Van Ameyden van Duym, Hidde Hendrik.
DAI 31.08 (1971): 4137.
Studies English/Flemish relations and Chaucer's contact with the Low Countries as a diplomat and as Controller of Customs, gauging the extent to which this contact affected his fiction in SqT, MerT, and WBP, and the ways that his "realism" can be…
Arguing that "Chaucer changed the direction of the Middle English lyric," Robbins comments on Chaucer's lyrics, on fifteenth-century lyrics, and on the influence of TC on the latter.
Kean, P. M.
London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972.
Describes Chaucer's contributions to English literary tradition: a "new kind of organization" of large narrative, an "urbane" style that assumes a shared set of values with its audience, and a "new attitude" toward the "usefulness and dignity" of…
Brown, Peter.
Oxford and New York : Peter Lang, 2007.
Brown traces classical and medieval study of optics in various kinds of writing, arguing that in the late Middle Ages the science of "perspectiva" became part of intellectual consciousness, influencing Chaucer and several of his models (Jean de Meun,…
Federico, Sylvia.
Medieval Feminist Forum 43.1 (2007): 72-75.
Discusses, on the one hand, psychoanalytic approaches to literature, femininity, and various aspects of Troilus and the narrator of TC; and, on the other hand, historicism, masculinity, and other features of Troilus and the narrator. Points out…
The program of illustrations in the unique witness to "La Crónica Troyana de Alfonso XI" inadvertently undermines Alphonso XI's efforts to situate his people and himself within a "heroic, even mythical, past" and predicts the tragedy that would…
Curry, Walter Clyde.
New York: Barnes & Noble, 1960.
Revises slightly the author's 1926 study of the same title (Oxford University Press), here adding two essays, also previously published: "Destiny in Troilus and Criseyde" (1930) and "Arcite's Intellect" (1930). The enlarged edition also updates the…
An introduction to "those aspects of Chaucer studies which involve manuscripts and incunabula," designed for classroom use, including discussion of binding, manuscript production and materials, decoration and illumination, paleography, book trade and…
Southmayd, David Edward.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1981): 3596A.
Chaucer develops original significances for birds, especially in HF, NPT, and PF. Birds variously represent the bestial in humanity, models for human society, objects of ridicule, and mediators between God and man. All four can be seen in the…
Mann, Jill.
Derek Brewer, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer. Writers and their Background (London: G. Bell, 1974), pp. 172-83.
Argues that medieval Latin satiric writers such as Nigel of Longchamps and Walter of Châtillon contributed to the "essential nature" of Chaucer's "poetic imagination." In WBP, NPT, and elsewhere, Chaucer capitalizes on the satiric potential…
Dronke, Peter.
Derek Brewer, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer. Writers and their Background (London: G. Bell, 1974), pp. 154-72.
Part 1 traces the influences of Bernard Silvestris and Alan of Lille on Chaucer's works, focusing on themes of fatalism (in MLT), cosmic ascent (in HF) and hierarchy and nature (in PF). Regards Alan's influence as "profound," especially in PF, and…
Jones, George Fenwick.
Modern Language Quarterly 16 (1955): 3-15
Clarifies the typicality of Chaucer's Miller by identifying characteristics that "were commonly ascribed to millers in late-medieval literature." Like analogous miller's, he is "is red-haired, coarse-featured, socially ambitious, muscular,…
Clogan, Paul Maurice
Dissertation Abstracts International 22.10 (1962): 3641.
Studies the "form in which Chaucer may have known Statius' poetry," focusing on "medieval glossed manuscripts" in order to identify correspondences between the poetry of Statius, commentaries on it, and Chaucer's works. Assesses the status of Statius…
Social history of late-medieval England, designed for adolescents, including discussion of Chaucer as "royal servant," poet, and "father of the English language" (pp. 1-9). Recurrent mention of Chaucer in subsequent discussions of historical topics.…
Scheps, Walter.
Studies in Scottish Literature 22 (1987): 44-59.
All major poets of the fifteenth century in England and Scotland considered themselves disciples of Chaucer. The extent to which they actually emulated Chaucer in their works, however, is questionable. Additional studies involving the Chaucer…
Fradenburg, Louise Olga.
Dissertation Abstracts International 43 (1983): 3313A.
Scottish Chaucerians emphasize the different aspects of Chaucer's work--love fiction: "The Kingis Quair;" retribution: Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid;" and diction: Dunbar's "Thrissill and the Rose."
Modern readers must resist the limitations of twentieth-century literary-critical approach and interpret Chaucer in the traditional critical context: studies of manuscript tradition, text, and lexical context.
Olson, Donald W.,and Laurie E. Jasinski.
Sky and Telescope 77 (1989): 376-77.
Chaucer is assumed to have had a high level of astronomical knowledge, unusual for medieval times. Olson and Jasinski used an Apple IIe microcomputer to investigate certain celestial constellations and to prove that Chaucer was correct in his…
Arner, Lynn.
Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Tison Pugh, eds. Chaucer on Screen: Absence, Presence, and Adapting the "Canterbury Tales" (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2016), pp. 69-87
Describes the limited presence of Chaucer in the early American films, commenting on a Motion Picture Academy educational promotion and a "distorted" version of PardT, "On Borrowed Time" (1939). Offers five reasons for this scarcity:…
Discusses poet-narrator ambiguity in four TC prologues and the Epilogue and in the narrator's guise as historian. The narrator is detached and didactic but also compassionate and helpless.
Wilks, Michael.
Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 44 (1962): 489-530.
Traces in biblical, classical, and political sources the development of the idea that the Pope and other rulers gain sovereignty through "mystical marriage" to their respective institutions, arguing that WBT "bears a striking similarity to [this]…
Boenig, Robert.
Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1995.
Similarities between Chaucer and the Middle English mystics do not imply a conscious intention on his part either to imitate the mystics or to parody them ironically.
Palmer, David Andrew.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1977): 6507A-08A.
There is a tradition which views the knight's pursuit of love as an inversion of responsibility to God and to society. In CT, the Knight embodies spiritual and social duty whereas the Squire represents a subversion of proper knightly functions.
