Although he derives it from Boccaccio, Chaucer alters the topos of the lover's gaze at the end of TC, transforming it into a Boethian, Christian vision of God. The article includes a coda on Criseyde's prudential "third eye."
David, Alfred.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 15 (1993): 5-21.
Explores the "deep structure" of nostalgia in Chaucer's works. New/old and young/old oppositions indicate that BD and TC reflect Chaucer's desire for lost courtliness, while CT--especially WBP, WBT, PardP, and PardT--suggests his wish to accomodate a…
Warren, Nancy Bradley.
Carolyn P. Collette, ed. The Legend of Good Women: Context and Reception (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2006), pp. 83-104.
The "Amazonian" associations - legendary and figurative - of the women in LGW and KnT align the two narratives and suggest that the passive or intercessory roles of royal women in Chaucer's society entailed the "absent presence" of threat to that…
Moorman, Charles.
Studies in the Literary Imagination 4.2 (1971): 61-71.
Interprets TC as a work in which "Courtly Love and Fortune" operate as "complementary powers," two forms of determinism, social and cosmic respectively, inflected in equal part by the characters or personalities of the three central figures.
Smith, Macklin.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 8 (1986): 3-30.
Alison's threat trades on the story of the Woman Taken in Adultery (John 8), on classifications of adultery associated in ParsT with stoning, and on a liturgical setting in Lauds.
Each of the legends makes use of "the metonymic possibilities of objects and bodies" to represent the difficulty of discerning truth from fable in written sources available to the historiographer.
Fradenburg, Louise O.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 88-106.
Examines the roles of loss and violence in the construction of feminine figures in chivalric literature, considering such constructions in light of fourteenth-century social history. In TC, Chaucer considers the relation between heroism and suffering…
Forkin, Thomas Carney.
Essays in Medieval Studies 24 (2007): 31-41.
Close reading of CkT, of descriptions of Roger the Cook in CT, and of relevant late fourteenth-century laws and statutes reveals that Chaucer's powers of observation extend to the lower levels of society and the workings of London's "underworld."
Nissé, Ruth.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 21: 275-99, 1999.
In his "Regement of Princes" and "Address to Oldcastle," Hoccleve seeks to assert a revival of chivalry as a means of recovering from the degeneracy of the reign of Henry IV. In doing so, he champions "father" Chaucer's orthodoxy and presents…
Explicates the Ugolino episode of MkT as an instance of Chaucer's self-consciousness about borrowing from sources, especially Dante. Explores the courtly, Boethian, Boccaccian, and Dantean nuances of "langour" and argues that, as Ugolino passively…
Hsy, Jonathan H.
Paul Gifford and Tessa Hauswedell, eds. Europe and Its Others: Essays on Interperception and Identity (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 205-24.
Hsy compares the ways MLT and Boccaccio's "Decameron" 5.2 present transnational diversity, especially through their depictions of "littoral language," i.e., Custance's and Gostanza's communications with people on the shores of foreign lands. Both…
Gutiérrez Arranz, José María.
Pedro P. Conde Parrado and Isabel Velázquez, eds. La filología latina: Mil años más. Actas del IV Congreso de la Sociedad de Estudios Latinos, Medina del Campo, May 22-24, 2003 (Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios Latinos, 2009), pp. 1579-1601.
Surveys Ovid's influence on medieval literature and assesses Chaucer's use of Ovidian myths.
Marriage has important positive values in medieval narrative, including Chaucer's. The "Marriage Group" constitutes not so much a debate over sexual dominance in marriage as a varied demonstration of the need for mutual consideration and…
Despite old objections concerning the date of Deschamps ballade to Chaucer and the Frenchman's rudimentary knowledge of English, it is likely that in his use of "pandras" Deschamps was alluding to Chaucer's TC. This shows that, during his own…
Crafton, John Micheal.
Jean E. Jost, ed. Chaucer's Humor: Critical Essays (New York and London: Garland, 1994), pp. 163-86.
Chaucer's comedy is a "function of the inherent paradoxes of language, particularly as articulated by Freud," and the humor of CT depends on the audience's awareness of the slippage between truth and language. The paired opposition of PhyT and PardT…
Everest, Carol (A.)
Muriel Whitaker, ed. Sovereign Lady: Essays on Women in Middle English Literature (New York and London: Garland, 1995), pp. 63-84.
The traditional Galenic idea that conception requires female orgasm indicates that May is not pregnant by January. However, implicit and symbolic references to seed and fruit suggest that Damian has impregnated her.
Snell, William.
Hiyoshi Review of English Studies (Keio University) 37: 117-36, 2000.
Argues that critical interpretations of Chaucer's Physician as a quack have been based on the moral outrage and stock literary character of a later age.
Tucker, Edward F. J.
American Benedictine Review 33 (1982): 172-81.
The character of January is indebted to the doctrine of "doublemindedness" promulgated in the Epistle of James, especially as interpreted by Bede. The tale demonstrates the inner temptation undergone by those who waver between charity and cupidity;…
Minnis, A. J.
A. J. Minnis. Magister Amoris: The Roman de la Rose and Vernacular Hermeneutics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 119-63.
Explores Jean de Meun's treatment of vulgar talk in "Roman de la Rose" (lines 15,129-272) within the context of late-medieval theories of signification. In various passages of CT, Chaucer also confronts direct language and low subject in literature.…
Hanning, Robert W.
Jean E. Jost, ed. Chaucer's Humor: Critical Essays (New York and London: Garland, 1994), pp. 295-319.
Hanning examines the allusions to demons and devils in CT and compares them with the devil figure in late-medieval English religious drama. In both contexts, the devil is a tricker of humans who is tricked by God; a "spirit of inversion" who seeks…
Hartung, Albert E.
Chaucer Review 12 (1977): 111-28.
The argument by John M. Manly (1926) that "Pars Secunda" of CYT was not originally part of CTY at all but was an earlier tale intended for a separate occasion and a special audience is plausible in view of internal, textual, and historical evidence.
The "partridge wings" at the end of the "pictura" of Fame result not from error but from Chaucer's following the commentary on the "Metamorphoses" in "Ovide moralise," where Perdix (partridge) represents a clever but deceitful craftsman and Daedalus…
Yeager, R. F.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 9 (1987): 97-121.
The pacifism of Gower's later writings develops from an early grounding in the legalist theories of Isidore and Gratian to an Augustinian emphasis on motivation. Chaucer's position is less clear, but also eirenic, as inferred from biographical data,…
