DeVries, David N.
Chaucer Review 32 (1998): 391-99.
Despite David Wallace's assertion that London is "absent" in Chaucer, and D. W. Robertson's contention that medieval Londoners were content within "an hierarchical classless society," CT depicts London as an "underworld," where unscrupulous…
Kolve, V. A.
Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1984.
Juxtaposes "visual materials and their literary analogues" to illuminate larger images created by narrative action. Seven chapters treat medieval hypotheses of audience and image; Chaucerian aesthetics of the image in the poem; KnT, the…
Hurd, Myles R.
College Language Association Journal 34:1 (1990): 99-107.
Presented differently than in Trevet, Chaucer's scenes of the blind Briton and the blindfolded Maurice in MLT emphasize the helplessness of humankind and the help of God. The emphasis is consistent with Innocent III's "De miseria condicionis humane"…
HF, a turning point in Chaucer's career and in English literary culture, reflects attitudes toward fame and glory from Homer to the Scholastics to writers of the Italian "trecento." The poem deals with issues of fame, poetry, and linguistic theory…
Peck, Russell A.
John V. Fleming and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 2, 1986. (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1987), pp. 33-48.
Examines through the eyes of modern poets the ability of medieval imagination "to bridge gaps gracefully between the poets and the world around them"--addressing "all varieties of experience, aspiration, and frustration," often through fresh and…
Surveys criticism of ClT in order to show the "inadequacy" of this criticism and reads the Tale as a "typological allegory" even though it goes steps beyond its sources in depicting the plot realistically.
Sociohistorical commentary on the rise of prestige markers in English writing and speech, focusing on accent as a marker in Chaucer's time and soon after, in particular the pronunciation of final -e, the Great Vowel Shift, and northern dialect…
Boitani, Piero.
Giuseppe Galigani, ed. Italomania(s): Italy and the English Speaking World from Chaucer to Seamus Heaney. Proceedings of the Georgetown and Kent State University Conference Held in Florence in [sic] June 20-21, 2005 (Florence: Mauro Pagliai, 2007), pp. 15-25.
Boitani surveys Chaucer's "ongoing dialogue" with Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, discussing how Chaucer's borrowings reflect his "prodigious memory and striking associative and intertextual skill." Draws examples from PF, TC, KnT and ClT and…
Rex, Richard.
Modern Language Quarterly 45 (1984): 107-22.
Cites evidence from medieval theology, sermon literature, etc., to show fourteenth-century religious tolerance of Jews and the belief that they could gain salvation. PrT is Chaucer's ironic comment on the Prioress, religious prejudice, and common…
Delany, Sheila, ed.
New York and London : Routledge, 2002.
Fourteen essays by various authors who study Jews as an absent presence in medieval England, considering fourteenth- and fifteenth-century texts for their literary, historical, theological, and visual representations of Jews. Some essays reprinted.…
Reads PF in light of its sources as an allegory of aristocratic responsibility for maintaining natural law and a just society; KnT as an exploration of lawlessness set against the background of Status's "Thebaid," focusing on the tournament; and the…
Wenzel, Siegfried.
Studies in Philology 73 (1976): 138-61.
The influence of sermon language and structure has been recognized in certain of Chaucer's characterizations. However, his reliance on contemporary preaching obviously goes beyond such loose imitation to the borrowing of story plots, images, and…
Bisson, Lillian M.
New York : St. Martin's Press, 1998.
Reads Chaucer's works for the ways they reflect the "conflicting realities he confronted in his world." An opening section on "The Poet and His World" introduces the "double vision" of the intellectual world Chaucer inherited and describes his…
Harbert, Bruce.
Derek Brewer, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer. Writers and their Background (London: G. Bell, 1974), pp. 137-53.
Clarifies various difficulties in determining "how much classical Latin literature" Chaucer knew and details his relative familiarity with works by Cicero, Livy, Cato, Lucan, Statius, Claudian, Virgil, and Ovid. Chaucer was little influenced by…
Hornsby, Joseph Allen.
Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1988.
Explores Chaucer's legal background, his connection with English canon law of agreements, the secular law of agreements, and medieval English criminal law and procedure.
Morgan, Philippa.
New York: Carroll & Graf; London: Constable, 2005.
Historical detective novel, with Chaucer, while on a diplomatic mission to Florence in 1373, investigating the murder of Florentine banking magnate Antonio Lipari who had arranged to loan money to Edward III.
Braswell, Laurel.
English Studies in Canada 2 (1976): 373-80.
Two narratives of the "Legenda aurea" are likely sources for the anti-mendicant satire in WBP and WBT. Imagery in the legends of Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Francis of Assisi parallels the Wife's anti-mendicant satire, and provides a close…
Dixon, Kathleen Stroing.
Dissertation Abstracts International 48 (1988): 2878-79A.
The question whether a poet celebrates the famous (medieval view) or seeks personal fame (Renaissance) is examined through classical and medieval traditions and in HF.
Explores the "predominant secularity" of Chaucer's "attitude" toward the liturgy in his various references to and uses of ecclesiastical calendars, legendaries (saints' lives, hagiographies, or lectionaries), sacramentals, breviaries, missals,…
Discusses a "fourteenth-century lending law" as a possible source of Chaucer's ShT, with its depiction of a "bourgeois financial triangle." More work needs to be done on Chaucer's knowledge of municipal ordinances.
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 65 (1966): 274-86.
Provides context for understanding Chaucer's references to Wade and to his boat (TC 3.614 and MerT 4.1423), summarizing medieval narratives and allusions to the hero in order to outline his "salient characteristics" and the deceptive (although…
