Campbell, Jackson J.
Chaucer Review 7.2 (1972): 140-46.
Reads ManT as an example of successful "characterization through narrative technique," assessing its paucity of actual storytelling relative to the amount of moralizing. This tedious moralizing is comic and results from Chaucer's adaptations of his…
Strohm, Paul.
Notre Dame, Ind. : University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
Explores the political discourse of fifteenth-century England, identifying a "pre-Machiavellian moment" in which awareness of political upheaval and the unreliability of Fortune influenced or produced a variety of vernacular texts. Assesses the…
Prendergast, Thomas A.
William F. Gentrup, ed. Reinventing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Constructions of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods ([Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 63-76.
Surveys "legends" about Chaucer's prodigality, from Thomas Usk's "Testament of Love" to early editions of Purse and modern critical reception of the poem. Editions of Purse and critical responses seek to defend Chaucer "from charges of political…
Uses ABC, Hoccleve's "Complaint of the Virgin Before the Cross," and other sources to outline a mutually reinforcing relationship between the Lancastrians (orthodox supporters of the Church) and the Church (which allied with the Lancastrians).
Strakhov, Yelizaveta. [Strakhov, Elizaveta].
Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania, 2014. Dissertation Abstracts International A76.01(E). Fully accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
Studies aesthetic and political relations between France and Francophone England during the Hundred Years' War, with particular attention to uses and politics of the "formes fixes" of lyric poetry among French writers, Chaucer, and Gower. Examines…
Delany, Sheila.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 47-60.
In contrast to other analogues to PhysT, Chaucer "systematically obliterates social content" to deprive the characters of plausible motives. This "bad piece of work" is "pornographic or free-floating sadistic sensationalism, with murder as its only…
Challenging suggestions that individuals like Chaucer are agents of linguistic change, Machan argues that they cannot foresee history and therefore cannot work to a future end. The article surveys political factors in late-medieval English linguistic…
Strohm, Paul.
Lee Patterson, ed. Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 83-112.
London politics in the 1380s were characterized by "shifting planes of alliance." Such shifting in the early years of the decade led to the eventual struggle of 1385-88 between Richard's court party and the duke of Gloucester's aristocratic…
Turner, Marion.
Corinne Saunders, ed. A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Malden, Mass.; Oxford; and Victoria: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 13-33.
Divided into three sections - "Politics and Discourse," "London Life and Chaucer's Poetry," and "Chaucer's Social Circle" - this essay surveys a variety of Chaucer's narratives and short poems, showing how they reflect urban and political elements in…
Knight, Stephen.
Stephen Knight and Michael Wilding, eds. The Radical Reader (Sydney: Wild and Wooley, 1977), pp. 169-92.
A Marxist approach to form, structure, and character shows broad dichotomies in Chaucer's art; e.g., between city and country, Gothic and modernist narratives, and worldy and otherworldly philosophies. From the last divergence derives the major…
Potter, Russell Alan.
Dissertation Abstracts International 52 (1992): 3276A.
Chaucer's works have been treated variously through the centuries: vernacular text teaching a diverse audience in debates over "Englishing" the Bible; both model and subject for translation to the Neoclassics; basis for study in the nineteenth…
Strakhov, Elizaveta.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 32 (2018): 289-313.
Identifies food-chain predation and ecosystemic competition as formal elements of animal fables; then examines these dynamics in NPT, the Rat Parliament of Langland's "Piers Plowman," and their respective allusions to the Uprising of 1381 and to the…
Astell, Ann W.
Ithaca, N.Y., and London : Cornell University Press, 1999.
A series of studies that explore how William Langland, John Gower, the Gawain poet, Chaucer, and Sir Thomas Malory all "practiced an allegorical art, partly as a result of their similar educational backgrounds and also because political pressures…
Jucker, Andreas H.
Richard Dury et al., eds. English Historical Linguistics 2006: Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 14), Bergamo, 21- 25 August 2006. Volume II: Lexical and Semantic Change. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008, pp. 3-29.
Arguing that contemporary "negative" politeness may function in public only, Jucker surveys historical functions of politeness in English. Analyzes Chaucer's use of "thou" and "you" forms in ClT as "retractable," i.e., variable by situation, rapidly…
Sell, Roger D.
Studia Neophilologica 57 (1985): 175-85.
Stylistic or linguistic thickening is a key to meaning, as in selectional politeness. Abrupt shifts of topic, disruption of narrative frames, and lack of deference to the reader's expectations make MilT more "impolite."
Burrow, J. A.
Anne Marie D'Arcy and Alan J. Fletcher, eds. Studies in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts in Honour of John Scattergood (Dublin: Four Courts, 2005), pp. 65-75.
Explores the concept of "civil inattention" ("a desire not to intrude on privacy") as it helps to explain the behavior of the dreamer toward the Black Knight in BD. The concept is described in modern sociology and occurs in several medieval romances…
Eun, Hyesoon Lim.
Dissertation Abstracts International 49 (1989): 493A-494A.
Nouns of address and the two second-person forms offer clues to perceptions of rank, ideals, and tone, as well as to characterization. Chaucer and the "Gawain"-poet exploit linguistic resources brilliantly.
Dor, Juliette.
A. J. Tops, Betty Devriendt, and Steven Geukens, eds. Thinking English Grammar: To Honour Xavier Dekeyser, Professor Emeritus (Leuven: Peeters, 1999), pp. 33-40.
Lexicographical information on sely is inconsistent and often based on the assumption that there was no historical overlap between "pious-good" and "foolish-simple." Chaucer's uses of the term capitalize on uncertainty of tone in LGW, making it…
Magnani, Roberta.
Medieval Feminist Forum 50 (2014): 90-126.
Discusses Emily's subjectivity and "empowered devotional femininity" in KnT. Contends that Chaucer's "queer hermeneutics" adjusts "traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity" within KnT.
Hallissy, Margaret.
Massachusetts Studies in English 9 (1983): 54-63.
In PardT details from poison lore add to the sophistication with which Chaucer develops the central paradox of the tale: the Pardoner as a channel of grace despite his evil character.
Hallissy, Margaret.
Essays in Arts and Sciences 10 (1981): 31-39.
Chaucer draws on the medical and literary traditions about poison current in his day. In KnT, Arcite's love for Emelye is pictured as a deadly infection.
Greenwood, M. K. Smolenska.
Guy Bourquin, ed. Hier et aujourd'hui: Points de vue sur le moyen age anglais (Nancy: Association des Medievistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Superieur, 1997),: pp. 45-55.
KnT creates puzzling effects. Chaucer's subversion of several issues (genre, nobility, love, wisdom) highlights their absurdity.
Greenwood, Maria Katarzyna.
Colette Stévanovitch and René Tixier, eds. Surface et profondeur: Mélanges offerts à Guy Bourquin à l'occasion de son 75e anniversaire (Nancy: Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2003), pp. 179-98.
Piety and pathos heighten the impact of PrT and promote the narrator's reputation for religious correctness, yet all aspects of her Tale are undermined by pointlessness. Greenwood argues that the Tale is dialogistic and Menippean; a satirical subtext…
