Jenkins, Simon.
A Short History of London: The Creation of a World Capital ([London]: Viking, 2019), pp. 33-42.
Chapter 4 of a social history of London, with emphasis on the plague, the status of the Church, the vivid characterizations of CT as a "window on the world . . . in all its richness," and Richard Whittington's mayoralty. Also published in The City on…
Item not seen; the single WorldCat record states that this is a filmstrip for children, with "Photographs of original pictures and the English countryside [that] illustrate life in the Middle Ages in England."
Interactive audio/video presentations on a series of historical and literary topics that relate to Chaucer, designed for classroom use. Includes nine presentations: "Interview with Chaucer," "Medieval London," "Chaucer Abroad: France," "Chaucer…
Allen, Valerie.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Introduction and study guide to Chaucer and his works (especially CT), with emphasis on connections with contemporaneous history and literature. Includes advice on how to approach medieval texts; extracts from the literature with discussion; a …
Evans, Ruth.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006): 263-70.
Considers the implications of source study and its revitalization in response to recent theory, raising questions about its (possibly irreconcilable) relationships with intertextuality, "genetic criticism," invention, translation, and electronic…
Edwards, Suzanne M.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Investigates the "discourses of [rape] survival" in medieval literature and its historical contexts, addressing the aftereffects of rape as they are depicted in saints' lives, anchoritic literature, accounts of raped wives (particularly Lucretia in…
Fowler, Elizabeth.
Thomas C. Stillinger, ed. Critical Essays on Geoffrey Chaucer (New York: G. K. Hall; London: Prentice Hall International, 1998), pp. 59-81.
In KnT, Chaucer questions force as a basis for government. Conquest "dissolves voluntary social bonds" and fails to produce the consent necessary to a good society. An agent of force, Theseus uses rhetoric to control others, and his final speech is…
Cavin, John A., III.
Dissertation Abstracts International 57 (1996): 198A.
Considers the opposing theories of James Thorpe and G. Thomas Tanselle and emphasizes the need for full understanding of the aesthetic of meter, as with Chaucer's "heroic" line.
Johnston, Andrew James.
Helen Fulton, ed. Chaucer and Italian Culture (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2021), pp. 145-68
Explores relationship between "astrology and governance," and Chaucer's ekphrastic descriptions of classical and Italian architectural and visual arts in KnT.
Benson, C. David.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Religion in the Poetry and Drama of the Late Middle Ages in England (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 101-17.
Argues that "Chaucer is as much a religious artist as a comic artist" and that to exclude either fabliaux or religious tales is to reduce the achievement of CT. Examines the common aesthetic of PrT, SNT, MLT, and ClT, which despite their stylistic…
Presson, Robert K.
English Miscellany 15 (1964): 9-21.
Surveys Chaucer's uses of thematic and stylistic contrast, antithesis, and contention, treating them not as examples of a divided mind "but rather of a mind most aesthetically aware how best to state what is experienced most intensely." Draws…
An abridged and adapted version of Bragg's book-length study "The Adventure of English, 500AD to 2000: The Biography of a Language" (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003; New York: Arcade, 2004), augmented for audio-visual recording with music, maps,…
A narrative history of the English language that includes a chapter entitled "Chaucer" (pp.67-76) which emphasizes Chaucer's variety of linguistic registers in CT. Also published in the U. S., with the title The Adventure of English: The Biography…
A device available to Chaucer, but no longer possible in the modern printed book, the illuminated initial, emphasizes the religious nature of the poem, an alphabetical sequence of eight-line stanza prayers to the Virgin. Fourteen of the seventeen…
Chaucer's descriptions of Alison and of Absolon's love of her in MilT parody the courtly diction and conventions found in "Alysoun" of the Harley lyrics. Possibly, Chaucer was influenced by the lyric.
Nevanlinna, Saara.
Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, and Matti Rissanen, eds. Placing Middle English in Context (Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 2000), pp. 339-56.
Traces uses of various prepositions ('of,' 'for,' 'with,' and 'in') and participles in conjunction with the adjective 'weary,' identifying when and where the uses were most frequent in Old and Middle English. Draws examples from Chaucer.
Von Kreisler, Nicolai Alexander.
Dissertation Abstracts International 29.06 (1968): 1882A.
Argues that in adapting the conventions of French love-visions Chaucer improves on his predecessors and comes close to perfecting one of major literary genres of the Middle Ages. Discusses BD, HF, PF, and LGWP.
Galloway, Andrew.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 33 (2011): 65-124.
Uses Maghfield's account book of mercantile and monetary transactions (1390-95) to explore the "ways in which mercantile culture and the 'new literacies' associated with credit and commerce contributed centrally to the development of Ricardian…
Lavezzo, Kathy.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016.
Addresses historical and social complexities of anti-Semitism and Jewish--Christian dynamics in medieval English texts. Chapter 3, "The Minster and the Privy: Jews, Lending, and the Making of Christian Space in Chaucer's England," focuses on…
Ohno, Hideshi.
Bulletin of Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts 20 (2015): 131–46.
Provides an overview of Chaucer's use of the absolute infinitive, and introduces its various types. Focuses especially on the uses of "seien," "speken," and "tellen" in parenthetical construction and discusses their function based on statistical…
Kern, Edith.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980.
Mikhail Bakhtin's study of the grotesquerie of medieval folk festivals encourages us to view certain Chaucerian characters in the carnivalesque spirit of absolute comedy: moral offenders such as Alysoun of MilT escape unscathed; Nicholas is punished…
Translations of Chaucer's works, especially CT, into modern English reflect individual translators' valuations of Chaucer's poetic virtues, whether "freshness," modernity, humor, irony, or something else.
