Fleming, John V.
Thomas Hahn and Alan Lupack, eds. Retelling Tales: Essays in Honor of Russell Peck (Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 73-90.
The sources for the Wife of Bath's performance as exegete--and the authorities she cites in her "Tale" (in particular Ovid,for the Midas story)--make clear that the underlying theme and conflict in WBPT concern "surface and substance, letter and…
Epstein, Robert, and Williams Robins, eds.
Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
Nine essays by various authors, an introduction by the editors, a commentary on Fleming's critical legacy by Steven Justice, and a bibliography of Fleming's publications. For five essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Sacred and Profane in…
Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Chaucer Review 28 (1993): 5-22.
Contemporary documents concerning aspects of liturgical life indicate that the people of Chaucer's time were a "fervent laity served by a fervent clergy," notwithstanding the adulterous monk of ShT and Chaucer's corrupt Pardoner, Summoner, and Friar.
Bradley, Nancy Warren.
Christianity and Literature 66.3 (2017): 386-403.
Contends that although "Pearl" and PrPT treat the Eucharist as orthodox, they nonetheless evoke religious debates concerning Lollardy and, relatedly, continental female mysticism. Argues that both the works feminize sacramental work, preach in ways…
Ross, Shaun.
Open access Ph.D. dissertation. McGill University, 2019.
Available at https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/. Accessed January 28, 2021.
Argues "that in early modern England the primary theoretical models by which poets understood how language means what it means were applications of
eucharistic theology." Opens with discussion of PardT, SumT, and Pearl "in the context of the debate…
Summarizes critics' attention to the Eucharistic references in PardT and explores how the Eucharist and the Mass as a reenactment of sacrifice underpin a number of details and images in the tale.
Black, Robert Ray.
Dissertation Abstracts International 35 (1975): 6090A.
Parody is the key to understanding the relation between Chaucer's comedy and Christianity. Through parody Chaucer achieves high seriousness and high comedy. Parody of sacral sign and symbols in PardT and Marriage Group produces poetry that can be…
Knight, Stephen.
London: Angus and Robertson, 1973
A series of five case studies in cloxe reading that demonstrate Chaucer's skill with prosodic and rhetorical devices; includes an appendix that defines and exemplifies "figures of style" (pp. 236-42). Chapter 1 contrasts the stylistic virtuosity of…
Delany, Sheila.
Sheila Delany, Medieval Literary Politics: Shapes of Ideology (University of Manchester Press, 1990), pp. 1-18.
Surveys utopian attitudes, including alchemy. CYT reflects Chaucer's awareness of the "genuinely subversive thrust" of alchemy as an alternative to Pauline-Augustinian orthodoxy.
Hardie, Philip.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Explores the meaning of Middle English "fama," derived from the Latin, in relation to the spoken word. Chapter 15, "Chaucer's 'House of Fame' and Pope's 'Temple of Fame'," analyzes relations between the spoken and written word in these poems, as well…
Cole contends that metrical groupings of works from the "Alliterative Revival" are faulty and that these groupings reflect inappropriate application of phonology common in the "poetic dialects" of Chaucer and Gower.
Storm, Mel.
Enarratio 14 (2010, for 2007): 139-51.
Storm surveys the debt to Chaucer's KnT in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," focusing on the works' mutual concern with hierarchy and order. In both works (and elsewhere in the authors' works), the figure of the Minotaur (parodied in…
Sanders, Arnold A.
David G. Allen and Robert A. White, eds. The Work of Dissimilitude: Essays from the Sixth Citadel Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Newark: University of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1992), pp. 196-215.
Examines Gower's tale of Canace, the Man of Law's reference to the account, and the narrative treatment of the character Canace in SqT, arguing that Spenser fused them in his Canace. In his second (1596) edition of "The Faerie Queene" Spenser…
Tokunaga, Satoko.
Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 15 (2012): 59-78.
Examines the various kinds of rubrication in copies of books printed by Caxton, 1476-78, including his first edition of CT and his Bo, suggesting that, after printing, the "additional task of rubrication was carried out in an organized manner before…
Discusses historical reliability of witness lists as evidence of magnate activity and relationship to the crown. Provides tabular inventory of witnesses and percentage of charters witnessed by year.
Valdes Miyares, Ruben.
Ana María Hornero and María Pilar Navarro, eds. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of S.E.L.I.M. (Zaragoza: Institucion Fernando el Catolico (CSIC), 2000), pp. 267-75.
The Miller's bagpipe in GP epitomizes MilT, setting the pace for the pilgrimage and offering the rough justice of popular music as a human alternative to God's arbitrary judgment in the combat of KnT. The Miller questions the hegemony of vested…
Jonassen, Frederick B.
Jean E. Jost, ed. Chaucer's Humor: Critical Essays (New York and London: Garland, 1994), pp. 229-58.
Briefly surveys the carnivalesque folk tradition of charivari in medieval literature and assesses MerT in light of it, especially the description of the marriage between January and May, the musical imagery, and the inexpressibility topos.
Allman, W. W., and D. Thomas Hanks, Jr.
Chaucer Review 38: 36-65. , 2003.
A "bodily economy of piercing men and pierced women" can be found throughout CT. Lovemaking is associated with cutting, stabbing, bleeding, and dying. The only accounts of lovemaking not connected to stabbing or bloodletting occur in the musical…
Walker, Greg.
Elaine Treharne, ed. Writing Gender and Genre in Medieval Literature: Approaches to Old and Middle English Texts (Cambridge: Brewer, 2002), pp. 61-91.
Absolon's rejection of Alison's sexuality in MilT suggests the kind of masculinity invoked by Mariology and by popular representations of the Annunciation.
Edwards, A. S. G., and Ralph Hanna III.
Huntington Library Quarterly 58 (1996): 11-35.
Although Ellesmere ownership in the fifteenth century cannot be proved, a preponderance of evidence indicates association with Bury St. Edmunds and a family circle that included the Pastons, Drurys, and De Veres, suggesting a context within which the…
Brewer critiques Root's explanation of relationships among TC manuscripts, arguing that Root's explanation is inconsistent and commenting on the possibilities of discovering the process of Chaucer's revisions.
Hieatt, A. Kent.
Theresa M. Krier, ed. Refiguring Chaucer in the Renaissance (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998), pp. 147-64.
Books 3-4 of "The Faerie Queene" are a meditation on the nature of sexual passion, deeply influenced by FranT (which Spenser paraphrases in part) and its emphasis on companionship as a brake on sexual passion. Spenser develops the meditation in his…
Strakhov, Elizaveta.
New Literary History 50 (2019): 467-71.
Describes the treatment of the rondel in manuscripts of PF as a form of code-switching, identifies resonances of PF and SqT in Charles d'Orléans's Valentine's Day poetry, and explores the implications of describing love-talk or bird-talk as a form…
Fichte explores Rome in CT, both as an actual place and as a symbol. Focuses on Rome versus Syria in MLT and Christianity versus paganism in SNT, with comments on the Wife of Bath's and the Pardoner's connections with Rome, as well as orientalism in…
