Collects essays that focus on the theme of death from the later heroic era to the eighteenth century. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times under Alternative Title.
Clancy, Gertrude and Joseph.
Aberystwyth: Northgate, 1993.
Murder mystery which features Chaucer, pilgrims from CT, and historical figures, cast as a series of narratives told while the pilgrims pause at the Priory of Saint Innocents.
Ladd, Roger.
Craig E. Bertolet and Robert Epstein, eds. Money, Commerce, and Economics in Late Medieval English Literature (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 93-107.
Considers relations between PardPT and the Museum of London’s carved wooden panel that depicts details of the tale. Calculates the "absurdity of the hoard" in the tale, and explores possible responses of the "London economic elite" to the differing…
Matsuda, Takami.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 91 (1992): 313-24.
The Pardoner's pragmatic claims for salvation are part of a larger "question of Christian worldly prudence" in CT. His "response to his own tale . . . alerts us to the growth of a pragmatic attitude toward individual death and salvation."
Calcutt, David.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Modern prose adaptation for staging of PartT (without PardP), designed for child or adolescent actors, with illustrations by Mike Spoor. A simultaneously published pamphlet of "Play Teaching Notes," also titled "Death's Trick," by David Calcutt and…
Penhallurick, Robert, ed.
Cardiff : University of Wales Press, 2000.
Seven essays by various authors who challenge "orthodox views about dialects and dialectology" while discussing topics of dialect and "standard" in English, especially British English. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Debating…
Mitchell, Susan.
Proceedings of the PMR Conference 1 (1976): 67-72.
Contrasts Dorigen of FranT with the biblical Eve: where Eve falls because of her desire for knowledge, Dorigen nearly falls for lack of knowledge, particularly her lack of self-knowledge as is evident in her complaint against the rocks and her…
Hanning, Robert W.
Modern Language Quarterly 45 (1984): 395-403.
Review article comparing John M. Ganim's discussion of Middle English narrative in TC and other Middle English works with Lynn Staley Johnson's treatment of the subject in the "Pearl" poems.
Ruud, Jay.
Barbara Olive and David Sprunger, eds. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Northern Plains Conference on Earlier British Literature (Moorhead, Minn.: Concordia College, 2002), pp. 8-21.
Explicates works by three twentieth-century poets who have made Chaucer the subject of their work: Benjamin Brawley's sonnet "Chaucer" (1922), e. e. cummings's untitled sonnet from his collection "Xaipé" (1950), and Ted Hughes's "Chaucer" (1998).…
TC is a drama of "entente," concerned more with why people do things than what they do. Chaucer uses "entente" here much more heavily than in any of his earlier works and evokes its numerous meanings. As the poem progresses, there is a "slippage of…
Surveys uses of primary and secondary interjections (i.e., exclamations and oaths) in Anglo-Saxon through modern English, exploring how the "inventive ability is more marked in some centuries than in others." Comments on oaths based in religion (God,…
Lawler, Traugott.
John V. Fleming and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 2, 1986 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1987), pp. 83-91.
Though deconstruction is a useful tool for breaking down troublesome parts of CT, its "wholesale use" in the interpretation of Chaucer's poetry does great discredit to the author. Deconstructive criticism tends to place any author in a position…
Knapp, Peggy A.
John V. Fleming and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 2, 1986 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1987), pp. 73-81.
Deconstructive readings of CT can reopen the study of historical "particulars," allowing readings from various interpretative communities. Instead of generalized acceptance of "the medieval world view" or of direct historical references suggesting…
Travis, Peter W.
Peter L. Allen and Jeff Rider, ed. Reflections in the Frame: New Perspectives on the Study of Medieval Literature. Special issue of Exemplaria 3 (1991): 135-58.
Ret is an example of a Derridean "parergon," simultaneously marginal to and an important element of CT. It allows for both humanistic and exegetical readings, producing a "hermeneutic double-bind," separated by an aporetic gap that generates new…
D'Arcens addresses Helgeland's film as an entry point for deconstructing medievalist studies. Such studies, she suggests, reflect a latent Platonism that regards the Middle Ages as a stable standard against which to measure texts and contemporary…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Martin Davies, ed. Incunabula: Studies in Fifteenth-Century Books Presented to Lotte Hellinga. (London: British Library, 1999), pp. 493-506
Surveys the quantity and quality of decoration in books printed by Caxton, including works by Chaucer. Speculates why there is less decoration in Caxton's printed books than in those produced on the Continent. Includes four black-and-white…
Patuleanu, Ioana.
Journal of Narrative Technique 44.02 (2014): 159-82.
Refers to Jane Barker's use in an early novel of Dryden's retelling of CT to provide context for her 1723 anti-novel, "A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies."
Straker, Scott-Morgan.
Review of English Studies 52: 1-21, 2001.
Lydgate appropriates Chaucer not so much to pay tribute as to distance himself from anticlericalism, to redeem the narrative and monastic voice, and to assert its freedom from authority, as represented by Harry Bailly. Lydgate's apparent compliance…
Nisse, Ruth.
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
Assesses the biblical and theatrical allusions in MilT for the ways that they engage the theme of interpretation, challenge gender categories, and dovetail with contemporary concerns about the dangers of drama and reading. Compares these with similar…
Confused in definition, "romance" designates both a value system and a method of treatment. The presence of the marvelous, courtly love, and chivalric adventure is not enough to form a definition. A parody like Th helps, since it indicates what is…
Romances are distinguished not by the presence of certain features--the erotic, the fabulous, etc.--but by attitudes toward those elements. WBT is "deliberately" not a romance.
Dickson, Lynne.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 15 (1993): 61-90.
Although WBP does not succeed in fictionalizing a discourse community of women, it makes clear the possibility in its struggle with patriarchal authority. WBT poses such a community in a transient, illusory form. Chaucer capitalizes on the…
