Wimsatt, James I.
Chaucer Newsletter 11:1 (1989): 1-2.
The "formes fixes" lyrics of Middle French, especially the ballade, are almost as influential for Chaucer's works as was the "Roman de la Rose." The "formes fixes"--ballade, rondeau, and virelay--were highly musical and connected with dancing.
Wimsatt, James I.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.
A comprehensive analysis of the contemporary French influence on Chaucer, exploring lyric rather than narrative features and concentrating on the impact of "formes fixes." Wimsatt devotes individual chapters to Chaucer's literary relations with Jean…
Downes, Stephanie.
Notes and Queries 258 (2013): 572-74.
Rebinding and rearrangement of John Dart's biography of Chaucer in one of the six seventeenth- and eighteenth-century editions of his work held in Paris, effectively reframe it as having been modeled "culturally and linguistically from French…
Donner, Morton.
Western Humanities Review 27 (1973): 189-95.
Argues that Chaucer adapts his first-person narrators throughout his career in order to explore aspects of the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity. Chaucer achieves a greatest sense of objectivity when his subjective narrator is most…
Lerer, Seth.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Examines Chaucer's reception in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and its relation to the historical development of poetic identity. In their responses to and depictions of Chaucer, such writers as Lydgate, Clanvowe, James I, Hawes, and…
The significance of the known facts about Chaucer's life is elucidated in the context of the political, social, intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic background. The volume is handsomely illustrated, and includes readings of Chaucer's works.
A biography of Chaucer, illustrated with numerous b&w photographs of objects from late-medieval life. Includes discussion of Chaucer's major poetry, linking his works with events and attitudes of his age, and exploring how Chaucer responded to such…
Introductory summary of Chaucer's life and social context, illustrated with numerous b&w photographs of objects from the late fourteenth century: buildings, coins, artifacts, manuscripts, etc. Draws examples of social, political, and religious life…
Lawton, David.
Corinne Ondine Pache, Casey Dué, Susan Lupack, and Robert Lamberton, eds. The Cambridge Guide to Homer (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 580-81.
Surveys Chaucers references to and possible knowledge of Homer, emphasizing mediating sources, especially Boccaccio.
Schoeck, Richard J.
Constance S. Wright and Julia Bolton Holloway, eds. Tales Within Tales: Apuleius Through Time: Essays in Honor of Professor Emeritus Richard J. Schoeck (New York: AMS Press, 2000), pp. 97-106.
Explores various kinds of game or play in TC: rhetorical games, war games, courtly games, and the games of life. Suggests Troilus may be seen as homo ludens (man playing).
Mooney, Linne R.
Geoffrey Lester, ed. Chaucer in Perspective: Middle English Essays in Honour of Norman Blake (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), pp. 139-60.
Charts "specific astronomical references" that are datable in Chaucer's works against other known events of the poet's life. Although the references may not help us date the poems in which they occur, they do indicate Chaucer's active interest in…
Salter, Elizabeth.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 2 (1980): 71-79.
Chaucer's writing of BD in English is not evidence of English nationalism but is "the triumph of internationalism." He adopted "both theory and precedent for the creation of high-prestige vernacular literature" to produce in English the kind of…
Pratt, Robert A.
Modern Language Notes 74 (1959): 293-94.
Suggests that several details of the Wife of Bath's chiding of her elder husbands (WBP 3.257-62) derive, ultimately, from Isidore of Saville's "Etymologiarum."
Fulton, Helen, ed.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2021.
Collection of essays focusing on Chaucer's engagement with "Italian tradition" and his use and interpretation of Italian sources. For eight individual essays, search for Chaucer and Italian Culture under Alternative Title.
Clarke, K. P.
Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2011.
Studies how Chaucer's ClT may have been affected by the Italian textual tradition. The first part of the book concentrates on the Italian texts, particularly the Manelli codex of Boccaccio, "Decameron" X.10. The second part considers how the Hengwrt…
Argues that in LGWP Chaucer derives his tone from Jean de Meun's self-conscious narratation in the "Roman de la Rose," as well as many "particularities . . . of himself as love and writer." Chaucer's narrator is a caricature of Jean's Amant, an…
Compares Bo with Jean de Meun's and other versions and discusses Chaucer's translation technique and style. Scholars need more information on Chaucer's use of Jean de Meun and on medieval French translations of "De consolatione philosophae."
The levels of style of the first three Canterbury tales correspond to John of Garland's columnar figure, which is itself a memory locus derived from classical rhetoric.
Explicates Chaucer's reference to John of Legnano ("Lynyan" at ClT 4.34), clarifying the international reputation of the canon lawyer and his role in justifying the papal schism, suggesting how Chaucer may have learned of him during his 1378 mission…
A comparison, not a source study, which discovers parallel attitudes toward style, character, and tradition, especially on the role of humor in "Ulysess" and CT.
Economou, George D.
Robert M. Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior, eds. Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Hanning (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp. 290-301.
Economou considers a range of possibilities--that Chaucer and Langland knew each other, knew each other's works, or shared the same literary context. Focuses on GP and Ret of CT.
