception and…
Yoo, Inchol.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 19.2 (2011): 139-63.
Discusses the "political implications" of Rom as it reflects Chaucer's attitudes towards French during the Hundred Years' War, suggesting that Chaucer may be "resisting French literary culture." Also assesses Eustace Deschamps' praise of Chaucer as a…
McKinstry, James Andrew,
Ph.D. Dissertation. Durham University, 2012. Open access at http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4941/.
Examines "the creative challenges for memory in a selection of established romances such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo, Emaré, and King Horn, including those of Chaucer and Malory, along with lesser studied, longer romances such as…
Chaucer's use of sources, traditions, and images leaves his text too open-ended and ambiguous to admit of any single interpretative pattern for the "matere" of BD. Diverse incidents of the poem are united by Chaucer's "structural integrity,"…
Mann, Jill.
Piero Boitani and Jill Mann, eds. The Cambridge Chaucer Companion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 75-92.
Chaucer painstakingly "alerts" his sources in Boethius and Boccaccio to "emphasize the role of chance in the events of the narrative." Mann explores relationships among chance, "necessitee," and free will in TC and KnT.
Blake, N. F.
Terttu Nevalainen and Leena Kahlas-Tarkka, eds. To Explain the Present: Studies in the Changing English Language in Honour of Matti Rissanen(Helsinki: Sociłtł Nłophilologique, 1997), pp. 3-24.
Computer-assisted analysis of forms of Chancery English in manuscripts of WBP indicates a drift toward standardizaiton, most striking in the change from "swich" to "such." Yet, the pull to the Chancery Standard is not always clear.
Christianson, C. Paul.
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr., ed. Standardizing English: Essays in the History of Language Change, in Honor of John Hurt Fisher (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), pp. 82-112.
Presents a sketch of the development of the written trades and the connections among scriveners in the late Middle Ages.
Explores the semantic and cultural background of the word "elvysshe" as applied to alchemy in CYT (8.751, 8.842). Like elves, alchemists were secretive, elusive, liminal figures, distrusted and associated with transformation. Though modern editors…
Wallace, David.
Andrew James Johnston, Russell West-Pavlov, and Elisabeth Kempf, eds. Love, History and Emotion in Chaucer and Shakespeare: "Troilus and Criseyde" and "Troilus and Cressida" (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), pp. 157-70.
Comments on Chaucer's expansion in TC of the emotional range of Boccaccio's "Il filostrato" and focuses on Shakespeare's expansion and narrowing of Chaucer's poem in "Troilus and Cressida": Shakespeare develops a "generic range" in the play that is…
Threadgold, Terry.
Ross Steele and Terry Threadgold, eds. Language Topics: Essays in Honor of Michael Halliday, 2 vol. (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1987), 2:549-97.
Language is enormously affected by social and historical forces, making our understanding of it apart from those forces difficult. Comparison of Chaucer's HF with Pope's eighteenth-century "imitation" reveals two distinct, shaping grammars, which…
Bradbury, Nancy Mason, and Carolyn P. Collette.
Chaucer Review 43 (2009): 351-75.
Bradbury and Collette survey historical records and literary representations of clocks in works by Jean Froissart, Henry Suso, Philippe de Mézières, and Christine de Pizan. The article counters the notion that the mechanical clock caused a sudden…
