Considers how Bohemian culture in the late fourteenth century influenced English medieval writers including Chaucer, Gower, and the Gawain- poet.Focuses on Anne of Bohemia, who married Richard II, and claims she "may have been in Chaucer’s mind as…
Hoffman, Donald L.
Will Wright and Steven Kaplan, eds. The Image of Nature in Literature, the Media, and Society (Pueblo, Colo.: Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, 1993), pp. 61-67.
Compares the depiction of social order in Aristotle's 'Politics' with that in PF. Chaucer's Natura is a figure of "communal order" who properly subordinates the drive for procreation to the need for social hierarchy.
Discusses Chaucer's accomplishments in the development of lyric poetry, with commentary on Machaut, Deschamps, Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Villon. Chaucer is the "high point" of the English tradition inspired by the French.
Mullally, Evelyn,and John Thompson,eds.
Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N. Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1997.
Thirty-seven essays by various authors arranged under five headings: Contexts for Courtliness, Fashioning History and Romance, Negotiating a Courtly Voice, Texts and Readers, and Limits of Courtliness. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search…
Brewer, Derek.
Flemming G. Andersen and Morten Nojgaard, eds. The Making of the Couple: The Social Function of Short-Form Medieval Narrative: A Symposium (Odense: Odense University Press, 1991), pp. 129-43.
Surveys views on sex and marriage in Chaucer's works and argues that his fabliaux reflect human desires to escape from and to re-create the couple. The brevity of the fabliau limits the possibilities of readers' identification with the characters…
Hill argues that Troilus's pagan, earthly joy in the second half of Book 3 of TC is Chaucer's representation of "the maximum of good and beauty to be found outside of Christian belief and the dispensations of faith." The intense joy experienced by…
Guidry, Marc S.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1997): 2224A.
As diplomat, MP, and associate of important political figures, Chaucer understood the operation of government and its rhetoric, reflected in Mel, MLT, ClT, KnT, and MerT. Chaucer's themes of class and gender relate to the nature of counsel-taking.
Moseley, Charles.
Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey, ed. Critical Essays on The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale (Harlow: Longman, 1990), pp. 46-54.
PardP characterizes him as "a mirror-image of all that is good," revealing his "ghastly pride" in his skills and his immorality. Ironically, PardT is a superb sermon, although its moral appears to be "quite lost on his hearers" (the pilgrim…
Grossman, Judith.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 1 (1979): 41-54.
John Barbour in "The Bruce" (1375) depicts Sir James Douglas as conforming to the knightly ideal in character and manner,but not in physical appearance. In Chaucer's TC, Criseyde occasionally departs from the pattern of idealized heroine. Through…
Doyle, A. I.
Martin Stevens and Daniel Woodward, eds. The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation (San Marino, Calif.: Huntingon Library; Tokyo: Yushodo, 1995), pp. 49-67.
Paleographic analysis of the five manuscripts or fragments attributable to the Ellesmere scribe: Ellesmere itself; the Hengwrt manuscript, except for "a few lines"; twenty-four folios of a copy of Gower's "Confessio Amantis;" a fragment of a leaf of…
Bayilmus Ogutcu, Oya.
DTCF Dergisi (Ankara University Journal of the Faculty of Languages and History-Geography) 56.2 (2016): 365-388
Uses Victor Turner's idea of "social drama" and medieval notions of the status of food, cooks, and kitchen work to argue that, in GP, the Franklin's cook and the Cook of the Guildsmen effectively reflect and/or reinforce the social aspirations of…
Sweany, Erin E.
In Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp, eds. Writing on Skin in the Age of Chaucer (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2918), pp. 119-44.
Reads the Cook's ulcer as potential leprosy in an effort to show how such signs on the skin act as points of uncertainty that impact the relationships among the pilgrims.
Brosamer, Matthew.
Donka Minkova and Theresa Tinkle, eds. Chaucer and the Challenges of Medievalism: Studies in Honor of H. A. Kelly (Frankfurt and New York : Peter Lang, 2003), pp. 235-51.
Brosamer investigates hell-mouth imagery in PardT, MLT, and LGWP, drawing upon a number of sources, especially De miseria condicionis humane by Pope Innocent III. The corruption of sin has an alimentary dimension, from ingestion to defecation.
Woolgar, Christopher M.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 262-76.
Reviews medieval cooks who could possibly have been models for Chaucer's Cook and suggests that Chaucer uses the Cook to reflect the social and moral issues of estates literature. Also, discusses the Cook's dislikes in CT and his connections with…
Nitecki, Alicia K.
Chaucer Review 16 (1981): 76-84.
Although the major sources of the Old Man figure have long been known, the existence of the figure in alliterative and lyric poetry shows how Chaucer transforms the tradition. His Old Man is a trope for man's desire for transcendence.
SNP and SNT express a feminist point of view not present in the original sources and analogues, but added by Chaucer in order to portray dramatically her character. She is contrasted with the Prioress and the Nun's Priest.
Rosenberg, Bruce A.
Chaucer Review 2.4 (1968): 278-91.
Provides point-by-point contrasting details and themes from SNT and CYT to argue that they were composed as a pair, wedded by a "theory of contraries." Focuses on fire, sight, work, the theme of God's will, the language and imagery of alchemy, and…
De la Torre Moreno, Maria Jose.
Teresa Fanego Lema, ed. Papers from the IVth International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval Language and Literature (Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 1993), pp. 293-303.
Examines the GP sketch of the Prioress for evidence that she is poorly matched with her vocation, a mismatch especially evident in her attractiveness, coquetry, and "zest for life."
Stokes compares the pledges of love-troth in the "Prose Lancelot" and TC, suggesting that they reflect a "specific kind of romantic relationship," neither marital nor illicit nor clandestine, but "solemn and binding" and based on the man's service to…
Wetherbee, Winthrop.
Michio Kawai, ed. Language and Style in English Literature: Essays in Honour of Michio Masui. The English Association of Hiroshima (Tokyo: Eihosha, 1991), pp. 159-77.
Considers MkT complete as an experiment in a new literary form that Chaucer used to medievalize materials.
The conception of the action of RvT in three dimensions is designed to provide more than narrative realism. By reducing the miller's area of influence, Chaucer represents metaphorically his being cut down to size by the students.
Shibata, Takeo.
Hiroe Futamura, Kenichi Akishino, and Hisato Ebi, eds. A Pilgrimage Through Medieval Literature (Tokyo: Nan' Un-Do Press, 1993), pp. 145-63.
Examines double-entendre in ShT, especially with words that relate to characters' action.
Addresses the engagement of medieval literature in the construction of European and Muslim identities in CT. Traces the origin and the politics behind the western construction of Muslims as "God's enemies in the Middle Ages and how this…
