Madsen, Deborah L.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
Defines allegory by structural features of plot rather than by content, surveying theory and history of the genre from the classics to contemporary criticism. Briefly considers BD and PF as allegories.
Arner, Timothy.
Comparative Literature 69.2 (2017): 160-80.
Shows that Lucan's "Bellum civile," the medieval "accessus" tradition, and "vitae Lucani" together depict the Roman poet as a "violated female," victimized by his "tyrannical emperor," and abruptly silenced, arguing that this legacy influenced LGW…
Barefield, Laura D.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59 (1999): 2489A.
At the crux of chronicle and romance, Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Historia" provides much of the basis for later literature. The work emphasizes women not only as child bearers but also as speakers who could uphold or deny legitimacy. Barefield discusses…
Krummel, Miriamne Ara.
The Medieval Postcolonial Jew, in and out of Time (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022), pp. 185-229; illus.
Interprets four manuscript versions of ClT (here retitled "The Legend of the Litel Clergeon and the Jews") that occur outside the context of CT, "excise" Chaucer's authorship, and adjust their temporalities, addressing "their own distinct identities,…
Lawton, Lesley.
Jean-Paul Debax, ed. Actes de l'atelier "Moyen Age" du XLVe congrès de la SAES (Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur). Paris: Publications de l'Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2006, pp. 31-46.
Discusses John Gower's "Vox Clamantis," with passing mention of Chaucer.
Edwards, A. S. G.
Derek Pearsall, ed. New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies: Essays from the 1998 Harvard Conference (York; and Rochester, N.Y.: York Medieval Press, in association with Boydell and Brewer, 2000), pp. 65-79.
Edwards surveys attempts to "historicize" the representation of Middle English texts, from black letter type to computer transcription, focusing on the nineteenth-century efforts of Frederic Madden. Includes recurrent references representing the…
Morris, Andrew Jeffrey.
Dissertation Abstracts International 65 (2005): 4555A
As part of a larger discussion of medieval estate management and its literary representations, Morris examines the character of Piers Plowman and Chaucer's Oswald the Reeve.
Moore, Colette.
Dissertation Abstracts International 65 (2005): 3815A
Moore shows that medieval poems (including Chaucer's) "exploit the less-determined systems of medieval speech marking for aesthetic and rhetorical purposes."
Chance, Jane.
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 38 : 75-92, 2002.
The Knight, in representing the gods, omits any reference to the castration of Saturn in order to justify the ascendancy of Jupiter, the authority of Theseus, and the political situation of the later fourteenth century, "a dark time in which…
Robertson, Elizabeth, and Christine M. Rose, eds.
New York and Basingstoke : Palgrave, 2001.
Eleven essays about literary depictions of rape in Chaucer, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Latin comedies, Ovidian narratives, and the Philomel story. Includes an introduction by the editors, an afterword by Christopher Cannon, and a revised reprint…
Pigg, Daniel F.
In Albrecht Classen, ed. Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time: The Occult in Pre-Modern Sciences, Medicine, Literature, Religion, and Astrology (Boston, Mass.: De Gruyter, 2017), pp. 489-506.
Comments on the "shadowy slippage" between science and magic in FranT and the deceptive practices evident in CYPT suggesting that "Chaucer explored magic and science" in order to distinguish between "phenomena that can be controlled" and those that…
Laskaya, Catherine Anne.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 2484A.
With CT, Chaucer raises many feminist cultural issues, exploring gender stereotyping and the limits it imposes on individuals. The men of KnT contrast with those of MilT and MerT, and all diverge from the overtly Christian ParsT. Exemplary female…
Studies Wynken de Worde's use of copy texts for his edition of CT. Although de Worde used Caxton's second edition, he also turned to an undetermined manuscript or manuscripts to improve the ordinatio of the work. The changes do not, however, indicate…
In CYPT, one finds a "rhetorical demystification of alchemy's textual mystification of work and material production" and a commentary on counterfeiting and the impotence of alchemy as a "projection of masculine fears of sexual impotence."
Moulin, Joanny.
Claire Vial, ed. 'Gode is the lay, swete is the note': Résonances dans les lais bretons moyen-anglais / Echoes in the Middle English Breton Lays (2014): n.p. (web publication).
Discusses theoretical approaches to the study of Breton lays, including gender and postcolonial studies. Includes brief references to FranT.
Once and Future Classroom 2.1 (2003): n.p. [Web publication]
No author listed; intended for pedagogical purposes. Summarizes the plots of several medieval narratives with garden settings, including MerT and FranT, exploring their versatility. Also comments on garden settings in J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of…
Assesses depictions of the working class by Langland, Chaucer, Gower, and the chronicler Walsingham, considering what they disclose about conditions and attitudes at the time of the 1381 Uprising (Peasant's Revolt). Sharply criticizes Gower's and…
Lubinski, Jason D.
Open access Ph.D. dissertation (University of Oklahoma, 2019). Available at https://shareok.org/handle/11244/319600 (accessed February 8, 2023).
Analyzes "how medieval society understood the way gender characteristics were composed and balanced in a person by applying classical theories on biology, the humors, physiognomy, and astrology to medieval literary characters." Includes examination…
Lawler, Jennifer L.
Dissertation Abstracts International 57 (1997): 3012A.
A cross-generic study (excluding drama) of the effects of exile on such diverse characters as the Christian or the secular hero, the lover, and the pilgrim. Discusses works by Chaucer, Gower, and Langland.
Traces background of how Eve was understood by Christians in Antiquity and the Middle Ages in England. Explores portrayals of Eve by Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, and Chaucer, and other lesser-known authors. See Chapter 6, "Middle English Literature,"…
Sancéry, Arlette
André Crépin, ed. Angleterre et Orient au Moyen Age (Paris: Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2002.), pp. 51-64.
Ottomans and Saracens, people, whom Chaucer knew mainly through trade and crusade narratives, embody for him alterity in general and absolute determinism in contrast to Chrsitian free will. MLT suggests that these groups live in error, and while KnT…
Shaw, Patricia.
Purificacion Fernandez Nistal and Jose Ma Bravo Gazalo, eds. Proceedings of the VIth International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1995), pp. 31-40.
Compares the roles and functions of Criseyde and the Wife of Bath as two of the most outstanding female characters in Middle English literature.
