Klitgård, Ebbe.
In Hanne Jansen and Anna Wagener, eds. Voices in Translation 2: Editorial and Publishing Practices (Montreal: Éditions Québécoises de l'Œuvre, 2013), pp. 41-63.
Describes the emphasis on short stories in the Danish literary magazine "Cavalcade" and analyzes several of its Danish translations from CT published in the late 1940s, suggesting that the translators--Lis Thorbjørnsen and Jørgen Sonne--were…
Analyzes the placement of proper names in the verse lines of Chaucer's CT, tabulating and commenting upon the total number of incidences of names and the numbers of their initial and terminal placements in the verse lines of twelve of the tales. Then…
Magoun, Francis P.,Jr.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 78 (1977): 46.
"Townes end" translates, literally, as "the town's end," a concept that has lost its meaning in our modern society of expanding cities. Chaucer's "estres" has a much broader meaning than merely "the ins and outs of a building." Virtually the entire…
Elbow, Peter.
Damon, Phillip, foreward. Literary Criticism and Historical Understanding: Selected Papers from the English Institute (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 85-107.
Examines Troilus's two speeches on the "problem of free will and determinism" in TC (4.958-1082 and 3.813-40), observing complex irony whereby readers are led to agree with a perspective, then disagree, and then agree again. Chaucer "affirms both…
Rude, Donald W.
American Notes and Queries 16 (1978): 82-83.
Two references by Stephen Hawes to Chaucer (along with Gower and Lydgate) not noted by Spurgeon are contained in "The Comforte of Hope." The unique copy of this work, printed by Wynkyn de Worde about 1512, is in The British Library.
Heffernan, Carol F.
Neophilologus 90 (2006): 333-49.
Heffernan discusses the nature, origins, and development of Italian "novelle"; Boccaccio's innovations with the form; and the likelihood that Chaucer had direct knowledge of The Decameron. Argues that the influence of Italian novelle generally, and…
Aciman, Alexander, and Emmett Rensin.
New York: Penguin, 2009.
Parodies more than eighty works, most from the western literary canon, in strings of 140-word "tweets," with an Introduction, Glossary, and Index. Includes CT (pp. 184-85) in seventeen tweets, with emphasis on GP, WBP, and MilT, and touches of faux…
Pearman, Tory Vandeventer.
Dissertation Abstracts International A70.07 (2010): n.p.
Arguing that medieval thought links disability with the feminine, Pearman examines "medieval female disability" in works of Chaucer (WBPT, MerT), Marie de France, Henryson, and Margery Kempe, among others.
Cawsey examines the impact of assumptions about audience in the criticism of six twentieth-century Chaucer scholars (Kittredge, Lewis, Donaldson, Robertson, Dinshaw, and Patterson). These assumptions include whether the audience is diachronic or…
Six previously published essays by individual authors, an introduction, and a conclusion look at how Chaucer addresses audiences and how contemporary audiences interpret Chaucer's works. Describes the "audience function" and traces the "effect of…
Faulkner, Dewey R., ed.
Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973.
An anthology of thirteen new and previously printed essays and excerpts pertaining to PardPT, with a critical introduction, a brief chronology, and a selected bibliography. The Introduction (pp. 1-14) focuses on characterization, the place of PardPT…
Cawsey, Kathy.
Studies in Philology 102 (2005): 434-51.
Cawsey examines features of medieval tales of Tutivillus and explores how representations of female "discursive communities" and gossip in WBPT and plays about Noah illuminate these features through similar concerns with marginalized speech.
Argues for the effectiveness of the Pardoner's speech in light of his use of fables and exempla rather than "officium." PardT affirms the power of literature over that of the Pardoner's own duplicitous nature.
Places HF in the intellectual and philosophical contexts of its era, particularly the tradition of Boethius and Wyclif, arguing that Chaucer supports the existence of universals.
Kiser, Lisa J.
Hanover, N. H., and London: University Press of New England, 1991
Chaucer's epistemology is skeptical: he subverts written authority, obscures traditional distinctions between history and fiction, and questions the validity and representability of experience. Formalist analysis of narratorial voices discloses (1)…
Somerset, Fiona, and Nicholas Watson, eds.
Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2015.
Includes essays dedicated to Richard Green Firth that explore a variety of medieval topics. Examines issues related to oral and written cultural networks, book and social history, vernacular studies, and media studies. For three essays that pertain…
Kearney, A. M.
Essays in Criticism 19 (1969): 245-53.
Argues that tensions within FranT indicate that Chaucer was subtly reinforcing the notion that male sovereignty in marriage is, realistically, advisable when combined with mutual trust and cooperation between the partners.
By constantly breaking the dramatic illusion, the Nun's Priest forces his audience to consider the implications not only of his storytelling but of storytelling itself. The interruptions of his narrative, the comparisons of chickens and people, the…
Morse, Ruth.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Medieval notions of historical and literary truth derive from classical rhetorical tradition and differ from modern, empirically based notions of factuality. Basing her argument on a description of education in rhetoric, Morse demonstrates that…
Benson, C. David.
Wendy Harding, ed. Drama, Narrative and Poetry in The Canterbury Tales (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003), pp. 22-33.
Benson argues against interpreting CT in terms of dramatic theory: the pilgrims are not fully developed human characters, nor are their tales expressions of their individual psychologies. The most developed pilgrims-the Pardoner and the Wife of…
