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…
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…
