Pugh, Tison.
Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2014.
Investigates the collision between eroticisms and anti-eroticisms in Chaucer's works in which the queer appears. When these two concepts circulate in Chaucer's stories, the characters must confront both their identity-formation and their…
Identifies exegetical details in the characterization of Absolon in MilT, helping to identify the clerk with the sins of avarice, lechery, and pride and showing how he is a parody of Robyn the Miller "in the Miller's own tale."
Lloyd, Joanna Eve.
Dissertation Abstracts International 47 (1987): 4081A-4082A.
Questions raised by and through many tales (KnT, Th, Mel, and PardT) and characters (Prioress, Wife of Bath, and Pardoner) disclose Chaucer's composite view of truth. The medieval Christian poet, however, would assume absolute truth to be beyond…
David, Alfred.
Thomas Hahn and Alan Lupack, eds. Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck (Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1997.), pp. 61-72.
A consideration of the four "Adams" in CT (MkT, Mel, MerT, NPT) clarifies Chaucer's continuously revised sense of the allusive potential of the biblical figure, as well as the changing, expansive meaning within the various "Tales."
Morgan, Gerald.
Review of English Studies 56 (2005): 1-36.
Following Aristotle, medieval poets consider poetry a branch of moral philosophy. Whether or not Chaucer knew Boccaccio's own glosses on the "Teseida," he adapts the Italian work to his own treatment of allegorical figures and so justifies Usk's…
Jahner, Jennifer.
In Thomas A. Prendergast and Jessica Rosenfeld, eds. Chaucer and the Subversion of Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 38-60.
Analyzes the epistemology of form as theorized by Boethius, Chaucer, and Kant, particularly in relation to the apprehension of natural beauty. Reads Form Age and For, in the manuscript setting of Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.III.21, as…
Distinguishes between academic and popular versions of Chaucer, defining and discussing various categories of popular intertextuality: adaptations, appropriations, invocations, and citations--diminishing degrees of engagement with original works.…
Van Dyke, Carolynn.
Madison, [N. J.] : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005.
Examines agency as theme and narrative technique throughout Chaucer's corpus, considering the "multifariousness" of the topic. Agency does not refer exclusively to the human will; it also "embraces innumerable forces that operate interdependently" -…
Pickering, James D.
Medieval Perspectives 4-5 (1989-90): 140-49.
The final three fragments of CT are united in a purposeful pattern by reference to Jeremiah 6. Allusion to testing and failure suggests the alchemical metaphor, enabling correlations between the particulars of specific pilgrims and the generality of…
Stone, Russell.
Medievalia et Humanistica 42 (2017): 23-42.
Observes that Chaucer's treatment of Alexander in MkT is largely consistent with how Alexander is depicted in fourteenth-century romances and monastic allusions. Suggests that Chaucer declines to condemn Alexander as an unworthy pagan, despite being…
Takada, Yasunari.
Poetica: An International Journal of Linguistic Literary Studies 73 (2010): 55-65.
Argues that Chaucer is "constitutionally sensitive" to intellectual realism, preferring sensory experientialism instead. In BD, as in HF and PF, inconclusiveness and tentativeness defer rather than console and encourage a "broader mundane…
Black, Robert.
Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa 55:1 (1985): 23-32.
MilT 3589-92 alludes to Matt. 5:27-30, where Christ condemns lechery, using the images of hand and eye. Chaucer uses the same imagery to condemn the lecher Nicholas, whose punishment is to be burned a "hand-brede aboute" his "nether ye." The same…
Nakao, Yoshiyuki.
ERA [English Research Association of Hiroshima] 6.1: 14-49, 1988.
Discusses Chaucer's ambiguous use of words such as "sely," "gentil," and "pite" in LGW, clarifying the gap between efforts to define "good women" and their human weaknesses.
Nakao, Yoshiyuki.
Yoshiyuki Nakao and Akiyuki Jimura, eds. Originality and Adventure: Essays on English Language and Literature in Honour of Masahiko Kanno (Tokyo: Eihosha, 2001), pp. 225-59.
Discusses how and why ambiguity is likely in TC, focusing on the relations between verbal elements such as contiguous structure.
Nakao, Yoshiyuki.
Osamu Imahayashi, Yoshiyuki Nakao, and Michiko Ogura, eds. Aspects of the History of the English Language and Literature: Selected Papers Read at SHELL 2009, Hiroshima (New York; Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 143-57.
Draws from TC examples of how voice contributes to ambiguity, considering how "suprasegmentals" and various phonetic and prosodic features contribute to voice.
Matthews, David.
American Literary History 22 (2010): 758-72.
Matthews considers ways of distinguishing between "medieval studies" and "medievalism" (relating the latter to "antimodernism") and assesses how late nineteenth-century American study of Chaucer "problematizes" the terms. The article contrasts…
Pearcy, Roy J.
English Language Notes 41.4 (2004): 1-10.
Pearcy traces the history and literary use of amphibology-'in Chaucer, a statement capable of two interpretations, uttered by a speaker with supernatural or oracular powers to a listener who can perceive only a meaning at variance with the true…
Matheson, Lister M.
Chaucer Review 25 (1991): 171-89.
An examination of Chaucer's original family name, Malyn, casts doubt on previous claims that Chaucer's family was involved in leather making. For social and commercial reasons, Chaucer was a more acceptable surname. Chaucer used Malyn or its…
Hays, Peter.
English Language Notes 38: 57-64, 2001.
Chaucer's MerT may have influenced William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury." Each work presents the pear tree as a central symbol in a plot focused on greed and deception, one comic and the other tragic. Chaucer's and Faulkner's narratives also…
Weiher, Carol.
English Language Notes 14 (1976): 7-9.
Gower's tales of Lucretia and Virginia in "Confessio Amantis" VII are exempla of the fates of lecherous rulers; however, Chaucer's versions of these stories (in LGW and PhyT, respectively) focus, not on the villains, but instead on the admirable…
Robertson, Elizabeth.
Bettina Bildhauer and Chris Jones, eds. The Middle Ages in the Modern World: Twenty-First Century Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 219-38.
Examines Chaucer's impact on medievalisms of early and later Romantic English poets. Portrays Chaucer's influence on Wordsworth, not only in deliberately medievalist work, but throughout his corpus, focusing on daisies and their presentations in text…
Shikii, Kumiko.
The Fleur-de-Lis Review (December 25, 1980): 25-54.
Chaucer's Monk is by no means an ideal clergyman. He is one of the best targets of Chaucer's satire. He shows the degenerating status of the Church and the religious orders, to remind the readers of the need of renovation from within.
