Stanley, E. G.
Arno Esch, ed. Chaucer und Seine Zeit: Symposion für Walter F. Schirmer (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968), pp. 121-48.
Examines Chaucer's stanzaic and metrical dexterity in TC, discussing how and with what effects he bridges stanza breaks and how he creates emphasis through repetitions, rhyme pairs, caesuras, enjambment, narratorial disavowals, and shifting of climax…
Fein, Susanna.
Susanna Fein and David Raybin, eds. Chaucer: Visual Approaches (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016), pp. 89-114.
Argues that PardT and ShT, juxtaposed but not linked in the Ellesmere manuscript, implicitly embed Crucifixion imagery toward a critique of materialist values. By positioning the "human incapacity to 'see' spiritually against glimmering signs of…
Bishop, Kathleen A., ed.
Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010.
Thirteen essays by various authors, most of them concerned with the influence of Chaucer's work or his reception. For individual essays, search for Standing in the Shadow of the Master? under Alternative Title.
Dyer, Christopher.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Bridging the social and economic histories of medieval England, Dyer examines the inequalities of English society as inherent rather than as economically shaped among the upper classes, townsmen, and peasants. GP offers criticism of a simplistic…
Minnis, Alastair.
Ursula Schaefer, ed. The Beginnings of Standardization: Language and Culture in Fourteenth-Century England (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 43-60.
Minnis discusses the impact of Aristotelian social and political theory on the rise of a growing lay culture in France and England. Considers similarities among several "discourses of secular power" - including Chaucer's KnT and Gower's advice to…
Trahern, Joseph B.,Jr., ed.
Knoxville, Tenn. : University of Tennessee Press, 1989.
Eight articles on standardization of English, three of specific interest to Chaucerians. Includes bibliography of Fisher's work through 1987. For the three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Standardizing English under Alternative Title.
Blake, N. F.
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr., ed. Standardizing English: Essays in the History of Language Change, in Honor of John Hurt Fisher (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), pp. 57-81.
Illustrates the difficulties editors face in dealing with literary representations of regional or non-standard dialects, citing scribal variations of northern features of RvT before examining at greater length examples of dialects in Shakespeare's…
Blake, N. F.
Masahiko Kanno, Gregory K. Jember, and Yoshiyuki Nakao, eds. A Love of Words: English Philological Studies in Honour of Akira Wada (Tokyo: Eihosha, 1998), pp. 3-24.
Blake examines the spelling variants of terminal -n and -m in a variety of words in WBP to show that fro/from was relatively erratic. Similar analysis indicates that final -e was obsolescent as a plural marker and in weak adjectives. Blake suggests…
Shoaf, R[ichard] A[llen].
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 78 (1979): 313-24.
The poet in BD takes the role of confessor and "medicus animae" to the Black Knight, whose shrift and repentance return him to the duties of everyday living. The hunt, which sets the scene, is an allegorical image of the process of confession…
Schauber, Ellen,and Ellen Spolsky.
New Literary History 12 (1981): 397-413.
Readers resolve conflicts by readjusting genre expectations. NPT is a beast fable "told in the rhetoric of epic. The homely moral of the tale is comically inconsistent with the implications of high seriousness in the language."
Peverley, Sarah.
Gail Ashton, ed. Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Culture (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 48-57.
Describes the dramatic adaptations of selections from CT presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company in November 2005, exploring how the adaptations and their staging at times modify and at times convey the "key elements" of Chaucer's work,…
Although Charles d'Orleans first described an actual Valentine's Day lottery, it was apparently Chaucer who, in PF and Mars, first associated Saint Valentine's Day with love, both in its ornithological simplicity and in its human complexity. His…
Peck, Russell A.
Mediaevalia 7 (1984 for 1981): 91-131.
Biblical Pauline notions of pilgrimage recur throughout CT, evident in imagery drawn from Paul's letters, although often in "parody and travesty": old men and new men, doctrine amidst enigma, iconography of wells, vessels, widows, musical…
Haskell, Ann S.
Rossell Hope Robbins, ed. Chaucer at Albany (New York: Franklin, 1975), pp. 105-24.
Chaucer's allusions to saints were used to evoke different associations on different occasions. Two allusions to St. Nicholas offer striking contrasts in different contests.
Maxfield, David K.
Chaucer Review 28 (1993): 148-63.
Viewed in historical context, the pardons of Chaucer's Pardoner likely were based on forged papal bulls associated with St. Mary's, a hospital with a questionable reputation. The Pardoner's lack of character provides an ironic contrast to the ideal…
Beadle, Richard, and J. J. Griffiths, intro.
Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1983.
A fifteenth-century manuscript of major importance in establishing the TC text--which contains in a sixteenth-century hand Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid" also.
Correale, Robert M.
English Language Notes 2.3 (1965): 171-74.
Identifies influences of St. Jerome's "Epistola Adversus Jovinianum" 2 at the end of FrT, particularly the imagery of lion as hunter equated with Satan and juxtaposed with Biblical allusions.
Tripp, Raymond P., Jr.
Geardagum 14 (1993): 89-110.
Assesses "St. Erkenwald" as hagiography, exploring in particular its orthodoxy and the relation of the Saint and the Judge. Also compares the "rationalism" of the poem with that of KnT and its elegiac qualities with those of BD.
A novel set in the contemporary U.S. that alludes to CT in sustained ways. The plot follows a group of racecar fans on the Dale Earnhardt Memorial Pilgrimage, and includes a tour organizer named Bailey; participants named Reverend Knight, Mr.…
Like the Valiant Woman of Proverbs 31:10-31, Cecilia brings honor to her husband, manages her household well, works untiringly, and faces danger with fearless self-confidence. In contrast to Harry Bailly, who sets up the rules and pragmatic externals…
Cline, Ruth H.
English Language Notes 2.2 (1964): 87-89.
Explores the "appropriateness" of Chaucer's "only original and direct reference to St. Anne," in FrT 3.1613. Mentions Chaucer's two other references to St. Anne, derived from Dante, and offers evidence that Anne of Bohemia was associated with St.…
Pugh, Tison.
Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s., 32 (2007): 83-101.
Alison constructs Jankyn as a liminal figure combining both courtly and clerical ideals so that she can celebrate "her triumph over a representative figure of both arenas" (95).
