Houlik-Ritchey, Emily.
Allison Gulley, ed. Teaching Rape in the Medieval Literature Classroom: Approaches to Difficult Texts (Amsterdam: Arc Humanities, 2018), pp. 91-112.
Identifies contradictions and complications in legal and ethical understandings of rape, and describes how issues of consent and culpability can be used productively in classroom discussion of RvT to help students understand their own values as well…
Kivimaa, Krista
Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, Societas Scientarum Fennica 43.1 (1968): 1-75.
Identifies, tabulates, and analyzes the clauses introduced by conjunctions in Chaucer's works (except Th and his lyrics), with or without pleonastic "that," attending to stress (verse and prose) and meter, and concluding, generally, that Chaucer…
Hallissy, Margaret.
Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood, 1993.
Using a tripartite structure of woman's role in society drawn from medieval codes of conduct, Hallissy explores Chaucer's depictions of women in light of accepted modes of behavior. Each section establishes medieval expectations for female behavior…
Gleason, Mark J.
A. J. Minnis, ed. The Medieval Boethius (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987), pp. 89-105.
Gleason addresses three misunderstandings: disparagement of the literary value of Bo and its sources; inaccurate evaluation of Chaucer's use of sources, especially Trevet; and lack of information about Trevet's commentary, which is significant in…
Dauby, Helene.
Danielle Buschinger and Wolfgang Spiewok, eds. Etudes de linguistique et de litterature en l'honneur d'Andre Crepin. Greifswalder Beitrage zum Mittelalter, no. 5. WODAN ser., no. 20 (Greifswald: Reineke, 1993), pp. 107-12.
Mel capitalizes on a pattern of attention to women earlier in CT, reflecting Chaucer's own concern with female rights of speech and self-expression.
Cullum, P. H.
D. M. Hadley, ed. Masculinity in Medieval Europe (London and New York: Longman, 1999), pp. 178-96.
Uses several case studies to assess medieval male clerical behavior and its transgressions. Briefly discusses Nicholas and Absolon of MilT as an illumination of the dilemma of young medieval clerics, caught between their vows of celibacy and their…
Sequeira, Isaac.
K. P. K. Menon, M. Manuel, and K. Ayyappa Paniker, eds. Literary Studies: Homage to Dr. A. Sivaramasubramonia Aiyer (Trivandum: St. Joseph's Press, for the Dr. A. Sivaramasubramonia Aiyer Memorial Committee, 1973), pp. 34-43.
Explores seven aspects of Chaucer's satiric presentation of the Monk and his failure to follow monastic ideals: claustration, hunting, Benedictine rule, monastic study, poverty, asceticism, and celibacy.
Examines the English educational system in Chaucer's time, tracing the paths from parish schools to the universities indicated in the GP portraits of the Clerk and the Parson.
Williams, Andrew.
Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 3 (1990): 127-36.
In his depiction of clerical celibacy, Chaucer may have been influenced by Andreas. The two authors approach the topic in similar fashion and reflect contemporary attitudes and turmoil.
Carruthers, Mary (J.)
English Language Notes 23 (1985): 11-20
"At hom" referred to "one's native dwelling," while "bord" signified "meals." "Gossib" referred to the baptismal sponsor and suggests that the Wife may well have had children. Jankyn's being "At hom to bord / With my gossib" implies that he lived…
Iconographic associations of Mary and Griselda have proved problematic in attempts to read ClT as allegory; however, if we hear in the "annunciation passage" a larger range of allusion--both secular and patristic--the allegorical force of the Marian…
Cowgill, Bruce Kent.
Susanna Freer Fein, David Raybin, and Peter C. Braeger, eds. Rebels and Rivals: The Contestive Spirit in The Canterbury Tales. Studies in Medieval Culture, no. 29 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1991), pp. 59-71.
Unlike the homogeneous portrayal of the two clerks in its two closest analogues--De Gombert et les II clercs and Le Meunier et les II clercs--RvT not only differentiates Aleyn from John but also suggests that John dominates their relationship,…
Johnston, Andrew James.
Heidelberg : Winter, 2001.
Tripartite study that first sketches the process of state formation in late-medieval England as a struggle between clerkly and chivalric cultures. Part II locates Chaucer's poetry within this process, assessing his reaction to chivalric culture in…
Explores the "ambivalent status" of clerks in the Middle Ages and the significance of clerkly success in "quiting" (defeating, taking vengeance on) carpenters and millers in MilT and RvT. In the latter, Chaucer avoids "quiting" the Reeve and thereby…
Demonstrates that "Tudor editions of Chaucer imagined Chaucer himself as a Tudor poet" (109); concludes with three illustrations from Houghton Library copies of STC 5075 and 5077.
Schulenburg, Jane Tibbetts.
Julia A. Sherman and Evelyn Torton Beck, eds. The Prism of Sex: Essays in the Sociology of Knowledge (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979), pp. 33-53.
One of the best and earliest observations of the basic distortion of history with regard to women and their roles is made by the Wife of Bath (III, 688-96). Christine de Pisan makes a comparable but more elaborate statement of the mistreatment of…
Davis, Carmel Brendon.
Estela Valverde, ed. A Universal Argentine: Jorge Luis Borges, English Literature and Other Inquisitions (Sydney: Southern Highlands Press, 2009), pp. 105-14.
Investigates the validity of Jorge Louis Borges' claim (1949) that Chaucer effected or recorded the "definitive shift from allegory to novel" when translating a line from Boccaccio's "Teseida" in his KnT. Davis focuses on the "slipperiness of…
Raybin, David, and Linda Tarte Holley, eds.
Kalamazoo : Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000.
Nine essays and an annotated bibliography that focus on ParsT. Includes an introduction by the editors and a comprehensive index. For individual essays, search for Closure in The Canterbury Tales under Alternative Title.
Ramsey, Roger.
Journal of Narrative Technique 7 (1977): 104-15.
ClT embodies two levels of meaning, realistic and allegorical. These levels are well represented by the handling of the detail and imagery of Griselda's clothing.
Savage, Anne.
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne et al., eds. Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts in Late Medieval Britain: Essays for Felicity Riddy (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2000), pp. 345-61.
Despite differences in genre, these narratives include a father who "constructs the circumstances in which he could marry his daughter." Pointedly excluded from consideration in MLP, paternal incest posed in ClT (between Walter and his daughter) is…
Jeske, Jeffrey M
Victorian Poetry 20 (1982): 21-32.
Clough arranges a group of tales, each representing a position in a debate between proponents of idealism and of naturalism. Like CT, these tales not only exist in a state of tension with each other but actually contradict the philosophical…
Dane, Joseph A.
Joseph A. Dane. Mythodologies: Methods in Medieval Studies, Chaucer, and Book History ([Santa Barbara, Calif.]: Punctum, 2018), pp. 105-10.
Comments on anachronisms in the portrait of Chaucer included in William Godwin’s Life of Chaucer (1803) and on the reception of the portrait and the biography, suggesting that the portrait is "more sincere" than other Chaucerian anachronisms and…
Davidson, Mary Catherine.
Neophilologus 87: 473-86, 2003.
Examples from "The Chronicle of Peter Langtoft," "Piers Plowman," and CT (WBP and PardP) indicate how patterns of mixed-language speech reflect the social motivations of the speakers, especially their efforts to construct authority and restrict…
