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Irony in the Wife of Bath's Tale.
Slade, Tony.
Modern Language Review 64 (1969): 241-47.
Treats WBT as an "expression of her personality," focusing on the "matter-of-fact" tone of the tale, its humor, and its "tolerant sexual irony." However, Chaucer undercuts "her views and reactions" ironically, particularly in the pillow lecture of…
Towards an Interpretation of "Sir Launfal."
Lucas, Peter J.
Medium Aevum 39 (1970): 291-300.
Argues that "it may well be" that Chaucer's use of the verb "take" in Thopas 7.795 is parodic, meaning "inclination or attraction (towards)" rather than "attach oneself (to)" in a "binding relationship"--the latter sense evidently intended in "Sir…
The Moral of "The Nun's Priest's Tale."
Hieatt, Constance B.
Studia Neophilologica 42 (1970): 3-8.
Identifies nine aphoristic statements in NPT and assesses the extent to which they can be considered the "moralite" referred to by the narrator in 7.3440. Considers analogous fables and claims that Chaucer's version demonstrates "a common Chaucerian…
In Defence of Lot.
Taitt, Peter.
Notes and Queries 216 (1971): 284-85.
Explains that Chaucer's source for his account of Lot's incest, followed as it is by reference to Herod and the slaying of John (PardT 7.485-91), is likely to have been Peter Comestor's "Historia Libri Genesis" rather than the biblical account. Also…
Some Implications of Chaucer's Folktales.
Utley, Frances Lee.
Laographia 22 (1965): 588-99.
Offers a "new look at Chaucer's folktales," distinguishing between written and oral analogues to portions of CT, focusing on oral motifs, and categorizing the tales in accord with the numbering system in the 1961 revised version of Stith Thompson's…
Chaucer's Wife of Bath, the Loathly Lady, and Dante's Siren.
Levy, Bernard S.
Symposium 19 (1965): 359-73.
Argues that Dante's siren of "Purgatorio" XIX is analogous to the Wife of Bath and the transformation of the loathly lady of WBT, helping to undercut the Wife's views on female sovereignty and ironically "reasserting the medieval Christian idea of…
The Role of Destiny in "The Knight's Tale."
Fletcher, P. C. B.
Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 26 (June 1966): 43-50.
Compares the characterizations of Palamon and Arcite in KnT, focusing on the relative intensity of their responses to love and arguing that, rather than fortune, their actions and passions determine their outcomes. Arcite"s fall from his horse is the…
The Host--England’s First Tour Director.
Williams, Celia Ann.
English Journal 57 (1968): 1149-60, 1214.
Appreciative character description of the Host as director of the tale-telling contest, literary critic, and tour guide.
Some Medical Allusions in "The Canterbury Tales."
Drucker, Trudy.
New York State Journal of Medicine 68 (1968): 444-47.
Describes various disorders, discomforts, and diseases among the Canterbury pilgrims and in their tales, commenting on medieval and modern understandings of symptoms and causes.
Whan that Aprille [. . . ].
Burgess, Anthony.
Horizon 13, no. 2 (1971): 45-47, 57-59.
Summary description of CT, with comments on Chaucer's life and language, and appreciative analysis of the characterizations of several pilgrims, the conflicts between their tales, and the "eternal relevance" of the work overall. Recommends cinematic…
An Evaluation of the "Pardoner's Tale."
Barney, Stephen A.
Dewey R. Faulkner, ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Pardoner's Tale: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973), pp. 83-95.
Commends the "harmony" of PardT and "its capacities to elicit responses," discussing it as a tale that is "eloquent," intelligent, significantly expressive, unified, and instructive." Includes contrasts with PhyT.
"That We May Leere Som Wit."
Adelman, Janet.
Dewey R. Faulkner, ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Pardoner's Tale: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973), pp. 96-106.
Critical appreciation of PardT as "brilliantly constructed, simultaneously a parody of the very truths it purports to be about and a joke in which we are never quite sure of the butt"; pays particular attention to its "ragged structure" and how it…
Tradition and Meaning in "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale."
Lampe, David E.
Papers on Language and Literature 3, summer supplement (1967): 49-62.
Reads "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale" as a poem about the power of love and its effects on its lovesick narrator, at points comparing it with works by Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and others, observing likely derivations.
An Echo of Chaucer.
Maxwell, J. C., and Douglas Gray.
Notes and Queries 214 (1969): 170.
