The chaos in HF is partly the result of multiple interpretations of texts and massive disagreement among the characters. Geffrey may curse the individual who "misinterprets" his writing, but he is partly joking. Only those authors whose texts are…
Is PF realist or nominalist? Ultimately, the poem's debate and epistemological investigation of the two positions is more conducive to reader participation than a conclusive ending would have been.
Wimsatt, James I.
Mary Salu, ed. Essays on Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge: Brewer, 1979), pp. 43-56.
Two major sources of the realism in TC are the Platonic cosmic fables (e.g., the "Boece") and the arts of love or handbooks for lovers, particularly the "Pamphilus." The fables would seem far removed from realism; however, their writers' concern…
Nardo, Don, ed.
San Diego, Cal.: Greenhaven, 1997.
Seventeen previously published essays and excerpts, accompanied by an introduction, a biography, a chronology, and a brief bibliography intended for student use. Contributors include Donald Howard (on structure and on social rank), Glending Olson (on…
Cervone, Christina Maria, and D. Vance Smith, eds.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2016.
Begins with an introduction to Spearing's place in scholarship and situates him in the wider context of English and American approaches to texts. Follows with a chronological bibliography of Spearing's published work. This collection of essays is…
Johnson, David F., and Elaine Treharne, eds.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005.
Twenty-five essays by various contributors, addressing individual works or genres and designed for "students undertaking courses in Old and Middle English." The book includes recurrent references to Chaucer's works. For two essays that pertain to his…
Spearing, A. C.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
By eclectic approaches that borrow techniques from "modern literary theory, film analysis, sociolinguistics, and social anthropology" and that use historical views of medieval ideas and practice, Spearing illuminates a number of medieval poems,…
Meale, Carol M., ed.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994.
Twelve essays, by various authors, from the Third Conference on Romance in England, held March-April 1992 at the University of Bristol. Topics include generic definition; textual transmission; audience reception; romance and emergent nationalism;…
Zieman, Katherine.
Sarah Rees Jones, ed. Learning and Literacy in Medieval England and Abroad. Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, no. 3 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003), pp. 97-120.
Zieman examines the "liturgical literacy" of medieval nuns, exploring the extent to which they may have understood Latin texts that they performed. PrT presents "singing explicitly characterized as illiterate" as "the purest form of piety"; SNT…
Meale, Carol M.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Mediaevalitas: Reading the Middle Ages (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), pp. 81-101.
Examines the life, tomb, and library of Alice Chaucer--granddaughter of the poet--to suggest how we might reconstruct a women's literary culture of the fifteenth century. Alice's literary taste was influenced by her father, Thomas Chaucer; by the…
Thomas, Alfred.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Explores the influence of Anne of Bohemia, wife and consort of King Richard II, on Chaucer and his contemporaries. Proposes that Anne of Bohemia was a "possible female patron and reader" of Chaucer's texts. Focuses on PrT, SNT, KnT, WBT, and LGW.
Chaucer and Gower distance themselves from French influence in the 1380s and 1390s as a way to criticize Richard's "predilection for French literature" and to train their readers to read and interpret.
Thomas, Alfred.
Miriamne Ara Krummel and Tison Pugh, eds. Jews in Medieval England:Teaching Representations of the Other (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 119-39.
Describes a pedagogy and practice of reading PrT in light of the historical pogrom in Prague (1387), a Latin narrative of the pogrom ("Passio Judeorum Pragensium"), a Czech-and-Latin fragmentary play entitled "Ungentarius" (Ointment Seller), and…
Treats as "neighboring texts" Chaucer's account of Pedro I of Castile and Leon (MkT 7..2375-90) and that of Pere Lopez de Ayala in "Cronica del rey don Pedro," theorizing the notion of "neighbor"; exploring the inclusions, omissions, and enigmas of…
Discusses the genre of "lay" as a subset of romance, and places individual lays in their historical and literary contexts, reexamining the meaning of "Breton" in relation to medieval Celtic literature more generally. Compares Chaucer's lays to…
Steinberg, Theodore L.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003.
An introduction to the study of medieval literature, with chapters on "Beowulf," "Chrétien de Troyes, the "Lais" of Marie de France, "The Romance of the Rose," "The Tale of Genji," Jewish literature, sagas, Dante, "Pearl," "Sir Gawain and the Green…
McMullan, Gordon, and David Matthews, eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Twelve essays by individual authors, with an introduction by the editors that discusses modern England's ambivalent fascination with the Middle Ages, including, briefly, Shakespeare and Fletcher's "Two Noble Kinsmen" - an adaptation of Chaucer's KnT.…
Reale, Nancy M.
James J. Paxson and Cynthia A. Gravlee, eds. Desiring Discourse: The Literature of Love, Ovid Through Chaucer (Selinsgrove, Penn.: Susquehanna University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1998), pp. 165-76.
In TC, Chaucer poses a tension between "Boccaccio's interest in the persuasive powers of linguistic skills to create private realities" and Dante's depiction of poetry as a means to transcendent enlightenment. This tension makes TC a poem "that…
Observes that the tail-rhyme meter's layout on the manuscript page alludes not to romance but to a range of other forms, including liturgical hymns, vernacular lyrics, and drama. Examining Th in these contexts suggests that the text perhaps parodies…
Taylor, Andrew.
Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler, eds. Desire and Sexuality in the Premodern West (Toronto; Buffalo, N.Y.; and London: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 280-95.
Cites E. Talbot Donaldson's appreciation of May in MerT as an example of "iconologia," sexualized analysis or penetration of art or literature. Sexual titillation in reading is evident in medieval manuscripts and in modern responses to medieval…
Gwiazda, Piotr.
Carmina Philosophiae 11: 75-91, 2002.
Reads Form Age as a "document of hope"; its lamentation of present ills recalls the Golden Age of the past but does so to provide a blueprint for a perfect and enduring future.
Anderson, Judith H.
New York: Fordham University Press, 2008.
Anderson considers intertextuality to be both a result of authorial intent and an inevitability of language, assessing various kinds of influence, imitation, allusion, and citation. Allegory is a "process of thinking," a kind of metaphor that is…
Blurton, Heather, and Hannah Johnson.
Chaucer Review 50.1-2 (2015): 134–58.
Examines manuscript circulation of PrT showing Chaucer's reception as a Marian poet. This tale was not only used in devotional texts but was responded to in this register by Lydgate and Hoccleve.
