Kimpel, Ben.
ELH: A Journal of English Literary History 20, no. 2 (1953): 77-86.
Assesses "various appearances of the narrator" in CT to "determine how far the narrator can be taken as a contribution to our knowledge of Geoffrey Chaucer." Comments most extensively on GP and ThP, with attention to first-person pronouns, and on…
Kellogg, A. L.
Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 31, no. 1 (1953): 61-64.
Locates precedent for the Parson's claim about the growth of sin among humans in Richard de Wetheringsett's "Summa de Officio Sacerdotis"--specifically, its reference to the "Canticum Exodi" in Exodus 15.9. Suggests more broadly that an "English…
Kellogg, Alfred L.
Scriptorium: Revue Internationale Des Etudes Relatives Aux Manuscrits / International Review of Manuscript Studies 7 (1953): 115.
Confirms that the friar's kiss of Thomas' wife in SumT is unseemly, adducing passages from Gower's "Vox Clamantis" and the "Regimen Animarum" that express concern about dangers of clerical kissing.
Johnson, Oscar E.
JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 52 (1953): 50–57.
Explicates the claim about debt in the description of the Merchant (GP 1.280), arguing on logical and metrical grounds--and using comparable lines from elsewhere in Chaucer (especially TC 3.267-70)--that the Merchant was not "insolvent," i.e., "he…
Hostia, Mary.
College English 14, no. 6 (1953): 351–52.
Compares and contrasts the GP descriptions of the Prioress and the Second Nun and the style and details of PrPT and the SNPT. Argues that genuine humility and "restraint" evokes "the truer religious character" of the Second Nun, casting into relief…
Gross, Seymour L.
Notes and Queries 198 (1953): 413-14.
Suggests that the repeated emphasis on the motive of covetousness in PardP is intended as the "revenge of irony" by the Pardoner, a response to the other pilgrims' negative opinion of him.
Greenfield, Stanley B.
Modern Language Review 48 (1953): 51–52.
Rejects arguments that references to "Sittingbourne" at WBT (3.847), "towne" in SumT (3.2294), and "Rouchestre" (7.1926) are inconsistent with the order of CT found in the Ellesmere manuscript, claiming that "towne" is a "tag-word" that does not…
Gerould, G. H.
Modern Language Notes 68, no. 3 (1953): 173.
Identifies an overlooked resource for the study of the sources and analogues of SNT: H. Delehaye's 1936 "Etude sur le legendier romain, les saints de Novembre et de Decembre" (Bruxelles, 1936).
Furniss, W. Todd.
Modern Language Notes 68, no. 2 (1953): 115-18.
Assesses various possible analogues to details in the naval battle depicted in LGW (648-49; Cleopatra)--the use of "pesen"(peas) and "lyme" (lime)--suggesting that the closest analogue is in a 1572 masque by George Gascoigne. Also suggests that…
Friend, Albert C.
Speculum 28, no. 2 (1953): 317-23.
Identifies ways in which Chaucer's adaptation of Virgil’s story of Aeneas in HF "follows the arrangement of the 'Ilias' of Simon Aurea Capra, or Chevre d'Or" and "bears a resemblance especially" to an expanded version of that twelfth-century Latin…
Frank, Robert Worth, Jr.
Modern Language Notes 68, no. 8 (1953): 524-28.
Glosses the image of the Friar's girth in GP 1.263 as "rounded as a bell out of a 'mould,'" and suggests that it may derive from Chaucer's first-hand familiarity with bell-casting located near his residence at Aldgate, documenting that "bell-founders…
Francis, W. Nelson.
PMLA 68, no. 5 (1953): 1126–41.
Analyzes Chaucer's use of the "narrative technique" of "self-conscious abbreviation"--when "the poet informs the reader that abbreviation is taking place." Clarifies statistically that Chaucer signals his abbreviations more often than do…
Donovan, Mortimer J.
JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 52 (1953): 498–508.
In light of patristic and iconographical traditions of scriptural commentary, bestiaries, and sermons, reads the rooster "Chauntecleer as any holy man" and the fox "Daun Russell as heretic and devil." Argues that NPT is a "sermon on alertness to…
Dobbins, Austin C.
Modern Language Notes 68, no. 1 (1953): 33-34.
Lists and quotes five allusions to Chaucer produced between 1670 and 1698: two by William Penn, and one each by L. P., William Nicolson, and Sir Henry Spelman.
Argues on textual and thematic grounds that Mel, NPT, and ClT "antedate the conception of a Marriage Group," Chaucer linking them to it as an "afterthought." Also traces a "fairly extensive ordering and linking operation, resulting in the…
Quotes a seven-line, unsigned poem from "The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure" (June 1747) that alludes to Chaucer's "Purse," without acknowledgement.
Chapman, Coolidge Otis.
Modern Language Notes 68, no. 8 (1953): 521-24.
Suggests that Chaucer "modeled the narrative in the first part of" SqT "upon the narrative in the first part" of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Identifies nine "points of agreement between the two romances"--similarities in "order of events," the…
Bronson, Bertrand H.
Modern Language Notes 68, no. 8 (1953): 515-21.
Suggests that Chaucer's recurrent use of the number twelve in BD carries with it "overtones of fulfillment, completion, finality," serving as a "unifying thread." Adducing "the medieval practice of time-keeping," development of the mechanical…
Brewer, D. S.
London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1953.
Combines social and intellectual history and appreciative criticism of Chaucer's writing in a "short study of Chaucer's life and works for people with literary tastes," arranged chronologically from Chaucer's youth to death. Describes his…
Braddy, Haldeen.
Modern Language Notes 68, no. 4 (1953): 232-34.
Disagrees with Gardiner Stillwell's argument (1950) that PF cannot be read as a poem on the occasion of the betrothal of Prince Richard of England and Princess Marie of France because it is comic. Reviews Chaucer's other occasional poems (Truth,…
Analyzes differences between MLT and its source in Nicholas Trevet's "Cronicles," with some attention to Chaucer's use of Gower's version in "Confessio Amantis." Shows that Chaucer streamlines quotidian details, adds rhetorical flourishes, and…
Identifies several examples of "semi-legal" or "quasi-legal language" and a "legalistic turn of mind" in the Franklin's association with the Man of Law, his exchanges with Host, and the "explicit use of legal formulae" in FranT. Argues that Chaucer's…