Identifies two echoes of PF 22-25 in John Hardyng's "English Chronicle in Metre," also mentioning the later use of the PF lines in Speght's 1598 edition of Chaucer's works.
Gavin Douglas and Chaucer.
Bawcutt, Priscilla.
Review of English Studies 21, no. 84 (1970): 401-21.
Identifies a number of parallels between Chaucer's works and those of Gavin Douglas, focusing on "Eneados" and demonstrating that "Douglas owes far more to Chaucer than has been generally recognized." Not a "servile imitator," Douglas, "like…
Chaucer and the Elusion of Clarity.
Donaldson, E. Talbot
T. S. Dorsch, ed. Essays and Studies 1972: In Honour of Beatrice White. Being Volume Twenty-Five of the New Series Essays and Studies Collected for the English Association (London: John Murray; New York: Humanities, 1972), pp. 23-44.
Explores "two related but distinct aspects of Chaucer's celebrated stylistic clarity": 1) while "self-evident," it is "often more apparent than real," and 2) a "means by which" Chaucer "escapes dexterously from the danger of really being clear and…
The Devonshire Manuscript Collection of Early Tudor Poetry, 1532-41.
Southall, Robert.
Review of English Studies 15 (1964): 142-50.
Describes the Devonshire manuscript (Ds) and comments on its provenance. Newly identifies a Chaucer fragment in the manuscript (f. 59v) from TC 1.946-52.
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Campbell, Jackson J.
Princeton University Library Chronicle 26 (1964): 5-6.
Reports on the acquisition by Princeton University Library of a manuscript of the CT, variously known as the Tollemache Chaucer or the Helmingham MS. Includes comments on contents, paleography, and codicology.
Pictures from Chaucer.
Dent, Anthony
History Today 19 (1960): 542-53.
Compares and contrasts details of the illustrative portraits of the Canterbury pilgrims--illuminations from the Ellesmere manuscript and woodcuts from Richard Pynson's edition of 1491/92, here inaccurately called the "first printed edition." Comments…
The Pardoner's Tale.
Beaver, Harold
London: Chatto & Windus, 1966.
A novel set in modern Kenya, involving three friends who find a cache of money that "disrupts their happy relationship." The epigraph quotes PardP 6.324-28.
Brodie's Notes on Chaucer's Miller's Tale.
Handyside, I. G., ed.
Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1978.
School edition of MilPT and the description of the Miller in GP. Facing-page (modern prose opposite Chaucer's poem), accompanied by explanatory notes, a glossary, appreciative criticism of the Miller's characterization, commentary on the setting and…
The Peoples of the British Isles: A New History. Vol. I: From Prehistoric Times to 1688.
3rd ed.
Lehmberg, Stanford E., Samantha Meigs, and Thomas William Heyck.
Chicago: Lyceum, 2008.
Credits Chaucer "[m]ore than any other single person . . . with establishing the position of Middle English," describing him as a "major figure in politics as well as literature," and declaring that CT "achieved instant popularity" and that it is the…
The Boke of Coumfort of Bois.
Kaylor, Noel Harold, Jr., Jason Edward Streed, and William H. Watts, eds.
Carmina Philosophiae 2 (1993): 55-104.
Publishes "for the first time a full transcription of an anonymous Middle English translation of Book I of the "Consolation of Philosophy" which is held by the Bodleian Library of Oxford University and catalogued as MS AUCT. F.3.5," drawing the title…
The Boke of Coumfort of Bois. [Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Auct. F.3.5]: A Transcription with Introduction.
Kaylor, Noel Harold, Jr., ed. and Philip Edward Phillips, eds.
Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., and Philip Edward Phillips, eds. New Directions in Boethian Studies. Studies in Medieval Culture, no. 45 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007), pp. 223-79.
Transcribes the text of "The Boke of Coumfort of Bois," a Middle English translation of Book 1 of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, found only in MS Auct. F.3.5. Accepts the claim in the Bodleian catalogue that the translation depends upon…
On Not Being Milton: Nigger Talk in England Today.
Dabydeen, David.
Maggie Butcher, ed. Tibisiri: Caribbean Writers and Critics (Sydney: Dangaroo Press, 1989), pp. 121-35.
Interrogates differences and tensions between modern black British poetry and the dominant Anglo-American tradition, focusing on the use of "Caribbean creole" to resist colonial subordination of black voices. Refers to Chaucer and the tradition of…