Browse Items (16334 total)

Boitani, Piero.   Cambridge:
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…

Hackett, John P   DAI 33.03 (1972): 1169A.
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.

Smith, Jeremy J.   SAC 24: 335-46, 2002.
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, ed.   Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Essays on Anglo-Italian relationships and Chaucer's borrowings. For individual essays, of this volume.

Giaccherini, Enrico.   Piero Boitani, ed. Chaucer and the Italian Trecento (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 297-304.
On Chaucer's Italian sources.

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.…

Cowgill, Bruce Kent.   DAI 31.10 (1971): 5357A.
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…

Cannon, Christopher.   Ardis Butterfield, ed. Chaucer and the City (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2006), pp. 79-94.
CYT is Chaucer's London tale par excellence; its "craft sounds" evoke both what the city is and what it is not.

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…

Taylor, Paul Beekman,with Sophie Bordier.   Traditio 47 (1992): 215-32.
Traces the sources of Chaucer's knowledge of the muses, considering especially the meaning of his reference to Clio in TC 1 and to Calliope in TC 3.

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.

Boyd, Beverly.   Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1967.
vii, 88 pp.; 12 b&w plates.
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,…

Braswell, (Mary) Flowers.   Chaucer Newsletter 8:2 (1986): 1-2, 6-7.
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…

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…

Robbins, Rossell Hope.   Poetica (Tokyo) 15-16 (1983): 107-27
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…
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