Emerson, Katherine T.
Explicator 16 (1958): item 51.
Explains the Host's reference to "gentil Roger" in GP 1.4353 as a possible play on "Roger Knyght de Ware, Cook," found by Edith Rickert in a 1384-85 plea of debt and reported in the "Times Literary Supplement," October 20, 1932, p. 761.
Thorpe, James.
San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1978.
The finest ms of the greatest medieval English literary work, the Ellesmere, produced about 1410 in a commercial scriptorium, with twenty-three marginal portraits (all reproduced here), was the jewel of the great Bridgewater library assembled by Sir…
Bessinger, J. B., Jr., reader.
New York: Caedmon, 1967. (TC 1223)
A reading in Middle English of MilPT and RvPT, accompanied by a companion booklet that comprises the text, notes, and glosses based on E. T. Donaldson's "Chaucer's Poetry" (1958).
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…
Smilie, Ethan K., and Kipton D. Smilie.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 26, no. 1 (2019): 77-89.
Juxtaposes modern pedagogical views of critical thinking and the Thomastic contrast between "studiositas" and "curositas" as background to discussing how SumT can "be used to help students to think critically about the nature of their own critical…
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,…
