Howes, Laura [L.]
Joyce Salisbury, ed. The Medieval World of Nature: A Book of Essays. Garland Medieval Casebooks, no. 5. (New York and London: Garland, 1993), pp. 187-200.
Examines outdoor space in BD and PF in light of research on medieval constructed gardens, especially the pleasure garden of Elizabeth de Burgh at Clare Castle, Suffolk.
Bellamy, Dodie.
Dodie Bellamy. Cunt Norton (Los Angeles: Les Figues Press, 2013), pp. 8-9.
An erotic prose poem that combines a pastiche of Chaucerian quotations, faux Middle English, and a narrative of sexual activity that alludes recurrently to NPT.
Tinkle, Theresa Lynn.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 3240A-3241A.
Although the medieval Venus and Cupid are usually interpreted interchangeably on the basis of "courtly love" or the Robertsonian concept of "caritas" and "cupiditas," analysis of texts (including HF, PF, KnT, TC, and LGW) indicates otherwise. Venus…
Smith, Sarah Stanbury.
Centerpoint 4 (1981): 95-102.
Implications of clear-sighted love in the Middle Ages lead one to view Cupid in Chaucer's LGW as a symbol of marital, generative love. But because this Cupid is indiscriminate in love (being in favor of it, without regard to circumstances), it is…
Discusses the "amatory fatalism" of KnT as Chaucer's means to explore "problems of chance, destiny, and Providence." Somewhat different from TC in this regard, KnT poses love as analogous to fate. Chaucer uses the analogy to focus on human perception…
Aloni, Gila.
Bulletin des Anglicistes Medievistes 56: 45-57, 1999.
Assesses similarities and differences between the two Prologues to LGW and the portrayal of Cupid in the Dido account, examining the power relations between Cupid and Alceste and, beyond this microstructure, the masculine-feminine relations of the…
Zacher, Christian K.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
Investigates the relation between "curiositas" (vice-laden seeking of experience or knowledge) and pilgrimage (symbolic devotional journey) as a tension between desire for the physical and spiritual worlds, examining the theological underpinnings of…
Weston, Lisa M. C.
In Albrecht Classen, ed. Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time: The Occult in Pre-Modern Sciences, Medicine, Literature, Religion, and Astrology (Boston, Mass.: De Gruyter, 2017), pp. 507-22.
Suggests that magic--specifically "image magic"--and poetics were interconnected for Chaucer and his original audience. Focuses on FranT, rhetoric, ekphrasis, and other "conjunctions of magic and rhetoric" in Chaucer's writings to reflect "the…
Newhauser, Richard, and Michael Raby.
ELH 86 (2019): 1-25.
Contends that the confrontation between the carpenter John and the clerk Nicholas in MilT provides dramatic context for the exploration of anti-intellectualism and intellectual curiosity. Claims that in MilT it is the "combination of humor and…
Thompson. Meredith.
Max F. Schulz, William D. Templeton, and Charles R. Metzger, eds. Essays in American and English Literature Presented to Bruce Robert McElderry, Jr. (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1967), pp. 141-64.
Debunks tendencies in Chaucer criticism to read "too much into the text," identifying and exemplifying the "realistic fallacy," the "anachronistic fallacy," the "schematic fallacy," the "ideological fallacy," the "didactic fallacy," the "allegorical…
Hanning, Robert W.
Leonard Michael Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen, eds. The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: New Essays on an Old Question (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000), pp. 177-211.
Both The Man of Law's Tale and Decameron 1.1 consider the problematics of mediation inherent in the use of language. MLT is an exercise for the teller to impress the other pilgrims with his authority and wisdom.
Raybin, David.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990): 65-84.
In MLT, Chaucer transforms medieval concepts of divine and human time "to formulate a powerful expression regarding the positive use of time in this world." Harry Bailly's introductory focus on time is significant; "Custance's story illustrates a…
Woods, William F.
Publications of the Medieval Association of the Midwest 7: 84-107, 2000.
Reads MLT as an "allegory of will," a Christian response to the "Boethian stoicism" of KnT that transcends mundane mercantilism by dramatizing an "investment of self." As "God's merchant," Custance transforms herself and converts others through a…
Dawson, Robert B.
Chaucer Review 26 (1992): 293-308.
Rather than a pious and sympathetic character, Custance is an egocentric, self-serving individual who depicts herself as a saintly victim. Thus, she is linked to her creator, the Man of Law, whose language is both deceptive and complex.
Davis, Isabel.
Katie L. Walter, ed. Reading Skin in Medieval Literature and Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 99-118.
Considers "the special use that medieval writers made of skin as a metaphor for time," focusing on the "structural patterns" of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and WBP--"suspension, cessation, and repetition"--and how these patterns "imitate the…
Drawing on the superflat movement in Japanese contemporary art, argues that cuteness in Th effects a compression of the text's narrative layers and semiotic networks. Mirroring the horizontal, non-linear organization of the poem's layout in medieval…
Personal chronicle of problems in dealing with technology in teaching, including inadequate facilities, poor student preparation, and time-consuming searching and class preparation. Includes two appendices: a "Labyrinth" assignment and student…
Stockton reads the Pardoner as a "cynic" in a Marxist context: one who "submit[s] fully to an ideological structure despite knowing better." Contrasts the Pardoner's queerness with his cynicism, asking,"how queer can the Pardoner be when he guards an…
Kowalik, Barbara.
Rafal Boryslawski, Anna Czarnowus, and Lukasz Neubauer, eds. Marvels of Reading: Essays in Honour of Professor Andrzej Wicher (Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego, 2015), pp. 159–74.
Discusses the idea of the marvelous in the "Gawain"-poet's Arthurian romance and in FranT. Argues that the marvels in FranT are indispensable to the genre, producing the effect described by J. R. R. Tolkien as "eucatastrophe."
Giaccherini, Enrico.
Studi in Ricordo di Giacomo Bona. Annali della Facolt di Lettere e Filosofia dell'Universit della Basilicata. (Potenza: Universit della Basilicata, 1999), pp. 131-50.
RvT and ShT are related to Boccaccio's Decameron 9.6 and 8.1, respectively, not so much thematically as in their uses of source material. In particular, in its balance of comedy and moral teaching, ShT is closer to the general features of the…
Bonazzi, Nicola.
Heliotropia: Forum for Boccaccio Research and Interpretation 11 (2014): 181-97.
Traces the development of the relations between illusion and courtliness from Boccaccio to James Lasdun's story in the "The Siege," including a discussion of FranT that focuses on the "demande d'amour" that concludes the Tale.
Boitani, Piero.
Rassegna Europea di Letteratura Italiana 18 (2001): 29-39
Traces the knowledge and recognition of Boccaccio in English literary tradition from his obscured status as "Lollius" in Chaucer's TC to clearer acknowledgment in Lydgate and Dryden.
Introduces Dafydd ap Gwilym as a contemporary of Chaucer, but provides no comparative analysis. Describes Dafydd's works and reception, and includes French translations of three of his poems.
Forgeng, Jeffrey L., and Will McLean.
Westport, Conn.; and London: Greenwood, 2009.
Updates and expands the first edition (1995), adding "primary source sidebars in all chapters" and a guide to digital resources. This social history of late medieval England has as its goal the creative re-creation of the period, providing a…
