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…
Allen, Valerie, and Ruth Evans, eds.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016.
Twelve essays by various authors and an introduction by the editors explore the material and symbolic status of roads in medieval history and literature. The volume includes a bibliography and index. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search…
Dinshaw, Carolyn.
R. F. Yeager, ed. Chaucer and Gower: Difference, Mutability, Exchange (Victoria B.C.: University of Victoria, 1991), pp. 130-52.
Discussions of the "quarrel" between Chaucer and Gower (anchored in MLP) pose a Chaucer who was free of base, ingratiating attitudes toward his sovereign and who was the source of pure poeticality--language and aesthetics unpolluted by self-interest.…
Bowers, John M.
Elisabeth Dutton, with John Hines and R. F. Yeager, eds. John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 276-87.
Bowers describes LGW as "work-in-progress" of the 1390s and dates the G-prologue between 1392 and 1394, offering various comments to help justify these datings and explore their implications: LGWP emulates Gower's Ricardian prologue to "Confessio…
Cook, Alexandra Kollontai.
DAI A67.10 (2007): n.p.
Like many of his predecessors, Chaucer explores risks in dealing with pagan sources, but he renders such risks pleasurable as a means to "destabilize Christian constructs of safety."
Di Rocco, Emilia.
Revista di Letterature Moderne e Comparate 55 : 373-92, 2002.
Contrasts Chaucer's concern for the role of authors in the preservation of historical "fame" with Pope's emphasis on the enduring value of art. Di Rocco shows how Pope's personal interest in fame is tempered by humility like that of Chaucer's…
