Benson, Larry D.
Julian N. Wasserman and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 3-22.
By dating HF's composition and first public reading in December, 1379, we can see the unfinished last lines as a joke purposely played on Cardinal Pileo's messenger, Nicolo,whose news that no marriage would take place between Richard II and Caterina…
Von Kreisler, Nicholai.
Philological Quarterly 50 (1971): 16-22.
Shows that Chaucer's description of the garden in PF 204-10, part of the tradition of "locus amoenus," also "engages the conventional elements and rhetorical style of medieval pictures of heaven or paradise." Such adjustments to Boccaccio's…
Fisher, John H.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 464-76.
In this century discussions of LGW have centered on two points: the historical occasion of the poem and its significance as a stage in Chaucer's artistic development. Not until the last decade has criticism concerned itself with the artistry of the…
Everhart, Deborah Ann.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1993): 3206A-7A.
Middle English "hap" develops a network of meanings among texts--from providential in "Patience"; to Chaucer's Boethian applications in TC; to the varied ill luck, astrological destiny, and providence of Malory--thus demonstrating the impossibility…
Identifies five structural units in the narrative of the KnT and reads them as a unified, seriatim manifestation of a world that is "tyrannized by mutability," resistant to individual and corporate efforts to find or impose order, and sensible only…
A comma at the end of line 2639 suggests that Emetreus has treacherously struck Palamon. Editorial punctuation could be contrary to Chaucer's intention, which may have been to leave the sense ambiguous. We need an edition of Chaucer without modern…
Cowgill, Bruce Kent.
Philological Quarterly 54 (1975): 670-79.
The tournament described in Part IV is archaic. Chaucer's purpose is to dissociate the Knight from the ideals of his age and thus align the tale with its narrator's portrait in the GP as an implicit reproval of the Hundred Years' War.
Frantzen, Allen J.
Julian N. Wasserman and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 105-19.
Four dreams help structure TC: Criseyde's about Pandarus and about the eagle; Troilus's about his fall and about the boar. The dreams reveal character: Criseyde's dreams cause no narrative conflict; Troilus's become an essential part of his story.
Describes the shifts in perspective and changes in the point of view of the narrator in TC, arguing that they guide the reader to the outlook that concludes the poem, particularly through allusions to the biblical book of Ecclesiastes.
Horobin, S. C. P.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 99 (1998): 411-17.
The similar scribal features of three manuscripts of CT (Devonshire; Trinity College, Cambridge R.3.3; and Bodleian Rawlinson Poetry 223) have sometimes been attributed to a group of scribes and supervisors. This attribution has been used to support…
Keenan, Hugh T.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 79 (1978): 36-40.
The "snow" of food and drink in the Franklin's house evokes manna, which was like hoarfrost in the Bible, and therefore snow in medieval references. The result is eucharistic parody, discrediting the Franklin's feast.
Moseley, Charles.
Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey, ed. Critical Essays on The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales (Harlow: Longman, 1989), pp. 105-18.
Surveys the narrative techniques of the GP as they set up and anticipate those of the entire CT: the suggestiveness of pilgrimage and frame narrative, the impressionistic variety of the pilgrims and their juxtapositions, the naïve but subjective…
Farrell, Thomas J.
David G. Allen and Robert A. White, eds. Subjects on the World's Stage: Essays on British Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Newark: University fo Delaware Press, 1995), pp. 38-53.
Uses of the word "fyn" by Criseyde, Pandarus, and the narrator invite the reader to consider the teleology of the various parts of the work.
Herzman, Ronald B.
Anthony Pellegrini, ed. The Early Renaissance: Virgil and the Classical Tradition (Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York, 1985), pp. 1-17.
In FrT, Chaucer humorously uses references to Dante's story of Frate Alberigo. In reference to "Inferno," canto 33, to reverse Dante's pattern of punishment and sin, Chaucer specifically names Dante; and Chaucer's description of Satan is fashioned…
Harwood, Britton J.
Review of English Studies 39 (1988): 413-17.
The haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer, and tapestry maker of the GP must each have belonged to his own "communitas," or mystery, and the five could not (by law and custom) be members of a sixth company. Harwood shows that the "fraternitee" was…
Lane, Robert C.
Anne C. Hargrove and Maurine Magliocco, eds. Portraits of Marriage in Literature (Macomb: Western Illinois University, 1984), pp. 107-24.
The marriage speech of Averagus and Dorigen is of pivotal importance in understanding the dynamics of their marriage. Human interaction does not guarantee valid or shared meaning.
Grund, Peter J.
Review of English Studies 65, no. 271 (2014): 575-95.
Differentiates "literary" uses of alchemical terms from those of alchemical treatises and shows that Chaucer's CYT is one of the seven most frequent alchemical sources in the seventy citations within the "MED."
Allen, Valerie.
Review of English Studies, n.s., 40 (1989): 531-37.
The "first stok" of Gent 1 refers to God as the father of "gentilesse" of Gent 8, to Christ as its exemplar and model. The genealogical image operates as metaphor, pun, and paradox in the poem.
Fleming, John V.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Interpretation: Medieval and Modern (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993), pp. 189-200.
The narrator's fidelity and infidelity to sources are a major theme of TC, reflecting a tradition of translation theory and practice that extends back to Horace and is heavily influenced by Boethius.
Green, Richard Firth.
V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne, eds. English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 87-108.
Surveys evidence for the existence of "courts of love" in late medieval French and English culture, considering historical evidence such as Charles VI's "cour amoureuse," and the literary evidence of the love debate, the "demande d'amour," the flower…
Baswell, Christopher C.,and Paul Beekman Taylor.
Speculum 63 (1988): 293-311.
Borrowing from classical, mythographical, and iconographic sources, Chaucer uses Helen of Troy in TC both as a character and as a model to parallel and emphasize Criseyde's calm detachment and ultimate infidelity, leading to betrayal of Troilus and…
