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.
Foster, Michael.
Sabine Coelsch-Foisner and Wolfgang Görtschacher, eds. Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' in English Poetry (Heidelberg: Winter, 2009), pp. 51-67.
Argues that Chaucer's use of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" in BD is closer to that of Guillaume de Machaut than that of Jean de Meun, and compares and contrasts Chaucer's version of the Ceyx and Alcyone story with those of Machaut and Ovid.
Leland, John L.
Medieval Prosopography 15 (1994): 115-38.
Those compelled to abjure the court in 1388, while less well known than the companions of Richard II who faced charges of treason, can be studied collectively as typical members of Richard's court. They include an older group, friends of Richard's…
Taking its editor's preface as a cue, an examination of this edition, which has heretofore been labeled a reprint of John Bell's 1782 edition, reveals that it is in fact "a considerable re-evaluation of Chaucer's works."
Strohm, Paul.
Asa Briggs and Daniel Snowman, eds. Fins de Sicle: How Centuries End, 1400-2000. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 7-37.
Explores how late-medieval English people regarded their age: as a time growing old and verging on cataclysm, especially as reflected in social unrest and the deposition of Richard II. Includes a number of references to and quotations from Chaucer…
Kang, Ji-Soo.
Medieval English Studies 05 (1997): 145-70.
Explores medieval theories of narrative closure in Matthew of Vendome, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Brunetto Latini, and John of Garland to argue that if "inconclusiveness" is a thematic goal, the end of a work is the "natural place to accent it." As an…
Bradley, Sister Ritamary, C. H. M.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 55 (1956): 324-30.
Comments on how "the medieval mirror and wisdom metaphor is utilized" in WBP and helps to characterize the Wife, ironically, as a figure of comic "worldly prudence" rather than true wisdom. Cites other examples from CT of ironic characterization…
Williams, George.
Modern Language Review 57 (1962): 173-78.
Argues that several prominent figures in the "Troilus" frontispiece (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61) represent John of Gaunt; his second wife, Constance of Castile and Laon; his mistress, Katherine Swynford; his first wife, Blanche of…
Fein, Susanna.
Jenny Adams and Nancy Mason Bradbury, eds. Medieval Women and Their Objects (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), pp. 15-38.
Argues that the power of WBT, though it is commonly regarded as a lai," comes from an underlying subversion by the use of fabliau, which makes the tale a "hybrid story." The "question of what women most want" has surprising affinities with the…
