Suggests that the comparison between Chauntecleer's and mermaid's singing in NPT (7.3269-72) is an "ironic joke" as well as being an "ironic anticipation" of the rooster's fate, connected with the theme of predestination in the Tale.
Hitt, Ralph E.
Mississippi Quarterly 12 (1959): 75-85.
Describes how, as protagonist of NPT, Chauntecleer is the "mock-hero" of Chaucer's burlesque, engaging in three "battles" and failing because of his own vanity, the target of Chaucer's satire. His "avisioun" was no vision at all, a result of…
Schrader, Richard J.
Chaucer Review 4.4 (1970): 284-90.
Argues that the allusions in NPT to mermaids as sirens and to Burnel the ass help to indicate Chauntecleer's own culpability in his temporary downfall as well as contributing comedy to the Tale.
Rex, Richard.
Studies in the Humanities 7.2 (1979): 39-42.
Evidence from several sources indicates that "susters" in NPT 7.4057 may be a triple-entendre: sibling sisters, nuns, and paramours. This heightens the implied parallel between Chauntecleer and the Nun's Priest.
D'Agata D'Ottavi, Stefania.
Medieval Translator / Traduire au Moyen Age 16 (2017): 345-55.
Argues that when Chauntecleer "purposely mistranslates" the proverb about women being man's "confusio" (NPT, 7.3163-65), he puns on "the two possible connotations of the word . . . and mischievously discard[s] the negative one."
Grennen, Joseph E.
Notes and Queries 208 (1963): 286-87.
Observes that Chauntecleer's description of laxatives as "venymous" [var. "venymes"] in NPT 7.3155 parallels a similar connection in Roger Bacon, and suggests that Chaucer's use carries "antifeminist irony."
Etymological puns reveal MkT, NPT, and SNT to be a trilogy concerned with the common themes of marriage, sexuality, and decline of the church. The tales dramatize a confrontation among the three pilgrims in which the Priest discloses the Monk's…
Levy, Bernard S., and George R. Adams.
Mediaeval Studies 29 (1967): 178-92.
Identifies patterns, details, images, and wording in NPT that direct the "reader's attention not only to basic biblical narrative of Adam and Eve, but also to the theological commentary on the Fall." The overall moral of the Tale is the universality…
Hatton, Thomas J.
Papers on Language and Literature 3, supplement (1967): 31-39.
Argues that Chauntecleer's character in NPT "reflects not only the victims in the Monk's tragedies but the Monk himself," focusing on "echoes and parallels" between NPT and MkT, their concern with fortune, and the Nun's Priest's warning to the Monk.
Fulton, Helen.
Ruth Evans, Helen Fulton, and David Matthews, eds. Medieval Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Stephen Knight (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 138-51.
Processions and spectacles were attempts to contain rivalries between and within the official and unofficial hierarchies of late medieval London (city and crown, wards, crafts, and trades). Recurrently depicting a stable city, Chaucer also depicts…
Bolens, Guillemette, and Paul Beekman Taylor.
Chaucer Review 35: 281-93, 2001.
The "remedia" for the Black Knight's loss is achieved in two parts: the "reshaping" of the Black Knight's imaginative metaphor (chess representing the art of love) and the sounding of the castle bell, which awakens the poet and "ends both hunt and…
Bartel, Neva A.
Ball State Teachers College Forum 6.3 (1965): 45-50.
Comments on amplification as a factor in the "powerful dramatic force" of TC and explores, book by book, the poem's themes of "sight and blindness, the words 'bind' and 'bridle'," references to "sea and ships as opposed to references to fishing," and…
Baron, F. Xavier.
Journal of Psychohistory 7.1 (1979): 77-103.
Because Chaucer's "children's tales" deal with "extreme violence which the children suffer as innocent victims," these narratives "tend toward despair." Yet, they provoke compassion and thereby suggest that compassion is the proper response to…
Brewer, Derek
Review of English Literature 5.3 (1964): 52-60.
Argues that children in Chaucer's works are generally depicted with "tender pity," discussing narratives in which children have relatively prominent roles: MLT, MkT, ClT, PhyT, and PrT.
Kline, Daniel T.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017. Relocated 2025 at https://opencanterburytales.lsusites.org/
Posits a "Children's Cluster" of tales in CT (including all of fragments 6 and 7) wherein a "child has a central place" in each tale. Then argues that Virginia's voice and the tensions and "digressions" in PhyT encourage an ethical interpretation of…
Lerer,Seth.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Studies the currents and cross-currents of pedagogy, moral didacticism, and entertainment in children's literature, exploring how trends in reading and interpretation recur as the subject matter of the stories and help to define their historical…
Examines the depictions of Alexander, Caesar, and Peter of Cyprus in MkT in relation to their sources, arguing that the Monk attempts to impose inappropriate chivalric values on historical events; the Knight's interruption underscores the Monk's…
Woods, William F.
Philological Quarterly 66 (1987): 287-301.
The central tension in KnT involves the relationship between love and arms. The dialectic pits Theseus against Saturn; on all levels, the story moves from division to harmony, strife to union, and war to marriage through a series of compromises…
Guthrie, Steven R.
Chaucer Review 34: 150-73, 1999.
The key to the character of Pandarus lies in French domestic romances, especially their concern with privacy. Both TC and "La Chastelaine" portray lovers as vulnerable human beings who have the right to freedom from invasive forces. Pandarus's…
Explores the medieval concept of "mounted knighthood" in "conception and practice," considering how it resonates with "postmodern models of the cyborg, distributed consciousness and the inherently prosthetic self." Assesses "chivalry's intersections…
Peck, Russell A.
In Craig M. Nakashian and Daniel P. Franke, eds. Prowess, Piety, and Public Order in Medieval Society: Studies in Honor of Richard W. Kaeuper (Boston, Mass.: Brill, 2017), pp. 344-67.
Analyzes imagery of worthiness in TC and CT, compared with John Gower's "Mirour de l'omme," "Piers Plowman," and Geffroi de Charny's "Book of Chivalry." Focuses on patience, penance, pilgrimage, and the "timing for one's acts," exploring uses of…
Wetherbee, Winthrop.
Ivy A. Corfis and Michael Wolfe, eds. The Medieval City under Siege (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1995), pp. 207-23.
Surveys how chivalry is promoted or assumed in various medieval romances and argues that it is critiqued in TC, KnT, and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."
