Comments on differences and similarities among these characters: the Wife of Bath as depicted in WBP, La Vieille of "Roman de la Rose," and old women who take young lovers in two medieval Japanese narratives.
Federico, Sylvia.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1998): 3125A.
Examines fictional representations of Troy as England's mythic ancestor in TC, HF, Gower's Vox Clamantis, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and other works. Since Troy was thought to have led to later empires only through its fall, the city is an…
Considers medieval knowledge of tidal patterns and details about astrology and the seasons in FranT to support the argument that the clerk of Orleans predicts rather than magically causes the rise of the sea, disguising the presence of the coastal…
Stanley comments on the inconclusive endings of several Chaucerian narratives and argues that CkT is complete as it is, developing the theme of herbergage (taking in lodgers) that runs throughout Part 1 of CT.
Chaucer completed CkT in approximately seven hundred lines, but since the final quire of the booklet containing the tales of the Miller, Reeve, and Cook was lost very early in the manuscript tradition, the Hengwrt scribe--writing in London or…
Twelve essays by various authors, a celebratory introduction of testimonials, and a bibliography of publications of M. B. Parkes. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer search for Of the Making of Books under Alternative Title.
Like Chaucer's pilgrimage, community colleges accept all comers and promise a miraculous transformation of a clientele representing a cross-section of society. The student-pilgrims prefer the spoken to the written word, requiring frequent reading…
Newlyn, Evelyn S.
Jean-Jacques Blanchot and Claude Graf, eds. Actes du 2e Colloque de langue et de litterature ecossaises (moyen age et renaissance) (Universite de Strasbourg, 1978), pp. 268-77.
Whereas Henryson's tale focuses on flattery and pride, and with the relationship of these sins to language, Chaucer's NPT--a likely source for Henryson--emphasizes the rhetoric of heroic poetry and the question of women's opinions. These different…
Boker, Uwe, et al., eds.
Frankfurt am Main : Lang, 2004.
Twenty-one essays by various authors and a bibliography of Goller's publications. The essays focus on medieval romances and their reception in later traditions, German and English. For four essays pertain to Chaucer, search for Of Remembraunce the…
Batkie, Stephanie L.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 32 (2018): 245-70.
Assesses speech and silence in the characterizations and functions of the narrators of GP and the Prologue to "Piers Plowman." Both narrator-figures are introduced "through tropological silencing," but the "muted contact" of the GP narrator with the…
The owls and apes of Medieval-Renaissance tradition appear in the Chester "Deluge" and in Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." The latter may echo Chaucer.
Brown, Emerson,Jr.
Leigh A. Arrathoon, ed. Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction (Rochester, Mich.: Solaris Press, 1986), pp. 63-84.
The Merchant's comparison of May to "Queene Ester" (MerT 1744) indicates the terror, treachery, and hatred that lie beneath a demure exterior; the Prioress's response to trapped mice (PrT 144-45), which figure Christ ensnaring the devil, reveals a…
Finlayson, John.
Studia Neophilologica 70 (1998): 35-39.
RvP is a psychological study of the bitterness and frustrations of old age, as well as a quiting of the Miller. Chaucer borrowed the leek-old age simile from Boccaccio's Decameron and adapted it to his own purpose. The simile is not proverbial.
Hanawalt, Barbara A.
New York and Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1998.
Eleven essays by the author on establishing social control in late-medieval England, especially in London, considering topics such as class crime, rape, poaching, and family relations. The two essays that relate to Chaucer are printed elsewhere:…
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome.
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
Argues that giants can represent the lost prehistory of the masculine body and therefore figure its present and dangerous instability. Six chapters and an introduction focus on the English Middle Ages. Chapter 4 (pp. 96-118) discusses Chaucer's Th,…
Condren, Edward I.
Chaucer Review 10 (1975): 87-95.
The 1368 date for the death of Blanche of Lancaster in J. J. N. Palmer's article ChauR 8 (1974) is probably correct, but this does not vitiate the 1377 date proposed by Condren ChauR 5 (1971) for the composition of BD.
Masson, Cynthea.
Dr. Faustroll and Cal Clements, eds. Pataphysica: 2. Pataphysica e Alcimia (New York: iUniverse, 2004), pp. 102-16.
Describes the concept of "the alchemical hermaphrodite" and its sexual associations; then traces the concept and its figurative implications in CYPT, arguing that the relationships between the Canon and the Yeoman and between the canon and the priest…
ABC is not polite praise of the Virgin or gentle expression of filial love: it is a needy, fearful, grasping cry for her protection, evincing the greed, craft, and importunity of a child seeking its mother's reassurance.
The friendship-brotherhood motif plays a significant role in Chaucer's poetry. A survey of this theme suggests that friendship between men, whether genuine or simulated, has a negative and even destructive influence on the characters.
Masciandaro, Nicola.
On the Darkness of the Will ([Italy]: Mimesis, 2018): 37-71.
Studies aspects of "mystical non-mysticism" in Chaucer's poetry. Explores the "nomenclative impotentiality" of the narrator's "non-self-naming" in HF, 1873–82, and his "unknowing" elsewhere in the poem. Comments on the Black Knight's tearless…
Leicester, H. Marshall,Jr.
Women's Studies 11 (1984): 157-78.
Leicester defines two kinds of feminism: the "public" attitude, an illiberal stance toward the male-dominated world; and the "private" attitude, a more humane form. These two forms, complementary as well as opposed, are illustrated in the tale of…
Blanco, Karen Keiner.
Dissertation Abstracts International 56 (1995): 920A.
Writing for an audience that knew animals and animal lore well (from physical interaction, folklore, and religious tradition), Chaucer appealed to, influenced, and manipulated this lore in HF, PF, PT, and TC.
Harris, Richard L.
Southern Folklore Quarterly 33 (1969): 24-38.
Assumes that the Death and the Old Man in PardT are "one and the same person," and provides evidence from Scandinavian literature that Odin was an analogous figure, perhaps even a distant source, although Christianized.
