Patterson, Lee.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Reprints seven of Patterson's essays, with a new introduction, "Historicism and Postmodernity" (pp. 1-18), that explains why he pursues the "micronarratives" of New Historicism rather than those of psychoanalytic criticism. Patterson affirms the…
Higgs, Elton D.
Susan Powell and Jeremy J. Smith, eds. New Perspectives on Middle English Texts: A Festschrift for R. A. Waldron (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 151-67.
Explores the themes of debt and indebtedness in CT, showing how they are established in GP and how throughout the work attempts "to manipulate obligations to one's own advantage" result in "superficial or ambivalent success." Material advantage often…
Explores use of temporality ("the experience of living in time") in CT and Gower's "Confessio Amantis," suggesting that CT is present-centered and considers the relationship of past to present, while Gower "focuses on the present as it becomes the…
Barron, Caroline.
In Linda Clark and Elizabeth Danbury, eds. "A Verray Parfit Praktisour": Essays Presented to Carole Rawcliffe (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017), pp. 141-51.
Questions why there was "no great belfry housing a public clock in medieval London," arguing that something similar was raised in the 1350s at the parish church of St. Pancras in Soper Lane. Includes one reference to Chaucer: the cock crow rather…
Lambert, Mark.
Piero Boitani and Jill Mann, eds. The Cambridge Chaucer Companion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 59-73.
The "texture" of TC--its nuances and suggestive detail--both enriches and "interferes with" the meaning conveyed by theme and structure. Thus, by the end of TC readers may both admire and dislike the "trouthe" of the hero and heroine. Overtly, TC…
Hanning, Robert W.
James M. Dean and Christian Zacher, eds. The Idea of Medieval Literature: New Essays on Chaucer and Medieval Culture in Honor of Donald R. Howard (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992), pp.108-25.
"Pryvetee" assumes a spectrum of meanings and a range of functions in the overall scheme of CT. Hanning examines a few of these functions, suggesting that at the center of the poem and Chaucer's art is a mysterious, antithetical, yet symbiotic…
Kooper, Erik.
Maarten De Pourcq and Sophie Levie, eds. European Literary History (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 128-38.
Introduces Chaucer's life and works, emphasizing CT and its innovations of social tension and variety as reflections of changes in English society during Chaucer's lifetime. Also comments on the fragmentary nature of CT, compares the work with…
Turner, Marion.
Times Literary Supplement November 19, 2021, pp. 14-15.
Reviews a production of Zadie Smith’s stage play "The Wife of Willesden" (Kiln Theatre), along with the edition of the play (London: Penguin, 2021), describing its relations with WBPT and mentioning other recent adaptations.
Rosenthal, Joel T.
University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.
Provides close historical analysis of three groups of archives: proofs of age from the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV, depositions from the Scrope-Grosvenor controversy, and Margaret Paston's letters. Discussion of the depositions includes…
Lehmann, Elmar, and Bernd Lenz, eds.
Amsterdam and Philadelphia: B. B. Gruner, 1992.
A festschrift with nineteen essays focusing on telling stories, a theme that plays an important role in the work of Ulrich Broich. The subjects range from England to Japan, from Chaucer to Joyce, from genre to gender. For two essays that pertain to…
Rupp, Jan.
REAL: The Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 36 (2020): 219-37.
Describes uses of "iconic extant narratives" in twenty-first-century refugee writing, using CT as a "key and core example," and focusing on how it adds "to the ethical potential" of three volumes of "Refugee Tales" (2016, 2018, and 2019) edited by…
The individual tales in CT contain multiple voices and the same narrative strategies as the frame itself--i.e., the central narrative interrupted by intervening narratives "read as both a narrating act and a narracted event that compels the…
Larson, Eric.
Dissertation Abstracts International A77.09 (2016): n.p.
Investigates eighteenth-century modernizations of Chaucer's work (especially CT), with an eye toward the period's political issues and a consideration of those modernizers' contributions to later scholarly apparatus.
Kolve, V. A.
Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009.
Reprints six of Kolve's essays on visual imagery and iconography in Chaucer and medieval literature and adds two new ones—both on MerT: "Of Calendars and Cuckoldry (1): January and May in The Merchant's Tale" (pp. 93-122) and "Of Calendars and…
Mel interprets and transforms its source. Chaucer's alterations, although slight, tend to undercut the allegorical reading, qualifying Prudence's authority and conclusions. Mel makes explicit concepts that are implicit in the original: the…
Benton, Andrea Gronstal.
Dissertation Abstracts International A69.09 (2009): n.p.
Benton contrasts SqT and the work of the "Gawain"-poet with popular romances as a way of understanding how romances employ descriptive passages as an essential "formal and conceptual" element.
Kiser, Lisa J.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Universisty Press, 1983.
Argues that LGW is important for source study: it is a defense of Chaucer's own narrative poetry in the medieval perceptions of metaphor, allegory, and rhetoric.
Ginsberg, Warren.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015
With special consideration of Ovid, Dante, and Boccaccio as models (not sources), explores the relationship between Chaucer's predecessors and CT while conducting in-depth investigation into Chaucer's reworking of the original texts both through the…
Stanley-Wrench, Margaret.
Schachner, Erwin, illus.
New York: Hawthorn Books, 1965.
A biography of Chaucer designed for juvenile or young adult readers, including imagined scenes from his childhood, marriage, travels, and professional life, as well as commentary on his literary works. Includes a chronology of "Dates and Events," an…
Making the improbable seem momentarily probable, Chaucer risks offending his audience by telling a bawdy story, but he excuses himself and blames the Miller for any breach of good taste. Chaucer catches the reader off guard with the abrupt…
Bugge, John
American Notes and Queries 14 (1976): 82-85.
The Prioress by omitting the passage which extolls King David in Psalm 8 betrays herself as ignorant of history. The Friar in blending vv.8-9 of Psalm 10 omits passages which chastise the aggrandisement of the friars at the expense of the poor. …
Greenwood, Maria Katarzyna.
Leo Carruthers and Adrian Papahagi, eds. Paroles et silences dans la littérature anglaise au Moyen Age (Paris : Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2003), pp. 135-54.
ManT, Mel, and ParsT are hardly tales at all, but rather a joke, an allegory, and a sermon. Yet they provide interesting comparisons between speakers and listeners, ways of speaking and ways of holding back. Reading between the lines is needed before…
Yvernault, Martine.
Colette Stévanovitch, ed. Marges/Seuils: Le liminal dans la littérature médiévale anglaise (Nancy: AMAES, 2006), pp. 209-24.
Yvernault focuses on the narrative imbalance in MilT caused by the intrusions of the margin through description of holes and through open and broken architectural structures.
