Uses Morris Halle and Seymour Jay Keyser's metrical theory to describe "English decasyllabic verse of the later Middle Ages" and explore why Chaucer's iambic pentameter was not followed more closely by poets such as Hoccleve, Lydgate, Dunbar, and…
Barnbrook, Geoff.
Gerhard Leitner, ed. New Directions in English Language Corpora: Methodology, Results, Software Developments (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992), pp. 277-87.
Explores the potential for "training" a computer to identify spelling variants in Middle English texts, using Robinson's edition (1957) of CT as a basis for analysis. Describes a methodology, results, and perceived shortcomings.
O'Hara, Robert,and Peter Robinson.
Norman Blake and Peter Robinson, eds. The 'Canterbury Tales' Project Occasional Papers, Volume I (Oxford: Office for Humanities Communication Publications, 1993), pp. 53-74.
Discusses the application of computer-assisted cladistic analysis to manuscript stemmatics and describes the use of "Collate" software, designed to analyze and refine generalizations produced by cladistics. The essay details how texts of the Old…
Robinson, Peter
Pieter van Reenan and Margot van Mulken, eds., with the assistance of Janet Dyk. Studies in Stemmatology (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1996), pp. 71-103.
Describes the value of cladistic analysis in generating multiple, flexible stemmata for texts, arguing that stemmata are useful for indicating what can be used as a best text for editing, not for establishing the text itself. Analyzes variants in…
Discusses meter, rhythm, and textual problems in Chaucer's iambic pentameter, analyzing them using text-analysis computer applications: Oxford Concordance Program and WordSmith Tools. Texts of GP and WBP from the Hengwrt manuscript are transcribed…
Lancashire, Ian, ed.
Toronto: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, 1993.
Ten essays from a 1992 conference on the application of computer technology to the study of Chaucer's language, his style, and manuscripts of his works. Includes a summary titled "Afterwords" by Patricia J. Eberle (pp. 189-93), which comments on…
Dilligan, Robert J., and Karen Lynn.
College English 34 (1973): 1103-4 and 1113-23.
Describes an eight-step "algorithm" for enabling computers to aid in the recognition and cataloging of prosodic traits, and explores the utility of such practice by discussing the data from a computer-assisted scansion of a 1000-line sample of…
Ryan discusses problems of unity in dream-vision poems, particularly the concepts of beginning and ending. She suggests that Joseph Frank's theory of spatial form may be applicable to analysis of the dream visions and tests this approach on BD.
Lee, Monika H.
Essays in Literature (Macomb, Ill.) 21 (1994): 152-65.
Like many other medieval English poets, Chaucer was much concerned with the nature of truth, especially in FranT and TC. The Late Middle Ages still showed a "vestigial orality" in approaching the subject.
Examines "Sir Gawain" in the context of ideas about chivalry and death in the fourteenth century and conflicts between morality and knighthood. A pessimistic view of knighthood is seen in "Form Age." Clein discusses indeterminancy and audience…
Approaches political, social, and marital sovereignty as prominent concerns of CT: the Host's authority in GP and elsewhere, Theseus as ideal sovereign in KnT in contrast with the tyrants of PhyT and MkT, Mel as an allegory of a ruler's moral…
Treats the Host of CT as a psychological character whose recurrent levity disguises neither his pride nor the fact that he is "hen-pecked" by his wife, Goodelief. Essentially comic and naturalistic, Harry participates significantly in the marriage…
Molencki, Rafał.
Jacek Fisiak, ed. Studies in Middle English Linguistics (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997), pp. 351-71.
Anatomizes concessive clauses (those beginning with "yet," "although," "nevertheless," etc.), exploring their syntactic variety and semantic use. The subjunctive mood dominates, although instances of the indicative prefigure Modern English.
Byrd, Forrest M.
Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association 10 (1984): 29-43.
Examines the role of conditional language structures--subjunctive, disjunctive, hypothetical, contingent--in irony, ambiguity, and attempts to control the future.
Eyler considers the Pauline concept of "spiritual athleticism" (a means of struggling with temptation) in hagiographic literature and in canonical medieval English texts, including CT. Argues that the spiritual athlete moves from "trope in early…
Burger, Glenn.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
Argues that the "invention" of the good wife in discourses of sacramental marriage, private devotion, and personal conduct "reconfigured how female embodiment was understood." Focuses on conduct texts and manuals written by men for women, including…
Interrogates post-Enlightenment understandings of shame, and argues that in FranT shame negotiates continua rather than dichotomies (men/women, courtly love/marriage, and public/private). Read in light of conduct literature, Arveragus's claims and…
Larson, Wendy A.
Maureen B. M. Boulton, ed. Literary Echoes of the Fourth Lateran Council in England and France, 1215–1405 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2019), pp. 229-70.
Surveys the cultural impact of "Omnis utriusque sexus," and shows how Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve used "confessional discourse" to help construct subjectivities in their works. Comments on ParsT as the "best known confessional manual in Middle…
Little, Katherine C.
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
Centers on medieval self-definition rather than subjectivity and studies examples of Wycliffite lay instruction. The Lollards rejected auricular confession and emphasized personal contrition for sin. Lollard pastoral texts disrupted traditional…
Raskolnikov, Masha.
Literature Compass 2 (2005): 1-20.
Surveys recent discussions of the role of confession in constructing a vernacular sense of self in late medieval English writing, with recurrent references to Chaucer's works.
McCracken, Samuel
Modern Philology 68 (1971): 289-91.
Identifies a tripartite pattern in several of the Canterbury narratives (introduction, confessional prologue, and tale), applying it to CYPT. Comparisons with WBPT, MerPT, and PardPT illuminate the structure of CYPT.
Turner, Marion.
Paul Strohm, ed. Middle English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 258-73.
Turner asks whether "literary practice and socio-political conflict" were "mutually dependent" in Ricardian England, arguing that writers and scribes--including Chaucer and Adam Pinkhurst--worked for "politically active and volatile guilds" and…
