Friedman, Albert B.
Chaucer Review 9 (1974): 118-29.
Challenges critics who absolve Chaucer of anti-Semitism by blaming the Prioress instead. Anti-Semitism was rife in Chaucer's society, and he was likely complicit in the bias. Yet, the topic is a critical distraction in discussions of PrT, which…
Examines how song and sound create narrative meaning within PrT. Chaucer's choice of using the antiphon, "Alma redemptoris mater," reveals the "transformative force that sound bears." Discusses issues of performance, voice, and silences; aural…
Describes how the Boethian concept of divine (fore)knowledge of eternity underlies various aspects of TC and explores how narrative devices, allusions, the treatment of time, and the epilogue evoke the "illusion of 'present eternite' for the reader…
The vivid details of Decameron 7.3 (the story of Friar Rinaldo)-the corrupt clergy, their obesity and sweating faces, their rich foods and wine, together with the simplicity of the widow's life-suggest that Boccaccio's work may have inspired NPT as a…
The Host's aversion to this tale is a clue to its interpretations: the narrator, a typical medieval physician, reveals himself and his profession through his narration. The death of Virginia is emblematic of the Physician's lack of concern for his…
Studies aspects of PhyT that derive from hagiography, particularly its emphasis on Virginia as a "virgin martyr," not found in Chaucer's sources. As a result of Chaucer's various changes and genre modifications, the tale raises "grave questions of…
Leon Sendra, Antonio R.,and Francisco J. Garcia De Quesada.
Purificacion Fernandez Nistal and Jose Ma Bravo Gazalo, eds. Proceedings of the VIth International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1995), pp. 207-16.
Assesses the Physician as a skillful practitioner and comments on PhyT, audience response to the tale, sources, arrangement of materials, and Chaucer's message.
Windeatt, Barry.
English Miscellany 26-27 : 79-103, 1977-78.
In TC, Chaucer's "greater vehemence," his increase in specificity, and his heightening of emotion characterize his adaptations of Boccaccio's "Filostrato."
Comparison with contemporary documents show ParsT to be a manual for penitents; homiletic elements are minimal and the appeal is to reason rather than the emotions. Despite numerous minor inconsistencies ParsT has a clear and effective structure. …
The 'certyn thyng' the narrator deludedly pursues through scholarly exploration is the necessity of undergoing experience (i.e., entering the gates "for better of for worse") to discover the meaning of love. Nature's concern for the "commune profyt"…
It has been argued that the poem exhibits multiplicity and disharmony, though the poet shows a commitment to traditional forms of culture. There is no such commitment in PF. The multiplicity of authority and the "continuous self-reflexivity" does…
Lynch, Kathryn L.
Chaucer Review 25 (1990): 1-16; 85-95.
Although PF clearly treats love and courtship, its most central or motivating problems is the relationship between choice and will or understanding. Chaucer demonstrates a more thoroughly informed engagement with contemporary philosophy than critics…
Baker, Donald C.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 428-45.
Substantive criticism of PF really begins in 1935 with Bronson, who stated that the poem is a study of contrasts between man's views of love. Later critics have elaborated this view, noting the polarities of the work: the "Somnium" and the garden,…
PF offers an example of Chaucer's intertextuality. The two "olde bokys" mentioned--Macrobius's commentary on "Somnium Scipionis" and Alain de Lille's "De planctu naturae"--inform the themes of suffering in love and the limitations of natural law in…
Cowgill, Bruce Kent.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 74 (1975): 315-35.
Chaucer's unifying theme in PF is political rather than otherworldly. It involves the contrast between an orderly world governed by natural law (the gate's first inscription and Scipio's "commune profit") and a chaotic world controlled by selfish…
Like "Inferno" 5, PF contains references to Earthly Paradise and Hell, the dream, and the fate of those who attend to private lusts. Dante compares the plight of souls to that of several kinds of birds, including three of the four bird categories in…
Reed, Thomas L.,Jr.
Thomas L. Reed, Jr. Middle English Debate Poetry and the Aesthetics of Irresolution (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1990), pp. 294-362.
Discusses irresolution, style, persona, the "experiential labyrinth," Chaucer's sources, and the relationship of PF to the contemporary political world. The term "Parlement" evokes the university and law. The chapter is divided into five parts: …
Fries, Maureen.
John F. Plummer, ed. Vox Feminae: Studies in Medieval Woman's Songs (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University, 1981), pp. 155-78.
The vernacular "woman's song" focuses passively on the beloved (not the speaker's feelings), powerless to control the beloved. Such features serve as a context to analyze the "comic sex- and/or class-role reversal" in RvT, MerT, and Antigone's Song…
Friedman, John Block.
Chaucer Review 7.3 (1973): 250-66.
Surveys approaches to NPT, and discusses its appropriateness as a homiletic exemplum to the Priest as narrator, discussing its rhetoric, its misogynistic depictions of females, and its allusions to mermaid song and Physiologus (7.3270-72)
Following medieval rhetorical tradition, Chaucer has hidden his own name in the tale in anagrammatic fashion: "Ge" (for Geffrey, Chaucer's spelling of his own name) plus "Chau"ntl"c"l"er" results in "gentele Chaucer," employing the roman letters…
NPT is indebted to the naturalistic and mock-heroic tone of the French "Roman de Renard," as well as to an indigenous English tradition of didactic beast fables and exempla. The Priest's concluding exhortation on humility marks the point of the…
In ShT, Chaucer may have used the well-known text of Proverbs 31.10-31, which praises the valiant woman, in ironic fashion. The scriptural "mulier fortis" is praised for her "huswifery," her provision of food and clothing, her "rendering" to her…
