The Man of Law erases distinctions among spiritual, linguistic, and monetary exchange by trying to turn Custance and Christ into signs that can be circulated and traded for profit, raising the question of whether his tale is "true coining."
Van Nolcken, Christina.
ChauR 47.1 (2012): 107-33.
Discusses William Thomas Stead's 1895 publication of Masterpiece Library's CT, part of the "Penny Poets" series, and its effects on the circulation of Chaucer's works.
Wheeler, Jim.
English Language Notes 37.3: 11-24, 2000.
The exchange of Criseyde for Antenor in TC inserts "peple" and a "Parlement" into the negotiations described in "Il Filostrato," a change resulting from the political context of 1381, when the peasants revolted and Parliament became more sensitive to…
Wetherbee, Winthrop.
Lois Ebin, ed. Vernacular Poetics in the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University Press, Medieval Institute Publications, 1984), pp. 153-76.
Parallels between the "Thebiad" and TC, particularly when viewed in light of the Christianized Statius in Dante's "Purgatorio," point to a pattern of engagement and transcendence that characterizes Chaucer's narrator. At the end of TC, the narrator…
Rayner, Samantha.
Literature Compass 5.2 (2008): 195-206.
Surveys pedagogical tools for teaching Chaucer to secondary and undergraduate students, maintaining that "the future looks promising for medieval studies." Includes a summary of studies that address the topic and contrasts practice in the United…
Stock, Lorraine Kochanske.
T. L. Burton and John F. Plummer, eds. "Seyd in Forme and Reverence": Essays on Chaucer and Chaucerians in Memory of Emerson Brown, Jr. (Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio Press, 2005), pp. 97-114.
Reads descriptions of the bedchamber in the Roman de la Rose as a source for the bedchamber scene in BD, arguing that Chaucer's "visual/verbal intertextuality" reveals his preference for civilization over primitivism.
Taylor, Paul Beekman.
Comparative Literature 34 (1982): 116-29.
In Panfilo's tale of Ser Ciappelletto in the "Decameron," we are directed to respond, disapproving, to that character's hypocrisy, but the Pardoner, in the tradition of philosophical nominalism, so confuses the differences among word, intent, and…
Collette, Carolyn P.
Chaucer Yearbook 2 (1995): 49-62.
Compares the description of Virginia in PhyT with Wycliffite or Lollard materials to argue that Virginia is cast as a perfect image rather than a false one--a reflection of contemporary concern with images, their uses, and their abuses.
Assesses the political character of late medieval English poetry, arguing that it extends the political thinking found in contemporary legal writing. Focuses on the notion of "diversity" in "Piers Plowman" and other alliterative verse as an extension…
Medcalf, Stephen.
David Daiches and Anthony Thorlby, eds. Medieval World. Literature and Western Civilization, [no. 2] (London: Aldus, 1973), pp. 643-96.
Describes the emergence of "something very like a Ricardian literary movement," focusing on the ability of Langland, Chaucer, and the "Pearl" poet to accept the mundane world completely and yet remain detached from it. Connects this ability with the…
Hanna, Ralph, III.
South Atlantic Quarterly 91 (1992): 793-812.
The "peasant voice" of Chaucer's Miller resembles the voices of John Shirley and Wat Tyler as represented in aristocratic accounts of the times. Chaucer's narrator criticizes the Miller's narrative voice, reinforcing chroniclers' depictions of…
Gray, Douglas.
Proceedings of the British Academy 87 (1995): 67-99.
Surveys the art and rhetoric of scenes of sorrow or pity in Chaucer, Gower, Langland, Henryson, Malory, and others, arguing that Chaucer is "undoubtedly the master of the various modes of pathetic writing" in the period. Comments on scenes in KnT,…
Bradwardine's concept of God's "potentia absoluta" serves to reconcile the literal and allegorical meanings of Walter in ClT. Griselda must accept Walter's actions, though she cannot comprehend them. This parallels man's relationship to God, but,…
Like Perceval and Gawain in Chrétien's work, Troilus, Pandarus, and Criseyde in TC "embody various aspects of perception," vision, and knowledge; "they do so particularly through their portrayal as perceivers or readers" of their respective worlds.
Besserman, Lawrence [L.]
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 23: 181-224, 2001.
Various "titles, epithets, and images" in TC reflect Chaucer's "covert engagement" with political and religious contention. Pandarus and the narrator adopt priestly roles, Troilus is like an anti-Lollard zealot, and forms of address such as "madame"…
Koster, Josephine A.
Essays in Medieval Studies 24 (2007): 79-91.
Examination of social spaces and residential settings that Criseyde inhabits reveals that she is not isolated (as generally argued) until she enters the Greek camp. She conforms to the social expectations, the "habitus," of her social sphere, even as…
Consolation can be effected in BD only by the creation of a radically "privatized" apocalyptic "moment" situated not only "outside the text itself" but also outside the historical world, a moment capable of giving mourners "imaginative space" to…
Rowland, Beryl.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 4 (1981): 33-51.
The reaction of Chaucer's contemporary listeners was more confident and unequivocal than our own because of the way the reader presented the poetry through oral delivery.
Wurtele, Douglas (J.)
Neophilologus 60 (1976): 577-93.
Chaucer uses the art of "proprietas" or decorum when he makes the language and substance of MLT conform to his personality and vocation. The narrator subscribes to Quintillian and Ciceronian theories of rhetoric and employs the techniques of…
Kanno, Masahiko.
Bulletin of the Aichi University of Education 32 (1983): 31-38.
Through the images of purse, pardon, and false relics Chaucer constructs the spiritually degraded portrait of reality of a "gilty and ful vicious" Pardoner.
Claiming "there is no clear textual evidence for the assertion that [the Ellesmere order] reflects Chaucer's intention," Forni questions the authority of the Ellesmere order and examines how that order was canonized as Chaucerian. She contends that…
