Ruud, Jay.
Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 9 (1988): 29-45.
Behind the grotesque circumstances of PhyT, Chaucer presents an ironic view of natural law: Nature gloats as she forms Virginia to glorify God in purity; yet, the Physician mocks the sheltering of perfection since natural law will soon corrupt her.
Krug, Rebecca.
Jane Tolmie and M. J. Toswell, eds. Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010), pp. 225-41.
Explores the depictions of grief over lost children in the Wakefield mystery play "Slaughter of the Innocents"; a Middle English life of Saint Bridget; and ClT. The depictions present grief as variously natural, unnatural, and a response to conflict;…
Fleming, John V.
Susan J. Ridyard and Robert G. Benson, eds. Man and Nature in the Middle Ages (Sewanee, Tenn.: University of the South Press, 1995), pp. 19-35.
Assesses various medieval depictions of personified Nature lamenting human error, and comments on Prioress's "ambiguous" motto (Amor Vincit Omnia) as a "reordering" of the phrase "omnia vincit Amor" from Virgil's tenth "Eclogue," modified by the…
Butterfield, Ardis.
Brian Cummings and James Simpson, eds. Cultural Reformations: Medieval and Renaissance in Literary History (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 33-54.
Comments on Chaucer's address to his book at the end of TC as an example of the poet's awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity.
Cooney, Helen, ed.
Dublin and Portland, Ore. : Four Courts Press, 2001.
Ten essays by various authors on the role of language and literature in fifteenth-century England, Chaucer's influence at the time, and the relations of fifteenth-century literature to earlier and later tradition. Mention of Chaucer recurs…
Reads LGW as a "double palinode" in which Chaucer explores the "variety and complexity of the feminine psyche" as expressed in his sources, Ovid and Boccaccio, and his own TC. Compares LGWP-F and LGWP-G to show that Chaucer increases the comedy and…
Wood, Charles Roger.
Dissertation Abstracts International 55 (1994): 1572A.
Froissart's "Chroniques" have shaped subsequent perceptions of the uprising of 1381. Although Chaucer refers to it only once, his placement of the simile in NPT is significant. Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine took opposing eighteenth-century views. …
Palmer, James Milton.
Dissertation Abstracts International 64 (2004): 2479A
Explores medieval attitudes toward the medical foundations of the emotions in MerT, TC, Gower's "Confessio Amantis," and Diego de San Pedro's "Cárcel de Amor."
Hanawalt, Barbara A.
Essays in Medieval Studies 12 (1995): 1-21.
Examines various fourteenth- and fifteenth-century historical and literary texts to demonstrate that law and tradition encouraged parental and communal responsibility for the proper raising of children. Mentions PrT and the hagiography of Hugh of…
Scanlon, Larry.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Late-medieval English exempla and exemplum collections have political and ideological significance. Vernacular exempla are "narrative enactment(s) of cultural authority" that appropriate the authority of exemplary sermons and imitate the political…
Breuer, Horst.
Wilhelm G. Busse, ed. Anglistentag 1991 Dusseldorf: Proceedings (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1992), pp. 418-27.
Tallies devices in WBP whereby Chaucer sought to "criticize and belittle his own creation": blasphemy, intrusions of male discourse, contradiction, and various forms of distortion and exaggeration. But the Wife's "loud, polemical voice ... carries…
Carruthers, Leo.
Wendy Harding, ed. Drama, Narrative and Poetry in The Canterbury Tales (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003), pp. 51-67.
Carruthers examines the framing structure and links of CT, with particular attention to the Host's role. Harry Bailey is both a unifying instrument in the poet's hands and an extension of Chaucer's identity, an alter ego who will ultimately be…
Robinson, Sharon Pattyson.
Dissertation Abstracts International 37 (1977): 4375A-76A.
A reading of Chaucer's dream visions as a genre reveal a controlling tension between the narrator's awareness of the demands of Christian doctrine and his human compassion for those enduring the rigors of life on earth. He is sympathetic to human…
Spearing, A. C.
New Literary History 32: 715-46, 2001.
A survey of selected criticism since Kittredge demonstrates that the idea of a fallible narrative voice has dominated criticism of CT. Spearing examines MLT 2.141-96 to show the difficulty of separating narrational from nonnarrational elements and of…
Bolens explores David Rudrum's notion of "narrative use" (fiction as a speech act that is used for a purpose) and applies it to "The Book of Sindibad," "The Seven Sages of Rome," and especially "The Tale of Beryn." Narrative use is an overt concern…
Hardman, Phillipa.
Modern Language Review 85 (1990): 545-54.
Chaucer employs the Orpheus story from Boethius in KnT and TC as an archetype of the tragedy of love. He relies on the Orpheus myth primarily as a narrative pattern, not as a philosophical fable or moral allegory.
Pinsent, Pat.
Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey, ed. Critical Essays on The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale (Harlow: Longman, 1990), pp. 96-103.
Describes the "economy and pace, characterization, style, and plot-form" of PardT, comparing it with folk-tales, and summarizes the narrative functions of the "digression" on vice (6.485-660).
Biggio, Rosemary.
Dissertation Abstracts International 44 (1983): 164A.
Chaucer's work evolved structurally from circular (dream visions) to spiral (TC; CT), developing closure through "thematic resolution" and metaphoric symbols.
Fernandez Garcia, Alfonso,and Gabriela Garcia Teruel.
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. 113-24.
Examines narrative structures in "Disciplina clericalis," "Sendebar," "Calila e Dimna," CT, "Decameron," "Auberee et Le Pretre et Alison," and "Dame Siriz," using Bremond's sequential analysis to explore event-linking and deception, and Barthes's…
Describes relations between structure and theme in TC, demonstrating how the poem's pattern of action and verbal parallels induce "classical symmetry" and function as a "metaphor of harmony and order, while an "underlying chaos" of "inverted…
Richardson, Peter Kent.
Dissertation Abstracts International 52 (1992): 2936A.
In medieval verse (e.g., Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, King Horn, and Chaucer's works), tense and aspect of verbs prove more significant than previously recognized. Rather than serving demands of meter and rhyme, Chaucer's verbal…
Harrington, David V.
Chaucer Review 3.1 (1968): 50-59.
Rejects attempts to read PardT as an example of psychological realism and reads it instead as a "rapidly progressing discourse" that results from "special use of rhetorical devices for the impression of speed." The Tale conveys to its audience a…
Anderson, Judith H.
Theresa M. Krier, ed. Refiguring Chaucer in the Renaissance (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998), pp. 87-105.
Chaucer, especially GP, inspired Spenser's poetic identiy in "The Faerie Queene." Through allegory, Spenser manifests Chaucer's ironic doubleness, and he de-centers his dominant narration through various forms of "impersonations," emulating…
