Lalla, Barbara.
Jamaica: University of West Indies Press, 2008.
Examines Old and Middle English language and literature in light of postcolonial conditions and theories, particularly those of Caribbean studies, considering issues of cultural contact, vernacularity, competing discourses, power, transgression, and…
Tomasch, Sylvia.
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ed. The Postcolonial Middle Ages (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), pp. 243-60.
Because Jews were expelled from England in 1290, their presence in English art and literature is "virtual." Tomasch surveys virtual Jews in the Holkham Bible Picture Book, the Luttrell Psalter, and Chaucer's CT (PrT, the Old Man of PardT, ParsT, and…
Gaylord, Alan T.
Martin Stevens and Daniel Woodward, eds. The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library; Tokyo: Yushodo, 1995), pp. 121-42.
Similarities between Thomas Hoccleve's portrait of Chaucer in "Regement of Princes" and the Ellesmere portrait do not confirm speculations that the artists were drawing from life.
Allen, Valerie.
English Studies 74 (1993): 324-42.
Argues that Chaucer's portrait of Blaunche in BD is not a mere rhetorical exercise in the tradition of Vinsauf's prescriptions but "a serious attempt" to reform the "descriptio feminae," exploring identity by examining the relation between mind and…
Charles Cowden Clarke, Charles Knight, and John Saunders were the most effective popularizers of Chaucer for the common reader in nineteenth-century England. These individuals translated Chaucer into modern English and bowdlerized his language in…
Reprints Clouston's two-volume work (1887), with its original Introduction and Index, commentary on the brass steed of SqT, and chapter entitled "Chaucer's 'Pardoner's Tale'" (pp. 490-511) that traces the sources and analogues of the Tale. Adds an…
Forni lauds the BBC's modernized television adaptation of CT (2003) for its appeal to a wide audience while retaining fidelity to the original texts; for its intertextuality; and for its highlighting of aspects of Chaucer that appeal to contemporary…
Ellis, Steve.
Studies In Medievalism 09 (1997): 26-43.
Shows that the steady growth in understanding of the historical context of Chaucer's poetry has coexisted with a tendency, on the part of scholars as well as popularizers, to view Chaucer as the jovial poet of "merrie England."
Mack, Maynard.
Rene Welleck and Alvaro Ribeiro, eds. Evidence of Literaary Scholarship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 105-21.
Pope's copy of Chaucer, with his own youthful annotations, still survives. And though his marking of the text shows careful perusal of it (especially Rom), these early annotations are ultimately not very revealing of Pope's maturer feelings about…
Nokes, David.
Review of English Studies 27 (1976): 180-82.
Argues that Pope's copy of Chaucer--the Hartleby copy of Speght's 1598 edition of Chaucer's "Works"--gives evidence of Pope's plan for reworking HF into his "Temple of Fame." Elsewhere in the volume, Pope's reader's marks are light.
Bennett, Helen T.
Medieval Perspectives 9 (1994): 24-40.
Bennett artues that the pilgrimage frame of CT was influenced by Gregory's "Liber," particularly in presenting "a range of human types" and in suiting pastoral care to individual exigencies. The "Liber" has particular applications to Chaucer's…
Stévanovitch, Colette.
Wendy Harding, ed. Drama, Narrative and Poetry in The Canterbury Tales (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003), pp. 113-24.
The author explores some of the effects arising from polysyllables (i.e., here words with more than one stressed syllable), concentrating on those in rhyming position, especially words referring to worthynesse and gentillesse, the virtues credited to…
Scott-Macnab, David.
Leeds Studies in English 36 (2005): 175-94.
Critics generally gloss "embosen" as either "concealed in the woods" or "exhausted from the hunt." Examination of the word determines its precise meaning as a hunting term and also sheds light on Octovyen's hunt.
Lozowski, Przemyslaw.
Nikolaus Ritt and Herbert Schendl, eds. Rethinking Middle English: Linguistic and Literary Approaches (New York and Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 125-46.
Disputes the assumption that "meten" and "dremen" are synonyms in Chaucer and illustrates systematic differentiation in WBT, NPT, BD, Rom, HF, Bo, and TC (plus other, non-Chaucerian texts). In general, the late fourteenth century is a transitional…
Erzgräber, Willi.
Armin Paul Frank and Ulrich Molk, eds. Fruhe Formen mehrperspektivischen Erzahlens von der Edda bis Flaubert (Berlin: Schmidt, 1991), pp. 17-33.
Based on Nietzsche's epistemology, the essay discusses Chaucer's use of multiple perspective in PF, TC, and NPT as the poet's instrument for encouraging his readers to reflect on the multiplicity of their experiences.
Hsy explores the use of English, French, and Latin by writers such as Chaucer, Gower, and Margery Kempe in conjunction with the polyglot mercantile culture of London. Argues that these writers "hybridize" multilingual traditions to form "hybrid …
Campbell, Jackson J.
Chaucer Review 7.2 (1972): 140-46.
Reads ManT as an example of successful "characterization through narrative technique," assessing its paucity of actual storytelling relative to the amount of moralizing. This tedious moralizing is comic and results from Chaucer's adaptations of his…
Strohm, Paul.
Notre Dame, Ind. : University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
Explores the political discourse of fifteenth-century England, identifying a "pre-Machiavellian moment" in which awareness of political upheaval and the unreliability of Fortune influenced or produced a variety of vernacular texts. Assesses the…
Prendergast, Thomas A.
William F. Gentrup, ed. Reinventing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Constructions of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods ([Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 63-76.
Surveys "legends" about Chaucer's prodigality, from Thomas Usk's "Testament of Love" to early editions of Purse and modern critical reception of the poem. Editions of Purse and critical responses seek to defend Chaucer "from charges of political…
Uses ABC, Hoccleve's "Complaint of the Virgin Before the Cross," and other sources to outline a mutually reinforcing relationship between the Lancastrians (orthodox supporters of the Church) and the Church (which allied with the Lancastrians).
Delany, Sheila.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 47-60.
In contrast to other analogues to PhysT, Chaucer "systematically obliterates social content" to deprive the characters of plausible motives. This "bad piece of work" is "pornographic or free-floating sadistic sensationalism, with murder as its only…
Challenging suggestions that individuals like Chaucer are agents of linguistic change, Machan argues that they cannot foresee history and therefore cannot work to a future end. The article surveys political factors in late-medieval English linguistic…
