Summarizes CT in "outline form," divided into units (following the Ellesmere order) and interspersed with brief interpretive comments on background, genre, plot, and characters. Opens with a General Introduction to backgrounds and Chaucer's Life;…
Campbell, Jackson J.
Princeton University Library Chronicle 26 (1964): 5-6.
Reports on the acquisition by Princeton University Library of a manuscript of the CT, variously known as the Tollemache Chaucer or the Helmingham MS. Includes comments on contents, paleography, and codicology.
Introductory study edition of GP, with Middle English text, interlinear translation, and side-bar commentary and glosses, preceded by introductions to Chaucer's Life and World (pp. 6-9) and to the backgrounds, language, phonology, and versification…
Introductory study edition of WBPT, with Middle English text, interlinear translation, and side-bar commentary and glosses, preceded by introductions to Chaucer's Life and World (pp. 6-9) and to his backgrounds, language, phonology, and versification…
Cecilia is a humanist who represents the changing medieval world view. Her religion is personal rather than evangelical and is grounded in the practical. She does not perform miracles, nor do any supernatural powers vanquish her enemies or save her…
Rex, Richard.
Richard Rex. "The Sins of Madame Eglentyne" and Other Essays on Chaucer (Newark, N.J.: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1995), pp. 27-33.
Assesses the textual history and canonicity of two ballads of a manuscript owned by John Shirley, now British Museum Additional MS 16165.
Reads CT as Chaucer's effort to "see, speak and write" into fiction the bond of love that is to him an "ontological fact of creation." The road to Canterbury is a metaphor of salvation; the pilgrims and their "Tales" are links in the spiritual chain…
Grennen, Joseph E.
Journal of the History of Ideas 25 (1964): 279-84.
Identifies details of the characterization of the Canon and his Yeoman in CYP that derive from alchemical practice and materials, including the Canon's "distillation" (perspiration) and "mercurial" personality and his Yeoman's transformation and…
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…
