Anderson, Earl R.
Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2003.
Studies the Old and Middle English vocabularies of category in nature and human experience, anatomizing the words used for colors, the senses, the seasons, compass directions, geometric shapes, types of plant life and animal life, and human selfhood.…
Peck, Russell A.
S. Elizabeth Passmore and Susan Carter, eds. The English "Loathly Lady" Tales: Boundaries, Traditions, Motifs (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007), pp. 100-145.
Gower's "Tale of Florent" was composed before its English analogues, including WBT, and is here anatomized as a series of folktale motifs. Peck also explores how the narrative is "put in a new dress" and made appropriate to its new functions by…
Utley, Francis Lee.
Dorothy Bethurum, ed. Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 83-109.
Examines critical opinions about the presence of mythic, folkloric, and ritualistic images and allusions in medieval English literature, commenting on various works and critical views of them: "Beowulf," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," accounts of…
Staley, Lynn.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020.
Concentrates on Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer and the trinity, and the figure of the medieval merchant: "three 'offices' of the active life as they underpin Chaucer's growing understanding of the relationship between individuals and their communities.”
Neufeld, Christine M.
Avid Ears: Medieval Gossips, Sound, and the Art of Listening (New York: Routledge, 2019), pp. 148-79.
Theorizes the classical figure of Echo as a figure to "think with" in exploring "female vocality" and the topos of the "Philosopher and the Shrew" in WBPT and ClT (especially the Envoy), focusing on issues of deafness, gendered gossip, listening, and…
Gelineau, David.
SEL: Studies in English Literature 50 (2010): 557-81.
Arguing that the sequence of tales in Dryden's "Fables" is significant and meaningful, Gelineau examines a sequence of tales in which Dryden "uses the Chaucerian tales, with their Catholic love of order, to frame his critique of military brutality…
Walker, Greg.
Brian Cummings and James Simpson, eds. Cultural Reformations: Medieval and Renaissance in Literary History (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 321-41.
Includes comments on Chaucer's combination of jest and earnest as it was admired by Thomas Heywood and Thomas More.
Archer, Jayne Elisabeth, Richard Marggraf Turley, and Howard Thomas.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Examines production and reception of food in canonical literary works, including writings by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats, and George Eliot. Chapter 3, "Chaucer's Pilgrims and a Medieval Game of Food," focuses on how issues of "food security and…
Erol, Burçin.
Lorna Piatti-Farnell and Donna Lee Brien, eds. The Routledge Companion to Literature and Food (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 283-96.
Exemplifies the variety of references to food and uses of food imagery in CT, especially GP, observing how they serve as indicators of social and moral conditions--particularly high status and the sin of lust--and aid in characterization.
Gallacher, Patrick (J.)
Speculum 51 (1976): 49-68.
Many medieval sources describe food and purgation as having moral, theological, and metaphysical meanings. In NPT the interrelationships between food, humors, emotions, free will, and divine foreknowledge point to a model of continuous…
Wood, Margaret.
High Miller, compiler. The Best One-Act Plays of 1958–59 (London: George G. Harrap, 1960), pp. 37-56.
Adapts PardT as a verse drama for seven roles: three rioters, three barmaids, and the Old Man who is revealed to be Death himself at the end of the rioters' quest.
Gellert, Anamaria.
Emma Cayley and Susan Powell, eds. Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe 1350-1550: Packaging, Presentation, and Consumption (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), pp. 150-68.
Analyzes woodcut of pilgrims seated at table in Caxton's second edition of CT. Argues that "early editors' interpretations of given literary works are thus reflected in their editorial choices."
Barnes, Donna R., ed.
Minneapolis, Minn.: Burgess, 1971.
An anthology of readings that pertain to medieval education among various classes and institutions, with individual readings drawn from primary sources and modern analyses, and with brief sectional introductions by the editor. Among the 95 readings…
Huth, Jennifer Mary.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1997): 159A.
Examines the rise of professionalism and women's efforts to achieve autonomy in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England as represented in the mystery cycles, Chaucer's Wife of Bath, and Margery Kempe.
Mathewson, Jeanne T.
Annuale Mediaevale 14 (1973): 35-42.
Argues that Chaucer's additions to his sources in PhyT (Virginia's speech and the reference to Jephthah's daughter) convey a sense of masculine blindness to feminine reality--seeing only the "transient conditions of beauty, youth, and virginity."
The two portions of SqT align the cultural differences between the Mamluk emissary and the Mongol court with the species differences between the falcon and Canacee. Capitalizing on symbolic, metonymic connections between animals and humans and…
Richmond, Velma Bourgeois.
Christianity & Literature 54 (2005): 363-96.
Four historical paintings by Ford Madox Brown (1821-93) exhibit the interplay among literature, art, and religion in Victorian medievalism. Chaucer is the primary focus in The Seeds and Fruits of English Poetry (1845) and Chaucer at the Court of…
In NPT, the thrust of the satire on the relation between foreknowledge and free will is that theories like Bishop Bradwardine's simple necessity, St. Augustine's paradox, and, most notably, Boethius' conditional necessity are too abstract and…
Jost, Jean E.
Medieval Perspectives 1 (1986): 75-88.
Chaucer uses a medieval commonplace--vowing--as a function of genre: tragedy, comedy, or fabliau. In PardT, fashioning an illegitimate triple vow to eradicate Death, and bound by sworn brotherhood, three hoodlums effect upon themselves a grim,…
Cannon, Christopher, intro.
Larry D. Benson, gen. ed. The Riverside Chaucer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. iva-ivh.
Foreword to the reissue of the paperback version of The Riverside Chaucer, assessing the legacy of the Riverside text in light of editorial theory and modern computers.
Hannam, James.
Carl Kears and James Paz, eds. Medieval Science Fiction London: King's College London Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 2016(), pp. xv-xxv.
Defines medieval science fiction and provides a survey of types of science appearing in medieval literature, including natural philosophy (in NPT and PF), alchemy (in CYT), herb lore (in GP), and astronomy.
Lancashire, Ian.
Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
Explores literary composition as "cybertextuality," employing a fusion of cognitive theory, stylistic analysis, computer applications, and attribution studies. The goal is to uncover the compositional processes of writers by examining their verbal…
di Carpegna Falconieri, Tommaso, and Lila Yawn.
Bettina Bildhauer and Chris Jones, eds. The Middle Ages in the Modern World: Twenty-First Century Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 186–215.
Briefly invokes Chaucer, noting Pasolini's 1971 film, "The Canterbury Tales," and its adaptation of Chaucer's work to highlight increasing cultural degradation as works are transmitted.
