Davis, John.
Journal for the History of Astronomy 50, no. 2 (2019): 121–54; 11 color illus.
Offers evidence that the "Chaucerian" astrolabe in the British Museum was constructed in the early fifteenth century, perhaps for Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, and provides "a scenario whereby . . . Chaucer would be exposed to astrolabes with…
Stadnik, Katarzyna.
Merja Stenroos, Martti Mäkinen, Kjetil Vikhamar Thengs, and Oliver Traxel, eds. Current Explorations in Middle English: Selected Papers from the 10th International Conference on Middle English (ICOME), University of Stavanger, Norway, 2017 (New York: Peter Lang, 2019), pp. 249-64.
Adopts a "grounded approach to cognition" that combines awareness of embodiment, physical environment, and sociocultural situatedness. Discusses "selected cognitive-cultural aspects of diagrammatic iconicity" that structure ParsT and constitute a…
Flannery, Mary C.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 42 (2020): 1-25.
Challenges scribal and editorial choices to use "swyve" at ManT, 256, where the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts (and two others) have some form of "et cetera," arguing that the latter is "likely an example of authorial play." Gauges the meanings,…
Schenkel, Elmar.
Keplers Dämon: Begegnungen zwischen Literatur, Traum und Wissenschaft (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2016), pp. 290-300.
Exemplifies the recurrent concern with alchemy in western culture and literature, including description of Chaucer's depiction of it in CYPT, along with his reputation for scientific knowledge.
Bentick, Eoin.
Dissertation Abstracts International DAI C81.04 (2019): n.p.
Studies the portrayals of alchemy and alchemists in fourteenth-and fifteenth-century English verse, including discussion of Chaucer's negative depiction of alchemy and its practitioners in CYPT, and John Gower's positive view in "Confessio Amantis."
Castro, Enrico.
Parole rubate/Purloined Letters 18 (2018): 139-61. Open access journal, at http://www.parole rubate.unipr.it/issues.php (accessed January 24, 2022).
Identifies and comments on various parallels between lines 36 and 74 of the "Invocacio ad Mariam" in SNP and St. Bernard’s praise of Mary in Dante’s "Paradiso," XXXIII, treating portions of it as "free translation," although perhaps influenced by…
Turner, Joseph
Chaucer Review 55, no. 3 (2020): 298-316.
Argues that "through the Nun's Priest's portion of Fragment VII Chaucer navigates much of the theories of characterization found in the late medieval rhetorical treatises known as the 'artes poetriae,' or the arts of poetry," and offers "a critique…
Argues that the various parts of NPT, an "expanded fable," are unified by a thematic exploration of true and false knowledge, then identifies instances where the tale mirrors "some elements of theme, structure, and style" of other parts of CT.
Karpinski, Agnes.
Bernard Dieterle and Manfred Engel, eds. Historizing the Dream/Le rêve du point de vue historique (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2019), pp. 93-118.
Assesses relations between dreams and determinism (fate, providence, and prophecy) in three medieval narratives: Kriemhild’s dream in the "Nibelungenlied," the dreams in" Der Nonne von Engeltal Büchlein von der Gnaden Überlast," and Chanticleer's…
Chamberlin, Julie K.
Dissertation Abstract International A80.11 (2019): n.p
Argues "that medieval writers of beast literature probed the limitations and possibilities of defining legal personhood, thus exposing the boundary between humans and nonhuman animals to be not merely blurry, but permeable." Includes discussion of…
Prendergast, Thomas A.
Jennifer Jahner, Emily Steiner, and Elizabeth M. Tyler, eds. Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 437-49.
Explores relations between medieval written depictions of tragic events in history and "fictional tragedies," commenting on a range of texts, and assessing how, in MkT, "Chaucer seems to suggest . . . that there is a difference between reporting a…
Laidlaw, Martin.
Victoria Blud, Diane Heath, and Einat Klafter, eds. Gender in Medieval Places, Spaces and Thresholds (London: Institute of Historical Research, University of London, 2019), pp. 107-22.
Examines conflicts between secular and religious notions of masculinity in the Monk's description in GP and in MkPT, showing that they depict the Monk's "inability to abide by the expected behaviours of his vocation" and expose him to ridicule by the…
Identifies and gives codicological information about Exchequer Records of the King's Remembrancer in The National Archives at Kew, E 163/22/2/24, a portion of Jan van Boendale's Dutch translation of Albertanus of Brescia's "Liber consolationis et…
Matlock, Wendy A.
Chaucer Review 55, no. 4 (2020): 462-83.
Positions Mel and ManT as "vivid examples of Chaucer's polyphonic authority that highlight the rich network of gendered speech constituting his mature voice." Argues that Chaucer's ventriloquized women in Mel and ManT translate continental sources…
Argues that Shakespeare and "his fellow dramatists . . . consciously revived . . . non-dramatic forms of medieval culture . . . in order to challenge the new constraints placed on public dissent by Tudor and Stuart absolutism" and affirm "the power…
Steel, Karl.
How Not to Make a Human: Pets, Feral Children, Worms, Sky Burial, Oysters (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019), pp. 17-40.
Reviews medieval disapproval of pet-keeping among religious personnel as evidence that companionship with animals has a long history and that medieval "pet-love" can "help us to unthink the human." Comments on pet-slayings in versions of the…
Offers a psychoanalytical reparative reading of PrT, focusing on PrP, the conclusion of the tale, and various intertexts (Psalm 8; the "Alma Redemptoris Mater"; and Dante's "Purgatorio," XXXIII), unpacking interplays between utterance and intention;…
Hersh, Cara.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 26, no. 2 (2019): 9-16.
Offers a pedagogical exercise for teaching PrT in a way that provokes students’ confrontation with issues of personal disgust and engagement with the tale.
Discusses kitsch as a "counter aesthetic" that results from a "failed dialectic of beauty and ugliness," and explores the Nazis' "Anti-Kitsch Law," Theodor Adorno's aesthetic theory, the Prioress's "countrefete cheere" and sentimentality, the gore…
Analyzes Langland's and Chaucer's uses of "tally-tale-tail" puns in "Piers Plowman" and ShT, clarifying medieval understandings of signification, polysemy, equivocation, deception, economic value, and misogyny. Unlike Lady Mede, who is trapped in a…
Offers evidence for the source for the opening of the ShT, connecting it with Gilbertus Minorita's "Dictinctiones" and its quotation of then-contemporary vernacular poetry.
Explores interrelations among youth, old age, virginity, and chastity in PhyT and WBPT as they "reveal the links between eroticism and control over bodies." Includes an abstract in English.
Yıldız, Nazan.
Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi/Selçuk University Journal of Faculty of Letters 37 (2017): 329-42.
Assesses the Franklin as a "hybrid and mimic who is caught in between the medieval acknowledged identities of the commoners and the nobility," striving upward, and searching for "for a recognisable identity" in his changing medieval society. Includes…
Veldhoen, N. H. G. E.
J. Lachlan Mackenzie and Richard Todd, eds. In Other Words: Transcultural Studies in Philology, Translation and Lexicology Presented to Hans Meier on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (Boston, Mass.: De Gruyter Mouton, 2019), pp. 107-16.
Seeks to answer the "demande d’amour" of FranT (1622), first eliminating Dorigen and the magician from consideration of who is most "fre," and then arguing that Aurelius and Arveragus have effectively equal claim to be named--a complicated balance…
Traces the figure of the "sursanure" in FranT, demonstrating that this superficially healed wound is an apt metaphor for Chaucer/s soft or "sunken" sources.
