Edwards, A. S. G.
Christopher Cannon and Maura Nolan, eds. Medieval Latin and Middle English Literature: Essays in Honour of Jill Mann (Cambridge: Brewer, 2011), pp. 76-90.
Examines twenty-five CT mss in which "Gamelyn" appears and makes suggestions about the tale's relationship to the CT, arguing against the notion that early scribes included it on "wholly whimsical grounds." Its inclusion early in the textual…
Hinton, Norman D.
Essays in Medieval Studies 1: 28-48, 1985
Advances computer data-based theory that if various manuscripts of CT represent "compilationes" with the "Tales" as "auctoritates," study of incomplete manuscripts may reveal how readers used them to discuss moral-ethical issues.
Bloomfield, Morton (W.)
Leeds Studies in English 14 (1983): 44-56.
More than a mere unifying element, the pilgrimage frame of CT introduces tales, sets the tone of complexity, universalizes the stories, prepares us for morality and mirth, and satisfies the Gothic urge for wholes within wholes. The Host is both…
Hieatt, A. Kent.
Richardson, David A., ed. Spenser and the Middle Ages: Proceedings from a Special Session at the Eleventh Conference on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan 2-5 May 1976 (Cleveland: Cleveland State University, 1976), pp. 216-29.
Argues that Spenser emulated a four-part mythic pattern of Chaucer's KnT in his own version of SqT, as well as elsewhere in Books 3-4 of "The Faerie Queene," where Spenser also reflects the influence of Chaucer's concerns in the Marriage Group…
Fisher, Judith L.
Poetica: An International Journal of Linguistic Literary Studies 39-40 (1994): 155-77.
Examines the iconography of nineteenth-century engravings of select Canterbury pilgrims published by Knight. The postures, details, and styles in the engravings reflect assumptions about social order, as well as Knight's program of educating his…
Lee, Dongchoon.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 22.01 (2014): 21-47.
Applies Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the "carnivalesque," which provides a "context for understanding the importance of laughter" in CT. The Miller focuses on physical pleasure and natural instinct in MilT; his disregard for rules of social hierarchy…
Fernández Rodríguez, Carmen María.
Elizabeth Woodward Smith, ed. About Culture (Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Coruña, 2004), pp. 139-46.
Describes Maria Edgeworth's view of the education of women through her adaptation of ClT in "The Modern Griselda" (1805), intended as a warning against sensibility and defense of rational women.
Sturges, Robert S.
Modern Language Studies 13:2 (1983): 41-51.
Women narrators--Wife of Bath, Prioress, and Second Nun--seek either earthly or spiritual authority over men in CT and establish female poetic tradition, invoking powerful females archetypes.
Nicholson, R. H.
English Language Notes 25:3 (1988): 16-22.
The reference to the slaughter of Antonius in KnT 2032 is not to Mark Antony, as is commonly believed, but to Antonius Bassianus. Usually known as Caracalla, Emperor Antonius was betrayed and murdered--a reference far more suitable to Chaucer's…
Observes that the "primary fiction" of CT is the narrator's "remembered personal experience," established in the GP and providing "the principle of form" for the entire work: a "pervasive sense of obsolescence, the passing of experience into memory."…
Mertens-Fonck, Paule.
Atti della Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti Classe di Lettere, Filosofia e Belle Arti 69 (1995): 1-29.
The systematic inconsistencies between numbers in GP (number of pilgrims "announced" v. number found by reader, number of tales "promised" v. actual number, number of potential narrators v. number of tales told) seem to proceed from a poetic strategy…
Crafton, John Micheal.
Philological Quarterly 84 (2005): 259-85.
As a treatise on continence, the last chapter of the "Summa virtutem remediis anime" provides significant analogues to PhyT. Virginia represents true virginity and in her martyrdom appears saintly. Virginius represents foolish virginity, especially…
Paris, Bernard J.
Chapter 5 in Imagined Human Beings: A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature (New York and London: New York University Press, 1997), pp. 82-92.
Psychoanalyzes Walter of ClT as one who tests Griselda's submissiveness to assure his own freedom and to vindicate his choice of her as a wife. Griselda seeks personal glory in her subservience. They are "two sick people in a pathological…
Johnson, Lynn Staley.
Mediaevalia 11 (1989, for 1985): 121-28.
The Clerk's "apparently subversive narration" draws the reader away from pathos toward "harder wisdom." ClT is a "gem of narrative irony." The Clerk manipulates reader response by exploiting "techniques of irony" and pointing out inconsistencies in…
Griselda's assent to Walter's wishes, which goes beyond the patience or concealment that he demands, represents complete identification or unity of will. In the theological terms of Rudolph Otto, her assent is not "moral" but "numinous." The…
Fichte, Joerg O.
William C. Johnson and Loren C. Gruber, eds. "New" Views on Chaucer: Essays in Generative Criticism (Denver: Society for New Language Study, 1973), pp. 9-16.
Argues that ClT demonstrates that "gentilesse" is "inoperable in a capricious and volatile" society, evident in Griselda's treatment by Walter and his people. An ideal virtue, "gentilesse" is impossible, even for Griselda, who lacks pity.
Olivares Merino, Eugenio (M.)
Teresa Fanego Lema, ed. Papers from the IVth International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval Language and Literature (Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 1993), pp. 223-31.
Compares and contrasts Griselda of ClT with the Biblical Job to show that her morality is unorthodox and that she can be seen as a usurper of male roles.
Blandeau, Agnès.
Colette Stévanovitch, Elise Louviot, Philippe Mahoux-Pauzin, and Dominique Hascoët, eds. La Formule dans la Littérature et la Civilisation de l'Angleterre Médiévale (Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, Regards Croisés sur le Monde Anglophone, 2011), pp. 273-99.
Focuses on Ackroyd's use of Chaucer's "formulism" (Zumthor) and reflects on how successful the accumulation of medieval formulas and sayings really is.
Ellis, Deborah S.
College English 49 (1987): 188-201.
Most of the major elements of plot and theme in ClT reappear in Alice Walker's novel of 1982. The heroines of each, Griselda and Celie, passively accept male domination and tyranny but finally achieve reconciliation.
Phillips, Helen.
Roger Ellis and Ruth Evans, eds. The Medieval Translator, 4. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 123. (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1994), pp. 86-103.
Compares the diction of Chaucer's Ven with that of its sources (three of Otto de Graunson's ballades) to explore how Chaucer reconceived "what de Graunson had written for a male speaker as an expression of a woman's feelings." The speaker of the…
Duffell, Martin J.
Chaucer Review 34: 269-88, 2000.
Chaucer's model for the iambic pentameter line was Boccaccio's endecasillabo, not the French vers de dix. Chaucer introduced the "void" position, the "extra unprominent syllable within the hemistich, and possibly the epic caesura." All of his…
Polzella, Marion L.
Chaucer Review 10 (1976): 279-86.
In Scog and PF, Chaucer creates a vision of the world of love through which he may comment on his own craft. The poet-narrator's being uninitiated to love is a quality ideally suitable to this double focus on poetry and love.
Sundwall, McKay.
Review of English Studies 26 (1975): 313-17.
Inclusion of Diomede's taking Criseyde's rein, original with Chaucer, dates "The Destruction of Troy" after 1385-87. A probable compression of Lydgate's reference to TC suggests a date after 1420 and closer to Luttrell's dating of the alliterative…
