Considers the alternation between the pedagogy of argument (prose sections) and pleasure (metrical sections) in "prosimetrum," arguing that the form of Boethius's "Consolation" was as essential as its content for writers such as Chaucer, Usk,…
Johnson, Eleanor.
A. Joseph McMullen and Erica Weaver, eds. The Legacy of Boethius in Medieval England: The "Consolation" and Its Afterlives (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018.), pp. 125-42.
Explores the rational power of prose and the affective power of poetry to effect ethical transformation in Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," linking the work's prosimetric alteration with its theme of providential causation, and arguing that…
Gallacher, Patrick J.
Robert Myles and David Williams, eds. Chaucer and Language: Essays in Honour of Douglas Wurtele (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001), pp. 126-42 and 209-18.
Reads MerT for the ways it confronts and rejects skeptical nominalism. The Merchant considers the possibility that language "has sense but no reference"--that it is only games--but the absurdity of January's decision to marry undercuts this notion,…
Collette, Carolyn P.
Chaucer Review 15 (1981): 138-50.
The Prioress' preoccupation with emotion and the diminutive reflects the 14th century's concern for a particularized and emotional style in the arts. Though her tale seems odd and inconsistent, it has a consistent sensibility which uses the…
Dauby, Helene.
Danielle Buschinger, ed. Sammlung--Deutung--Wertung: Ergebnisse, Probleme, Tendenzen und Perspektiven philologischer Arbeit. Melanges de litterature medievale et de linguistique allemande offerts a Wolfgang Spiewok a l'occasion de son soixantieme anniversaire par ses collegues et amies (Amiens): Universite de Picardie, Centre d'Etudes Medievales, 1988), pp. 57-62.
Examines the pace of WBT as an example of the loathly hag story and reads in it echoes of several other Canterbury narratives.
Serrano Reyes, Jesus L.,Antonio Leon Sendra, and Mercedes Robles Escobedo.
Cordoba: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Cordoba, 1996.
Demonstrates the influence of Seneca's moral philosophy on CT by assessing Chaucer's quotations of Seneca. Translates Latin and Middle English quotations into both Spanish and modern English.
Ahl, Frederick.
George W. M. Harrison, ed. Seneca in Performance (London: Duckworth, 2000), pp. 151-71.
Laments the difficulties of translating wordplay, drawing examples from Chaucer to clarify examples from Seneca and other classical drama. Shows where modern translations of Chaucer's works lose puns, audio echoes, "syllabic play," and anagrams
Smith, Marcus A. J., and Julian N. Wasserman.
Parentheses: Papers in Medieval Studies 1 (1999): 145-86. [Web publication.]
Considers strategies that have been used to accuse and excuse Chaucer (and others) of prejudice against women, homosexuals, and Jews, suggesting that medieval language theory and Chaucer's awareness of the semiotic gap between sign and signified…
In TC, Chaucer shows the "inter-relatedness of the moral and the aesthetic" by demonstrating the "corruption and debasement" of key concepts: "honour," "worthiness," "gentilesse," "manhood," and "trouthe." Such debasement reflects the inevitable…
Keller traces the medieval tradition of Troy narratives from Benoît de Saint-Maure and Guido delle Colonne through various Middle English adaptations, including TC. Focuses on the literary interplay of imperial ambition--with its tendency to…
Ladd, Roger A.
James M. Dean, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer (Ipswich, Mass.: Salem Press, 2017), pp. 81-96.
Examines how Chaucer and Gower handled the genre of "estates satire," and speculates how "their social critique moves away from an estates satire framework." Addresses mercantile practice in MerT, MLT, and WBT, and claims that Chaucer, like Gower,…
Explores Chaucer's strategy of satire in WBPT, arguing that in its concern with interpretation and discursive insensibility it is fundamentally similar to the anti-mercantile satire of MerT, ShT, and MLT. Reads the Wife in "a London context,"…
Summarizes the Augustinian psychology of memory and its relationship to language, arguing that these concepts underlie the narrator's "'educational' pilgrimage" in HF. The end of the poem reflects the transformation of fiction into reality.
Greetham, D. C.
Modern Philology 86.3 (1989): 242-51.
Analyzes Thomas Hoccleve's narrative persona in his "Regement of Princes" and his "Series" poems, treating it as a development out of "the inherited Chaucerian narrator" toward a psychological portrait marked by the deleterious effects of "thought"…
Pratt, Robert A., ed.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966.
Edits CT (excluding Mel, MkT, SNT, CYT, and Pars), along with Ros, Form Age, Adam, Buk, Purse, and Truth, following the Robinson's edition of 1957, with modification from Manly and Rickert's collations. Marginal glosses and bottom-of-page notes…
King, Francis, and Bruce Steele, eds.
Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1969.
A textbook edition of selections from CT (GP, MilPT, RvP, PardPT, PrPT, Tho, NPT, WBPT, ManPT, ParP, a selection from ParsT, and Ret) in Middle English, with facing-page glosses and end-of-text notes and commentary. Also includes passages from…
Boffey, Julia, and Carol Meale.
Felicity Riddy, ed. Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts: Essays Celebrating the Publication of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English. York Manuscripts Conferences: Proceedings Series, no. 2 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 143-69.
Rawlinson C.86 contains ClT and portions of PrT and LGW. Analysis of the manuscript reveals interests of the contemporary London audience and suggests that several booklets in the manuscript may have been produced on speculation.
ParsT is the best of the CT to choose for a survey class. It provides a link with ancient and modern literature, reflects the thinking of the major writers in medieval England, and interweaves the previous themes and images of CT.
Includes selections from GP, RvT, and FranT, along with selections from BD, HF, PF, TC, LGWP, and the complete Pity. Texts in Middle English, with occasional end-of-text glosses.
Damon, John.
Sally McKee, ed. Crossing Boundaries: Issues of Cultural and Individual Identity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1999) pp. 41-56.
Martial imagery in SNT presents Cecilia as a "kind of general in a spiritual army of the steadfast faithful." Seen in light of Th and Mel, SNT idealizes "non-violent resistance, not passive resignation, to abuses of power."
Lee, Brian S.
Children's Literature Association Quarterly 23 (1998): 40-48.
Examines the diverse portrayals of children in medieval literature, commenting on how Chaucer questions the innocence of the "clergeoun" in PrT and how in LGW and MkT his pathos is more restrained than in his sources.
