Chaucer and other writers of the "middle strata" of English society (Gower and Langland) "imagine economic activity" in ways that are much like the views recorded in documentary writing. Such writings by societal, administrative, and governmental…
Erzgräber, Willi.
Elmar Lehmann and Bernd Lenz, eds. Telling Stories: Studies in Honour of Ulrich Broich on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: B. B. Gruner, 1992), pp.188-204.
In HF, Chaucer reflects on the literary tradition he follows and on the written and oral materials available to him. James Joyce does the same in his novels, although he was not directly influenced by Chaucer. Each connects with the literary…
Steiner, Emily.
New Medieval Literatures 6 (2003): 199-22.
Steiner assesses political "clamor," "appeal," and "voice," using them to discuss the Prologue to "Piers Plowman" as a work in which "commonality" is "the poem's ideological subject and poetic process." Suggests briefly that the same is true of PF.
Arguing that translations may be used to shape and define community identities, considers MLT as an effort to establish a "multicultural English Christianity." Other examined texts include "Orosius" and Aelfric's "Lives of the Saints."
Kraman, Cynthia.
Diane Watt, ed. Medieval Women in Communities (Toronto and Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 1997), pp. 138-54.
In MerT, the marginal communities of females and Jews maintain ambiguous statuses, serve as subtext to the "Tale," and assert the seductiveness of the suppressed. The ambiguity of the garden--exciting but exclusionary--is associated with female…
Aers, David.
London and New York: Routledge, 1988.
Explores "some versions of community and individual identity" in "Piers Plowman," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," TC, and the tradition of Margery Kempe. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search for Community, Gender, and Individual Identity…
Perez Gallego, Candido.
Candido Perez Gallego. Circuitos Narrativos. Serie Critica, no. 3 (Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Departamento de Lengua y Literatura Inglesas , 1975), pp. 153-201.
Introduction to CT that surveys major concerns of the work, including narrative technique, character development, comedy, setting, major themes, reader involvement, and sources and analogues.
Reale, Nancy M.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. "The Canterbury Tales" Revisited--21st Century Interpretations (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 256-80.
Chaucer's CT, particularly GP, offers "as its 'utilitarian' value or 'worth' exemplary lessons on constructing social identity in the context of an emergent market system." This "bold step paved the way for modern ways of understanding the self,"…
Rowland, Beryl, ed.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Twenty-two essays by noted Chaucerians on a range of topics: individual works, biography, backgrounds, source study, genre, etc. The essays survey fundamental critical issues and bibliography. For individual essays, search for Companion to Chaucer…
Aertsen, Henk, and Alasdair A. MacDonald, eds.
Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1990.
Nine original essays on Middle English romance offer the undergraduate reader a range of critical approaches and methodologies. The essays discuss widely studied romances such as Sir Orfeo, Sir Launfal, and particularly, Sir Gawain and the Green…
Alonso García, Manuel José.
Armando López Castro and María Luzdivina Cuesta Torre, eds. Actas del XI congreso internacional de la Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval: Universidad de León, 20 al 24 de septiembre de 2005. 2 vols. (León: Secretariado de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Léon, 2007), vol. 1, pp. 163-82.
Compares Chaucer's PrT with Alfonso X's "Cantigas de Santa Maria" (no. 6),analyzing them in detail (from plot to prosody), and providing parallel editions of the two texts. In Spanish.
Nykiel, Joanna.
Journal of English Linguistics 38 (2010): 143-66.
Studies the occurrence of "extra" (doubled or mismatched) prepositions in Middle English relative and interrogative clauses and the persistence of the phenomenon in modern English. "Noncategorical" (gradient) constraints such as "preposition…
Williams, Jeni.
Robert Penhallurick, ed. Debating Dialect: Essays on the Philosophy of Dialect Study (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), pp. 46-65.
Assesses linguistic features of RvT, not as evidence of rustic regional gullibility, but as factors in the Tale's response to the depiction of space in MilT. The dialect of John and Aleyn is part of an "ideological attack" in which the clerks are set…
Boyd, David Lorenzo.
South Atlantic Quarterly 91 (1992): 945-64.
The placement of Chaucer's PF in MS Bodley 638, MS Laud Misc. 416, and MS Digby 181 suggests that the poem can be interpreted, respectively, as suggesting the value of courtly love, stressing the importance of "proper governance," and illustrating an…
Phillips, Noelle.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 28 (2014): 65-104.
Explores the "compositional choices" made in the compilation of the texts included in San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 114, and maintains that TC (among others) was copied early and incorporated into this larger collection in response to a…
Focusing on the MerE-SqH, argues that what has been seen as evidence of authorial revision in the manuscripts may simply be reflecting problem areas encountered by the scribes, including problems in accessing exemplars and linking passages, which…
