Smilie, Ethan K., and Kipton D. Smilie.
Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought 58 (2017): 349-70.
Assesses the "merits and drawbacks" of teaching "grit" (i.e., the "ability to work hard and diligently for long-term goals") as a pedagogical goal, comparing modern notions with Thomistic "studiositas" and "curiositas" and assessing three "gritty…
Everest, Carol A.
Melitta Weiss Adamson, ed. Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays (New York and London: Garland, 1995), pp. 161-75.
May's request for pears in MerT indicates that she is pregnant, since medieval texts align the condition with a desire for unripe fruit. Moreover, medieval medical treatises recommend pears for the treatment of stomach disroders, "especially the…
In BD, Chaucer complicates the chess metaphor by adding the concept of gambling, which had become standard both in literary depiction and in actual play. By doing so, he adds an economic dimension, characterizing marriage relationships in the Middle…
Paul Bush's dream vision, "The Extripacion of Ignorancy," was influenced by Chaucerian models and coins the phrase "lycour laureate" to describe Chaucer.
Purdy, Dwight H.
Texas Studies in Literature and Language 23 (1981): 197-213.
Surveys Joseph Conrad's allusions to Chaucer and to the Bible, and argues that in the novel "Victory" Conrad expresses his "sense of radical modern otherness." In Conrad's novel, "Jones's sexual anomaly mirrors a spiritual malaise," as does the…
Treats problems of authority and artistic originality encountered by the medieval narrator of a religious story, and the solutions in CT. Parallels between translating and producing the narrative appear in ClT, SNT, PrT, and Mel; subversion of the…
Includes ten essays by various authors and a comprehensive index. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Patterns of Love and Courtesy under Alternative Title.
Cowgill, Jane.
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990). pp. 171-83.
Like MLT, SNT, ClT, and WBT, Mel employs a feminine style of persuasion. Prudence "demonstrates" the values she counsels her husband to abide by, thus adding actions to arguments as means of persuasion and subverting the male hierarchy. ParsT, by…
Pattwell, Niamh.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 37-47.
Looks at Chaucer's use of "two sententiae" to explore the interplay between Chaucer's use of silences and pauses in PrT, and the reader's engagement with the story.
Davenport, W. A.
Edward Donald Kennedy, Ronald Waldron, and Joseph S. Wittig, eds. Medieval Studies Presented to George Kane (Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Wolfeboro, N.H.: D.S. Brewer, 1988), pp. 127-45.
Discusses Middle English debate poems but touches on dialogue in CT, TC, and PF.
Sánchez-Martí, Jordi.
Cuadernos del CEMYR 20 (2012): 93-102.
Analysis of literary patronage from the Anglo-Saxon times until the end of the fourteenth century, when royal patronage was essential for authors such as Chaucer.
Halverson, John.
College English 27 (1965): 50-55.
Parodies patristic criticism by reading Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer" as an indictment of concupiscent love, drawing recurrent comparisons between the structure and imagery of Twain's novel and BD.
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Dorothy Bethurum, ed. Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 1-26.
Challenges patristic criticism for its claim that medieval literature is univocally concerned with asserting Christian "caritas" allegorically, arguing instead that poetry has a right to "say what it means and mean what it says." Illustrates the…
Kaske, R. E.
In Dorothy Bethurum, ed. Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 27-60.
Exemplifies the wide-ranging importance of "exegetical tradition" in explicating images and allusions in medieval literature, drawing examples from "Piers Plowman," from the Summoner's taste for garlic, onions, and leeks (GP 1.634), and from various…
Peck, Russell A.
Studies in the Age of Gower: A Festschrift in Honour of R. F. Yeager (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020.), pp. 59-78.
Examines several stories from Gower's "Confessio Amantis" to investigate the poet's "thoughts about the limitations of patriarchy as an institution." Includes comparison of Gower’s Tale of Constance with Chaucer’s MLT, showing that the latter is more…
Griselda's response to Walter at crucial points in the narrative--when he has "killed" her children and when he has banished her from the palace so he can take another "wife"--underscores his appalling behavior and demonstrates the ways outward…
Walls, Kathryn.
American Notes and Queries 16 (1977): 34.
Dame Patience sitting "upon an hil of sond" (PF, 242-43) may come from the second recension of Deguileville's "Pelerinage de la vie humaine" where the persistence of an ant in reaching the top of a sand hill might be thought of as the active…
Coletti, Theresa.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006): 1-40.
Coletti compares HF with Christine de Pizan's "Livre du chemin de long estude," exploring their differing comments on and responses to their shared literary culture. Through parallel narrative gestures, the two poets consider textual authority,…
Frank, Robert Worth,Jr.
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 39-52.
Through pathos, Chaucer evokes the audience's sympathy, thus transforming PrT, MLT, and ClT from mere tales of wonder or religious abstraction into convincing, dramatic treatments of the virtues they celebrate.
Thompson, John J.
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. 353-61.
Considers the omission of ABC from Chaucer's canon and what it reflects about the editorial habits of John Stow and Thomas Speght; religious-political pressures on editors of the time; and the reception of the Marian devotion of ABC in Protestant…
Ingham, Patricia Clare.
Texas Studies in Literature and Language 44: 34-46, 2002.
Readers are skeptical of idealized pastoral space, yet it influences their view of the real. WBT begins with an allusion to a past, utopian dream world, a vision in tension with the Wife's mercantile concerns. Such utopian dreams are a resistence…
Butterfield, Ardis.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 16 (1994): 3-27.
Reads BD and Machaut's "Jugement dou Roy de Navarre" as "counter pastorals"--works that both disturb the superficial idealization of pastoral poetry and replicate the social tension latent in the form, a social tension that also reflects contemporary…
Rex, Richard.
Studies in Short Fiction 23 (1986): 1-8.
The Prioress's childishness places her among the "children of a hundred year" who live in folly and are cursed by God. Her tale is a pastiche, its ironies reflecting the teller's false humility and lack of charity even as she extols charity as a…
Dell contends that Brian Helgeland's film A Knight's Tale offers an alternative to capitalistic perpetual accomplishment, the model of desire that critics associate with the film. This alternative is courtly love, a paradigm drawn from the Lancelot…
Meier, Hans H.
Caroline Macafee and Iseabail Macleod, eds. The Nuttis Schell: Essays on Scots Language Presented to A. J. Aitken (Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Press, 1987), pp. 116-23.
Describes several literary representations of Older Scots language; includes RvT because Older Scots and Northern English "are not generally considered as distinct" in the late medieval period. Commends Chaucer for his comprehensive "imitation of…
