Tamakawa, Asumi.
Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature 31 (2016): 33-2.
Examines the functions and placement of the northern dialects in RvT, and argues that they reflect the Reeve's negative feeling toward the clergy. In Japanese.
Presents the first of two successive articles on RvT and its analogues. Claims that "The Mylner of Abyngton" has not drawn as much critical attention as it deserves. Compares "The Mylner of Abyngton" with three continental analogues and discusses…
Burrow, J. A.
Notes and Queries 261 (2016): 191-94.
Explains that imitations of northern pronunciations in RvT, preserved in the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts, provide evidence that the shift of "a" from /a:/ to /ɛ:/ was underway in northern England during the fourteenth century. Notes similar…
Twomey, Michael W., and Scott D. Stull.
Chaucer Review 51.3 (2016): 310-37.
Analyzes the two houses in RvT and MilT and contends that Chaucer's precise description of architectural setting displays how architecture shaped medieval social life and communicated social and class satire.
Smith, Sueanna.
Sigma Tau Delta Review 8 (2011): 16-30.
Argues that MilT and RvT "revise the image of masculine chivalry constructed in" KnT, the first offering a model of "physical 'cherl' masculinity," the second "an image of masculinity that prizes internal desire over physical bravado." Through their…
Describes the cultural landscape that underlies John's exhortation to Nicholas in MilT to "Awak, and thenk on Cristes passioun!" (1.3478 ff.), showing that John's extended and naïve address resonates with the "affective piety" encouraged in the…
Bryan, Jennifer.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 38 (2016): 1-37.
Assesses "why puns matter so much" in MilT, both "speaker puns" and "recipient puns," exploring the yoked concerns of language and intention, and commenting on secular and religious punning in medieval linguistic, artistic, rhetorical, and lexical…
Analyzes the list of trees in KnT and discusses as counterpoint the lists in PF. Contends that KnT refigures the trope of epic listing to insert a tragic tone into Chaucer's retelling of Boccaccio's "Teseida."
Laird, Edgar.
Jack P. Cunningham, ed. Robert Grosseteste: His Thought and Its Impact (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2012), pp. 217-26.
Describes Grosseteste's notion of universals and Wyclif's treatment of it; then argues that KnT and MilT are, respectively, philosophically realist and antirealist, focusing on the First Mover speech in KnT as an example of Grosseteste's…
Argues that "two medieval methods of memorializing" are in tension in KnT: "celebration" of chivalric loss, and Boethian remembrance. Theseus's admonitions to remember Arcite "leave little room" for "healthy" mourning and reveal the limits of…
Guidry, Marc, and Charles Jones, eds.
Nacogdoches, Tex.: Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2011.
An art-edition of KnT, with wood-cut style illustrations accompanying the text, followed by a summary of the tale, and comments on its sources, date, genre, structure, themes, style, prosody, historical context, and previous illustrations in…
Al-Saleh, Asaad.
Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 45.1 (2012): 35-47.
Describes the idea of the "servant-become-warrior" in the Japanese "Tale of Heike" and in KnT, commenting on the etymological roots of "samurai" and "knight" and exploring how concepts of determinism, service, and Foucauldian disciplinary power…
Examines GP portrait of the Monk, and his obvious infractions against monastic norms and regulations, in light of Giorgio Agamben's "The Highest Property: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life" (2011), stressing not only the Monk's disdain for monastic…
Reflects on how GP yields patterns for writers to emulate, since the first line concerns the cycle of nature, patterns of order and hierarchy, and the theme of regeneration, in a syntactically complicated periodic sentence.
Yoo, Inchol.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 24.2 (2016): 27-51.
Analyzes SNT, MLT, and ClT to find forms of women's authority and determine how women's authority is constructed. Argues that women in these tales possess "charismatic, positional, and spiritual" authority as a result of their confrontations with…
Treharne, Elaine,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Surveys the emergence of earliest literature in Britain and Ireland, including well-known texts, such as "Beowulf" and CT, and less familiar manuscript and print works. Includes discussion of CT, LGW, and TC.
Siewers, Alfred K.
Stephanie LeMenager, Teresa Shewry, and Ken Hiltner, eds. Environmental Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 105-20.
Views "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Malory's "Morte Darthur," and CT through the lens of ecopoetics, contending that they all rely upon the interdependence of author, text, and audience; employ metonyms rather more than metaphors; play with…
Describes and assesses the presence of the comic mode in English literature, including a discussion (pp. 42-51) of portions of CT (especially MilT, RvT, and WBP) that explores how Chaucer achieves comedy without negating the "seriousness of the…
Explores how Chaucer's characters in CT challenge the medieval social norm of community over "pryvetee" by telling tales that expose others' "pryvetee and obscure their own; by profession as a means of asserting individual power over one's pryvetee;…
Lee, Dong Choon.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 24.2 (2016): 83-105.
Discusses medieval concepts of aging and Chaucer's depictions of old men in CT. Claims that Chaucer displays a balanced attitude in his depictions of old men, which differs from how medieval society tended to view the elderly in a negative light.
Focuses on the theological and comical elements of CT and its "beatific vision." Claims that Chaucer "provides a lyrical vision of the possibilities of poetry and pilgrimage" in GP.
Karolides, Nicholas J., Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova.
New York: Facts on File, 2011.
Originally published in 2005. Treats CT (pp. 474-77) in a section called "Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds," describing the pilgrimage and the social variety of the pilgrims, claiming that "Risqué language and sexual innuendo pervade most of…
Gerber, Amanda J.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Explores the political motivations of Ovid's "frame narratives" and how they appealed to and influenced medieval writers. For a chapter on Chaucer see Chapter 4, "Clerical Expansion and Narrative Diminution in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales."
