In his "Teatro d'huomini letterati" (1647), Gerolamo Ghilini includes a sketch of Chaucer's life and works based on John Pits's "Relationem historicarum de rebus anglicis" (Paris, 1619). Errors and omissions demonstrate that Ghilini depended wholly…
Dorris, George E.
Romance Notes 6.2 (1965): 141-43.
Identifies the earliest mention of Chaucer in Italian criticism, in the preface to Paolo Rolli's translation of Milton's epic, "Del Paradiso Perduto" (1729). Rolli's comments include recognition, perhaps the first, that Chaucer refers to Dante in…
Caroline Spurgeon's (1925) attribution of the first German essay on Chaucer to J. J. Eschenburg (1793) is inaccurate. Karl Friedrich Flogel published a short Chaucerian essay a decade earlier in "Geschichte der komischen Literatur" (1784-87). …
Peterson, Joyce E.
Chaucer Review 5.1 (1970): 62-74.
Argues that SqT reflects its teller's unsophisticated "effort to dissociate himself and courtly love from the . . . crude caricature" evident in MerT, and contends that when the Franklin interrupts the Squire he is "'pretending' to think him…
Martin, Joanna M., ed.
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020.
Edits thirty-four poems from Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.1.6—those found in no other manuscript—with texts, notes, glossary, and bibliography. The introduction includes discussion of language and scribes, and commentary on the poems'…
Koppy, Kate.
Karen Pratt, Bart Besamusca, Matthias Meyer, and Ad Putter, eds. The Dynamics of the Medieval Manuscript (Göttingen: V&R Academic, 2017), pp. 147-64.
Examines the arrangement and composition of two of the booklets of the Findern manuscript (Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.1.6) for the ways they may be seen as "the record of interactions within the community of readers and scribes who had…
Reiss, Edmund.
College English 25.4 (1964): 260-66.
Investigates the dramatic ironies of PardPT (comparing them with those of WBPT), arguing that the Pardoner does not reveal "more than he intends, but rather the converse": that none of the pilgrims "is able to see the full meaning of what he says"…
Daichman, Graciela Susana.
Dissertation Abstracts International 44 (1983): 485A.
In the "Libro de buen amor" and CT, Dona Garoza and the Prioress are treated satirically, in a tradition based on reports of bishops' visitations to convents.
Surveys the relationship between song and poetry in English tradition, identifying the tenacity of the association until the end of the nineteenth century as evident in poetry and in the statuary of London's Albert Memorial. Cites evidence from TC…
Durling, Robert M.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Treats the "significance of the Narrator's changeability or instability" in Renaissance epics by Boiardo, Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, with prefatory discussions of works by Horace and Ovid, Chaucer, and Petrarch. The chapter on Chaucer (pp. 44-66)…
Holloway, Julia Bolton.
DAI 35.04 (1974): 2225-26A.
Compares and contrasts CT, Dante's "Divine Comedy," and Langland's "Piers Plowman" as pilgrimage narratives, particularly their emphasis on the poet as pilgrim and movement toward salvation as structure.
Wurtele, Douglas (J.)
Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa 47 (1977): 478-87.
Ironic references to Solomon, who is typologically identified with Christ, as well as to the "Song of Solomon," makes January something of an anti-Christ figure, just as May is a blasphemous counterpart of Mary, and January's garden a degraded…
Describes backgrounds, and analyzes depictions of and references to Minerva in late medieval British literature, exploring her as “"redemptress, mistress of the liberal arts, patroness of princes, idol, and Venus' ally," and arguing that writers of…
Feimer, Joel Nicholas.
Dissertation Abstracts International 44 (1984): 3057A.
After a wide variety of classical treatments, Medea was transformed through the medieval concept of "fin' amor." Although her earthly passion is negatively contrasted with divine love in some works, she is canonized as a saint of love in LGW and in…
Chapter 2, "Civilization and Its Ambivalence," explores how Chaucer's rendering of Cressida has set the stage for all subsequent British and American portrayals of her.
Clogan, Paul (M.)
Medievalia et Humanistica 3 (1972): 213-40.
Surveys criticism of SNPT, describes the genre of hagiography, and summarizes the popularity of the St. Cecilia legend. Then argues that SNP heralds SNT in "theme, pattern, and imagery," effectively functioning "to focus and epitomize" its "figural…
Vila de la Cruz, (Maria) Purificacion.
Purificacion Fernandez Nistal and Jose Ma Bravo Gazalo, eds. Proceedings of the VIth International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1995), pp. 385-91
Explores different aspects of the love felt by Criseyde in light of the emotions expressed in BD. As a pragmatist, Criseyde thinks she will not suffer love's pains. Her feelings lack heroic grandeur.
Godfrey, Mary F.
Thomas A. Prendergast and Barbara Kline, eds. Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority, and the Idea of the Authentic Text, 1400-1602 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999), pp. 93-115.
PrT is anthologized apart from CT in three fifteenth-century manuscripts (Harley 1704, 2251, and 2382) that indicate that the Jews of the Tale were mere "stock villains of Marian legends." The manuscripts (variants and glosses) provide no evidence…
Exploring details and multilingual and multidialectical puns and etymologies through a "Proustian lens," Surber discovers sustained attention to homosexuality in CT. Critical uncertainty about specific meaning in Chaucer enables a queer reading that…
Gasse, Rosanne.
E. L. Risden, ed. "Sir Gawain" and the Classical Tradition: Essays on the Ancient Antecedents (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006), pp. 121-34.
Gasse reads references to Achilles in TC as indications that the story of Achilles "is clearly the mirror of Troilus's narrative." References to Achilles in Gower's "Confessio Amantis" and in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" can help readers…
The questioning of the fiend by the Summoner in FrT echoes "Purgatorio" 25. Both humans (Dante and the summoner) ask material questions of their supernatural guides; both guides direct the questions to the realm of the spiritual. The place of both…
Offers a theoretical model for representing language—both oral and literary—and analyzes various modes of discourse such as direct discourse, free indirect discourse, dual voicing, etc. Observes at one point (p. 369) that "Chaucer's free indirect…
