The prologue of LGW is a kind of "ars poetica" that contrasts seasonal renewal with eternal regeneration in order to show that poetry can mediate between them and serve as a true guide to love.
Houwen, L. A. J. R.
Geoffrey Lester, ed. Chaucer in Perspective: Middle English Essays in Honour of Norman Blake (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), pp. 100-17.
Derived from Boethius's Consolation and from the Roman de la Rose, the exemplary image of the caged bird invoked for the audience of ManT and SqT the "natural law" of sexual drive and the requirement that human beings, unlike birds, curb this drive.…
Wilkinson, Anouska.
Seventeenth Century 29 (2014): 381-402.
Discloses John Dryden's "profound interest in the rich cultural history of natural law philosophy" through close comparisons of his translations/adaptations of KnT and WBT with their Chaucerian originals, as well as through similar examinations of…
Dunleavy, Gareth W.
Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters 52 (1963): 177-87.
Identifies references in Chaucer's works to "natural law," or "law of kynde," describing its status in medieval legal theory and philosophy, including Boethius, and exploring Chaucer's possible experiences with the practices of "law merchant" and…
Demonstrates that PF reflects a movement from natural law to a more subjective interpretation of individual rights and ties this transition to the crisis of "commonalty" in the late fourteenth century.
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…
Fludernik, Monika.
Anglistik: Mitteilungen des Verbandes deutscher Anglisten 34 (2023): 77-100.
Uses the term "narrator" as a technical term to refer to "the contours of the narratorial functions and the textual voice as these are inscribed," focusing on "expansion of narratorial functions" in fifteenth-century English hagiography. Includes…
Spearing, A. C.
Sylvie Patron, ed. Optional-Narrator Theory (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021), pp. 166-83.
Challenges the applicability of modern narratology to medieval narratives, examining the narrating position in "King Horn" as popular romance and in BD as adaptation of a French "dit," and showing that novel-based notions of narrator-as-character do…
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…
