Asks why Chaucer uses a "Latin masculine name of the month to refer to his very feminine heroine" in MerT, answering that it contributes to the theme of healing in the Tale, much as does Damyan's association with St. Damian, patron saint of healing.
Hazelton, Richard.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 62 (1963): 1-31
Assesses ManT in light of its sources and analogues to reveal a "tissue of comic devices—of controlled incongruities, of hyperbole, of antiphrasis, of equivocations, allusions, and purposeful distortions" that "produce a parodic version of the…
Davis, Norman.
Review of English Studies 16, no. 63 (1965): 233-44.
Considers Chaucer's modifications in Troilus's letter (TC 5.1317-1421) of Boccaccio's original in "Filostrato" and of Beauvau's French translation in "Roman de Troyle et de Criseida," arguing that the changes reflect late-medieval English…
Williams, Arnold.
Studies in Philology 57 (1960): 463-78.
Defines and illustrates the meanings of "limitour" and "limitacioun" as applied to friars in the late Middle Ages, clarifying licensing, territorial jurisdiction, and the authority to beg, preach, and hear confessions. Focuses on documents of the…
Benson, C. David.
Chaucer Review 3.2 (1968): 107-23.
Describes the "basic historical method" of KnT as consistent with the "contemporary aristocratic chronicle," showing how Chaucer uses Statius's "Thebaid" to archaize the plot drawn from Boccaccio's "Teseida" and create a world "believable" for his…
Argues that the KnT is "especially suitable for the beginning of the pilgrimage" in CT because it "presents the continual subversion of noble efforts to bring order out of disorder" and because, in comparison with its sources," it poses a "pagan…
Haller, Robert S.
Chaucer Review 1.2 (1966): 67-84.
Explores the epic elements of KnT and its sources, arguing that in placing love at the thematic center of his poem (replacing traditional political concerns), Chaucer was "attempting to make something entirely new" out of his material. By emphasizing…
Bratcher, James T.
Notes and Queries 208 (1963): 444-45.
Suggests that the "greyn" placed on the clergeon's tongue in PrT 7.662 is, ironically, a "breath sweetener," one of several satiric details observed in the Tale.
Scala, Elizabeth.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017. Relocated 2025 at https://opencanterburytales.lsusites.org/
Explores the "conflict and friction" of GP as a stand-alone tale, also reading it forward to the following tales and backward from them. Designed for pedagogical use, includes several questions for discussion.
Justice, Steven.
Frank Grady, ed. The Cambridge Companion to "The Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 45-58.
Surveys approaches to reception and interpretation of GP. Reappraises GP’s incompleteness as a symbol for the incompleteness of memory, establishing the beginning of CT as a kind of machinery that "set[s] the roadside drama in motion once again."
Campbell, Ethan.
Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2018.
Makes clear the anti-clericalism, overt and implicit, in the works of the "Gawain"-poet ("Cleanness," "Patience," "Pearl," and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"), examining the theme in light of contemporaneous polemics. Includes several references…
Steel, Karl.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017. Relocated 2025 at https://opencanterburytales.lsusites.org/
Introduces the field of "critical animal studies" and assesses the degree to which characters and animals in FrT can be considered to have agency. Designed for pedagogical use, includes several questions for discussion and suggestions for further…
Reads the rocks of FranT as a representation of natural evil, only apparently avoided in the plot, and an opportunity for the operations of both "gentilesse" and unearned providential grace.
Offers the image of unholy clerics as rusted gold in Robert Grosseteste's "Epistolae" as a possible source of the use of the image by Chaucer's Parson in GP 1.500.
Hoffman, Richard L.
Classica et Mediaevalia 25 (1964): 263-72.
Surveys arguments that seek to identify sources and analogues to the claim in KnT 1.1625-26 that neither love nor lordship "likes competition with another of its kind," citing similarities with TC 2.755-56, FranT 5.764-67, and others, and arguing…
Interprets Pandarus's reference to "corones tweyne" (TC 2.1735) as "a highly complex symbol of the two main pillars of mediaeval law and authority--the spiritual and temporal powers of the church and the state," forbidding Criseyde from killing…
McCall, John P.
Modern Language Quarterly 27 (1966): 260-69.
Judges ClT to be "more successful than it has been thought" because it is a tale of "idealized obedience" in which Griselda's submissiveness is an "imitation" of Christ's Passion and Resurrection and a demonstration that the human will can achieve…
Davis, John.
Journal for the History of Astronomy 50, no. 2 (2019): 121–54; 11 color illus.
Offers evidence that the "Chaucerian" astrolabe in the British Museum was constructed in the early fifteenth century, perhaps for Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, and provides "a scenario whereby . . . Chaucer would be exposed to astrolabes with…
Offers perspective on affiliations of Elizabeth and Alice Chaucer with Barking Abbey; comments on cats in late-medieval literature (CT, “Piers Plowman,” and more); identifies “Gyb” as a conventional name for a cat; and explores international…
Thomson, Patricia.
Comparative Literature 11 (1959): 313-28.
Explores unanswered questions about Chaucer's knowledge of Petrarch and use of Petrarchan material in TC 1.400-420 and in ClT, focusing on close reading of Chaucer's "deviations" from Petrarch's Sonnet 132 in his translation of it in TC, with…
Kaske, R. E.
Studies in Philology 59 (1962): 225-40.
Explores in MilT the comic and thematic potential of allusions to the biblical Song of Songs and its exegetical commentaries. Details of Absolon's address to Alisoun at the window, the descriptions of the two characters, and other details of the Tale…
Simons, John.
Literature and History, 2d ser., 1, no. 2 (1990): 4-12.
Shows how close is the "bond between literary culture and the ideology and practice of domination enshrined in judicial controls" in late-medieval England after the Black Death. Summarizes statues of labor, taxation, and responses to the Uprising of…
Introduces "Chaucer's allegorical tales as poetic play and playful poetry." In CT, Chaucer questions the nature of reality and the function of language in a complex interplay of realistic, grotesque, and sublime. Chapters deal with historical…
Blake, N. F., and Peter Robinson, eds.
Oxford: Office for the Humanities Communication Publications, 1993.
A preface and five essays describe the goals and methods of the "Canterbury Tales" Project, an endeavor to replace Manly and Rickert's textual analysis of CT (Chicago, 1940). Long-range goals include facsimile reproduction of portions of the…
Woodward, Daniel,and Martin Stevens, eds.
San Marino, Calif.:
A full-size, full-color facsimile of the Ellesmere manuscript of CT, published in three forms and 250 copies. Copies 1-50 are bound in oak boards fully covered by tawed calf; copies 51-150, in boards and quarter brown leather; and copies 151-250,…
