Studies a late medieval manuscript, San Marino, Huntington Library, HM 144 (c. 1500), which is a compilation of works chosen for their devotional and/or ethical content. Uses Mel to show how the scribe--by omitting portions of a text and…
Little, Katherine Clover.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59 (1999): 5136A.
Examines Wycliffite sermons and the opposing views of William Thorpe and Nicholas Love to compare Lollard and orthodox views of narrative and of the individual. Chaucer's awareness of the conflict, his refusal to take sides, and the futility of…
Taylor, Karla.
Russell A. Peck and R. F. Yeager, eds. John Gower: Others and the Self (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017), pp. 73-90.
Argues that ClT, using "distinctively Gowerian terms" such as "corage" and "visage," is Chaucer's response to Gower's perceived challenge at the conclusion of the "Confessio Amantis" for Chaucer "to drop his well-known political reticence and take a…
Sawyer, Daniel.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Studies medieval reading of verse manuscripts and includes analysis of canonical Middle English verse texts, such as works by Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, and Lydgate, as well as lesser-known fourteenth-century northern religious manuscripts. Argues…
Analyzes history of emotions, phenomenology, and gender theory, and specifically discusses "feminine embodiment and the bodily expressions of love" in TC and LGW.
Fein, Susanna.
Sharon M. Rowley, ed. Writers, Editors and Exemplars in Medieval English Texts (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp. 15-41.
Claims that "dreamlore and other prognosticative arts in the Harley Scribe's library" make the Harley Scribe "somewhat of a proto-type for Chaucer's clerks and squires""in CT; focuses on Chaunticleer in NPT and the Clerk in ClT.
Brown, Peter.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999.
Six essays by various authors on dreams in medieval and early modern literature. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Reading Dreams under Alternative Title.
Wodzak, Victoria Lee.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59 (1998): 500A.
Assesses the status of CT and three eighteenth-century novels as "transitional texts" between orality and literacy, examining such features as voicing, framing devices, and insecurity about the social and moral roles of the texts.
Desmond, Marilynn.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
Surveys understandings of Dido--e.g., historical, Virgilian, Ovidian--and examines what her medieval presentations tell us about intertextual relations, gender attitudes, and the "reading positions" of various medieval authors, including Chaucer,…
Reed, Teresa P.
Dissertation Abstracts International 57 (1997): 3930A.
Representations of Mary in medieval literature are paradoxical, often underscored by her opposition to Eve. MLT and the hagiography Seinte Marherete seek to present a unified view of Mary but ultimately fail; WBPT and Pearl are more sensitive to the…
Despite their empirical basis, the conclusions Linne R. Mooney draws regarding Adam Pinkhurst's relationship to Chaucer ultimately depend on literary evidence, which should remind scholars that while particular communities of readers make a work…
Presents a brief biography of Chaucer and an overview of Chaucerian criticism before discussing challenges in compiling a Chaucer edition for modern readers. Includes direct commentary on TC and CT.
Argues that MkT models "rumination," a reading method used by monks. Includes close reading of the form and content of specific lines. Also claims ABC as a model for monastic reading techniques because it is fragmented, repetitive, monologic, and…
Twomey, Michael W.
T. L. Burton and John F. Plummer, eds. "Seyd in Forme and Reverence": Essays on Chaucer and Chaucerians in Memory of Emerson Brown, Jr. (Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio Press, 2005), pp. 181-90.
Guide to pronouncing the Latin words and phrases in CT, presented in International Phonetic Alphabet; includes a brief introduction on historical phonology.
Reader theory helps us better appreciate LGW: the schema trust/doubt/questioning/self-reliance reveals subtle complexities in the relationships among reader, poet, and moral and literary traditions.
Rudat, Wolfgang E. H.
English Language Notes 29:2 (1991): 16-20.
Carl Lindahl's hypothesis (Earnest Games, SAC 11 [1989], no. 135) of folkloric approaches to Chaucer oversimplifies and stereotypes the poet's art. Such readings, which detract from close reading, "have a potentially distorting effect."
Espie, Jeff, and Sarah Star.
Chaucer Review 51.3 (2016): 382-401.
Examines Chaucer's original characterization of Calkas through the ways it diverges from the representation of this character in earlier versions. Chaucer presents him as a human individual whose words are not necessarily to be trusted, introducing…
Japanese translation of BD, with introduction and notes by Haruo Harada. Includes six essays by various scholars.
For individual essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Reading Chaucer's Book of the Duchess under Alternative Title.
Oka, Saburo.
Yuichiro Azuma, Kotaro Kawasaki, and Koichi Kano, eds. Chaucer and English and American Literature: Essays Commemorating the Retirement of Professor Masatoshi Kawasaki (Tokyo: Kinseido, 2015), pp. 3-19.
Begins with attempts to position Chaucer, TC, and the reading subject (the author himself ), and reads the Prologue and Epilogue of TC in literary, historical, and anthropological terms. In Japanese.
Finlayson, John.
English Studies 86 (2005): 493-510.
NPT can best be approached by focusing on form and style rather than on theme and narrator. Attempting to define a central theme or message is frustrated by the Tale's allusive richness and multiplicity of perspectives, and the narrator is largely…
Sharp, Michael D.
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 173-85.
MkT critiques secular masculinity, represented by the Host and the Knight; their comments about the Tale disclose more about themselves than about the Tale or its teller. Against these two figures, the "Monk remains a figure of resistance."
Gaylord, Alan T.
Chaucer Yearbook 1 (1992): 87-109.
Riches of tone and ambiguities encourage us to read Chaucer's poetry silently. Oral performances can illuminate and entertain, but they limit perception of range and depth of meaning. Gaylord examines unpunctuated portions of the Prioress's sketch,…
Includes previously published essays on English medieval writers, including Chaucer, Thomas Hoccleve, and Ranulph Higden. Contains one unpublished essay, "Towards a Bohemian Reading of Troilus and Criseyde." Topics are divided into subsections:…
Rigby, Stephen H.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 1-23.
Introduces a collection of essays and emphasizes how different social, historical, and ethical "interpretative frameworks" can deepen an understanding of Chaucer's pilgrims in GP.
Matthews, David.
Frank Grady, ed. The Cambridge Companion to "The Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 233-37.
Discusses how professors can help students approach difficult texts such as CT, whether by helping students choose good translations or by sharing methods with non-medievalists, in particular modernists, who also confront hard-to-read.
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