Morison, Mariel Karen Osborn.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1993): 3900A.
Though reduced to a symbol in KnT, Emelye foreshadows the Christian virgin; in MLT, despite her passivity and the rhetoric surrounding her, Constance engages audience sympathy and imparts a Christian message; in SNT, Cecilia reveals divine light.
Browne, Megan Palmer.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 203-15.
NPT demonstrates the danger of reading "for a single abstract moral" by means of its emphasis on Chauntecleer's humanlike qualities. Among his most human attributes are experiencing and expounding a dream. If "men" refers to both humans and chickens,…
An ornithological guide to the birds mentioned in Chaucer's works, with black-and-white sketches of each bird. Discusses the contexts in which Chaucer cites various birds, arguing that the poet was aware of their iconic values and that he was a keen…
Gutmann, Sara.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 69-83.
Although some falconers were female, the activity of training (often female) falcons is highly gendered. The necessity of the falcon to be tamed is paralleled in the need for Emelye in KnT to submit to heterosexual marriage, and for Canacee in SqT to…
Truscott, Yvonne J.
Children's Literature Association Quarterly 23 (1998): 29-34.
Refutes claims that children were ignored during the Middle Ages. Chaucer wrote Astr to his son. In Th, he adopts a "childish identity," complemented by the pedagogy of Mel. The narrators of HF, PF, and BD are childlike.
Magoun, Francis P.,Jr., and Tauno F. Mustanoja.
Speculum 50 (1975): 48-54.
The portrait is more static and less chimerical than its sources in the "Aeneid" and the "Apocalypse." By focusing on one detail as others recede in a flexible irrational dream vision, Chaucer surrealistically blends elements of chimera and goddess…
Toole, William B.
Chaucer Review 3.1 (1968): 37-43.
Describes how the "tavern vices" of PardT (gluttony, blasphemy, gambling) "delineate the characters" of the three revelers and reveal their stupid and immoral inability to recognize the literal and the figurative meanings of death, properly…
Foster, Edward E., and David H. Carey.
Aldershot; and Brookfield, Vt. : Ashgate, 2002.
Lists Chaucer's religious, ecclesiastical, and liturgical terms and proper names (about 500), alphabetically arranged by Chaucer's spelling and cross-listed. Many terms are defined at greater length than in a lexical dictionary. Others are lengthier…
The poems to Scogan, Bukton, and Vache, and those to Richard II and Henry IV provide evidence of the makeup of the audience, with whom the poet shared an interest in good manners and good humor.
In PrT, uncanniness and the eventual wounding of the clergeon are necessary to render the clergeon holy and Christlike. His experience is close to that represented in miracle plays exploring the Slaughter of the Innocents.
Elliott, Ralph W. V.
Gregory Kratzmann and James Simpson, eds. Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986), pp. 146-55.
Analyzes clerical speech habits in Chaucer's GP "ars descriptionis personae"; affective tone in PrT, SNP, SNT, MkT, and ClT; and, where appropriate, the connection with the stately rhyme-royal stanza--with contrasts to language, verse styles, and…
Wood, Chauncey.
English Language Notes 4.3 (1967): 166-72.
Traces the legacy of gladly learning and gladly teaching, from Plato's "Timaeus" in Chalcidius's translation through Jean de Meun's "Roman de la Rose" to the GP description of the Clerk (1.308), also noting the presence of the legacy in the…
Fleming, John.
English Language Notes 2.1 (1964): 5-6.
Posits that John of Salisbury's "Policraticus" is the source of the closing comment of the GP description of the Clerk (GP 1.308); "gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche."
Baker, Donald C.
Studies in Philology 59 (1962): 631-40.
Treats the theme of "gentilesse" in ClT as a response to its presence in WBT, arguing that it helps to characterize the Clerk, underlies Walter's decisions, and encouraged Chaucer to choose "precisely this legend for exactly this spot" in CT.…
Longsworth, Robert.
Larry D. Benson, ed. The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Harvard English Studies, no. 5 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 61-66.
Reads details of ClT as evidence of the Ckerk's pedagogical skills in his efforts to instruct the Wife of Bath and others.
Greenwood, Maria K.
Bulletin des Anglicistes Medievistes 45 (1994): 847-69.
Bakhtinian approach to the sketch of the Clerk: there is an intricate dialogue between the latter and the narrator. The facts behind the story and the way it is told reveal much about Chaucer's complex personality.
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Mediaeval Studies 51 (1989): 313-28.
The Clerk's dismissal of Petrarch's opening "descriptio" is ironic--for the "king of rivers" would be understood by knowledgeable pilgrims to signify rhetorical powers and divine wisdom. In fact, the Clerk deploys a full range of rhetorical figures…
The Clerk and T. S. Eliot's title character in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" share intellectual interests. In addition, both are "caught" between the external and the internal, both are reluctant to speak, and both speak allusively.
Haines, Victor Yelverton.
Robert Myles and David Williams, eds. Chaucer and Language: Essays in Honour of Douglas Wurtele (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001), pp. 83-106 and 203-05.
Examines several medieval notions of testing and promise-making, arguing that in ClT the Clerk makes fun of naive "essentialist" allegory. Haines reads wit and sarcasm in Griselda's tone at the "portentous" line 666 and suggests that this tone helps…
Mitchell, J. Allan.
Studies in Philology 102.1 (2005): 1-26
Mitchell examines the polyvalent meanings of ClT and reflects on the processes of moral deliberation and the polarities that possible meanings represent. The Tale invites us to think hard about the nature of moral thinking.
Bodden, M. C.
Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren Falk, eds. 'A Great Effusion of Blood'? Interpreting Medieval Violence (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2004), pp. 216-40.
Bodden reads ClT as Chaucer's deconstruction of the violence of hagiography. Plot and purported allegory clash in the Tale, and Walter is concerned not with Griselda's obedience but with her outward show. Virtue without will is no virtue at all. The…
Goodwin, Amy W.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006): 231-35.
Goodwin explores the practical problems of source study - terminology and the constraints of publication - in relation to ClT. Comments on Boccaccio's and Philippe de Mézières' Griselda stories as "sources of invention" for Chaucer's version.
Severs, J. Burke.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Chaucer and Middle English Studies in honour of Rossell Hope Robbins (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974), pp. 140-52.
Surveys Chaucer's seven clerks (Nicholas and Absolon of MilT, John and Aleyn of RvT, the clerk of FranT, Jankyn of WBP, and the Clerk), describing the extent to which the characterizations accord with or echo what is known of "fourteenth-century…
