Collette, Carolyn (P.)
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), 95-107.
Similar in context and form, SNT and PrT have evoked critical commentary on historical background, sources, and analogues. However, PrT has sparked more consistent and recent interest, in part because of the Prioress's personality, her relationship…
Ferster's and Fradenburg's essays problematize the critical act of reading medieval texts: Ferster's examination of "who speaks" in PrT extends to the critic's own voice; Fradenburg's articulation of medievalists' anxieties concerning the status of…
Rossignol, Rosalyn
New York : Facts on File, 2007.
Revised, expanded version of the author's "Chaucer A to Z. The Essential Reference to His Life and Works" (1999; SAC 23 [2001], no. 5), with a more extensive biographical introduction to Chaucer, critical summaries of each of his works, and a more…
Andrew, Malcolm, ed.
Toronto, and Buffalo, N. Y.: University of Toronto Press, 1991.
Anthologizes twenty-one previously published essays and extracts from longer discussions. The pieces were originally published between 1809 and 1987, although all but one are from the twentieth century. Topics range from dramatic criticism to…
Benson, C. David, ed.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991; Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991.
Anthologizes previously published essays and extracts from longer discussions of TC, BD, HF, and PF. Originally published between 1915 and 1986, the essays are arranged chronologically by work, with the majority (twelve of nineteen) dedicated to TC.
Eleven essays by various authors. In his introduction, Stillinger characterizes Chaucer studies up to the 1980s as a great debate between New Criticism and exegetical criticism; he says that he selected the essays in the volume for the ways they go…
Cookson, Linda, and Bryan Loughrey, ed.
Harlow: Longman, 1989.
Ten essays concerning GP addressed to a student audience, each essay followed by brief "Afterthoughts," intended for purposes of study and review. The volume also contains a "Practical Guide" on writing student essays (pp. 121-37). For individual…
Cookson, Linda, and Bryan Loughrey, ed.
Harlow: Longman, 1990.
Ten essays on PardPT addressed to a student audience, each essay followed by brief "Afterthoughts," intended for purposes of study and review. The volume also contains a "Practical Guide" on writing student essays. For individual essays, search for…
Describes several ways of addressing modern "experimental poems 'as' criticism," and suggests that, adumbrating such metapoetic practice, the juxtaposition of Th and Mel "constitutes a wondering literary-theoretical response to Boethius'…
Reisman, Rosemary M., ed.
Emmerson, Richard Kenneth.
Pasedena, CA: Salem, 2011.
Illustrated alphabetical encyclopedia. Item not seen. WorldCat records indicate the entry for Geoffrey Chaucer, by Richard Kenneth Emmerson, is in volume 1: Dannie Abse--Sir George Etherege.
Lavezzo, Kathy.
Eileen A. Joy, ed. Still Thriving: On the Importance of Aranye Fradenburg (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Punctum, 2013), pp. 25-31.
Considers the value of retaining the Chaucer Division of the Modern Language Association, maintaining its importance as long as "attention to [Chaucer's] corpus continues to unhinge, transform, and trouble received ideas about being in the world."…
Brewer, Charlotte.
Richard Firth Green and Linne R. Mooney, eds. Interstices: Studies in Middle English and Anglo-Latin Texts in Honour of A. G. Rigg (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 15-43.
Examines several key terms in textual/editorial theory, exploring their application to various editions of Chaucer--Skeat's edition, Pollard's Globe edition, and editions by Zupitza, Koch, Manly and Rickert, and Robinson. The terms are used…
Applies the techniques of "close reading" or "practical criticism" to works of medieval literature, adjusting the method to accord with medieval literary and linguistic conventions, especially oral recitation. Examines passages from "Piers Plowman,"…
Argues that in PardT the Old Man "reveals the Pardoner's real secret, the joylessness of the life he professes to relish so much." The Pardoner is a "young-old man, and the confrontation between the three rioters and the old man in the tale brings to…
Fradenburg, Louise O.
Exemplaria 1 (1989): 69-115.
The differences between modernity and the Middle Ages can enable, rather than disable, interpretation. Applying modern critical theory to PrT can undo the absoluteness on which much historical thinking is based and can enlighten the dilemma of…
None of the structural orders that critics have strained to produce are totally satisfactory for a poem in such an obviously fragmentary state as CT by an author whose plans and intentions are as enigmatic as Chaucer's.
Associates the Wife of Bath with the antic "rogue figure of wife" from conventional "low comedy" or "pantomime," more lively and vivid than realistic. Derived from the "topsy-turvy" world of conventional comedy, the Wife gains readers' sympathy…
Jager, Eric.
Modern Language Quarterly 49 (1990, for 1988): 3-18.
In his tale, the Monk selectively edits the legend of Croesus from Jean de Meun's "Roman de la Rose" to "lessen the dreamer's responsibility for his fate" and thus to "fit Croesus into his gallery of tragic figures."
Dressler, Rachel.
Studies in Iconography 21: 91-121, 2000.
High- and late-medieval tomb effigies show knights possessing muscular corporeality, a feature emphasized (through contrast with the Squire) in the GP portrait of the Knight.
Fitzgibbons, Moira.
Gail Ashton and Louise Sylvester, eds. Teaching Chaucer (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 65-80.
Explores the pedagogical value of encouraging students to combine analysis and creativity in performing (aloud and in writing) from the points of view of individual Chaucerian characters. Suggests using Chaucer's characters to critique those of…
Twelve essays by various authors on identity as reflected in medieval and early modern literature and history. Topics include bastardry in the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, linguistic identity and Spanish Jews, identity in the work of Langland, the…
Crawford, Donna
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 20. 1 (2013): 47-60.
Considers issues of color symbolism, the history of the concept of "race," and ongoing "white normativity" in describing an approach to teaching FranT to African-American students at an historically black college or university (HBCU).
Kim, Myungsook.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 12 (2004): 67-84.
Contrasts the "Chaucerism" of John Cheke and Edmund Spenser with the inkhorn habit of borrowing Latinate terms practiced by other Renaissance English writers.
Galloway, Andrew.
Craig E. Bertolet and Robert Epstein, eds. Money, Commerce, and Economics in Late Medieval English Literature (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 157-77.
Coins the phrase "liminal transactionalism" to characterize the late medieval combination of gift-exchange and commercial economies, arguing that a similar combination extends forward to Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," challenging traditional…
