Lindahl, Carl.
Journal of Folklore Research 34 (1997): 263-73.
Folklorists' recent interest in performance tends to neglect the chronological context of storytelling, for which now-maligned type and motif indexes remain useful. A change in pattern usually signals a change in meaning. For example, the ending of…
Fleming, John V.
Susan J. Ridyard, ed. Death, Sickness, and Health in Medieval Society (Sewanee, Tenn.: University of the South, 2000), pp. 123-32.
Describes Chaucer's fusion of sources--Boccaccio, Boethius, the Bible, and Horace--in his presentation of Troilus' love as sickness and as analogous to the art of writing, focusing on Troilus' complaints and Pandarus' advice about letter-writing.
Comments on several themes that recur in Chaucer's poetry and surmises that they may reflect something of his mindset. Discusses cosmic journey and pilgrimage, prayer, experience and authority, and love tidings.
Considers Thomas Aquinas's "Summa theologica" as a source of the concern with demons' bodies in FrT, arguing that Chaucer followed Thomas's account of this question with intelligent and close attention.
Burnley, David.
English Language Notes 23:3 (1986): 15-22.
Offers more adequate definitions than previously suggested of psychological terms Chaucer derives from his French sources for BD, particularly "turnen into malice," "to mochel knowlechyng," "wyt so general," "pure suffraunt...wyt."
SqT may originally have been written for a Northern English audience, which could appreciate its echoes of Mandeville's "Travels" and "Gawain and the Green Knight."
Horobin, S. C. P.
Notes and Queries 245.1: 16-18, 2000.
Explains an eccentric spelling in the Hengwrt version of RvT (heem, or "home") as descending from Old Norse (East Norse "hem"), extended by a kind of imitation in Ellesmere to geen ("gone") and neen ("none"). Ellesmere also mistakes a Northern form…
Lázaro Lafuente, Luis Alberto.
SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Mediaeval English Language and Literature 5 (1996): 18-28.
Surveys scholarship and evidence concerning Chaucer's familiarity with Spanish literature, arguing that critics have exaggerated the possible influence. It is "highly improbable" that Chaucer was directly influenced by medieval Spanish writers;…
Sudo, Jan.
Studies in English Literature (Tokyo) 45 (1969): 221-36.
Explores the possible originations of select rhyming pairs in Chaucer's works, especially those involving proper names, observing Latin and Continental precedents and also commenting on recurrent non-onomastic rhymes that involve semantic…
"Alys" and its diminutive "Alisoun" have interesting reverberations. The rhyme "Alys"/"talys" may link the Wife with "tales" and have a pun indicating love of drink. "Alisoun" may be a covert pun on "eleison." The popularity of the name Alys is…
Bennett, J. A. W.
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 132-46.
Reconsideration of passages not sufficiently considered in his 1957 edition of PF has led Mr. Bennett to comment on Chaucer's deep and searching study of the "Somnium Scipionis"; the structure of the main part of PF; the central sequence of the three…
Robinson, Ian, and Doreen M. Thomas.
Loren C. Gruber, ed. Essays on Old, Middle, Modern English and Old Icelandic in Honor of Raymond P. Tripp, Jr. (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen Press, 2000), pp. 447-66.
Examines the backgrounds and language of BD to uncover John of Gaunt's romantic entanglements and their ramifications for the poem. The article serves as an introduction to a larger forthcoming study.
Ando, Shinsuke.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Genres, Themes, and Images in English Literature from the Fourteenth to the Fifteenth Century (Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1988), pp. 31-39.
Examines words and phrases in Th to reveal "hidden elements of satire and parody," which are intensified by Chaucer's masterful and paradoxical handling of the author in the text. The language of satire and parody defies translation.
Tedeschi, Sveto.
Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia 33-36 (1972-1973): 849-72.
Surveys critical commentary on the possibility of Chaucer's debt to Boccaccio's "Decameron" in CT, arguing that the evidence for influence is unpersuasive, especially when other analogues are closer. Considers various critical discussions of the…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
J. B. Bessinger and R. Raymo, eds. Medieval Studies in Honor of Lillian Herlands Hornstein (New York: New York University Press, 1976), pp. 99-110.
A detailed commentary upon "armee" in the description of the Knight (1.60) in GP; upon the homeoteleuton in the description of the Friar (11. 252a-b); upon "fyue" in Prologue to WBT (11. 44a-f) as an omission in some mss due to the scribal "yielding…
Dwyer, R. A.
Notes and Queries 212 (1967): 291-92.
Identifies John of Trevisa's "Polychronicon" as the likely source for the Monk's use of "pileer" distinct from "boundes" (7.2126-27) in his account of Hercules, a distinction also made by John Lydgate in his "Troy Book." Comments on the uses of…
Exemplifies several difficulties in translating Chaucer's verse into modern verse or modern prose, commenting on concerns with "tonal register," rime riche, semantic change, taboo words, pronouns of address, the historical present, rhyming tags, and…
Blodgett, James E.
Library 6th ser. 1 (1979): 97-113.
Identifies through examination of printer's marks the printer's copy for Thynne's text of Rom, Bo, "The Assembly of Ladies," and the final six stanzas of "La Belle Dame sans Merci." Comments on Hunterian MS 5.3.7 and Longleat MS 258.
Benson, C. David.
Essays in Medieval Studies 24 (2007): 1-20.
Benson describes the very different views of London produced by Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, and Lydgate, as well as the depictions in William FitzStephen's "Description of London" (1174) and "London Lickpenny" (fifteenth-century). These representations…
Edwards, Robert R.
Robert R. Edwards and Vickie Ziegler, eds. Matrons and Marginal Women in Medieval Society (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1995), pp. 111-27.
Examines the encomium on marriage in MerT and the speech on marital values in FranT. In their structural placements and their relations with their sources, the speeches do not so much critique or assert specific views on marriage as represent…
Madden, William A.
College English 20 (1959):193-94.
Challenges Paul Ruggiers' essay, "Some Philosophical Aspects of 'The Knight's Tale'" (1958), maintaining that the critic fails to distinguish between Chaucer's views and those of the Knight, and disagreeing with his interpretations of several points…
Ruggiers, Paul G.
College English 19 (1958): 296-302.
Assesses Chaucer's uses of Boccaccio and Boethius as source material in KnT, addressing the omission of Arcite's apotheosis and the subordination of the pagan gods to providential order. Focuses on Palamon's and Arcite's prayers and Theseus' final…
