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…
Cooney, Barbara.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1958. Rpt. New York: HarperCollins, 1986. Reissued with new cover illustration New York: HarperTrophy, 1989.
NPT, adapted and illustrated for juvenile audience.
Adaptation of NPT in Modern English pentameter verse, designed for staging by a cast of seven, with a brief introductory note for performance and stage directions. The frame-story characters are pilgrims who decide to "dramatize the Fox and…
Barab, Seymour, comp. and M. C. Richards.
[New York]: Boosey and Hawkes, 1964.
Musical score that adapts NPT, with lyrics in Modern English. Libretto by M. C. Richards. Composed, with additional lyrics and vocal score by Seymour Barab.
Winters, Geoffrey, composer, with words by Nancy Bush.
London: J & W Chester, 1968.
Item not seen. The WorldCat record indicates that this is a series of songs, adapted from NPT, for "unison or 2-part children's choir accompanied by violin, recorders, percussion, piano, and guitar." Duration: approximately 20 minutes.
Latin, rather than OF, sources, especially the twelfth-century "Isengrimus," provide parallels with NPT. The fifteenth-century Low German "De vos und de hane" was derived orally from the "Isengrimus." Possibly Chaucer heard an analogous English…
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…
Hertz, John Atlee.
Dissertation Abstracts 19.10 (1959): 2600-01.
Addresses "source relationships of geographical matters" in Chaucer. Chaucer's cosmography and its sources, and other "geographical matters," arguing that Chaucer "makes more frequent use of geography than do most of his contemporaries." Focuses on…
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…