Johnston, Andrew James.
Manfred Pfister, ed. A History of English Laughter: Laughter from Beowulf to Beckett and Beyond (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2002), pp. 17-33.
Johnston assesses the interactions between religious allusion and satire in MilT, exploring the exegetical traditions of God's private parts, the Flood, and Absolon's use of the Song of Songs. The Tale generates laughter that ridicules religion and…
Ecker, Roland L.
Palatka, Fla.: Hodges and Braddock, 1993
A defense of evolution cast as an imitation of CT, with a prologue and several arguments in iambic pentameter, presented as the tales of the Astronomer, the Philosopher, the Physicist, the Biblical Scholar, the Cosmologist, etc. Revised editions in…
Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22: 407-14, 2000.
Chaucer invented the "De casibus" tragedy and assigned his tragedies to the Monk only after he had abandoned his "original serious attitude" toward them. Kelly comments on the place of MkT in Chaucer's sequence of composition.
Kellogg, Alfred L.
Alfred L. Kellogg. Chaucer, Langland, Arthur: Essays in Middle English Literature (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1972), pp. 276-329.
Reads Boccaccio's, Petrarch's and Chaucer's versions of the tale of Griselda, observing particular emphases, similarities, and differences, especially those that pertain to Griselda in relation to the ideal of the "mulier fortis" of Proverbs 31.10 in…
Examines the word "red," its connotations, and the evolution of related color words such as "crimson" and "peach" from Old English through 1900, focusing on Shakespeare and Chaucer.
Schaefer, Willene.
Dissertation Abstracts International 27.11 (1967): 3850-51A.
Investigates Chaucer's concept of "gentilesse" in light of his sources in Boethius, Dante, and Jean de Meun, and compares his notion with those found in the poetry of his contemporaries. Treats "gentilesse" as a secular virtue, although similar to…
MLT is animated by ambivalence toward and ignorance of Islam. Chaucer's adaptation of Trevet's "Cronicles" shifts emphasis and perspective. Whereas the source never mentions Mohammed or the Koran and considers Muslims to be idol-worshippers, MLT…
A history of English literature that emphasizes the continuity of ongoing forms and thematic concerns. Two chapters pertain to Chaucer: "Chaucerian Epic and Romance" and "Chaucer, Langland and the Treachery of the Text." The first traces how Chaucer…
Thirteen essays on the development of the Troilus story from antiquity to the modern age, with emphasis on Chaucer and Shakespeare. For eleven essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for The European Tragedy of Troilus under Alternative Title.
An illustrated encyclopedia of western cultures in the 14th-16th centuries that includes brief comments on "The Social Realism of Chaucer" in CT, with three accompanying passages in modern prose: the opening of the GP (1.1-41) the description of the…
Long, Lynne.
Ashley Chantler and Carla Dente, eds. Translation Practices: Through Language to Culture (New York and Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009), pp. 17-29.
Long assesses medieval translation practice through modern translation theory, exploring techniques of translation and the impact of translation on vernacular literatures. Includes sustained, comparative attention to Jean de Mean and Chaucer, with…
Allen, Judson Boyce.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982.
Medieval literary commentators uniformly assigned "literary works" to the category of ethics: poetry served as a kind of "enacted ethics" for the medieval audience. The commentators define and describe this material in terms of the "forma…
Baechle, Sarah, and Carissa M. Harris.
Chaucer Review 56.4 (2021): 311-21.
Introduces a special edition centered on Chaucerian scholarship and its relationship to power, empire, class, race, and gender, suggesting how scholars can navigate the toxic nature of Chaucer and his writings. Considers how scholars can "write about…
Chaucer treats NPT in his characteristically ambiguous manner--transcending his sources, denying, or transfiguring them. The Nun's Priest loses control of his argument, but the poet does not. In reducing the Fall of Man to a literal episode, Chaucer…
Van Dyke, Carolynn.
Donald V. Stump and others, eds. Hamartia: The Concept of Error in the Western Tradition: Essays in Honor of John M. Crossett. Texts and Studies in Religion, vol. 16 (New York: Edwin Mellen, 1983), pp. 171-91.
Chaucer's treatment of Troilus, the good man flawed by error, is compared to the treatment of Gawain in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," with a source study of the "Poetics" of Aristotle and "De consolatione philosophiae" of Boethius.
Léglu, Catherine E., and Stephen J. Milner, eds.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Ten essays by various authors explore topics related to the "Consolatio" of Boethius and its impact within vernacular traditions. The essays are divided equally under two headings: "Consolation and Desire" and "Consolation and Loss." For two essays…
Lines argues that the idealized chivalric homosocial bonding in Surrey's poem was influenced by KnT. Eulogizing the Duke of Richmond in this way critiques the debased version of political bonds in the court of Henry VIII.
Hopkins, Amanda, and Cory James Rushton, eds.
Rochester, N.Y.; and Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2007.
Thirteen essays by various authors, most focusing on depictions or deferrals of the erotic in Middle English romances, with other topics such as a branch of the "Mabinogi," female Jewish libido, fifteenth-century letters, and more. The editors'…
Pearcy, Roy J.
Notes and Queries 213 (1968): 43-45.
Attributes the sexual suggestiveness of the NPE (CT 7.3447-62) to the Host's familiarity with a commonplace association of a "man in a convent with a cock in a hen-run," citing parallels from French, Latin, and Italian sources, and exploring how the…
The Franklin revises the law of the sacrament of marriage according to the medieval understanding of Epicurus. Ironically, echoing Amis and la Vielle from the "Roman de la Rose," the Franklin advocates the pursuit of "ese" and "delit" and the…
Discusses classical, medieval, early modern, and modern examples of literary works that have been defined as "epic," seeking to demonstrate the uses and development of the term. Includes discussion of "Langland and Chaucer" (pp. 41-44) as part of…
Appreciative commentary on nineteen major works of literature, from Genesis to T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land." The section on Chaucer (pp. 69-83) focuses on critical attitudes toward his comedy, irony, and rhetoric, and assesses the "implied…
An anthology of literary quotations from English writers, arranged by the days of the months, January through December. Includes GP 1-18 under April 15.
Ando, Shinsuke.
Julian N. Wasserman and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 163-74.
Though well versed in French poetic traditions, Chaucer did not simply translate French into English. Rom uses a uniquely English idiom. Later works such as Th show a greater ability to discern connotations than do early works such as Rom and BD.
