Compares Chaucer's heroine in MLT with her predecessor in Trevet, arguing that Custance's passivity, her prayers, and her divinely-aided escape from the "renegade knight" combine with other religious features of the tale to make it "a romantic homily…
Roman, Christopher Michael.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017.
Considers Ret in light of the medieval humility topos, penitential practice, and Lollard reform, raising questions about Chaucer's intentions in his works and the extent of our ability to perceive them. Designed for pedagogical use, includes several…
Rodríguez Mesa, José Francisco.
Ana Laura Rodríguez Redondo and Eugenio Contreras Domingo, eds. Focus on Old and Middle English Studies (Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2011), pp. 159-73.
Studies Sercambi's "Novelle" and CT against the background of historical writing, and classical and medieval traditions of "narratio brevis," including the oriental models, in particular the frame stories "in itinere." Analyzes features of short…
Through its "nostalgic" recollection of an idealized "bygone era," CYPT "casts a shadow" on the reformist thinking of SNT. Like many advocates of ecclesiastical reform, the Nun idealizes the primitive Church, but the Canon's Yeoman's performance…
Boitani, Piero, and Anna Torti, eds.
Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 1990.
Twelve essays by various hands. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Religion in the Poetry and Drama of the Late Middle Ages in England under Alternative Title.
Quinn, Esther C.
George D. Economou, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Collection of Original Articles (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976), pp. 55-73.
All aspects of CT--the pilgrims themselves and the characters,themes, and language of each tale--unite to present the pilgrimage to Canterbury as a representation of the conceptual pilgrimage of all Christians.
Shepherd, Geoffrey.
Derek Brewer, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer. Writers and their Background (London: G. Bell, 1974), pp. 262-89.
Surveys the range of religious and philosophical concerns and attitudes of late fourteenth-century England, and gauges Chaucer's investment in them. More moral than dogmatic, Chaucer "never discloses his commitment in religion" and "offers few…
Malo, Robyn.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.
Emphasizes "relic discourse" in England from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. Chapter 4, "Relic Discourse in the 'Pardoner's Prologue and Tale' and 'Troilus and Creiseyde,' discusses how the Pardoner's performance "reveals the workings of relic…
Currie explores the hypocrisy and factionalism that underlie the characters' ostensible concerns with natural law and the common good in TC, arguing that Chaucer exposes the negative consequences (individual and social) of breaches of natural law.…
Despite inaccuracies and major differences from Chaucer's KnT, Helgeland's film "A Knight's Tale" does maintain a "Chaucer effect" that has secured the poet's "iconic status" since the Renaissance. Yet anachronisms abound; rock music replaces chant;…
Fulk, R. D.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 78 (1979): 485-93.
ManT--a warning to the Cook with whom the Manciple quarrels--supports three main themes: the insignificance of social rank (9.105-270), the danger inherent in anger (271-91), and the foolishness of a wanton tongue (292-362).
Johnson, Lesley.
Ruth Evans and Lesley Johnson, eds. Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature: The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 195-220.
Literary and historical contexts modify the presentation of the Griselda story in its many versions, reflecting a broad range of views on women and marriage. Chaucer's version raises questions about the exemplary value of Griselda in religious and…
Reads the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 as an inspiration for the relationship between textual authority, bibliophobia, and violence in WBPT. Compares Alisoun to rioters who destroyed writings they deemed threatened their personal rights. Argues that the…
Wang, Laura.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 131-42.
Classical and medieval antifeminist texts disparagingly compare women and animals. In WBP, Alisoun "redeploys animal similes" to claim the privileges of animal-like status because she is naturally crafty and sly, impatient, and cannot be held…
Felch, Susan M.
Medieval Perspectives 6 (1991): 144-53.
The realist-nominalist debate underlies Chaucer's language, which, through multiple discourses and by analogy, embodies social order. By withholding his authority, Chaucer delegates responsibility for moral decisions to his readers.
Jeffrey, Chris.
Katja Lenz and Ruth Möhlig, eds. Of dyuersitie & chaunge of langage: Essays Presented to Manfred Grlach on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (Heidelberg: Winter, 2002), pp. 319-38.
Applies "register-theory" to PardPT to demonstrate Chaucer's "Gothic" juxtapositioning of various kinds of discourse. Jeffrey examines the mode, domain, topic, and tenor of the discursive units in PardPT and suggests that the characteristic variety…
Chaucer's political commentary is often disguised by ambiguity--the refusal ever to mean one thing--and the multiple nuances of his words. In revising LGWP, Chaucer inserted allusions to the "dangerous talk" of his day--to texts and interpretation…
Riddy, Felicity, ed.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1991.
Eleven essays on such topics as the theory and techniques of dialect comparison, the texts of Skelton and Dunbar, the N-town manuscript, and specific manuscripts.
For individual essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Regionalism in Late Medieval…
Stanbury, Sarah.
New Literary History 28 (1997): 261-89.
ClT is about visual investigation. Contemporary manuscript illumination, panel painting, and statuary are instructive for understanding Chaucer's representations of lines of sight framing the female body. Relying on complex tensions between an…
Smarr, Janet Levarie.
Martin Eisner and David Lummus, eds. A Boccaccian Renaissance: Essays on the Early Modern Impact of Giovanni Boccaccio and His Works (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 2019), pp. 293-310.
Observes that ClT sets its view of marriage in opposition to WBPT, suggesting that this reflects Chaucer's familiarity with Boccaccio's "Decameron" and inspired "the reversal of Griselda’s gender" in two early modern English plays, analyzed here:…
Dauby, Hélène.
Anne Berthelot, ed. "Pur remembrance": Mélanges en mémoire de Wolfgang Spiewok. WODAN, no. 79; Greifswalder Beitrge zum Mittelalter, no. 66. (Greifswald: Reineke-Verlag, 2001), pp. 131-41.
TC illustrates the mechanisms of perception, memory, and imagination as defined by fourteenth-century scientific theories. The two protagonists are enmeshed in a net of gazes--their own as well as those of others--and the narrative unfolds as viewed…
Anthologizes in four volumes oral accounts by asylum seekers and immigrants detained in Britain and elsewhere, recorded by various poets and novelists, and modelled on the CT, with an opening Prologue in each volume, followed by narratives with…
