Aspinall, Dana E.
University of Mississippi Studies in English 11-12 (1993-95): 230-42.
A psychoanalytic reading of the Pardoner that views him as one who struggles to escape the influence of his father-figure (God) and simultaneously to escape literary models posed in the Bible. Freud and Harold Bloom enable us to see the struggle…
To show that love for hunting does not preclude piety, the worldly Monk of GP invokes Edward the Confessor, who was often portrayed as a celibate Christian as well as a passionate hunter. Because of Edward's dual interests, the Monk's pursuit of…
Gutierrez Arranz, José María.
Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre and M. Nila Vázquez González, eds. Medieval English Literary and Cultural Studies (Murcia: Universidad de Muscia, 2004), pp. 71-80.
Discusses the uses and functions of classical myth in Chaucer's works from a double perspective: Chaucer's knowledge of the different stories and his creative adaptations of this material.
Keiper, Hugo.
Richard J. Utz, ed. Literary Nominalism and the Theory of Rereading Late medieval Texts: A New Research Paradigm (Lewiston, N.Y.; Queenston, Ont.; Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen, 1995), pp. 205-34.
Demonstrates the fundamental, formal open-endedness of BD, HF, and, especially, PF, arguing that the poems exemplify a kind of "literary nominalism" that obliquely reflects contemporary philosophical discourse. Aligns nominalism with "open literary…
Pearsall, Derek
Rosemary Horrox and Sarah Rees Jones, eds. Pragmatic Utopias: Ideals and Communities, 1200-1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2001, pp. 11-25.
Late-medieval changes in monastic life affected the presentation of monks in secular English literature, including works by Langland, Chaucer, and Lydgate. Chaucer's presentation of monks in GP, MkT, and ShT reflects the "new monk," who uses…
Considers walking and other forms of mobility in terms of social expectations of urban movement and movers. Examines works by various authors, including Chaucer, Hoccleve, and Shakespeare.
O'Connell, Brendan.
Kathy Cawsey and Jason Harris, eds. Transmission and Transformation in the Middle Ages: Texts and Contexts (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), pp. 131-56.
Chaucer addresses the "late medieval attack on analogical thought through his discussion of the failure of alchemy." SNT presents analogical thinking through its clear, but bridgeable, contrasts of spirit and body, whereas CYT offers an uncertain…
Uses KnT and TC (among other works) as case texts for a study of recognition within various forms of medieval romance. In particular, Manion argues that these Chaucerian texts use recognition as a means of speculating on the limits of interpersonal…
Jucker, Andreas H.
Jonathan Culpeper and Dániel Z. Kádár, eds. Historical (Im)Politeness. Linguistic Insights, no. 65 (Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 175-200.
Traces developments in the politeness system between Old English and Early Modern English, focusing on Chaucer's uses of the term "curteisie," his uses of the pronouns of address ("ye" and "thou") in MilT, and cases of "discernment" politeness in…
Arnovick, Leslie K.
Oral Tradition 11 (1996): 320-45.
Chaucer's proverbs in HF point up the provocative tension between orality and literacy in the Middle Ages. Ultimately, however, the poem illustrates that Chaucer favors literacy.
Boitani, Piero.
Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox, eds. Literary Aspects of Courtly Culture: Selected Papers from the Seventh Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994), pp. 135-52.
Examines intertextual relations among the opening of TC 3, its sources in Boethius and Boccaccio, Dante's "Inferno," and Guido Guinizelli's canzone, "Al cor gentile rempaira sempre amore." Chaucer's modifications of his predecessors and Troilus's…
Mel is "very much about what happens when texts are taken out of one context and put to work in another." Prudence invokes gender in shaping her arguments, and her presentation of her authorities reminds us that the "processes of textual engendering…
Focuses on three letters that preface Thomas Speght's Chaucer editions, which "conceive, invite, and attempt to influence their audiences." Argues that these letters reveal that the intended audience included both the established audience for Chaucer…
Taylor, Karla.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticsm. MRTS, no. 104. Binghamton, N. Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 239-56.
Compares how Dante's Paolo and Francesca fall in love with the process of Criseyde's falling in love. Each poet self-consciously depicts love, but whereas Dante maintains a conventional view of his feminine character, Chaucer discloses the…
Rudat, Wolfgang E. H.
CEA Critic 58.2 (1996): 35-47.
Allusive echoes among the GP description of the Prioress, WBP, and the biblical Proverbs suggest that Chaucer subtly condemns the Prioress for sexual excess.
Lutton, Jeannette Hume.
Donald Palumbo, ed. Spectrum of the Fantastic (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1988), pp. 3-19.
Drawing on the myth of Proche and Philomela, Dante uses birds to symbolize night and day, while Chaucer uses them to symbolize the love of Troilus and Criseyde. Both writers invoke images from the myth to represent love-gone-wrong.
McInerney, Maud Burnett.
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the 'Canterbury Tales' and 'Troilus and Criseyde' (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 221-35.
Chaucer plays with Ovid's "Metamorphoses" in his characterization of Troilus in bk. 3, examining the nature of masculinity by depicting Troilus as a "man trapped between two literary modes of loving."
FranT contains a system of alternating parallel events--troth-plighting, complaint, and compassionate help--repeated in threes, reinforcing the theme of "gentilesse." The "trouthe" and "complaint" episodes show a "progressive decline," but the…
Ambrisco, Alan S.
Chaucer Review 38 (2004): 205-28.
The Squire's "bad use of occupatio and his self-conscious admissions of rhetorical inadequacy" preserve the foreign, "acknowledging Mongol cultural differences but failing to clarify the terms on which such differences rest." Through "this rhetoric…
Mahowald, Kyle.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 32 (2010): 129-50.
Similar to gift giving as theorized by Jacques Derrida (in response to Marcel Mauss), the dividing of the fart in SumT is "an impossible" that prompts logical deliberation and logocentric reflection. Linked via punning, the giving of money in SumT is…
Miller, Robert P.
English Language Notes 23 (1985): 71-72
In the GP portrait Chaucer uses the metaphor of food that "snewed" to make an ironic comparison between the Franklin's epicureanism and the spiritual life represented by scriptural manna.
