Morris, Colin, and Peter Roberts, eds.
Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Nine essays by various authors explore the activities and significance of pilgrimage in medieval and early modern England, focusing on "shrine-seekers," Thomas Becket, regional and international practice, and related topics. None of the essays…
Suggests that Chaucer "creates a literary imitation of a real pilgrimage" in CT, exploring the extent to which this enables him to accommodate the sacred and social, a version of the medieval "earnest and game" topos. Focuses on WBPT and PardPT.
Morrison, Susan Signe.
Juliette Dor and Marie-Élisabeth Henneau, eds. Femmes et pèlerinages / Women and Pilgrimages ([Santiago de Compostela]: Compostela Group of Universities, 2007), pp. 141-52.
A number of the most famous fourteenth-century poets used pilgrimage as a genre to promote the use of vernacular language. Morrison's essay considers pilgrimage, gender, and use of the vernacular, raising questions about intertextual anxiety and the…
Craig, Robert M.
Claudette Stager and Martha Carver, eds. Looking Beyond the Highway: Dixie Roads and Culture. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006, pp. 267-87.
Compares people and places of twentieth-century journeys on the Dixie Highway to several medieval pilgrimages, real and fictional, including CT.
Davidson, Linda Kay, and Maryjane Dunn-Wood.
New York and London: Garland Press, 1993.
This annotated bibliography of 1,062 entries is analyzed in seven categories: history of pilgrimage, introduction to the study of pilgrimage, Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela, other sites, and pilgriamge in the arts. Each category includes…
Whalen, Brett Edward, ed.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.
A sourcebook of "fifteen centuries of history" about the historical, social, political, and religious development of pilgrimages. Includes a section on "Pilgrimage and Piety in the Late Middle Ages," with an abridged version of GP, pp. 325-30.…
A literal journey and lifelong spiritual experience, pilgrimage involves new surroundings and new levels of understanding. Dyas discusses pilgrimage in early Christian tradition and in Old and Middle English literature, including Chaucer's choice of…
Webb, Diana.
London and New York : Hambledon, 2000.
Describes the activities, theology, sociology, and psychology of medieval English pilgrimage from its roots in Anglo-Saxon tradition to criticism of the institution in the late Middle Ages. Considers English and British sites primarily, discussing…
McLaughlin, Becky Renee.
Dissertation Abstracts International 57 (1996): 2493A.
CT develops "horror and abjection" through struggles for mastery of many kinds, leaving its characters suspended between the Tabard and Canterbury amid images of mutilation and death. Chaucer critics may also be seen as pilgrims struggling among…
Stopford, J[ennifer], ed.
Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y. : York Medieval Press, 1999.
Ten essays on aspects of the anthropology and archeology of medieval and pre-medieval pilgrimage. Related to Chaucer studies are Ben Nilson, "The Medieval Experience at the Shrine" (pp. 95-122), which uses "The Tale of Beryn" as a source; and A. M.…
Owen, Charles A.,Jr.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977.
The conception of CT is an inherent conflict between the pilgrimage to a martyr's shrine in Canterbury and the game of storytelling to be consummated by a feast in Southwark. The development of the collection reveals movement away from Canterbury…
Brown, Peter, and Darryll Grantley, eds.
London: Yorick, 1987.
Produced to accompany a dramatic presentation of adapted versions of selections from CT. Includes comments on adapting the tales and directing the adaptations, accompanying music, parallels with medieval drama, medieval cooking, the "Tale of Beryn,"…
Discusses the medieval practice of selling "Canterbury signs" to the visitors of Beckett's shrine (as mentioned in 'The Tale of Beryn'), the archeological finds, and the possibility that Ellesmere portraits may have been modeled on the signs. The…
Cullen, Dolores L.
Santa Barbara, Calif. : Fithian Press, 1999.
Reads CT as a drama-with Chaucer as "director/producer" (158) and leading player-focusing on Th and Mel as psychological and moral extensions of Chaucer. Thopas and the father are one, with Thopas representing the phallus. Melibee is "the elevated…
Leicester, H. Marshall [Jr.]
M. Teresa Tavormina and R. F. Yeager, eds. The Endless Knot: Essays on Old and Middle English in Honor of Marie Borroff (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), pp. 151-60.
Leicester explores nuances of "pietee" and "pietas," distinguishes between institutional and affective piety, and asserts that texts cannot be pious but can only represent piety.
Cigman, Gloria.
Andre Crepin, ed. L'imagination medievale: Chaucer et ses contemporains (Paris: Publications de l'Association des Medievistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Superieur, 1991), pp. 133-47.
The anti-Semitism of PrT is not Chaucer's, and the tale is less about it than about the divine power of Mary to destroy the enemies of the Christian faith.
Gruenler, Curtis A.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017.
Approaches Chaucer's works briefly through contrast with :"Piers Plowman," which is treated here as the key text in a tradition of literature defined by "a distinctive poetics of enigma." Observes that Chaucer explores horizontally across the earthly…
Scase, Wendy.
Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 1989.
The anticlericalism of "Piers Plowman" and its time period is not traditional, as has been assumed, but new and requires fresh examination. It transforms and unifies traditional attacks on monastics, friars, and secular clergy into an attack on all…
Rigg, A. G.,and Charlotte Brewer, eds.
Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1983.
The editors claim "Z" (a proto-A), found only in the defective MS Bodley 851, to be the earliest version of "Piers Plowman." Introduction examines textual, linguistic, and codicological evidence; edition compares "Z" with "A."
Reference guide on fourteenth-century usage of legal terms, concepts, and officials, valuable for legal historians and students of Chaucer, Gower, and the "Pearl"-poet.
Compares and contrasts details of the illustrative portraits of the Canterbury pilgrims--illuminations from the Ellesmere manuscript and woodcuts from Richard Pynson's edition of 1491/92, here inaccurately called the "first printed edition." Comments…
Salter, Elizabeth,and Derek Pearsall.
Flemming G. Andersen, Esther Nyholm, Marianne Powell, and Flemming Talbo Stubkjaer, eds. Medieval Iconography and Narrative: A Symposium (Odense: Odense University Press, 1980), pp. 100-23.
The study of the relationship of text to picture in medieval manuscripts is worthwhile, but seldom performed for Middle English texts, especially Chaucer, except for the "Troilus" frontispiece in Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 61. It is…
Lanzarini, Ilaria.
In Ryan Calabretta-Sajder, ed. Pasolini’s Lasting Impressions: Death, Eros, and Literary Enterprise in the Opus of Pier Paolo Pasolini (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2018), pp. 177-90.
Argues that, for Pasolini, "Chaucer presages the spiritual corruption of the nascent bourgeoisie" in the style and content of CT; yet, to "represent [the] spoiled fruits" of bourgeois corruption visually in "I racconti di Canterbury," the filmmaker…
