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).
Clark, Roy P[eter].
Thoth: Syracuse Graduate Studies in English 14.1 (1973-74): 37-43.
Exemplifies associations of demons and scatology in folklore and early literature, arguing that they underlie Absolon's "symbolic function as demon-villain" in MilT.
Hettinger, Eugen, and John Cumming, eds.
London: Search Press, 1973.
Item not seen; the WorldCat records indicate that this is a selection of excerpts, including a passage by Chaucer (unidentified), translated by Cumming; the volume is illustrated by Klaus Meyer-Gasters.
Schmidt, Gary, and Susan M. Felch, eds.
Woodstock, Ver.: Skylight Paths, 2006.
This anthology of poems, stories, essays, and excerpts that celebrate spring includes lines 1-18 of GP, in modern translation, with a brief introduction to pilgrimage and the CT.
Hersh, Cara.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 26, no. 2 (2019): 9-16.
Offers a pedagogical exercise for teaching PrT in a way that provokes students' confrontation with issues of personal disgust and engagement with the tale.
Trower, Katherine B.
American Benedictine Review 29 (1978): 67-86.
The Physcian and the Pardoner both claim to be healers, but both capitalize on human sickness. Their function as healers is ironically undercut and their tales are thematically related by a common vision of death as terminal rather than transcendent…
Following the medieval rhetorical analysis that sees irony as a form of allegory, Beall finds that both CYT and PardT deal with the "supreme alchemy" (material alchemy in CYT, rhetorical alchemy in PardT) by which the profane is transformed into the…
