Moseley, C. W. R. D.
Modern Philology 72.2 (1974): 182-84.
Suggests that the influence of Mandeville's "Travels" on SqT and on alliterative poetry including "Pearl" may have been due to the circulation of the work at the Lancastrian court of John of Gaunt.
The anti-Semitism of PrT is attributable to the Prioress, not to Chaucer, who would have known Jews through the courts of Castile (referred to in MkT) and who presents Jews as "renowned historians and transmitters of knowledge in the field of…
Fuller, David.
Sarah Haggarty, ed. William Blake in Context (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 173-83.
Reads Blake's "varied interactions with Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare" as "an education in possibilities of serious reading." In the case of Chaucer, Blake reads "for archetypes, not distracted . . . by historical contingency or an appearance of…
Hieatt, A. Kent.
Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1975.
Spenser drew upon Chaucerian and Milton upon Spenserian narrative for mythopoeic embodiments of moral ideas, which they in turn adapted and transformed. From PF, KnT, Marriage Group, and SqT Spenser assimilated ideas of continuity, harmony and free…
Traces the medieval legend and cult of Saint Loy the horsesmith, especially from British sources; identifies references to the saint in GP and FrT. Two gazetteers assemble artistic and cultural evidence for the legend in Europe and the British…
Goldstein, R. James.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 185-304; 3 b&w figs.
Goldstein assesses the "rhetoric of Troilus's suicidal death wish" in TC 1, 4, and 5, comparing passages with Boccaccio's version and challenging critical traditions that view Troilus's thoughts as merely rhetorical or absurd. Also evident in LGW and…
Conrad-O'Briain, Helen.
Philip Coleman, ed. On Literature and Science: Essays, Reflections, Provocation (Dublin: Four Courts Press), 2007, pp. 27-42.
Considers FranT rather than CYT Chaucer's clearest contribution to science fiction, a genre here presented with an ancient legacy. In FranT, Chaucer uses the "tension at the heart of science fiction--between the possible and the not necessarily…
Pandarus's reference to two crowns (TC 2.1735), when speaking to Criseyde before she visits Troilus in Deiphebus's house, alludes to Saint Agnes, sets the date of this meeting as Saint Agnes's Eve (January 20), and thus establishes a chronology for…
Coleman, William E.
Medium AEvum 51 (1982): 92-101.
Chaucer's acquisition of a manuscript of "Teseida" in 1378 suggests that Chaucer omits reference to Boccaccio because he may have seen the imperfect Pavia MS 881, which lacked Boccaccio's commentary and attribution to Boccaccio.
Considers ways that female monastic readers in Amesbury and Syon may have read and used works by Chaucer, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Lydgate. Claims that these "Chaucerian tradition" writings helped influence the devotional culture of female monastic…
Ackerman, Robert W.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies. Rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 21-41.
References to popular Christianity pervade Chaucer's work, especially CT and the shorter poems, but these usually concern the lower clergy and routine matters. His canon does not include ponderous didactic allegory or theological treatises.
Baechle, Sarah.
In Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, John T. Thompson, and Sarah Baechle, eds. New Directions in Medieval Manuscript Studies and Reading Practices: Essays in Honor of Derek Pearsall (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), pp. 384–405.
Discusses how editorial glosses and marginalia in extant manuscripts of CT were received and interpreted by medieval readers in the fifteenth century. Includes examination of Latin source glosses of WBPT.
Garbaty, Thomas J.
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. 95-102.
Chaucer needs no protection from students who question the more negative aspects of his life. Though Chaucer was "no saint," his life is devoid of anything particularly shameful. The Hainault connection simply gave Chaucer leisure and security…
d'Ardenne, S. R. T. O.
Arno Esch, ed. Chaucer und Seine Zeit: Symposion für Walter F. Schirmer (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968), pp. 47-54.
Characterizes Chaucer as "typically" English, commenting on his name, his sense of humor, his "love of nature," and his concern with fate, fortune, and "wyrd." Suggests several English books that Chaucer "must have read."
Harty, Kevin J.
Studies in Short Fiction 31 (1994): 489-90.
Although other allusions to the liturgy of Holy Week have been found in MLT, an allusion previously unnoted occurs when Constance is set adrift with her infant son, another instance of Chaucer's adding to the pathos of Constance's situation.
Fesko, J. V.
In Ronald S. Baines, ed. By Common Confession: Essays in Honor of James M. Renihan (Palmdale, Calif.: Reformed Baptist Academic Press, 2015), pp. 17-37.
Argues that ClT allegorically "reveals key elements of a medieval doctrine of justification," reading Walter as God and Griselda as a "reformed sinner." The tale also "provides a window into how a number of key scriptural texts figured into this…
Brown, Emerson, Jr.
Chaucer Review 13 (1978): 141-56.
MerT is not just a merry fabliau, uncomplicated by a fictional narrator. Through evidence included in the prologue, most of the first hundred and fifty lines, and various other passages in the work, we see that Chaucer may have consciously tried to…
In the Merchant and MerT Chaucer objectifies his own cultural bias against women and his own interest in financial profit. The Merchant is like January (Janus was the god of merchants), and Chaucer (born into a family of merchants) is like the…
Surveys Chaucer's attention to the theological issue of bodily resurrection in FrT, SumT, and PardT, set against a survey of orthodox and heterodox positions in the Church Fathers and Dante. Then establishes Chaucer's "conservative" attitude toward…
Weitzenhoffer, Kenneth.
Sky and Telescope 69 (1985): 278-81.
In late November, 1984, Jupiter, Venus, and the crescent moon were in the same configuration Chaucer may have seen May 12,1385, and mentioned in TC 3, associated with the torrential downpour. The terminus a quo for TC 3 is 1385.
A review of the allusions to rhetoric in London poets of Chaucer's time fails to reveal a single firsthand reference to an original text. Rhetorical concepts contributed indirectly to their conceptions of poetry and gave the poets an air of literary…
Woolf deleted a description of Chaucer and one of the Pointz Hall library when revising materials for "Between the Acts," reflecting her growing belief that books were no longer the center of culture in 1939-40. Traces references and allusions to…
Wawn, Andrew N.
English Language Notes 10 (1972): 15-20.
Describes the extract/summary of the "Plowman's Tale" in Henry Vaughn's "The Golden Fleece" (1626, under the pseudonym "Orpheus Junior") and explores his claim that Chaucer influenced Wycliff through this spurious tale.
