Scanlon, Larry.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 211-23.
Explains Fortune as a figure that embodies historical flux and affirms aristocratic privilege. In TC, references to Fortune do not provide a philosophical norm against which to test the attitudes of the characters; the references assert politically…
Wada, Yoko.
Hisayuki Sasamoto et al., eds. Hearts to the English-American Language and Literature: Essays Presented to Emeritus Professor Sutezo Hirose in Honour of His 88th Birthday (Osaka: Osaka Kyoiku Tosho, 1999), pp. 209-20 (in Japanese).
Assesses the swearing by St. Ronyon in PardP and explores its dark ironies.
Zeikowitz, Richard E.
Tison Pugh and Marcia Smith Marzec,eds. Men and Masculinities in Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2008), pp. 148-60.
Zeikowitz articulates the "largely unnarrated 'ocular logic' of the exchanges between Troilus and Pandarus" in Book 1 of TC and "teases out the subtle homoeroticism underlying their interaction." The essay focuses on the cinematic technique of…
Argues that Daniel 13.20 is a source of or influence on details of MerT 5.2138-48, and suggests that pictorial representations of Susannah and the Elders and details from the alliterative poem "Susannah" reveal ironic dimensions in Chaucer's scene of…
DiMarco, Vincent.
English Studies 78 (1997): 330-33.
Replies to M. C. Seymour's identification of seven satiric loci in SqT arguing that Chaucer's manipulations of convention may be seen as innovation rather than parody.
Taylor, Willene P.
Xavier University Studies 9.1 (1970): 1-18.
Argues that both TC (particularly the Epilogue) and LGW evince Chaucer's "good-natured humor" which is "never vicious" but rather "shows a warm and compassionate understanding of the foibles of human beings, regardless of their sex." LGW is a "mock…
White, Beatrice.
Essays and Studies 38 (1985): 1-11.
Accounts of love from chronicles and letters show that historical love in the Middle Ages was as rich, varied, and earthy as even Chaucer could imagine.
Woodward, Daniel,and Maria Fredericks.
Martin Stevens and Daniel Woodward, eds. The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library; Tokyo: Yushodo, 1995): pp. 29-39.
Summarizes the operations and observations attendant upon restoring, photographing, and rebinding Ellesmere during preparation of the new facsimile.
Wenzel, Siegfried, ed.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984.
The anonymous "Summa," dating from the middle of the thirteenth century, is the ultimate source of the "remedia" sections of Chaucer's ParsT. This critical edition, based on one of the nine surviving manuscripts, is accompanied by a translation…
Assesses CT as a web of Tales and voices, focusing on KnT, MilT as a response to KnT, the Marriage Group, and Chaucer's Italian sources, especially Boccaccio. Includes sections on the adaptations of KnT in Shakespeare, in Fletcher's "Two Noble…
Surveys British literary responses to "some aspects of the Muslim spiritual system," identifying instances in which British literature was influenced by Sufi mysticism or reflects awareness of it. Includes summary (pp. 37-39) of parallels between…
Klassen, Norm.
Holly Faith Nelson, Lynn R. Szabo, and Jens Zimmermann, eds. Through a Glass Darkly: Suffering, the Sacred, and the Sublime in Literature and Theory ([Waterloo, Ont.]: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010), pp. 39-53.
Without a shift in tone, Chaucer both appreciates and censures the fruitless love depicted in the Temple of Venus in PF. By fusing "joy and judgment," he evokes paradoxically the "deeper joy" of beauty.
Orlemanski, Julie.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017. Relocated 2025 at https://opencanterburytales.lsusites.org/
Explores "mortal embodiment" in KnT, particularly in the descriptions of Arcite's lovesickness, injuries, and death, contrasting their physicality with the metaphysical perspective of Theseus's final speech. Designed for pedagogical use, includes…
Barney, Stephen A.
Chaucer Review 16 (1981): 18-37.
The words "sodeny(ly)" and "proces" are keys to Chaucer's narrative skill. In both his serious and his comical narratives there are sudden changes in events, sudden shifts in emotions. He usually makes the sudden seem humorous, ridiculous, or…
A history of laughter in Western literature, focusing on the relation between laughter and literature, and surveying ancient, medieval, and modern traditions. In his Introduction, Sanders credits Chaucer with associating the roles of the feminine…
To find his own poetic voice, Chaucer's dreamer in HF impersonates the non-canonical subjectivities and voices of women and animals in the form of Dido, the eagle, and the monster-woman Fame. By doing so, he turns away from masculine literary…
Chance, Jane.
Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, eds. The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 2006), pp. 153-68.
In his fiction, Chance contends, Tolkien subverts traditional class distinctions, and his studies of Chaucer reflect a similar sensibility.
Kanno, Masahiko.
Hiroshima Studies in English Language and Literature 29 (1979): 54-68.
The simile applied to the Friar--"His nekke 'whit' was 'as the flour-de-lys'"--functions externally and internally. The outward sign of his neck is symbolic of his inner degraded state of mind, which shows physiognomically a mark of licentiousness…
Wolfe, Jessica Lynn.
Dissertation Abstracts International 61: 3586A, 2001.
The Renaissance elicited mixed responses to machinery. Wolfe discusses reactions to Italian thought by Gabriel Harvey (including the effect on his reading of Chaucer), George Chapman, and Edmund Spenser.
Saunders, Corinne.
Laura Ashe, Ivana Djordjević, and Judith Weiss, eds. The Exploitations of Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 108-24.
The use of magic was exploitative and morally ambiguous; however, with the thirteenth-century rise of universities, attitudes shifted: through natural magic and great learning, one could harness natural powers. The "highly intellectual" FranT…
Stadolnik, Joseph.
Ph.D. Dissertation. Yale University, 2017. Dissertation Abstracts International A78.11(E). Fully accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Shows how "Middle English writers tested the capabilities of their vernacular, experimenting with new genres and styles of literary composition, as well as with discursive conventions and practices borrowed from nonliterary fields," particularly the…
