Gaylord, Alan T.
Robert R. Edwards and Stephen Spector, eds. The Olde Daunce: Love, Friendship, Sex, and Marriage in the Medieval World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 177-200, 284-87 (notes).
The controversy regarding "the moral intelligence of the narrator" of FranT maps the "poetic terrain" of the tale., i.e., rhyme, meter, poetic structure, and complex literary plan. Gaylord examines the tale by two complementary and yet contradictory…
Normandin, Shawn.
Notes and Queries 260 (2015): 218–19.
In rendering Petrarch's explanation for why God tests humans in the form of a disjointed sentence (ClT, 1153-61), Chaucer points out its irrationality. Argues how this ploy resonates with the Clerk's expression of qualms about Petrarch at the…
Manzanas Calvo, Ana M.
Purificacion Fernandez Nistal and Jose Ma Bravo Gozalo, eds. Proceedings of the VIth International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1995), pp. 223-30.
Margery Kempe and Alison of Bath represent a basic conflict: as representatives of the nascent bourgeoisie, they seek to inscribe themselves in a tradition that, since they are women, silences them.
Andreas explores the "interplay of serious and comic materials" in the "best work" of Chaucer and Shakespeare, commenting on the use of KnT in A Midsummer Night's Dream and on Shakespeare's adaptations of Chaucer's comic figures in his mechanicals.
Examines the contents and provenance of MS Digby 86 (Bodleian); MS Harley 2253 (British Library); MSS fr. 837 and 19182 (Bibliothque Nationale); and Carmina Burana MS (Munich), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 4460 and 4460a. The literary techniques…
Craig, Hardin.
In MacEdward Leach, ed. Studies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Albert Croll Baugh (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), pp. 97-106.
Comments on thematic similarities between Plato's "Gorgias," Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," and several of Chaucer's works, observing in TC a particular concern shared by Plato and Boethius: the "futility of earthly existence."
Williams, David
Gary Wihl and David Williams, eds. Literature and Ethics: Essays Presented to A. E. Malloch (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988), pp. 77-95.
In FrT, Chaucer satirizes some "excesses of fourteenth-century logical demonstration" and develops a "theory of fiction from the theories of intention current in his day." Intentionality involves the "relation of language to the real," and…
Couch, Julie Nelson.
Dissertation Abstracts International 61: 3554A, 2001.
Chaucer's representations of the child as pathetic and passive (in Th and PrT) contrasts with images of children in romance ("Havelock the Dane") and miracle tales ("Child Slain by Jews" and "The Jewish Boy"). Chaucer "canonizes" this negative view…
Weber, J. Sherwood, Jules Alan Wein, Arthur Waldhorn, and Arthur Zeiger.
New York: Holt, 1959.
Chapter 12 opens with an introduction to Chaucer's life and works, followed by appreciative commentary on CT as a comedy that is "social, not divine." Includes "Questions for Study and Discussion" on CT generally, and focused questions on KnT, MilT,…
Kennedy, Teresa A.
Helen Fulton, ed. Chaucer and Italian Culture (Cardiff: Unversity of Wales Press, 2021), pp. 217-40.
Argues that the dream vision aspects of HF and NPT can be read "through their shared preoccupations with writing, reading and problematic quest for 'authority' by vernacular texts." Addresses the importance of textual authority, allegory, and parody,…
Pigg, Daniel F.
In Albrecht Classen, ed. Incarceration and Slavery in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age: A Cultural-Historical Investigation of the Dark Side of the Pre-Modern World (Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2021), pp. 347-60.
Argues that the "unique aspect" of the depiction of imprisonment in KnT is that the "only liberation that can happen is apparently at the end of this life, which is seen as a prison," hence "hardly a liberation at all." Comments on Chaucer's likely…
Storm, Melvin.
Jane Chance, ed. The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 215-31.
Examines the role of tone and narratorial voice in Chaucer's manipulations and distortions of the myth of Theseus in HF, Anel, LGW, and KnT. Theseus is vilified in HF and LGW as a betrayer of women; in KnT, he exemplifies mature "martialism…
Yeager, Stephen M.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.
Examines alliterative English writing by focusing on Anglo-Saxon legal-homiletic discourse within vernacular English poetry. Brief mention of FranT, ParsT, MLT, and Mel.
Refers to Chaucer throughout, first by supposing what his early education was like, then by addressing the late-medieval relation between Latin and English as evident in HF, NPT, and ManT. Argues that "the work of Chaucer, Langland, and Gower…
Cannon, Christopher.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Examines the textbook practices of the medieval primary schools--the "grammar schools" or "grammatica"--as underlying the transition from Latin to English as the primary language of "literary" composition in England during the fourteenth century.…
Tokunaga, Satoko.
Satoko Tokunaga, ed. Aspects of Publishing History in the East and the West (Tokyo: Keio University Press, 2015), pp. 1-32,
Surveys the presentation of CT in manuscripts and printed books up to the publication of William Thynne's first complete works of Chaucer (1532). Focuses on editorial principles and concepts such as compilatio, authorship, and collation. In Japanese.
Pidd, Michael,and Estelle Stubbs.
Norman Blake and Peter Robinson, eds. The Canterbury Tales Project Occasional Papers, Volume II (London: King's College, Office for Humanities Communications, 1997), pp. 55-59.
Describes how the difficulties and decisions involved in transcribing manuscripts for the "Canterbury Tales" Project parallel fifteenth-century scribal practice.
Traces the development of English "central government control over local institutions," discussing the emergence of local groups and mentioning the GP Guildsmen.
Sanyal, Jharna.
Supriya Chaudhuri and Sukanta Chaudhuri, eds. Writing Over: Medieval to Renaissance (Calcutta: Allied, in collaboration with the Department of English, Jadavpur University, 1996), pp. 11-22.
Compares Criseyde of TC with her analogues in Henryson's "Testament," Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," and Dryden's "Truth Found Too Late," arguing that in Chaucer's and Shakespeare's versions she is a victim of predatory males and is left open…
Minnis, A. J.
Proceedings of the British Academy 72 (1986): 205-46.
Discusses whether Chaucer is a medieval or a Renaissance poet, examining Chaucer's attitudes toward his world and the process by which Chaucer was inspired.
Phelan, Walter S.
Zvi Malachi, ed. Proceedings of the International Conference on Literary and Linguistic Computing, Israel (Tel Aviv: Katz Research Institute, 1980), pp. 291-316.
The lexical morphemes of Chaucer's poetic tales have been marked in the data base as narrative "verbs" or "adjectives" (Todorov: dynamic v. static predicate formulas). The character and percentage of formula "per lexical unit" provide a more…
Assesses the "most important" poems about animals in English literature, ca. 700-1400 A.D., focusing on three traditions: "Physiologus," bird debates, and beast fable and epic. Considers PF as a bird debate, describing how it transcends the…
Saunders, Corinne.
David Fuller, Corinne Saunders, and Jane Macnaughton, eds. The Life of Breath in Literature, Culture and Medicine: Classical to Contemporary (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp. 87-109.
Describes various depictions of breath, breathlessness, and "vital spirits" that signal deep emotion in medieval literature, including comments on BD, TC, and KnT, among other courtly and religious works.
Roscow, G. H.
Essays in Poetics 9:1 (1984): 78-94.
Analyzes the "sentence" of BD through its sentence structure. Any idea of "tragic reversal" disintegrates under the pressure of "forward-looking" consecutive sentences.
