Reviews providential readings of CT, asserting that nominalism furnishes theological context for MLT; contrasts MLT with its source in Trevet; and surveys use of the term "nominalism." In MLT, God's remoteness and arbitrariness ad the "extreme…
Watts, William H.,and Richard J. Utz.
Medievalia et Humanistica 20 (1994): 147-73.
Surveys and evaluates scholarly work on Chaucer and nominalist--especially Ockhamist--philosophy, using four categories: epistemology, universals versus particulars, poetic structure, and relation of human to divine. Chaucer's awareness of and…
The century between Dante and Boccaccio saw the poet's role as prophet deteriorate. Boccaccio and Chaucer found a middle road between blasphemy and reverence wherein language has its own independent set of standards, as one sees in comparing the…
Furr, Grover C.
Richard J. Utz, ed. Literary Nominalism and the Theory of Rereading Late Medieval Texts: A New Research Paradigm (Lewiston, N.Y.; Queenston, Ont.; Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen, 1995) pp. 135-46.
Examines the theme of free will in NPT in light of the "nominalist-Augustinian debate of the fourteenth century," arguing that Chaucer's position reflects contemporary indeterminacy.
Delasanta, Rodney (K.)
Hugh T. Keenan, ed. Typology and English Medieval Literature (New York: AMS, 1992), pp. 121-39.
The pilgrim narrator of CT represents the views of nominalist epistemology, creating a tension in the text as Chaucer the poet continues to uphold a more traditional epistemology based on "ante-rem," "in-rem," and "post-rem" universals.
Delasanta, Rodney [K.]
Providence: Studies in Western Culture 3 (1996): 285-310.
Assesses the Wife of Bath's admissions of lying, her glossings of Scripture, and her sexual punning as "nominalistic discourse" underpinned by her preference for the empirical and experiential over the universal. Disagrees with feminist readings of…
Kirk, Elizabeth D.
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 111-20.
Although it is common to separate the religious message of ClT from the tale's portrayal of women and marriage, the two are "linked," with the juxtaposition of Griselda and Alison of Bath representing "opposite solutions to the problem of women's…
Chaucer intensifies the voluntarist diction found in sources of ClT, thus urging a reconsideration of the "Tale's" principal characters and of the will of God as it was understood in late-fourteenth-century England.
Keiper, Hugo,Richard J. Utz, Christophe Bode,eds.
Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997.
Explores the correspondences between late-medieval, early modern, and contemporary critical and literary nominalism. For five essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Nominalism and Literary Discourse under Alternative Title.
Kia-Choong, Kevin Teo.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. "The Canterbury Tales" Revisited--21st Century Interpretations (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 314-33.
The "polyphonic assemblage of voices" in CT "displaces the teleological-topographical narrative" of movement toward the heavenly city of God. The Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, and the Miller, in particular, embody noise and represent the vox populi…
Wong, Hui-wai.
Sun Yat-Sen Journal of Humanities 36 (2014): 115-42.
Discusses the narrative frame of H. G. Wells's "The Time Machine" as part of the "story-within-story narrative model" epitomized by CT, describing features of Chaucer's frame-narrative and arguing that Wells's presentation is unique in that the…
Contends that metaphors of hunting in TC and the alliterative "Morte Arthure" are intended for a noble audience, and in turn, they shape that audience's attention to ideas of love and chivalry.
Tchalian, Hovig.
Dissertation Abstracts International 66 (2005): 1011A.
Considers representations of noble counselors to royalty in GP (the Knight), MerT, and Mel, among others, arguing that writers such as Chaucer and Langland demonstrate faith in this "traditional institution."
Ni Cuilleanain, Eilean, and J. D. Pheifer, eds.
Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993.
An introduction and eleven essays consider romances of the English tradition written between the late Middle Ages and Spenser, with recurrent concern for relations to the Continental tradition of romance. Topics include Chaucer, the "Gawain" poet,…
Beidler, Peter G.
Chaucer Review 15 (1981): 250-54.
Although thought immortal and evil, the Old Man in PardT is mortal in his longing for death, and, furthermore, good, patient, and kind. Chaucer's audience might have seen a parallel with Noah, the incredibly old survivor of a worse "plague," the…
Leicester, H. Marshall,Jr.
Chaucer Review 17 (1982): 21-39.
The description of the Friar, the tone of his remarks and his tale, and the response of the Summoner are couched in ambiguities. These are clarified if we are aware of the implicit context in which he operates: a social hierarchy, based on…
Shepherd, Stephen H. A.
Jennifer Fellows, Rosalind Field, Gillian Rogers, and Judith Weiss, eds. Romance Reading on the Book: Essays on Medieval Literature Presented to Maldwyn Mills (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996), pp. 112-28.
"The Weddynge" recalls WBP and WBT "in a spirit of creative adaptation and emulation," as part of a conscious travesty of this and other sources.
Fisher, Leona.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. "The Canterbury Tales" Revisited--21st Century Interpretations (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 151-65.
Affiliations between women and Fortune recur throughout MkT, a facile parallel rendered ridiculous by Chaucer's depiction of the Monk and the Monk's tale-telling style.
Arner, Timothy D.
Studies in Philology 102.2 (2005): 143-58
Examines Chaucer's use of Boccaccio's Teseida as a source for KnT. Also argues that by having the Miller parody the story of Palamon and Arcite, Chaucer transforms his own work, as well as Boccaccio's text, into a fabliau.
An, Sonjae (Brother Anthony).
Noel Harold Kaylor Jr. and Richard Scott Nokes, eds. Global Perspectives on Medieval English Literature, Language, and Culture (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute, 2007), pp. 117-32.
Allusions to and echoes of Boethius and Dante reinforce Chaucer's concern with the inevitability of sorrow and its relationship to joy in TC. The structure of the poem collaborates with these devices to convey the transitory nature of worldly joy…
In opposition to Robertson's "patristic exegesis," Donaldson models a practice of engaging the autonomy of medieval texts. In the process, he adopts a critical persona that, feminist critiques notwithstanding, "is a decorous fiction which may or may…
Osborn, Marijane, trans.
Buffalo, N. Y.: Broadview, 2010.
Modern verse translations of romances in their original verse forms, with individual introductions and notes, a general introduction, and a commentary on the value of modern verse translation. Includes WBT and Th, along with Gower's "Tale of…
Fyler, John M.
Charlotte Cook Morse, Penelope Reed Doob, and Marjorie Curry Woods, eds. The Uses of Manuscripts in Literary Studies: Essays in Memory of Judson Boyce Allen (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992), pp. 193-211.
Medieval commentaries on the confusion of language introduced through the Tower of Babel (Genesis 10-11) illuminate the motif of linguistic disintegration that runs through SNT, CYT, and ManT. The associations of Nimrod with pride, magic, fire, and…
