Explores the advantages of computerized collation programs such as "CASE," "TUSTEP," and "Collate," commenting on how they can expedite traditional editing. Cites many applications to CT.
Wimsatt, James I.
Andre Crepin, ed. L'imagination medievale: Chaucer et ses contemporains (Paris: Publications de l'Association des Medievistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Superieur, 1991), pp. 33-51.
Analyzes three manuscript collections (Pennsylvania French 15, Westminster Abbey 21, and Bibl. Nat. Nouvelles acquisitions fr. 6221) to infer their late forteenth-century exemplars.
Iglesias-Rábade, Luis.
Studia Neophilologica 83 (2011): 54-66.
Compares and contrasts late medieval English adverbial usage in a number of legal texts with those found in a "Reference Corpus," the latter including a number of examples from Chaucer's works.
Cites Chaucer's self-awareness in attention to his sources, comments on the role of "source study" in Chaucer criticism, and introduces eight brief essays first presented at the 2004 congress of The New Chaucer Society in Glasgow. For the eight…
Bowers, John M.
Susanna Fein and David Raybin, eds. Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), pp. 116-31.
Bowers describes Chaucer's treatment of Latin texts throughout his "literary insurgency against [a] foreign incursion"--a kind of postcolonial resistance that is also consistent with Lollard vernacularization. Reads MLT as a "rejection" of Bede's…
Yoshimura, Koji.
Kansai University of Foreign Studies Journal 49 (1989): 19-42.
Shows that color expressions in TC are elaborately calculated to represent the characteristics of Troilus and Criseyde and that the color terms vary in almost every book.
Beckman, Sabina.
College Language Association Journal 20 (1976): 68-74.
In TC, though color words are sparsely used, green, red, blue, white, black are tellingly employed, frequently serving symbolically to connote psychological states of being, sexuality, and emotions, particularly in relation to "eros" and "agape."
Scott, Anne.
Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott, eds. The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity Through the Renaissance (Boston: Brill, 2009), pp. 407-26.
Scott addresses use of water imagery in medieval narratives. In MilT, flood imagery affects all classes of society and provides a common experience through which the satire of each individual class can occur.
Hanning, Robert W.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 120-37.
In Filostrato, Troilo's accurate decoding of Criseyde's language enables him to discover her reciprocal desire, leading to fulfillment. In TC, fulfillment is more complex as Troilus, Pandarus, and the narrator each construct their own meaning of…
Brewer, Derek.
Piero Boitani, ed. The European Tragedy of Troilus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 95-109.
Encased in a larger, comic vision of "potential human freedom and happiness," Troilus's tragic misfortunes acquire new meaning in Chaucer's TC, which is neither comedy nor tragedy but a "curious mixture" of the two.
Hussey, S. S.
Elizabeth Maslen, ed. Comedy: Essays in Honour of Peter Dixon by Friends and Colleagues (London: Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, 1993), pp. 1-13.
The comedy of MerT is brought out through Chaucer's manipulation of various literary sources and styles.
Leonard. Frances McNeely.
DAI 33.11 (1973): 6316-17A.
Despite the apparent clash between comedy and moral allegory, writers from Chaucer to Spenser combine the two, a fusion rooted in 'La Roman de la Rose.' Treats BD and HF as well as works by Gower, Dunbar, Skelton, and Spenser.
Heffernan, Carol Falvo.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2009.
Exploring the question "When is Chaucer known in Italy?" Heffernan surveys other scholars who have examined Chaucer's writings within the Italian tradition and focuses on shared comedic themes in the works of Boccaccio and Chaucer. She reviews…
Considers TC to be "amphibious," both a tragedy and, ironically, a comedy, when read in light of Chaucer's changes to Boccaccio's "Filostrato" and his additions from Boethius's "Consolatio."
Niebrzydowski, Sue.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 42 (2020): 325-36.
Explores evidence of medieval women's humor, drawing examples from Margaret Mautby Paston and Margery Kempe, preceded by contemplation of why such humor is understudied. Includes comments on Chaucer's Wife of Bath, Alisoun of MilT, and May of MerT as…
A classroom anthology of twelve examples of the literary mode of comedy, including MerT in Nevill Coghill's modern poetic translation. The volume describes the mode of comedy, offers brief biographies of the writers included, and lists discussion…
Bowker, Alvin W.
Modern Language Studies 4.2 (1974): 27-34.
Comments on the "theatricality" of MilT and explores how the comic characteristics of each of the main characters have darker sides, especially in the cases of Nicholas, Alisoun, and Absolon.
The Canterbury tale not written by Chaucer operates both as fabliau and as folk tale, with the relentlessly stupid hero both laughed at by the nobility and empathized with by the bourgeoisie, for whom he represents a triumph of the simple classes…
Siegel, Paul N.
Boston University Studies in English 4 (1960): 114-20.
Locates comic irony in several religious references and allusions in MilT, especially as they help to characterize Alison, Nicholas, and Absolon; the "final irony" is that the Miller is himself unaware of this irony.
Chapter 2, "Scraping the Rust from the Joking Bard: Chaucer in the Age of Wit," explores the long eighteenth century's conflicted reception of Chaucerian wit. While Chaucer was perceived as an "originary figure" of the English language as well as an…
"Pearl" is a divine comedy which views earthly matters from above with tolerance. In KnT Chaucer eliminates the flight to the heavens found in "Teseida"; the perspective of Theseus is earthly but still tolerant. In TC, by contrast, Troilus' ascent…
Symons, Dana M.
Sandra M. Hordis and Paul Hardwick, eds. Medieval English Comedy (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007), pp. 83-109.
Symons compares and contrasts the comic inaction of Th with comic spectacle in MilT and in the popular romance "Sir Tristrem." A "sophisticatedly 'bad' poem," Th depends for its success on expectations that differ from those of popular literature.
