Thompson, Kenneth J.
Chaucer Review 56.3 (2021): 280-95.
Focuses on the Yeoman of GP, suggesting that the figure may have been based on Richard II's archers of the crown. Examines the life of Thomas Forster of Drybek, one of these archers, catalogues biographical information about him, and suggests he is a…
McColly, William B.
Chaucer Review 20 (1985): 14-27.
The presence and function of the Knight's Yeoman have been neglected: to a contemporary audience he would represent a retainer of great authority and responsibility; hence the Knight's status is high indeed.
Fry, Donald K.
English Language Notes 9 (1971): 81-85.
Proposes that Cicero's "De Inventione" is the source of TC 4.407-13; the subsequent reference (4.414-15) to "Zanzis" is Chaucer's corruption of "Zeuxis."
Chance, Jane.
Jane Chance, ed. The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 177-98.
Examines several mythological winds and traces the use of Zephirus as a "revivifying wind" in Isidore, Bersuire, and Boethius. Chaucer uses the myth of Zephirus and Flora in BD to suggest psychological healing; in TC 5.10, for ironic effect; in…
Argues that CT reflects "astrological schema" and traces the evidence of a single cycle of the twelve signs in GP (Aries and Taurus), KnT (Gemini), MilT (Cancer), RvT (Leo), CkT (Virgo), MLT (Libra), WBPT (Scorpio), FrT (Sagittarius), SumT…
Matsuda, Takami.
Tokyo: Keio University Press, 2019.
Provides background on Chaucer and CT and emphasizes how each tale in CT addresses the particulars of the literary genre to which it is related. In Japanese.
Aers, David.
Graham D. Caie and Michael D. C. Drout, eds. Transitional States: Change, Tradition, and Memory in Medieval Literature and Culture (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018), pp. 235-48.
Treats the concerns of “faith, miracle, and conversion” in SNT, separating the tale from its "putative and absent narrator" and emphasizing its orthodoxy in the relation between faith and understanding, sexuality and marriage, and female deference to…
Presents a new interpretation of the historical basis of the canon from "Pars secunda" of CYT, while emphasizing Chaucer’s own historical context of being at
the center of a network of connections at court and elsewhere.
Dane, Joseph A.
Joseph A. Dane. Mythodologies: Methods in Medieval Studies, Chaucer, and Book History.([Santa Barbara, Calif.]: Punctum, 2018), pp. 53-78.
Outlines the "critical myth" that Chaucer, despite his assumed or constructed urbanity, lived in an age that was less sophisticated than the critic's own. Interrogates the history of this myth, exploring progressivist and devolutionary biases in…
Schrock, Chad.
Modern Language Review 114.4 (2019): 643-61.
Finds Chaucer turning in MilT from classical sources and subject matter in works such as TC, LGW, and KnT, to biblical resources throughout CT. Like the Miller and Nicholas, Chaucer draws on "the cultural authority of the Bible by means of its…
Smilie, Ethan K., and Kipton D. Smilie.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 26, no. 1 (2019): 77-89.
Juxtaposes modern pedagogical views of critical thinking and the Thomastic contrast between "studiositas" and "curositas" as background to discussing how SumT can "be used to help students to think critically about the nature of their own critical…
Crosson, Chad G.
Studies in Philology 115 (2018): 242-66
Explores the recursive demands of grammatical emendation ("emendatio") and penitential reform--the accumulative and ongoing need for correction of error that creates or prompts more need for correction--as the aesthetic that underlies Mel, and CT…
Examines how the Jailer's Daughter of Shakespeare and Fletcher's play, a character not found in KnT, reflects a complex form of influence derived not only from KnT, but from MilT and RvT as well. Considers water imagery and liquidity, and "madness,…
Grady, Frank.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 32 (2018): 271-87.
Identifies various ways Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" influenced Langland's "Piers Plowman" formally and thematically, and suggests in conclusion that, unlike other late medieval English writers, Langland and Chaucer "are interested in…
Ohno, Hideshi.
Akio Katami, Tomohiro Kawabata, and Fumiko Yamamoto, eds. A History of the English Language for English Teachers (Tokyo: Kaitakusha, 2018), pp. 83-105.
Introduces elements of the English language that are particularly useful for teaching English, following the ordinary division of the language's development into five stages: Old English, Middle English, early modern English, late modern English, and…
Attributes Chaucer's assertion of St. Augustine's "gret compassioun" for Lucrece as a rape victim (LGW, 1691) to the poets' unmediated first-hand knowledge of Book I of the "City of God," clarifying Augustine's sympathy for rape victims, arguing that…
Silverstein, Theodore.
Modern Philology 56 (1959): 270-76.
Reviews J. A. W. Bennett's 1957 book "The Parlement of Foules: An Interpretation," exploring the weaknesses and strengths of his critical methodology and application.
Warner, Lawrence.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 32 (2018): 353-74.
Reviews critical studies that offer, accept, or defend arguments that Chaucer knew and was influenced by William Langland's "Piers Plowman," challenging them on the grounds of weak logic, uncertain assumptions, lack of evidence, and/or the…
Surveys critical and historical treatments of Philippa Chaucer, showing both the ahistorical nature of much of this work and the common, negative approach in her characterization. Emphasizes that gender plays a significant role in how these judgments…
Tracy, Larissa.
Medieval Feminist Forum 54.2 (2018): 64-108.
Explores the implications of reading the Pardoner as a cross-dressing female, arguing that Chaucer leaves "her" characterization ambiguous, plays on "cultural associations of cross-dressing," and “legitimiz[es] the rhetorical power of female…
Martinez, Ronald L.
Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 325-50.
Traces the connections between Petrarch and Dante for Chaucer, while simultaneously showing the depth of Petrarch’s influence on Chaucer's verse. Discusses fame and Petrarch in ClT, MkT, and TC.
Donaldson, E. T[albot], ed.
New York: Ronald, 1958.
Edits the majority of Chaucer's verse (no prose included) in normalized spelling and modern punctuation, with bottom-of-page glosses and occasional brief notes. Omits Book 3 of HF, the legends of LGW (but LGWP-G included), several lyrics, and…
Argues that Christian and pagan acts of prayer in Chaucer's works are fundamental to understanding his creative piety. Chaucer’s literary representations of prayer are collaborative and participatory "scripts" that involve the reader in the sacred…
Maffestone, Elizabeth Christine.
Dissertation Abstracts International A81.12(E) (2020): n.p.
Traces "gendered protocols of violence that have been inherited through literary interpretive practices as they arerepresented in Chaucer's corpus.” Argues that “acts of reading, writing, and translation can function as forms of violence in medieval…
