Haller, Robert S.
Annuale Mediaevale 6 (1965): 47-64.
Explores how female sovereignty in WBPT results in "the subservience of the class function to the bourgeois ethic which the Wife represents," indicating parallels in FranT and Genesis. Alison controls the merchant class in her first three marriages;…
Argues that the Franklin's gentility is a "watered-down version" of traditional gentility, aligning FranT with eighteenth-century bourgeois "sentimental comedy." Contrasts KnT and FranT, maintaining that "virtue releases man from the bonds of…
Describes relations between structure and theme in TC, demonstrating how the poem's pattern of action and verbal parallels induce "classical symmetry" and function as a "metaphor of harmony and order, while an "underlying chaos" of "inverted…
Sixteen stories from medieval French and English literature, adapted for juvenile readers. Includes NPT, WBT, PardT, CYT (Part 2), and FrT, and comments briefly on Chaucer's life and on CT, crediting the poet with the idea of suiting tales to…
Wright, David, trans.
New York: Random House, [1964].
Translates into "straightforward contemporary prose" all of CT, except for Th (here in verse) and Mel and ParsT (here summarized briefly). The Introduction (pp. ix-xii) summarizes Chaucer's life and comments on the translation.
Whittock, T. G.
Theoria: A Journal of Studies 24 (1965): 13-26.
Describes the major theme of CYPT as "the misuse of men's intelligence in the obsessive pursuit of false and meretricious goals," asserting Chaucer's success in creating an "allegorical superstructure" while maintain the "credibility of the specific…
Selvin, Rhoda Hurwitt.
Studia Neophilologica 37 (1965): 146-60.
Comments on the varieties of love in PF, describing how the initiating concern with heavenly love in the summary of Scipio's dream is recalled and reinforced through the structure and details of the poem, conveying the need for "caritas," "common…
Moorman, Charles.
South Atlantic Quarterly 64 (1965): 87-99. Reprinted in A Knyght There Was: The Evolution of the Knight in Literature (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967), pp. 76-95.
Contrasts the conventionalized courtly characterization of the knight in BD with the relatively individualized courtly characterization of Troilus in TC, and goes on to assess the Knight and Theseus of KnT as a new kind of figure found only "at the…
Markland, Murray F.
Research Studies: A Quarterly Publication of Washington State University 33 (1965): 64-77.
Explores how each of the three major characters in TC seeks "happiness in earthly love." Even though they know that such pursuit is misguided, they are in "an unadmitted conspiracy not to recognize" their error, deceiving themselves and each other,…
Markland, Murray F
Research Studies: A Quarterly Publication of Washington State University 33 (1965): 1-10.
Compares how and to what extent Theseus in KnT and Prospero in Shakespeare's "The Tempest" are responsible for the initial disorder and the final order of their respective stories. Theseus progresses from aggressive engagement in the world to…
Knox, Norman.
Austin Wright, foreward. Six Satirists (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1965), pp, 17-34.
Explores relations between the literary-critical concepts of satire and irony (both verbal irony and situational or philosophic irony), identifying specific instances in PardT, GP, the juxtapositioning of tales and tellers, and more. Replete with…
Compares and contrasts John Dryden's description of Zimri in "Absalom and Achitophel" with Chaucer's description of the Pardoner in GP, emphasizing the "fine tension" between "precision and . . . universality" in the latter, and remarking on how…
Gordon, Ida L.
F. Whitehead, A. H. Diverres, and F. E. Sutcliffe, eds. Medieval Miscellany Presented to Eugene Vinaver by Pupils, Colleagues and Friends (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965), pp. 146-56.
Explains various kinds of irony evident in TC, and argues that the character of Criseyde is not ironic; she is consistent with Chaucer's sources, but "controlled by the manners and ideals of courtly love" even though these ideals are shown to be…
Engel, Claire-Eliane.
Revue des Sciences Humaines 120 (1965): 577-85.
Comments on the historicity and relative chronology of the military campaigns mentioned in the GP description of the Knight, observing how the events are out of sequence and how Chaucer's may have known of them.
Bentley, Joseph.
South Atlantic Quarterly 64 (1965): 247-53.
Maintains that the details and description of astrology in MilT along with its foreshadowing imagery establish a theme of Boethian determinism in the Tale. Accordingly, the character of each of the three male actors determines his unforeseen fate and…
Schulz, Herbert C.
San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1966.
Describes the Ellesmere manuscript, with particular attention to the illustrations of the pilgrims (here reproduced), the program of semi-vinet illumination, and the "Portrait of Chaucer." Also includes a description of the manuscript's text of CT, a…
Sutherland, John.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
Surveys the history of literature "from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Harry Potter," including a chapter called "English Tales: Chaucer" (pp. 26-32) that summarizes Chaucer's life, TC, and CT, characterizing both poems as "supremely great" and…
Hatton, Thomas J.
Chicago: Dramatic Publishing, 1982.
Adapts WBT for the stage, maintaining its Arthurian setting, the life-question, concern for female mastery, and faithful/faithless choice. Eliminates the rape motif (here a kiss) and the magical transformation (here a matter of disguise). Characters…
Urban, William.
London: Greenhill; St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing, 2006.
Surveys relations among mercenary practice, war, and the monetization of war-making in Western Europe. Includes comments on the "traditional" idealized view of the Knight and his Tale, attributing these views to John Aubrey in the seventeenth…
Peverley, Sarah.
Gail Ashton, ed. Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Culture (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 48-57.
Describes the dramatic adaptations of selections from CT presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company in November 2005, exploring how the adaptations and their staging at times modify and at times convey the "key elements" of Chaucer's work,…
