Browse Items (16012 total)

Candelaria, Frederick H.   Modern Language Notes. 71.5 (1956): 321-22.
Suggests that the portentous oak of PardT 6.765 (no species mentioned in analogues) gains dimension in light of Chaucer having been robbed at a "fowle oak" in Kent in 1390, and also suggests, therefore, that Chaucer must have been written PardT after…

Chapman, Robert L.   Modern Language Notes 71.1 (1956): 4-5.
Challenges claims that the first-person feminine pronouns of ShT 7.11-19 indicate that the tale was originally intended to be told by the Wife of Bath, reading the lines as if they were presented in a "miming male" voice, and suggesting that the tale…

Chute, Marchette.   English Journal 45 (1956): 373-80, 394.
Appreciative criticism of CT, particularly Chaucer's realism, stylistic variety, and deft characterization, including that of his own persona. Comments on his life and language and on the appropriateness of individual tales to their tellers. Reads…

De Selincourt, Aubrey.   London: Hamish Hamilton, 1956.
The opening chapter offers subjective, impressionistic appreciation of Chaucer’s life, language, poetry, and links among them, proclaiming Chaucer to be "one of the most English of our poets" in his "tolerance, sweetness, and the lambent flame of…

D'Evelyn, Charlotte.   PMLA 71(1956): 275-79.
Considers manuscripts, editions, translations, and contemporary examples to explore Troilus's use of "devel" in TC 1.623, documenting variety in reading it as direct address, expletive, or exclamation. Shows that Troilus is not calling Pandarus a…

Donovan, Mortimer J.   Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 57 (1956): 237-46.
Explores Chaucer's association between love-longing and the song-thrush in Th 7.772-74, clarifying the significance of the bird in patristic commentary, bestiaries, and poetic tradition, and suggesting that it may indicate that Thopas's passion for…

Eliason, Norman E.   Modern Language Notes 71.3 (1956): 162-64.
Suggests that the pun on "hooly" in RvT 1.3983-84 as "holy" and wholly" encourages us to also see further word-play in the tale: "panne" as "penny" at 1.3944 and "allye" as "alloy" at 1.3945, both related to recognizing the connotations of "bras" as…

Frank, Joseph.   Notes and Queries 201 (1956): 298.
Identifies a politically cautious reference to CT in the "opening lines" of the "Kingdomes Weekly Intelligence," no. 241, "covering the week of Dec. 28, 1647, to Jan. 4, 1648.

Frank, Robert Worth, Jr.   PMLA 71 (1956): 530-39.
Argues that, although derived from differing sources, the three parts of PF--the prelude, the garden of love, and the debate--are unified in their presentation of three perspectives on love. Framed as a conventional love vision, the poem juxtaposes a…

Giffin, Mary.   Quebec: Les Éditions "L'Éclair," 1956.
Includes four chapters, each devoted to a single poem as addressed on a particular occasion and/or to a particular audience, considered in light of rhetorical traditions, genre expectations, oral concerns, and sources: 1) SNT on the occasion of a…

Harder, Kelsie B.   Modern Language Quarterly 17 (1956): 193-98.
Identifies sources for a number of instances in MilT where Chaucer parodies, ridicules, or alludes to mystery plays—most evident in the characterizations of the Miller and Absolon as influenced by stage-versions of Pilate and/or Herod and the…

Harrison, Thomas P   Austin: University of Texas, 1956.
Describes birds mentioned by four English poets, one chapter apiece. An opening chapter surveys classical backgrounds for zoological and interpretive ornithology, along with the uses of birds in medieval encyclopedias. The Chaucer chapter addresses…

Herdan, G.   Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America 32.2 (1956): 254-59.
Tabulates the percentage of romance words in the works of Chaucer against the overall length of these works, suggesting that, in terms of its romance vocabulary, Equat "is to be regarded as a work by Chaucer." Establishes a logarithmic formula for…

Hollander, John.   Modern Language Notes 71.6 (1956): 397-99.
Suggests that the insertion of "prolaciouns" in Bo 2.pr.1 was intended as a technical clarification of the preceding "moedes," potentially misleading to English readers who could read it as either "mood" or "mode." The insertion may evince the…

John, Lilse C.   Notes and Queries 201 (1956): 97-98.
Seeks advice in understanding the phrase "Chaucer's borrow" which appears Sir Nicholas H. Nicholas's "Memoirs of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton" (1847), where it is quoted from a letter to Hatton from William Dodington. Clarifies the…

Dodds, M. H.   Notes and Queries 201 (1956): 317-18.
Responds to a query by Lisle C. John (Note and Queries 201 [1956]: 97-98), suggesting that “borrow” may mean borwe” (pledge) or “borough” (referring to Canterbury).

Jorgensen, Paul A., ed.
Shroyer, Frederick B., ed.  
New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1956.
Includes PardP, translated by Theodore Morrison, as an example of narrative poetry, with brief commentary and a biographical note.

Jud-Schmid, Elisabeth.   Bern: A. Francke, 1956.
Analyzes the grammar and usage of the “man” and related locutions that convey independent agency in late Middle English and Early Modern English, considering pronouns, modals, and passive verbal forms as well as “man” and other generalized…

Kleinstück, Johannes.   Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 193 (1956): 1-14.
Argues that TC is a psychological "novel" insofar as it explores how the lovers' uses of courtly language and conventions disguise their "urgent sensuality" ("drängende Sinnlichkeit"), even from themselves. Compares and contrasts Chaucer's and…

Lawlor, John.   Speculum 31 (1956): 626-48.
Argues that, modifying poems by Machaut to establish the narrator of BD as a comic, “doctrinaire” servant of love, Chaucer reveals how such a perspective is inadequate to “experience the experience . . . of perfection itself.” The Dreamer…

Linney, Romulus.   In Norman Bailey, Romulus Linney, and Dominick Cascio. Radio Classics (Minneapolis: Burgess, 1956), pp. 102-09.
Adaptation of WBT in archaized modern English prose as a script for presentation as a radio drama, with seven characters (King, Queen, The Young Knight, Old Woman, 1st Woman, 2nd Woman, and Wife of Bath as voice-over narrator). Duration:…

Lumiansky, R. M.  
Suggests that the "portraits" of Trojan war heroes and heroines in Benoit de Ste Maure's "Roman de Troie" are carefully individuated and arranged, and that Chaucer's "literary techniques" in the "sketches" of GP are similar to Benoit's in several…

Lumiansky, R. M.   TSE: Tulane Studies in English 06 (1956): 5-13.
Argues that a "shift to extreme piety" in ParsPT and Ret had "nothing to do with" Chaucer's "general plan" for CT, which the poet considered to be "a nearly complete work." Considers evidence of changes in Chaucer's plan and justifies them largely in…

Manning, Stephen.   PMLA 71 (1956): 540-41.
Characterizes the dreamer of BD as consistently stupid, a “nonpareil of dullwittedness”-- technically, psychologically, and allegorically.

Matthews, William.   Modern Language Review 51 (1956): 217-20.
Identifies a ballade by Eustache Deschamps (number 880: "Que diriez vous du froit mois de Janvier") as an analogue, possibly a source, of several details in MerT.
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