Broughton, Laurel.
Jean E. Godsall-Myers, ed. Speaking in the Medieval World (Boston: Brill, 2003), 43-63.
By adjusting his source, Chaucer allows the Knight to construct a Theseus who appears noble and positively inclined toward women. Chaucer also reminds us, however, that Theseus is not always the champion of women and the exemplar of chivalry. A…
Friedman, John B.
Francis X. Newman, ed. Social Unrest in the Middle Ages (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1986), pp. 75-112.
Treats iconography, history of medicine, and history of science.
Compares the fifteenth-century Scottish fabliau, "The Freiris of Berwik," to SumT and finds that the treatment of friars in the Scottish tale is more ironic than satirical, and is more concerned with eliciting laughter than with advancing an…
Mann, Jill.
Jill Mann and Maura Nolan, eds. The Text in the Community: Essays on Medieval Works, Manuscripts, Authors, and Readers (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), pp. 41-74.
Mann describes the composition and influence of the "Liber Catonis," a composite of six Latin texts that served as a school-text in medieval education, and considers it in light of other medieval school-texts. Identifies places where works that…
Pugh, Tison.
Sexuality and Its Queer Discontents in Middle English Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 75-99.
The Clerk's submission to the Host's tale-telling game parallels Griselda's submission to Walter: the two are queerly faithful in ways that bring into focus their "contractual hermaphroditism" and deconstruct traditional gender categories. Griselda's…
Compares the theme of forced marriage in WBT, "The Marriage of Sir Gawaine," "The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell," and Gower's "Tale of Florent." While all the works concern forced marriages, Chaucer's knight undergoes "greater coercion,"…
King, Pamela M.
Leeds Studies in English 32 (2001): 212-28. Reprinted in Pamela M. King and Alexandra F. Johnston, eds. Reading Texts for Performance and Performances as Texts (London: Routledge, 2020), pp. 102-18.
Explores the possible "theatrical context" of MilT, clarifying the cultural value of Absolon's status as a parish clerk and arguing that Chaucer's plot and treatment of gender in his characterization of Absolon were inspired by "amateur theatricals…
Doyle, Charles Clay.
Chaucer Review 32 (1997): 108-10.
Peter Beidler asserted that a "shadow allusion" to CYT in "Rip Van Winkle" had gone unnoticed; in fact, scholars of seventeenth-century literature have recognized the allusion. Further, Chaucer's statement that one cannot trust someone who swears to…
Healey, Antonette diPaolo.
Osamu Imahayashi, Yoshiyuki Nakao, and Michiko Ogura, eds. Aspects of the History of the English Language and Literature: Selected Papers Read at SHELL 2009, Hiroshima (New York; Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 3-18.
The semantic field of "heat" includes emotional connotations in Old English, but Chaucer evokes new oxymoronic nuances when he uses it in Troilus's song, TC 1.400-420.
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Studia Neophilologica 52 (1980): 31-34.
Line 7.3217--"By heigh ymaginacioun forncast"--means not that the fox's attack was predestined, or foretold in the cock's dream, but that the fox had carefully planned his act of high treason against the royal Chauntecleer.
Stubbs, Estelle.
Review of English Studies 58 (2007): 133-53.
Codicological analyses of the structure and details of Corpus Christi 198 support early suggestions by Carleton Brown, Charles Owen, and John Fisher about Chaucer's ongoing revision of CT, especially when considered in light of other early…
Delahoyde, Michael.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 3223A.
Chaucer's prosody has been underrated. With its unity, completeness, and carefully developed stanzas, TC demonstrates Chaucer's mastery of sound and sense.
Chaucer manipulates names in the TC to add nuance to the individual characters and to make clear their subtle relationships. Although "Pandare" is used first, for example, the name "Pandarus" relates to "Troilus" and implies the insinuation of the…
Takada, Yasunari.
Kinshiro Oshitari et al, eds. Philologia Anglica (Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1988), pp. 299-305.
Treats TC and Dante's "Paradiso" with reference to the nature and structure of "feste"/"festa." The Chaucerian contiguity of "feste" with "hevene" is a vestige of Dantean affiliation, while the circumscription of "feste" as "vide" is a Chaucerian…
Fuller, David.
Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 9 (1988): 17-28.
A wide variety of interpretations and levels of meaning make MilT both oblique and clear. Chaucer yokes contradictory elements and obscures an underlying morality "to catch off guard his sophisticated readers--the 'clerical and courtly elite'--who…
Boitani, Piero.
Joerg O. Fichte, ed. Chaucer's Frame Tales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 83-128.
Examines Marian prayers and images in Dante, de Guilleville, Petrarch, and Chaucer, who use prayers to the Virgin at crucial moments in their works. A comparative study illuminates religious ideals and narrative strategies in CT (PrT, SNT), TC, and…
Farrell, Thomas J.
John M. Hill, Bonnie Wheeler, and R. F. Yeager, eds. Essays on Aesthetics and Medieval Literature in Honor of Howell Chickering (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2014), pp. 142-64.
Studies over 15,000 occurences of n-stem and r-stem nouns in the "Corpus of Middle English Verse and Prose," and uses the information to assess "his lady grace" (GP 1.88) and the incoherences in the Squire's performance of "chivalry," "courtliness,"…
Tallies a number of "significant" allusions to the Vulgate Bible in CT and offers pedagogical advice on how to remedy the problem of modern students missing these allusions or misreading them.
Lucas, Peter J.
Notes and Queries 232 (1987): 291-92.
By Chaucer's time, it had become common for magnates to take their meals in privacy, not in the great hall. Such practice is criticized in "Piers Plowman" B 10.99-102 (Kane ed.). Hence, the Franklin may be being praised for retaining the ancient…
Brown, Emerson Jr.
Chaucer Review 4.1 (1969): 31-40.
Explores the sources of Chaucer's allusions to Priapus and to Pyramus and Thisbe in MerT (4.2034-37 and 4.2125-31) and argues that the allusions deepen the bitter cynicism of the Tale by suggesting sexual fruitlessness and frustration in the pear…
Chamberlain, Stephanie Ericson.
Dissertation Abstracts International 56 (1996): 2691A.
In the flux that overturned feudal patriarchal society, the position of the widow was destabilized; the social station of Chaucer's Criseyde contrasts with that of Shakespeare's Cressida, as well as that of widows in other Renaissance works.
The Wife's changing of the name Sulipucious Gallus to Symplicius Gallus (3.643) allows her to poke fun at one of her antifeminist "authorities" as well as to link this man to another antifeminist "gallus," the cock in NPT. She indicates that a man…
