Hanson, Thomas B.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 72 (1971): 477-82.
Interprets details of physiognomy in the characterizations of Alison and Absolon in MilT; hers indicate her "availability"; his, his timidity and foppishness.
Smilie, Ethan. K., and Kipton D. Smilie.
Postmedieval 09 (2018): 367-87.
Argues that Chaucer's poetry can inform contemporary discussions of teachers' bodies and their relative absence from the classroom due to online learning and sexual concerns. Focuses on "the power and purpose of poetry" in SNT, CYT, and ManPT.
Lancashire, Ian.
Ian Lancashire, ed. Computer-Based Chaucer Studies (Toronto: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, 1993), pp. 99-122
Defines repetends as either (1) "repeating fixed phrases," or (2) "repeating collocations" in which word order may change and other words may intervene. Computer-assisted tabulation of repetends enables stylistic comparison of ManPT to GP,…
Shackleton, Robert G., Jr.
JEngL 35 (2007): 30-102.
Employing the "standard" ME dialect of the Home Counties of southeastern England as a baseline, Shackleton applies a number of quantitative variational measures (clustering, distance regressions, variant-area regressions, barrier analysis, and…
Michelet, Fabienne, and Martin Pickavé.
Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 406-25.
Introduces various philosophical movements and thought prevalent in the fourteenth century, demonstrating the various philosophies available to Chaucer. Discusses Chaucer's use and view of nominalism and his attitudes toward free will and…
Zeeman, Nicolette.
Dallas D. Denery II, Kantik Ghosh, and Nicolette Zeeman, eds. Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 213-38.
Examines how writings of Jean de Meun and Chaucer focus on issues of scholastic philosophy and skeptical tradition. Refers specifically to Chaucer's uses of "systematic philosophy" as a narrative tool in WBT, PF, KnT, and TC.
Chaucer's special contribution to the fabliau genre is the design whereby apparently disconnected, often spontaneous plot incidents are suddenly "knit up"--that is, perceived by readers as belonging to a providential master plan. Although MilT is the…
Miller, Mark.
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Although Chaucer is often considered a poet of love or of philosophy, an examination of the philosophical facets of CT--especially practical reason, individual agency, and autonomy--illuminates the ideologies of sex, gender, and love within his…
Argues that Criseyde is a "willful agent," who reveals "nominalist intentions" and is guided by her own desires and "misdirected will" in her love of Troilus.
Rushton, Cory.
Rushton, Cory, ed. Disability and Medieval Law: History, Literature, Society (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2013), pp. 157-73.
Investigates several motifs in the LGW account of Philomela: victimhood, "inappropriate sovereignty," muteness, orality and legal witnessing, "tapestry-as-prosthesis," rape as a property crime, and lack of legal remedy, arguing that Chaucer's tale…
Brown, Sarah Annes.
Translation and Literature 13 (2004): 194-206
Surveys versions and adaptations of the Philomela-Procne-Tereus story from Euripides through Timberlake Wertenbaker's "Love of the Nightingale" (1988), observing overt and submerged motifs of incest and lesbianism. In LGW, the motifs are underscored…
Farrell, Thomas (J.)
Medieval Perspectives 15.2: 34-48, 2000.
Defines the assumptions underlying J. Burke Severs's analysis of the relation of ClT to Petrarch's version of the material and clarifies how Farrell's own assumptions differ from those in his analysis for Sources and Analogues II. Severs was more…
Bodi, Russell John.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1997): 234A.
Literary uses of play and game both subvert and reinforce social order while encouraging readers to become involved. Medieval works tend to relate chivalry and war to game and play, while Platonism questions their value. Considers TC among works…
Rossen, Janice.
Journal of Modern Literature 21 (1997-1998): 295-310.
Philip Larkin's undergraduate essays and notes, preserved among Bruce Montgomery's papers at the Bodleian Library, record his reactions to Chaucer (generally positive) and Langland (negative).
Galway, Margaret.
Modern Language Review 55 (1960): 481-87.
Offers historical, onomastic, and contextualizing evidence to support the argument that Philippa Paon (or "Panetto," abbreviated "Pan⸱" in the documents) married Chaucer, tracing their affiliations with English royalty, particularly Queen Philippa;…
Coleman, Joyce.
María Bullón-Fernández, ed. England and Iberia in the Middle Ages, 12th-15th Century: Cultural, Literary, and Political Exchanges. The New Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 135-65.
Coleman argues that Philippa of Lancaster, oldest legitimate daughter of John of Gaunt and queen of Portugal from 1387, sponsored the Portuguese and Castilian translations of Gower's "Confessio" Amantis. Philippa may also have been responsible for an…
Explores various denotations in medieval uses of "phantom," and contends that Chaucer's use of the word in HF (line 493) capitalizes on these meanings and neatly encapsulates the poem's fundamental concern with the difficulties of seeking to…
Walzem, Al.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. "The Canterbury Tales" Revisited--21st Century Interpretations (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 44-59.
Reads the Wife of Bath as ur-feminist and traces parallels between WBP and WBT. These parallels indicate the Wife's efforts to teach feminist principles.
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…
Tolan, John.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993.
Surveys the life and works of Petrus Alfonsi and the reception of his two major works: the anti-Jewish "Dialogi contra Iudaeos" and his collection of tales and wisdom literature, "Disciplina clericus." Tolan briefly mentions Mel as evidence of…
Surveys the influence of Petrarchan materials and traditions in European literature of various eras, including brief comments (p. 45) on Chaucer's uses of Petrarchan materials.
Galloway, Andrew.
Frank Grady and Andrew Galloway, eds. Answerable Style: The Idea of the Literary in Medieval England (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2013), pp. 140-68.
Explores a relationship between "late-medieval aesthetics and renunciation" in ClT and establishes differences between Petrarch's and Chaucer's treatments of the Griselda story. Points out that Chaucer's Clerk challenges both Petrarch's "absolutist"…
Ginsberg, Warren.
James J. Paxson, Lawrence M. Clopper, and Sylvia Tomasch, eds. The Performance of Middle English Culture: Essays on Chaucer and the Drama in Honor of Martin Stevens (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 125-41.
Assesses how the Host's address to the Clerk reflects effort to shape the identity of the Clerk as a tale-teller, so that even before the Clerk speaks, literary, philosophical, and spiritual discourses compete to define his subjectivity.
