Wood, Chauncey.
John P. Hermann and John J. Burke, eds. Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry (University: University of Alabama Press, 1981), pp. 81-101.
Chaucer uses signs playfully, "in bono, in malo": tears cited by the Parson are signs of contrition; the Prioress weeps for dead mice and whipped dogs. Chaucer is original in his treatment of her features, all of which point to worldliness.
Clogan, Paul M.
English Miscellany 18 (1967): 9-31.
Explores the "artistic impact" of Statius's "Thebaid" on Chaucer, particularly the influence of Statius's style and his "portrayal of the ideals of Theban antiquity," tracing Chaucer's allusions to and uses of the epic in Pity, BD, Mars, HF, Anel,…
Koretsky, Allen C.
Chaucer Review 4.4 (1970): 242-66.
Describes the presence of apostrophe ("exclamatio") in TC and assesses its various effects: amplification, heightening of style, advancement of plot, and characterization--especially of Troilus, Criseyde, and the narrator, but also of Pandarus,…
Economou, George D.
Philological Quarterly 54 (1975): 679-84.
The uses to which Chaucer put the Bird-in-the-Cage image (in MilT, SqT, and ManT), which he derived from Boethius and Jean de Meun, reveal the precision and complexity of his literary adaptations.
Farrell, William J.
Texas Studies in Literature and Language 5 (1963): 64-78.
Treats Chaucer's use of rhetorical lists or catalogs as an indication of his growth as a poet, from BD and its use of lists as "pure amplification" to PF where listing is "occasionally but not always subjected to the artistic needs of the entire…
Smith, Jeremy J.
English Studies 93 (2012): 593-603
Discusses Chaucer's use of "this" (e.g., "this carpenter," "this sely man," etc.). Replaces its usual explanation as a colloquialism with a discussion of the changing meaning of demonstrative "this"/"that" from Old English onward and applies this to…
Reads ClT as a "dramatization" of the teaching of St. James' epistle: the testing of faith "begets patience." Despite Walter's cruelty, he is God's "unwitting agent" in effecting Griselda's faith and obedience.
Haas, Renate.
Julian N. Wasserman and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 23-37.
Studies Chaucer's clever exploitation of the ambiguities between the laments of the lover and the mourner and his manipulation of traditional didactic patterns containing laments for the dead in Pity, BD, SqT, LGW (Thisbe), MLT, PhyT, ManT, TC, and…
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…
Divides Chaucer's allusions to Jove into two groups: those that present him as dream-like or fantastic and those that present him as actual or historical. Chaucer consistently presents Jove in allegorical ways even when he does not relegate him to…
Harley, Marta Powell.
Elizabeth T. Hayes, ed. Images of Persephone: Feminist Readings in Western Literature (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), pp. 20-32.
In alluding to the triple goddess Diana-Lucina-Prosperina to characterize Emily in KnT and May in MerT, Chaucer "simultaneously represents female assertiveness ... and vulnerability." However, he allows the potential to depict female pain to…
Studies Chaucer's first-person narrators of BD, PF, and HF as "students" who are instructed by some pedagogical authority, considering also the narrator of TC as well as the student-teacher relationship between Pandarus and Troilus. Assesses the…
Farrell, Robert T.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 71 (1970): 239-44.
Contends that Chaucer introduced into the plot of MLT (2.463-504) the motif of the help of God, helping to explain Constance's survival at sea at the beginning of Part 2 of the Tale; the motif is not found in Nicholas Trevet at this juncture.
Kaylor, Noel Harold (Jr.)
Claudia Blank, and others, eds. Language and Civilization: A Concerted Profusion of Essays and Studies in Honour of Otto Hietsch, 2 vols. (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 431-45.
TC is Chaucer's only fully realized tragedy. Interrupted by the Knight to show its limitations, MkT satisfies only the "minimal medieval expectations" of the genre, lacking elevated subject matter. Kaylor explores the term "tragedy" by reference to…
Sudo, Jun.
Takashi Suzuki and Tsuyoshi Mukai, eds. Arthurian and Other Studies Presented to Sunichi Noguchi. (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993), pp. 219-30.
Tallies Chaucer's uses of words and phrases derived from Old Norse, suggesting that they indicate Norse permeation of Chaucer's London dialect.
TC may usefully be regarded as a utopian fiction that attempts to repress undesirable historical events by situating itself at a time before those events, thus opening up a moment of freedom in which the hope for a different, better future is…
Cawley, A. C.
A. C. Cawley, ed. Chaucer's Mind and Art (New York: Barnes & Noble; Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1969), pp. 125-39.
Reads the garden in PF as a "picture of the world in a fallen state," in contrast with Scipio's "celestial paradise." The contrast is highlighted by different "time-schemes," and the work leaves unresolved the paradoxes of love's varieties.
Duffy, Carol Ann.
The Guardian, February 14, 2013, p. 1.
A thirteen-line love-lyric that opens with quotation of the first line of PF and refers to a "wood, all thrilled with birds" and "early English words."
Wuest, Charles.
Dissertation Abstracts International A76.10 (2015): n.p.
Considers Chaucer's repeated engagement with a passage from Boethius's "Consolation" in Bo, several shorter works, PF, and TC, leading to an argument that Chaucer ultimately suggests that some limits of translation are insurmountable.
Brewer, Derek.
Juliette Dor, ed. A Wyf Ther Was: Essays in Honour of Paule Mertens-Fonck (Liege: University of Liege, 1992), pp. 30-40.
In Chaucer's works, the wide spectrum of Venus's portrayals, from mythographical Venus to planetary Venus, represents "some profound human problems in the relations of men and women" and contributes "significantly to the rich variety" with which…
Scudder, Patricia Heumann.
Dissertation Abstracts International 57 (1996): 1130A
Chaucer puts the allegorized Latin epic to various uses in five works: HF, TC, KnT, MilT (as comic and unsuccesful rebellion against the hierarchies of KnT), and LGW
Putter compares Chaucer's techniques to the "close control" of syllable counting by alliterative poets. Although the metrical goals of these poets differ from those of Chaucer, the means whereby alliterative poets achieve control are similar to…
