White, Thomas.
Myra Seaman, Eileen A. Joy, and Nicola Masciandaro, eds. Dark Chaucer: An Assortment (Brooklyn, N. Y.: Punctum Books, 2012), pp. 191-203.
Suggests that the textual layout of Th is authorial in the Ellesmere, Hengwrt, Cambridge MS Gg.II.27, and Dd.IV.24 copies of Th. Because other manuscripts do not adhere to this layout, they exemplify how scribes interpret texts rather than transmit…
Summarizes the scholastic idea of the book and applies the concept of the written word (book) as "essential epistemological instrument" to Wolfram's "Titurel" fragments (ca. 1220) and to TC. Chaucer presents Troilus as a misreader of texts who only…
Friend, Albert C.
Modern Language Quarterly 18 (1957): 305-08
Suggests Chaucer "was walking on dangerous ground" in choosing 1Timothy 6:10 ("Radix malorum . . .") as the theme of the Pardoner's sermon, adducing a Latin sermon by Oxfordian Robert Lychlade on the same theme that led to him being brought to trial…
DeZur, Kathryn Michelle.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 414A, 1999.
Analyzes the relationships of "interpretation, authority, and female sexuality" in works by Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Sidney. TC and WBPT contrast a lady seduced by her reading with a woman empowered by hers.
Gutiérrez Arranz, José M.
Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2009.
Commenting on medieval literary renditions of the story of Troy, Gutiérrez Arranz identifies places where Chaucer refers or alludes to this material, focusing on Chaucer's references to specific characters.
Biddick, Kathleen.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30: 449-62, 2000.
Reading the loathly lady's discourse on gentilesse (WBT) against the Statutes of Kilkenny (imposed by the English crown on the Anglo-Irish in 1366) highlights the conflict of nobility as defined either by blood line or by behavior (sanguinity or…
Contrasts the historical status of late-medieval plowmen with their literary status, considering Chaucer's Plowman in GP, Langland's "Piers Plowman," and the "other more minor plowmen poems" of late-medieval England.
McCracken, Peggy.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
Mentions MLT, PrT, and ClT in the larger context of gender and blood in medieval culture. McCracken argues that gendered cultural values are "mapped onto blood and that cultural values are inscribed into a natural order." Compares Chaucer's MLT with…
Taylor, Andrew.
Paul Budra and Betty A. Schellenberg, eds. Part Two: Reflections on the Sequel. (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 34-52.
Reads the "Tale of Beryn" and Lydgate's "Seige of Thebes" as acts of resistance to Chaucer's dissolution of his fiction in the meditation that is ParsT. These continuations of CT seek to keep alive the drama of CT through visualization, a form of…
Suggests Arabic texts not as sources for MerT, but as fellow exemplars of certain similar "universal" archetypes (tree, garden, billet-doux, key). Juxtaposes Arabic tales (some from "The Arabian Nights") with MerT, and organizes stories by tree type…
Contrasts Chaucer's version of Custance in MLT with that of Gower and Trevet in order to show how Chaucer emphasizes the foreignness of Custance in England and the negative reaction to her, comparing them with documentary instances of xenophobia…
Explores the classical and medieval poetic theories that underlie the genre of the fabliau, particularly its lack of concern with meaningfulness, commenting on several French fabliaux, and discussing the comedy and satire of MilT, RvT, ShT, and SumT.…
Comber, Abigail Elizabeth.
DAI A74.05 (2013): n.p.
Suggests that texts like PrT might be taught by examining their presentation of non-followers of Christianity as monsters, an alternative to post-colonial approaches.
Maleski, Mary A.
Chaucer Yearbook 05 (1998): 41-60.
Debates whether Chaucer's Prioress is childlike or simply childish, and questions why she is on a pilgrimage. Also discusses the extent of Chaucer's understanding of medieval religious women.
Stanbury, Sarah.
Valerie B. Johnson and Kara L. McShane, eds. Negotiating Boundaries in Medieval Literature and Culture: Essays on Marginality, Difference, and Reading Practices in Honor of Thomas Hahn (Boston: De Gruyter; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 2022), pp. 265-88.
Explicates the "cukkow"/cuckoo/cuckold pun in ManT by identifying the role of the cuckoo (versus the nightingale) in bird-debate poems, analyzed here, particularly in Sir John Clanvowe's "Boke of Cupide." Argues that, by engaging themes of…
Treanor, Lucia.
Santa Casciani, ed. Dante and the Franciscans. The Medieval Franciscans, no. 3. Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2006, pp. 229-88.
Pope Innocent III explicitly recognized the Greek letter 'tau' as representing the form of the cross and saw it as a sign of renewal in the church. Likewise the syllable 'te' was interpreted as a sign of the cross. Treanor explores graphic…
Provides links to online samples of Chaucer's works, "read by professors" and intended to "help students improve their pronunciation of Chaucer's Middle English." Includes passages from CT, TC, and other works. Formerly hosted at Virginia Military…
Goodman, Thomas A.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 1607A.
Religious learning as an aid for salvation is a theme running through late-fourteenth-century works including CT, Piers Plowman, and Wycliffite writing. Chaucer satirizes scholastic studies in WBT, FrT, and SumT. Although not involved in the…
Blurton, Heather, and Hannah Johnson.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017.
Explores the anti-Semitism of PrT, producing "a discussion animated by the ways in which antisemitism has emerged as the problematic that organizes scholarly response," and resists dismissing or excusing prejudice and hate in PrT. Tracks history of…
Brewer, D. S.
A. C. Cawley, ed. Chaucer's Mind and Art (New York: Barnes & Noble; Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1969), pp. 3-28.
Discusses representative examples of book-length studies of Chaucer written in the twentieth century (by Kittredge, Chesterton, Lowes, Dempster, Speirs, Donaldson, Muscatine, Payne, and Robertson); surveys several "main literary topics" in Chaucer…
Fletcher, Alan J.
Review of English Studies 58 (2007): 597-632.
Evidence suggests that Chaucer's careless scribe in Adam is Adam Pynkhurst. The Trinity College manuscript, containing prose tracts evincing Wyclif's influence, may be in Pynkhurst's hand. Chaucer's connection with this scribe could account for…
Horobin, Simon.
Review of English Studies 60 (2009): 371-81.
Reconsideration of Alan J. Fletcher's evidence (RES 58 [2007]: 597-632) does not support the claim that Adam Pynkhurst is the scribe of Dublin, Trinity College MS 244.
Hanning, Robert W.
James J. Paxson, Lawrence M. Clopper, and Sylvia Tomasch, eds. The Performance of Middle English Culture: Essays on Chaucer and the Drama in Honor of Martin Stevens (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 143-59.
In TC, the narrator and Pandarus are mediators--purveyors of desired commodities (women or love stories) to a designated recipient (Troilus; the audience assembled for the occasion). Hanning examines the "crisis of mediation" of late-medieval…
Chaucer's changes to source material emphasize what shapes a person and how she comes to understand and experience the world. If Virginia had continued to refuse her father and Virginius had cut off his daughter's head despite her protests, the Tale…
