Nevalainen, Terttu.
Journal of English Linguistics 34 (2006): 257-78.
Addresses historical sociolinguistic trends between 1400 and 1800, tracing the disappearance of multiple negative (negative concord) usage to the latter half of the eighteenth century. However, data also suggest that Late Middle English initiated the…
Iyeiri, Yoko.
Merja Kytö, John Scahill, and Harumi Tanabe, eds. Language Change and Variation from Old English to Late Modern English: A Festschrift for Minoji Akimoto (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 79-101.
Iyeiri analyzes the "various forms of negation" in the fragments of Rom, commenting on their implications for attribution. Fragment C is more like B than like the Chaucerian A in many of its forms of negation; hence, it is unlikely to be by Chaucer.
Iyeiri investigates negative constructions in five versions of Bo, discussing the relative chronology of the witnesses to the text and, more generally, the editing of Middle English texts.
Doob, Penelope B. R.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974.
This study of madness in Middle English literature generally mentions Chaucer only in passing, but includes a brief discussion of a "pedestrian and highly traditional account of Nebuchadnezzer" in MkT. Clearly based on the Book of Daniel, the account…
Jacobs, Nicolas.
In Nicolas Jacobs and Gerald Morgan, eds. "Truth is the beste": A Festschrift in Honour of A. V. C. Schmidt (New York: Lang, 2014), pp. 109-25.
Reads NPT in light of the Nebuchadnezzer account in MkT--the only one of the Monk's tragedies with a "happy ending," the result of a lesson learned. Contrasts MkT as an early work of Chaucer's with NPT as one of his maturity, focusing on the "rival…
Reed, Thomas L.,Jr.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 89 (1988): 44-56.
The fall of Nebuchadnezzar is the only history in MkT that ends favorably for its protagonist; in its tragicomic structure and its transformation of the hero to a birdlike beast, this episode anticipates some main features of NPT.
Tracy, Kisha G.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 24, no. 1 (2017): 45-60.
Exemplifies the utilities of Google Maps in creating instructor-generated and student-generated maps for teaching aspects of undergraduate coursework in medieval literature, with five sample maps and an assignment designed for a course in English…
Pan Sánchez, María Rosa.
Notas y estudios filológicos 10 (1995): 111-24.
Gauges the influence of Navarre on English literature at two crucial junctures: the Norman Conquest and during the march of Edward, the Black Prince, when both Chaucer and John Chandos were involved. Reproduces several archival documents and includes…
Assesses Chaucer's presentation of women in TC, LGW, and CT (especially MLT) for the various ways that he invigorates them as characters to give them voice and dimension.
Birds as the participants in the "demande d'amour" game are comic, as is Nature the judge: her ineptness is both risible and serious, as traditionally she is limited by the Fall.
Havely, Nick.
Seeta Chaganti, ed. Medieval Poetics and Social Practice: Responding to the Work of Penn R. Szittya (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), pp. 109-23.
Reads the relationship between the formel and Nature in PF in light of late medieval practices of wardship, informed by attention to "yerde" as an emblem of authority. Comments on the formel's decision not to marry and on parallels between the formel…
St. John, Michael.
Michael St. John, ed. Romancing Decay: Ideas of Decadence in European Culture (Aldershot, Hants; and Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 17-26.
Political theory from Alain de Lille and Aristotle underlies PF, and events of the Good Parliament (1376) are reflected in it. Chaucer's Priapus and Venus allude to Edward III and Alice Perrers, while Nature's parliament is Chaucer's political ideal…
White, Hugh.
New York and Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2000.
Questions the notion that Nature was universally considered a positive force in the Middle Ages. Although depicted as God's vicar, Nature was also aligned with sexual impulses, complicating the image. White traces depictions of and attitudes toward…
Phillips, Helen.
Marios Costambeys, Andrew Hamer, and Martin Heale, eds. The Making of the Middle Ages: Liverpool Essays. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007, pp. 71-92.
Phillips gauges Romantic responses to LGW and the "Flower and the Leaf" (attributed to Chaucer in the Romantic age), indicating that Keats, Tennyson, William Morris, Pre-Raphaelite artists, and others admired the poems for their depictions of Nature…
McMullen, A. Joseph.
A. Joseph McMullen and Erica Weaver, eds. The Legacy of Boethius in Medieval England: The "Consolation" and Its Afterlives (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018.), pp. 143-54.
Identifies Chaucer's "cosmological additions" to Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" when translating it as "Boece," identifying the sources of these additions in earlier translations and commentaries, and speculating that Chaucer includes glosses…
Robertson, Kellie.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
Discusses how Aristotelian natural philosophy--physics--was debated in the Middle Ages, and its influence on the aesthetic practice of Latin and vernacular writers, including Chaucer, Jean de Meun, Guillaume de Deguileville, and John Lydgate. Argues…
Steadman, John M.
Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1979.
In a section called "Chaucer and Medieval Tradition" (pp. 67-114), reprints (with revisions and expansions) several previously published essays by Steadman, all of which explore iconographical or allegorical aspects of Chaucer's works. Includes the…
Burrow, J. A.
Review of English Studies 66, no. 276 (2015): 624-33.
Considers how Nature brings forces to bear that "incline" Hart to feel and behave the way he does in "King Hart." Argues that Chaucer's Wife of Bath uses the same technical term when she says "I folwed at myn inclinacioun / By vertu of my…
Aristotelian natural philosophy, specifically the doctrines of natural place and natural motion, lie at the heart of the structure and meaning of TC. Troilus and Criseyde are bodies in motion toward their natural resting places; their natures--her…
Asakawa, Junko.
Koichi Kano, ed. Through the Eyes of Chaucer: Essays in Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Society for Chaucer Studies (Kawasaki: Asao Press, 2014), pp. 81-99.
Examines the notions of nature and chance represented in TC in light of medieval philosophical and cosmological theories. In Japanese.
Discusses what naturalism is and how it links a set of normative intuitions about gender and desire to a broader theory of what it means for humans to be a law to themselves. Central to MilT is Alisoun, the "single most compelling instance of a…
