The academic prologue, which introduced commentaries on "auctores," developed an Aristotelian form in the thirteenth century. Chaucer did not employ any of the traditional prologue paradigms, but many of his literary attitudes seem to have been…
In this study of Princeton MS 100.1, Boyd posits that the b-text, admittedly faulty, represents the parchment core of MS Helmingham, itself an effort to save CT through cutting and summarizing the text. Its errors might also lie in the fact that…
Renoir, Alain.
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 180-206.
TC reveals on a serious level a sexual pattern similar to that of the ludicrous MilT. In spite of disparity of social status, Alisoun and Criseyde offer the same promise to a would-be lover; Absolon and Troilus suffer in similar ways; the same kind…
The "Index of Middle English Prose" identifies and locates every prose text in English, 1200-1500. The initial volume in the series, Hanna's "Handlist I" describes 444 texts. Search under title for additional volumes.
Ogilvie-Thomson, S. J.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017.
Describes the contents of the 167 manuscripts in the Rawlinson Collection that include Middle English prose; the following have Chaucerian material: D.3 [1] (Astr); D.913 [9] (Astr); poet.141 [1] (Mel); poet.149 [1] (Mel); poet.149 [3] (ParsT); and…
Lists all pieces of Middle English prose in the Douce collection, giving about fifty words of the beginning of each text and twenty at the end, with an index of incipits and explicits.
Ogilvie-Thomson, S. J.
Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2000.
Describes all manuscripts in the Laudian collection that contain English prose composed ca. 1200-1500, including Laud misc. 600, which includes incomplete versions of Mel (one folio lacking) and ParsT (through 10.914, completed in seventeenth-century…
Marx, William.
Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y. : D. S. Brewer, 1999.
Describes, among others, five manuscripts that contain Chaucer material: National Library of Wales MSS 3049 and 3567 and Peniarth MSS 359, 392, and 393.
Mertens-Fonck, Paule.
Erik Kooper, ed. This Noble Craft: Proceedings of the Xth Research Symposium of the Dutch and Belgian University Teachers of Old and Middle English and Historical Linguistics.... (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1991), pp. 189-99.
Structurally, CT parodies the clerk-knight debate (an early type of courtly-love poem), especially The Council of Remiremont. The idea of a pilgrimage on horseback may derive from these debates as well.
Kiessling, Nicolas.
[Pulman]: Washington State University, 1977.
Includes passim references to Chaucer's works and reprints as "Monks and Incubi in Chaucer" (pp. 51-55) a slightly revised version of "The Wife of Bath's Tale, D 878-81," (Chaucer Review 7 (1972): 113-17).
Sklute, Larry M.
Chaucer Review 16 (1981): 119-28.
Unlike his earlier dream visions, Chaucer's PF exhibits no structural confusion. Rather, the poet poses the possibility of variable pluralisms and leaves the poem inconclusive. The narrator is relatively uninvolved in the action, which permits…
Culver, T. D.
Yearbook of English Studies 2 (1972): 13-20.
Traces the artistic development of the Constance story from its roots in the accused queen legend through Trevet's adaptation, Gower's version, and MLT, arguing that only in Chaucer does the narrative achieve "comprehensive artistic unity" of…
Posits that Chaucer arranges matters in FranT to pose the possibility of a "dual response to the subject matter" of "trouthe," exploring reality and illusion and the competing requirements of conjugal and courtly loves. The Tale illustrates the…
Dane, Joseph A.
Huntington Library Quarterly 56 (1993): 307-17.
Reviews John H. Fisher's "The Importance of Chaucer" (Studies in the Age of Chaucer 16 (1994), no. 35); Elaine Tuttle Hansen's "Chaucer and the FIctions of Gender" (Studies in the Age of Chaucer 16 (1994), no. 90); and the "Cluster on Chaucer" in…
Examines two instances in which Hengwrt is markedly different from other early manuscripts. The first instance casts doubts on the authenticity of CYP and CYT (not in Hengwrt). The second suggests that the long form of NPP and those versions in…
Brinton, Laurel J.
Susan C. Herring, Pieter Van Reenan, and Lene Schøsler, eds. Textual Parameters in Older Languages (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2000), pp. 139-62.
Traces the development of "anon" from Middle English to Early Modern English, using evidence drawn from TC and elsewhere. A revised version of chaper two of Brinton's Pragmatic Markers in English (Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 1996).
Fisher, John H.
Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992.
Explores how Chaucer expanded the boundaries of the English literary idiom. Chaucer's innovations capitalize on the rise of a new audience, a class of bureaucrats and businessmen who shared his education at the inns of court and chancery. Details…
Purdie demonstrates that the layout of Th in several key early manuscripts derives from the traditional layout of Middle English tail-rhyme poetry. Chaucer intended to contribute to the Tale's humor with this arrangement, which reflects his…
Prendergast, Thomas A.
Helen M. Hickey, Anne McKendry, and Melissa Raine, eds. Contemporary Chaucer across the Centuries (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), pp. 125-37.
Considers possible motives for the "Beryn" scribe to include the "Prologue" and the "Tale of Beryn" in one of the CT mansucripts that he copied, Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, MS 455 (Nl), arguing that he was responding to the "agency of the text,"…
Tracing the revival of the romance genre, Santini describes in chronological order the work of amateur scholars, editors, and editorial societies that produced editions and commentary on Middle English romances between 1760 and 1860. Comments on the…
Studies the distribution of Chaucer's impersonal verb "listen" (to be pleasing), focusing on disparities between distributions in prose and verse, usage in formulaic expressions, and transition from impersonal to personal usage.
