Argues that Proserpina's angry response to Pluto in MerT (4.2264–70) "highlights the historical relationship between Chaucer's depiction of women's speech, medieval grammatical [classroom] instruction, and theories of delivery" that derive from…
Harrington, David V.
Papers on Language and Literature 3, supplement (1967): 71-79.
Explores rhetorical devices in KnT, and suggests that "analysis of its rhetoric" reveals that the poem is "organized" as a "demande d'amour," identifying how Chaucer adjusted the rhetoric of his source, Boccaccio's "Teseida."
Kennedy, Thomas C.
Studia Neophilologica 68 (1996): 9-24.
Considers three rhetorical features of HF (introductory features, "occupatio" and the inexpressibility "topos," and repeated rhyme) to refute John Matthews Manly's view (1926) that Chaucer's early writing lacked originality and that his use of…
Ronquist, Eyvind C.
Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies 5 (1995): 49-75.
Assesses brief passages from Langland and Chaucer as indications of late-fourteenth-century proto-pragmatism--or reliance on experience and rhetorical argument as epistemological modes. The variegated opinions, unstable exempla, and inconclusive…
Varty, Kenneth.
Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 1999.
Traces the textual and iconographic history of the Reynard stories from twelfth-century Flanders to nineteenth-century England. The combination of text and picture was a particular success for Caxton, who translated the Dutch stories and printed them…
Blake, N. F.
E. Rombauts and A. Welkenhuysen, eds. Aspects of the Medieval Animal Epic. Medievalia Lovaniensia, Ser. 1, no. 3 (Louvain University Press; The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975), pp. 53-65.
The "Roman de Renart" has been overemphasized as a source for NPT and for other Middle English works; English animal fables, perhaps influenced in part by the "Roman," are more likely sources and should be explored more thoroughly.
Bidard, Josseline.
Leo Carruthers, ed. Heroes and Heroines in Medieval English Literature:A Festschrift Presented to Andre Crepin on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday ( Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1994), pp. 119-23.
In medieval beast fables, including NPT, the fox is a figure of vice. Neither his basic animalism nor his comic villainy qualifies him as an anti-hero, but his consistent distortion of truth does.
Varty, Kenneth.
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 26 (1963): 347-54.
Identifies similarities and differences between marginal illustrations in the Smithfield Decretals (British Museum Royal MS. 10 E.iv) and narrative motifs in versions of the "Roman de Renart," commenting briefly on the presence of the distaff in the…
Analyzes MerT, MilT, ShT, and FranT in light of the two-fold nature of the English medieval marriage contract: personal duties and business responsibilities.
Spearing, A. C.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 234-48.
Disliking the unrealistic and the marvelous aspects of romance, Chaucer experimented with the genre in highly original ways in TC, KnT, FranT, SqT, and WBT. Chaucer comments on the romance through the inconsistency between the naturalistic…
Chaucer uses conventions of the friendship tradition to explore the power of erotic desire; Lydgate rewrites the fatal rivalry to emphasize male friendship over male-female attraction.
Youngman, William Auther.
Ph.D. Dissertation. Cornell University, 2014. Open access at https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/36190 (accessed February 3, 2023).
Offers "senex style" as the a label for an particular network of themes of aging, related rhetorical commonplaces, and narrative poses in a range of late-medieval and early modern works, focusing on those where an "I-persona that extols the wisdom,…
Edwards, Robert R.
Leonard Michael Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen, eds. The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: New Essays on an Old Question (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000), pp. 226-46.
Both Boccaccio in Decameron and Chaucer in FranT rewrite the story of Menedon from Filocolo, and both investigate whether social worth is dependent on lineage or character. While Boccaccio emphasizes the new urban nontraditional man, Chaucer attempts…
Cole, Andrew.
Dissertation Abstracts International 61: 2704A, 2001.
Although many assume that Chaucer and Langland felt compelled to revise their works to avoid anti-Wycliffite censorship, such censorship was restricted to clerical writing. Chaucer drew on Wycliffite translation techniques to improve his skill, as…
Filios compares the folktale of Griselda with four medieval versions, exploring their adaptations. Boccaccio's tale is eroticized, with the teller Dioneo disagreeing with the conventional happy ending that reinforces dangerous power relations;…
Coghen, Monika.
Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 12.3 (2017): 175-85.
Describes the transmission of WBT, through John Dryden's modernized English version in "Fables: Ancient and Modern" and Voltaire's French in "Ce qui plait aux dames" to Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz's Polish "Co sie damom podoba" in "Pisma rózne wierszem…
Two CT manuscripts reveal simplifications of Chaucerian narrative as part of the fifteenth-century reader response valuing sententiousness and formal coherence. Huntington Library MS 140 includes ClT without its framing references, followed…
Prendergast, Thomas A.,and Barbara Kline,eds.
Columbus : Ohio State University Press, 1999.
Eleven essays by various authors and an introduction (by Prendergast) on the relations between Chaucer's "original" texts and later adaptations of these texts. The book explores the cultural conditions that produced the adaptations, as well as the…
Brooks, Michelle.
Studies in Philology 119 (2022): 209-32.
Examines Astr as a work on literature that uses the astrolabe to overcome geographical separation between father and son. A narrative of family reunion then writes the son out of the text, while apophasis keeps the son at its center. Also notes how…
Mieszkowski, Gretchen.
Tison Pugh and Marcia Smith Marzec, eds. Men and Masculinities in Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2008), pp. 43-57.
Mieszkowski surveys masculine lovers in medieval romance, showing that fainting and passive love "acquired feminine gender" only after the fourteenth century. Modern discussions of TC that treat Troilus as "feminized" both mistake his role as an…
Battles, Dominique.
Dissertation Abstracts International 62 (2001): 162A, 2001.
Traces the Theban legend from Statius through a twelfth-century Old French version, school texts, florilegia, commentary, Boccaccio, Chaucer (Anel, KnT), and Lydgate. Also assesses relationships with ancient and medieval history. Lydgate's version…
Smith, Peter J., and Greg Walker.
Cahiers Élisabéthains 69 (2006): 53-57.
Smith and Walker review the dramatic performance of CT (all but CYT), describing the staging and tracing the emotional swings of the adaptation. Includes one black-and-white and four color photographs of the production.
