Johnston, Michael.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 112 (2013): 433-60.
Argues that many late Middle English romances appeal to the gentry by coded references to the practice of "distraint," whereby gentry landowners were forced to take up knighthood or to pay fines. Concludes by comparing the attitudes expressed in…
Fellows, Jennifer, Rosalind Field, Gillian Rogers, and Judith Weiss, eds.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996.
Collection of essays on medieval romance that contains recurrent references to FranT, KnT, MLT, MilT, PhyT, and Th. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search for Romance Reading on the Book under Alternative Title.
Yu examines the changing roles of literary rhetoric and dialectic, poesy and logic, from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Chaucer is cited as a writer whose use of irony reflects changes in the understanding of logic.
Mills, Malwyn, Jennifer Fellows, and Carol M. Meade, eds.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1991.
Papers read at the first meeting (1988) of the Society for the Study of Medieval Romance, ranging in chronological concern from the twelfth to the fiftennth centuries. Included are general discussions of MS Ashmole 61 and the Percy Folio. …
Tigges, Wim.
Henk Aertsen and Alasdair A. MacDonald, eds. Companion to Middle English Romance (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1990), 129-51.
Examines eleven texts, dating from the late fourteenth to the early seventeenth century, that are related to the metrical romance by their metatextual commentary on one or more romance characteristics. Includes discussion of CT, particularly KnT,…
Perkins, Nicholas.
Susan Scollay, ed. Love and Devotion from Persia and Beyond (South Varra, Victoria: Macmillan Art Publishing, 2012), pp. 151-56; 3 b&w figs.
Comments on the importance of love as a topic in Chaucer's works, with particular attention to TC, SqT, and PF.
Wetherbee examines the literary history of KnT in classical epic, Statius, Dante, and Boccaccio to demonstrate (1) how, in a "deliberate, political" move, the Knight attempts to suppress psychological and historical reality to produce an "optimistic…
Reiss, Edmund.
Thomas J. Heffernan, ed. The Popular Literature of Medieval England. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), pp. 108-30.
A general discussion of the popular character of Middle English romances. The Theseus story in KnT and the Gawain material in WBT show Chaucer relying on audience familiarity with the material. Juxtaposing courtliness and bawdy, the structure of CT…
Dessart, Jamie Marie Thomas.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 4003A, 1999.
Meanings of the words "women," "authority," and "language" change throughout Chaucer's works, depending on the complex and shifting relationships of speaker, persona, scribe, and audience, plus pervasive irony. Treats TC, LGW, ClT, FranT, and SNT.
Explores connections between authority and production/distribution in Bodley 861. Briefly compares the Bodley scribe and scribe B in the Hengwrt CT, discusses Chaucer’s shorter poems and their dependence on external evidence, and discusses John…
Schleburg, Florian.
Uwe Boker et al., eds. Of Remembraunce the Keye: Medieval Literature and Its Impact Through the Ages. Festschrift for Karl Heinz Goller on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2004), pp. 79-93.
The three main characters of TC "embody three widely different ways of handling the roles they want to be judged by": total identification (Troilus), total detachment (Pandarus), and acceptance with reservations (Criseyde). Although Chaucer could not…
Paravano, Cristina.
Francesca Orestano and Michael Vickers, eds. Not Just Porridge: English Literati at Table (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2017), pp. 1-11; 4 illus
Assesses the characterization and culinary skills of the Cook, commenting on details of GP, CkP, and ManP, and commending his variety of cooking techniques. Includes recipes for "Chicken with the Marrowbones" and "Mortreux" (GP, 380, 384).
Manzalaoul, Mahmoud.
Notes and Queries 209 (1964): 165-66.
Cites Roger Bacon's "Tractatus brevis . . . in libro Secreti Secretorum Aristotilis" as possible justification for emending "convers" to "convex" in the reference to the eighth sphere in TC 5.1910, despite the lack of textual support.
Kolve, V. A.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Poetics: Theory and Practice in Medieval English Literature (Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 165-95.
An illustrated analysis of moral and aesthetic issues raised by Chaucer. The rocks, garden, and study that form the loci of FranT carry iconographic meaning suggesting a true poetics of illusion.
Wein, Jake Milgram
William K. Finley and Joseph Rosenblum, eds. Chaucer Illustrated: Five Hundred Years of the Canterbury Tales in Pictures (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll; London: British Library, 2003), pp. 311-25.
Wein examines and appreciates the ways Kent's illustrations of the Canterbury pilgrims broke with formal and interpretive traditions. The essay focuses on the aesthetic impact of the lavish 1930 limited edition (published by Covici-Friede), later…
Knapp, Peggy A.
Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, eds. Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1989), pp. 294-303.
Studies MilT for its "intersecting strands of linguistic coding" and contrasts Robertsonian character typing with Bakhtin's "dialogic imagination," semantic open-endedness. The stock character type of the Miller is "quited" by his tale. Bakhtin's…
DeNeef, A. Leigh.
Chaucer Review 2.4 (1968): 205-34.
Critiques—pro and con—Robertsonian criticism, also known as exegetical, Augustinian, or historical criticism, describing its theoretical and practical strengths and limitations, and exploring its possibilities for further illuminating medieval…
Hanna, Ralph, III
Paul Ruggiers, ed. Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition (Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1984), pp. 191-205.
Explains Root's dependence on William Symington McCormick's theory of Chaucer's seriatim revisions of TC, and castigates the "illogical rationalism" of Root's editorial methods, especially his treatment of scribal error. Root's "longing for an…
Turner, Nancy L.
Sheila Delany, ed. Chaucer and the Jews: Sources, Contexts, Meanings (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 133-44.
Both in his emphasis on particular Christian issues and in his stereotyping of Jews, Dominican writer Robert Holcot reflects the lack of Jews in England. Holcot may have influenced Chaucer's understanding of Jews.
Cornelius, Michael G.
Fifteenth-Century Studies 28 (2003): 80-96.
Reads Henryson's pastoral "Robene and Makyne" as a burlesque, attributing its generic variety to the poet's attempt to emulate Chaucer's "virtuosity," and exploring several instances where Henryson follows Chaucer's steps more closely, treating most…
Edits a selection of Robert Henryson's poetry, with appended critical notes and glosses, an Introduction, a Biographical and Textual Note, and a series of Appreciations by literary historians. The Introduction (pp. vii-xv) focuses on how and to what…
Jack, R. D. S.
Marco Fazzini, ed. Alba Literaria: A History of Scottish Literature )Venice: Amos Edizioni, 2005), pp. 33-44.
Comments on Henryson's biography, relations with medieval tradition, and stylistic range. Though he admired Chaucer, Henryson criticizes TC in the "Testament of Cresseid" because at the end of Chaucer's poem nothing more is known about Criseyde.
Stanley, E. G.
Notes and Queries 237 (1992): 278-80.
Discovers a Chaucer allusion in Nathan ben saddi's (i.e., Robert Dodsley's) The Chronicle of the Kings of England (London, 1740), which was written in pastiche style.
Hanning, Robert W.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 7 (1985): 3-21.
Chaucer's pilgrims misquote or distort received texts to further their own interests. In SumT and WBP, Chaucer turns two experts in "glosinge" into "human texts" to satirize Friar John and to expose the limited options of the Wife in dealing with…
