McCall, John P.
Modern Language Quarterly 23 (1962): 297-308.
Argues that the "formal and thematic design" of TC--particularly its five-book structure--reflects the "ordered argument of Lady Philosophy" in Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and "reveals a new facet of Chaucer's concept of tragedy." Altering…
Observes that NPT differs from most of its cock-and-fox analogues "in its explicit, reiterated warning against flattery," a traditional feature of, instead, "fox-and-crow" tales. Also, the explicitness of the moral in NPT is a "convention…
Houwen, L. A. J. R.
L. A. J. R. Houwen, ed. Animals and the Symbolic in Mediaeval Art and Literature. Mediaevalia Groningana, no. 20 (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1997), pp. 77-92.
Assesses references to mermaids' singing in medieval tradition to argue that Chaucer's reference (NPT 7.3270) suggests flattery and thereby anticipates Chauntecleer's fall.
Lopez-Pelaez Casellas, Jesus.
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. 183-92.
Examines the interconnections of theme and genre in NPT, maintaining that rhetoric links the "fictive manner" and the "fictive matter" of the tale.
Ganim, John M.
Helen M. Hickey, Anne McKendry, and Melissa Raine, eds. Contemporary Chaucer across the Centuries (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), pp. 188-200.
Argues that the "erotics" of William Morris's "News from Nowhere" constitute "an allegorical emblem of its politics," and suggests that the narrative stance of the novel may have been influenced by Chaucer's dream-vision narrator, an "inquisitive, if…
Nyffenegger, Nicole, and Katrin Rupp, eds.
Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011.
Ten essays by various authors, with an introduction by the editors and an index. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Fleshly Things and Spiritual Matters under Alternative Title.
Focusing on literary depictions of maying activities in medieval records and the Roman de la Rose, Bezella-Bond assesses their depiction in Malory and in Chaucer's BD, PF, LGWP, KnT, MerT, and WBPT.
Stretter, Robert.
English Literary Renaissance 47 (2017): 270-300.
Argues that Shakespeare and John Fletcher's adaptation of KnT in "The Two Noble Kinsmen" emphasizes the failure of same-sex friendship, darkens tone, and approaches tragic pessimism--in contrast with Chaucer's "cautiously optimistic philosophical…
Focuses on Criseyde's two oaths of fidelity in TC (3.1493-1502 and 4.1549-54) for the way that they allusively engage Ovidian narratives; counter the linear temporality of epic; affirm Criseyde's sincerity and "bold idealism"; and compel readers to…
Bowden, Betsy.
Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship 9 (1992): 10-29.
Compares the treatment of proverbs in three eighteenth-century modernizations of MilT, assessing shifts in form, shifts in emphasis, and sensitivity to Chaucer's original. Considers how proverbs may "function as microcosms" of reader response and…
Focuses on how CT influences English science fiction authors such as Margaret Atwood, James Gunn, and Dan Simmons. Also analyzes the "pilgrimage motif"; refers to HF, LGW, and TC; and discusses "Chaucerian science fiction" in South America.
Berry, Craig A.
English Literary History 68: 287-313, 2001.
Chaucer enhances the rhetorical authority of SqT by following classical authorities, using figures such as Pegasus, the Trojan horse, and Sinon's persuasive deception as models and figures for the poem's rhetorical operation. Chaucer understood and…
Howard, Donald R.
Wittreich, Joseph Anthony, Jr., ed. Milton and the Line of Vision (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), pp. 3-23.
Gauges Chaucer's influence on Milton, often mediated by Spenser, commenting on the use of interlace or "labyrinth design" in the works of the poets and their concern with the "picture of quotidian domestic life" in the marriage tales of CT and in…
Petrosillo, Sara.
Medieval Feminist Forum 54, no. 1 (2018): 9-33.
Observes how the "tension between control and release" in premodern falconry is "salient for feminist approaches to representations of gender when birds stand in for women's sexual bodies," exploring the implications of associations between women and…
Tagmemic analysis of NPT that examines three of its "overlapping hierarchies" by shifting focus among them: the tale as a fable, the rhetorical elaboration of it, and the framing context of CT. Such analysis discloses the complex comedy of the tale.
Rodríguez Redondo, Ana Laura, and Eugenio Contreras Domingo, eds.
Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2011.
Includes four articles related to Middle English manuscripts, CT, and medievalisms. For essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Focus on Old and Middle English Studies under Alternative Title.
Stock, Lorraine Kochanske.
Carolynn Van Dyke, ed. Rethinking Chaucerian Beasts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 85-100.
Themes of "trouthe" and "gentillesse," as well as the threat of suicide, in the SqT falcon episode (5.409-631) anticipate major themes of FranT. Because SqT is prior in the narrative sequence, the human language of FranT parodies avian language…
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."
