Despairing in his sin, the Monk ignores the providential aspect of the story of Job, and so his tragedies emphasize only death. He particularly ignores the conventionally exegetical readings of Adam and Sampson as examples of Providence.
Fritz, Donald W.
Chaucer Review 21 (1987): 338-59.
The Jungian "puer aeternus" concept clarifies the relationship between the Pardoner and the Host, who fills the role of "senex." The Knight's (negative) intervention reveals him as a positive "senex" figure.
Blamires, Alcuin.
Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees. eds. Gender in Debate: From the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance (New York and Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 57-78.
Connects Alison's sexual liberality in WBP with the loathly lady's liberality of counsel in WBT, arguing that Chaucer "redoctrinates" his audience by converting notions of feminine excess into the positive virtue of generosity. Also considers…
Lee, Sun Young.
Dissertation Abstracts International A79.09 (2018): n.p.
Includes discussion of "Chaucer's critique of the rhetoric of moderation in the speech of the Pardoner and the Friar John [in SumT] . . . , who attempted to assert their clerical superiority and cover up their gluttony by preaching moderation."
PrT expresses the notion of spiritual or "white" martyrdom popular in the Middle Ages. Unlike physical martyrdom, white martyrdom was a mental act, often involving the preservation of virginity. Through the character of the little boy, the Prioress…
Krier, Theresa M.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998.
Ten essays by various authors on the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century reception of Chaucer, as reflected in editing practice, growth of the canon, and poetic imitation and emulation. In "Introduction: Receiving Chaucer in Renaissance England,"…
Catalogues thirty-one previously unlisted references to Troilus, Criseyde, and Pandaras published 1475-1640. Part of a work in progress: an updating of the "Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed ... 1475-1640" and of Caroline Spurgeon's "Five…
Listings of references to Chaucer and his work published 1475-1640, updating Caroline Spurgeon's "Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, 1357-1900."
Assembles references to Chaucer's character and literary reputation recorded in English books 1475-1640, the dates of the Short Title Catalog. Entries include author, title, publisher, and STC and University Microfilm (UMD) numbers and establish the…
Considers theories of the nature of the Old Man in PardT, suggesting that he might be thought to combine feature of the Good Angel and the Bad Angel of medieval mystery and morality plays insofar as he seems to be "extra-human," advising and…
Ramírez-Arlandi, Juan.
In Salvador Peña and Juan Jesús Zaro, eds. Traducir a los clásicos: Entornos y transformaciones (Granada: Comares, 2018), pp. 187-204.
Analyzes the Spanish translation of PardT by Patricio Gannon published in 1944 in Argentina, a version that used as a source text John S. P. Tatlock's and Percy MacKaye's modernized version (1912). Studies the degree of rewriting in Gannon's version…
Taylor, Paul Beekman.
Paul Beekman Taylor. Chaucer Translator (Lanham, Md., New York, and Oxford: University Press of America, 1998), pp. 105-18.
Assesses Chaucer's alterations of his sources (Jean de Meun and Boethius) in the Nero account of MkT. Through selection and emphasis, especially emphasis on clothing, Chaucer "forges a link between the emperor's name and his deeds," associating Nero…
Chaucer's modification of Petrarch's Griselda material return ClT closer to Boccaccio's original version of the story. By working with multiple versions of the story, Chaucer places himself in the pantheon of Italian writers.
Robinson, Peter
George P. Landow and Paul Delany, eds. The Digital Word: Text-based Computing in the Humanities (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993), pp. 271-91.
Critiques print-based critical editions of CT and "Piers Plowman," arguing that they are based on spelling- and punctuation-normalized texts that disguise so-called accidentals and may confuse the difference between accidentals and substantive…
Pulsiano, Phillip.
Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, eds. Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1989), pp. 153-74.
TC explores the "breakdown of language as a vehicle for truth and...knowledge." According to Augustine, language can be redeemed in the Incarnation. Chaucer conveys the "idea of language as a mirror of the divine, and through language we…
Quinn, William A.
Studies in Philology 108.2 (2011): 189-214.
Examines the unique witness to the text of "Kingis Quair" (Bodleian MS Arch. Selden B.24), assessing what the two scribal practices of the manuscript indicate about the composition, reception, and meaning of the poem. Includes discussion of the…
David, Alfred.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 105-15.
Chaucer plays with sources, including echoes of his own works in KnT, LGWP, SqT, MerT, PF, and Anel.
Matsumoto, Hiroyuki.
Hiroshima Studies in English Language and Literature 31 (1986): 17-25.
Chaucer makes the best of recurring rhyme pairs such as 'joye'/'Troye', 'gladnesse'/'destresse', and 'pleasaunce'/'remembraunce' to describe the mutability of worldly happiness in TC.
Stokes, Myra.
Studia Neophilologica 52 (1980): 287-97.
The repeated rhymes "trouthe"/"routhe," "serve"/"disserve," and "mente"/"entente" accentuate the poem's development. The first two pairs underscore the perversion of "fin amours." Troilus asks for his lady's "routhe" in exchange for his "trouthe,"…
Bychowski, M. W.
In Nicole Nyffenegger and Katrin Rupp, eds. Writing on Skin in the Age of Chaucer (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2918), pp. 221-49.
Uses Judith Butler's transgender theory to read the skin of the Pardoner as an example of cooperative agency resulting in a reconstructed identity, in contrast to the surgically enforced violence of cutting off Virginia's head in PhyT in order to…
Lawton, Lesley.
Miranda: Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone 12 (2016): 1-21. Open access journal at http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/8646 (accessed February 6, 2022).
Explores how medieval romances convey stereotypes that "often appear as a feature of tales of identity in which the male subject position of active self-affirmation is partly developed in relation to female figures" of vulnerability. Includes…
Evans, Deanna Delmar.
Studies in Scottish Literature 35-36 (2007): 444-54.
Critiques the appropriateness of the label "Scottish Chaucerian" for William Dunbar, focusing on relations between Chaucer's Th and Dunbar's "Sir Thomas Norny," observing that there is "no reason to assume" direct influence and identifying…
Youmans, Gilbert.
C. B. McCully and J. J. Anderson, eds. English Historical Metrics (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 185-209.
Reexamines Halle and Keyser's three principles of the iambic line as applied to Chaucer's verse, arguing that the verse is better explained by a prototypical hierarchy of stresses than by a pattern of alternating weak and strong stresses. Kiparsky's…
