Storm, Melvin.
Modern Language Quarterly 48 (1987): 303-19.
Alison shares features with that "popular exemplar of medieval comic shrewishness," Noah's wife of the mystery plays, and especially the Uxor Noe of the Towneley cycle: old husbands, outspokenness, direct address to the audience, fondness of…
Azinfar, Fatemeh Chehregosha.
Atheism in the Medieval Islamic and European World: The Influence of Persian and Arabic Ideas of Doubt and Skepticism on Medieval European Literary Thought (Bethesda, Md.: Ibex Publishers, 2008), pp. 233-65.
Azinfar reads the comic treatment of Dante in HF as a skeptical rejection of religious authority and discusses depictions of theological contradiction in Mars, Venus, and WBP. Chaucer's rationalism aligns him with other skeptics and atheists,…
Farber, Annika.
Studies in Philology 105 (2008): 207-25.
Reexamines the anonymous and neglected Chaucerian "Isle of Ladies," accepted as a work by Chaucer from the time of Speght's 1598 edition of the works of Chaucer until its rejection by Skeat in his edition. Uses "Isle of Ladies" to reread Chaucer's BD…
Includes discussion of PrT as one of several "possible intertexts" for Ezra Pound's "Usury Cantos." In PrT Chaucer presents usury as a defining characteristic of Jews, antithetical to Christian notions of virginity, and aligned with lust and the…
Turner, Marion.
New Medieval Literatures 9 (2007): 139-77.
Describes the cultural production of members of late-medieval English livery companies, focusing on political and literary activities of scribes (Thomas Usk in particular) who were members of the companies and comments on the impact of these…
Bakalian, Ellen S.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. Standing in the Shadow of the Master? Chaucerian Influences and Interpretations (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010), pp. 82-112.
By discussing the tales of Rosiphelee and Alceone from "Confessio Amantis," Bakalian exemplifies how Gower (in contrast to Chaucer) urges readers to improve their behavior through right reason and rejection of irresponsible passion.
Comments on the fittingness and suggestiveness of a number of proper names in CT--Eglyntine, Absolon, Alisoun, Philostratus, January, May, Justinus, Placebo, and Cecilia--as part of a survey of the literary uses of names and naming in medieval Latin…
Classen, Albrecht, ed.
New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009.
Twenty-three essays on literary and historical topics ranging from ideas of Rome to medieval European waste. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Urban Space in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age under Alternative Title.
Twenty-one original woodcuts of birds and related scenes, each accompanied by a single poem of "suitable verse," by various authors. The first selection is from ManT (9.163-74). Printed in a limited edition of 180 copies.
Walsh, Elizabeth.
Studies in Scottish Literature 26 (1991): 156-63.
Applying the work of Bakhtin and Jameson to MilT and other texts, Walsh points out that many medieval texts concerning peasants represent the evolving socioeconomic threat to established society.
Rogers, William E.
Victoria: University of Victoria, 1986.
Manuscript evidence is inconclusive in discovering Chaucer's intention or the coherence and unity of CT. Chapter 2 reacts to D. Howard, "The Idea of the 'Canterbury Tales'," in the concern for genre, text, and reader.
Woods, William F.
Susanna Freer Fein, David Raybin, and Peter C. Braeger, eds. Rebels and Rivals: The Contestive Spirit in The Canterbury Tales. Studies in Medieval Culture, no. 29 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1991), pp. 37-57.
In KnT, vertical movements are associated with universal cosmic cycles, while horizontal movements are associated with social containment. As Palamon and Arcite move physically and emotionally closer to Emelye, each moves "toward either the…
Kamath, Stephanie Anne Viereck Gibbs.
DAI A67.08 (2007): n.p.
Kamath traces "the impact of the innovative form of the Roman de la Rose in French and English history," considering the use of "vernacular first-person allegory" by writers such as Deguileville, Chaucer, Lydgate, and Hoccleve.
Smith, Kendra O'Neal.
Dissertation Abstracts International A70.06 (2009): n.p.
Smith posits feminine and masculine modes of the transmission of power and culture from the ancients to the medieval, using "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," the "Alliterative Morte Arthure," and TC to demonstrate the existence of "a feminine means…
Analysis of Bo, Mel, and ParsT reveals that preverbal "ne" unsupported by a postverbal "not" appears most often with "forms of be, will, and witen"; moreover, this construction is more likely to appear in subordinate clauses than in main clauses.
Lomperis, Linda.
Linda Lomperis and Sarah Stanbury, eds. Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 21-37.
A historical examination of female sexual autonomy and medieval physicians' social and academic roles illuminates PhyT.
An anthology of "subversive," parodic, or satiric poetry, arranged in several categories pertaining to religion, authority, war, justice, etc., mostly English or translated from French. Includes RvT (pp. 104-20) in Middle English (with glosses) in…
Priest, Hannah.
Myra Seaman, Eileen A. Joy, and Nicola Masciandaro, eds. Dark Chaucer: An Assortment (Brooklyn, N. Y.: Punctum Books, 2012), pp. 117-23.
Meditates fictively on Custance and her loss of identity.
Prints handwritten summaries from a copy of the 1550 edition of Chaucer's works (Cambridge University Library Peterborough B.6.13) and discusses their usefulness for a history of the literary argument, documenting one reader's response to CT and…
Harris, Kate.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20 (1998): 167-99.
The compiler-editor-scribe of the prose history in Trinity College, Oxford MS D 29 used ParsT and Mel as a source in six passages. The same scribe included Mel and MkT in Huntington MS HM 144. Harris describes the scribal adjustments of Chaucer's…
