Explores Chaucer's rhetorical, "inorganic," "non-narrative" structuring devices in various works: BD, Anel, selected lyrics, and TC, with comments on aspects of LGW and CT, especially Part 7 and ManT.
Rosenfeld, Jessica.
Catherine E. Léglu and Stephen J. Milner, eds. The Erotics of Consolation: Desire and Distance in the Late Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 39- 59.
Rosenfeld concentrates on language of lovers and language of clerks ("erotic and intellectual discourses"), arguing that TC affirms the value of earthly happiness during life, as well as the inevitable instability of earthly matters.
Longo, Joseph A.
Modern Language Quarterly 22 (1961): 37-40.
Examines references to times and dates in Book II of TC, arguing that Chaucer creates a double sense of time in order to convey a "rapid sequence of events" among the three main characters while also conveying through a "longer time scheme" the…
Stevens, Martin.
Saul N. Brody and Harold Schecter, eds. CUNY English Forum 1 (New York: AMS, 1985), pp. 155-74.
Argues, from the symmetrical structure of TC, binary rather than the popular five-part interpretation. Manuscript studies suggest that Chaucer originally wrote TC as a two-part poem and later changed it. Shakespeare had the same conflict.
Explains the ambivalences, ambiguities, paradoxes, and ironies--the double meanings--that are generated in TC by Chaucer's combination of Boccaccio's plot with Boethian philosophy (inflected by twelfth- and thirteenth-century philosophy of love),…
Cook, Mary Joan,RSM.
Florilegium 8 (1986): 187-98.
"By developing an inner and outer Criseyde, by occasionally indicating a disparity between the two, by raising questions about her behaviour and usually acknowledging that he, the narrator, does not have the answers, (Chaucer) convinces the reader…
Mitchell-Smith, Ilan.
In Jennifer N. Brown and Maria Segol, eds. Sexuality, Sociality, and Cosmology in Medieval Literary Texts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 101-21.
Includes discussion of KnT in a group of late-medieval English romances that differ from Continental romances in that they "outline a male heterosexual model informed by a Boethian contemptus mundi theme in which sobriety and reservedness replaces…
Wenzel, Siegfried.
Kent Emery, Jr., and Joseph Wawrykow, eds. Christ Among the Medieval Dominicans: Representations of Christ in the Texts and Images of the Order of Preachers. Notre Dame Conferences in Medieval Studies, no. 7 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), pp. 315-31.
Summarizes various kinds of influence Dominicans may have had on Chaucer, Gower, and Langland. From the lumping of Dominicans with other friars in literary portraits, to the influence of individual Dominican writers, to Dominican notions of salvation…
Gothic fantasy graphic novel in which Chaucer makes a cameo appearance, discussing poetry in a tavern in 1389. One of the characters in the tavern seeks to avoid death, an echo of PardT. Originally published in magazine form as The Sandman 9.16…
Labriola, Albert C.
Texas Studies in Language and Literature 12 (1970): 5-14.
Shows that "figures" (ship, castle, and related images) drawn from Augustinian theology and medieval sermons convey the "Christian concept of charity" in MLT and heighten its "religious intensity."
Observes parallels between the discussion of true gentility in WBT ("gentilesse"; 3.1109-1212) and fifteenth-century treatments of the subject in Latin (by Buonaccurso de Montemagno), French (Jean Mielot), and English (John Tiptoft), observing that…
Longsworth, Robert (M.)
Criticism 13 (1971): 223-33.
Characterizes the Physician of GP as "inscrutable," although "smelling mildly of hypocrisy," and argues that the "narrative uneasiness" of PhyT is well suited to this "man of the world [who] seeks to mask his worldliness in affected piety." The…
Rawcliffe, Carole.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 297-318.
Analyzes the historical background of late fourteenth-century medical practice in order to understand better Chaucer's portrait of the Physician in GP. Emphasizes how Chaucer reveals his opinions on morality, as well as the medical profession,…
Regenos, Graydon W.
Charles Henderson, Jr., ed. Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Honor of Berthold Louis Ullman. 2 vols. (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratre, 1964), 2: 41-46.
Argues that it "seems altogether likely" that when creating his GP description of the Physician Chaucer "at least had in mind" the doctor of the Brunellus the ass episode in Nigellus Wireker's "Speculum Stultorum"; both doctors are avaricious.
Although earlier scholarship has recognized the importance of the Feast of the Holy Innocents in PrT, a reading of the entire mass as it occurs in the Sarum use suggests that the "greyn" is not a mere prop but a symbol with rich liturgical…
Bourner, Paula Christine.
Dissertation Abstracts International 52 (1992): 2559A.
Although Chaucer and Christine de Pisan showed themselves well aware of the distorting mirror of gender constructions by men, the Renaissance produced even more misogynist views, especially in Jacobean domestic tragedy. Shakespeare, however,…
Esolen, Anthony M.
Studies in Philology 87 (1990): 285-311.
Spenser imitated Chaucer's bumbling narrative stance and tone and employed Chaucerian allusions to feign a humility that dismarmed criticism and enabled him to undercut the Tudor myth. Further, he expected his reader to understand the pretense. …
Leicester, H. Marshall,Jr.
Berkeley : University of California Press, 1990.
Treating "impersonated artistry" and "unimpersonated artistry" in light of current theory in the human sciences, Leicester addresses the "dramatic principle" in CT, assuming the position that the "tales are radically voiced." Each is "an expression…
Max Weber's distinction between an "ethics of commitment" and an "ethics of responsibility" can help make the connection between theoretical assumptions and pedagogical practices explicit. An "ethics of commitment" leads to the idea of the teacher…
Leavy, Barbara Fass.
Barbara Fass Leavy, To Blight with Plague: Studies in a Literary Theme (New York and London: New York University Press, 1992), pp. 41-82.
Assesses how and in what ways "disease of both body and soul" is a recurrent concern in CT, especially in fragment 6 which includes PhyT and PardT. Surmises that the fragment may have influenced Daniel Defoe's "A Journal of the Plague Year," and…
Doltas, Dilek.
Hacettepe Bulletin of Social Sciences and Humanities 3 (1971): 157-75.
While depicting love and marriage in the Marriage Group, Chaucer presents the "delights of both the flesh and the soul." The group opens with Mel; WBPT, ClT, and MerT offer extreme but lively views. FranT presents an ideal secular solution, while…
Greenwood, Maria.
Colette Stévanovitch, ed. L'Articulation langue-littrature dans les textes médiévaux anglais. Collection GRENDEL, no. 5 (Nancy: Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2005), pp. 133-56.
Greenwood contrasts Chaucer's and Malory's uses of models and antimodels in depictions of chivalry and courtly love.
Pakkala-Weckström, Mari.
Journal of Historical Linguistics 3: 151-73, 2002.
Examines "politeness strategies" (ye/thou) and emotional language in light of genre expectations and characterization. In MilT, MerT, and ShT, wives use various linguistic strategies to manipulate their husbands and others, but the linguistic…
Offers ShT as an example of how the use of fabliaux aids an understanding and exploration of marital dynamics, suggesting that the tale presents the merchant's marriage as a sort of economic contract between equals.
Lewis, C. S.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.
Intellectual backgrounds to the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, with particular attention to literature, classical, and late-classical influences; the concept of the universe and the earth; human physiology and psychology; and cultural…
