Baldwin, Anna.
Yearbook of English Studies 22 (1992): 181-89.
In ClT and especially MLT, Chaucer examines the problem of undeserved suffering. He combines embodiments of patience with realism, producing not exempla but "semi-allegorical" narratives which set out "universal positions."
Dawson, Robert B.
Chaucer Review 26 (1992): 293-308.
Rather than a pious and sympathetic character, Custance is an egocentric, self-serving individual who depicts herself as a saintly victim. Thus, she is linked to her creator, the Man of Law, whose language is both deceptive and complex.
Reviews providential readings of CT, asserting that nominalism furnishes theological context for MLT; contrasts MLT with its source in Trevet; and surveys use of the term "nominalism." In MLT, God's remoteness and arbitrariness ad the "extreme…
The individual tales in CT contain multiple voices and the same narrative strategies as the frame itself--i.e., the central narrative interrupted by intervening narratives "read as both a narrating act and a narracted event that compels the…
Examines the narrative devices of WBP, classifying the Wife's oaths, metaphors, logic, euphemisms, and proverbs and suggesting that her appropriations of these traditional devices underpin her broader challenge to male authority.
Clayton, Candyce Lynn.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1992): 800A.
Half a millenium before Freud, Chaucer's WBT asks "What does woman want?" In light of recent critical theory, this question is explored in the works of Gabriela Mistral and Gillian Clarke as well as in WBT.
Galloway, Andrew.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1992): 1513A.
Higden's Latin universal history reflects his critical and individual approach. Trevisa's translation and its continuations further this individuality. The Wife of Bath also reworks authorities in a distinctive way, bending them so that Chaucer's…
Cohen, Jeremy.
Ithaca, N.Y. and London: Cornell University Press, 1989.
Surveys the historical understanding and application of Gen. 1.28, tracing its "career" in Scripture, its interpretations in Hebrew and Christian traditions, and its roles in such literature as Bernard Silvestris's "Cosmographia," Alain de Lille's…
Galloway, Andrew.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 14 (1992): 3-30.
Demonstrates the relations between WBP and sermons on the marriage at Cana, particularly those by Jacobus de Voragine. The Wife neither parodies traditional antifeminist material nor preaches a "sermon joyeux." Using details and approaches…
WBP dramatizes the emergence of the author in the late Middle Ages as a self actively engaged in creating meaning and in resisting meaning imposed on it by other discourses.
In WBP, Chaucer represents the Wife of Bath as Woman conceived in terms of masculine discourse. His presentation makes authoritative misogynist discourse both familiar and available for questioning.
Alisoun presents a puzzle without a key because she is unreal,created out of an imaginary book derived from real male clerical authorities but eventually destroyed. Alisoun and her self-projection--the hag-bride--represent not women who can answer…
WBT supplies the feminine gloss to the masculinist texts underlying WBP. It provides a marriage pedagogy in which the partners discover their own desires by attempting to learn each other's desires.
Newman, Barbara.
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 22 (1992): 121-57.
Because Heloise is canonized in Jankyn's "Book of Wikked Wyves" between Jerome and Ovid, her authentic voice is overwhelmed by their reinforcing discourses; the Wife of Bath is similarly contained between Chaucer and Jankyn. Chaucer and Jean de Meun…
By asking her question, the queen in WBT forces the knight to think about what he has done and to realize that what women definitely do not want is to be raped. To educate the knight (and the audience?) is more important than simply to execute him.
The Friar's name alludes to St. Hubert, patron saint of hunters. Thiel investigates Chaucer's knowledge of the saint and invites comparison with St. Thomas.
Brim, Constance E.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1992): 156A.
Latin and French antifraternal works preceded English ones, which display a distinctive treaatment of friars as peddlars,as in Chaucer's SumT. In the Renaissance, antifraternal writing gradually disappeared from Britain, along with the friars.
Pigg, Daniel F.
Tennessee Philological Bulletin 29 (1992): 15-23.
Placed in the context of medieval sign theory, SumT becomes a satire on reading and interpretation. The humor of the friar in the Tale depends upon seeing him as an interpreter who overlooks the literal sense of signs.
ClT is not a religious tale but a secular story "enriched with religious symbolism." The Tale is domestic, not cosmic; there is no indication of a providential plan; God is only evoked twice; Griselda's vow is clearly secular; and her reward is…
Hansen, Kristine.
Literature and Belief 12 (1992): 53-70.
Like Abraham, Griselda is justified or made perfect by works, evidenced by her willingness to sacrifice her children. Through three clothing changes, she becomes an emblem of salvation: the first change symbolizes baptism; the second, the trial of…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Modern Language Quarterly 51 (1990): 409-26.
Surveys earlier responses to MerT and argues that the problems they identify cannot be solved; the "moral vacuum" of the tale leaves no criteria for moral evaluation. MerT is Chaucer's "bleakest" view of the relationship between poetry and morality.
Pelen, Marc M.
Florilegium 10 (1991, for 1988): 107-25.
Can one reconcile in a "single poetic focus" the contradictory voices of MerT? Plato, Claudian, Boethius, and especially Ovid distinguish between true and false fictions on the basis of whether legend is used to recognize cosmological order or to…
