Skelton's "Tunnyng of Elynour Rummynge" mixes "Chaucerian and Langlandian forms," capitalizing on their presentations of female sexuality and economic value. Skelton's Elynour is neither a personification (like Lady Mede) nor realistic (like the…
Hanna, Ralph,III.
Stephen G. Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel, eds. The Whole Book:Cultural Perspectives on the Medieval Miscellany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), pp. 37-51.
Using Winchester College MS 33 as a touchstone for examining the difficulties of apprehending medieval texts, Hanna attributes the miscellaneous nature of collections of vernacular works in manuscripts to the difficulties of textual supply rather…
Cook, Megan L.
Huntington Library Quarterly 85 (2022): 643-61.
Compares the contents of manuscripts of Chaucer's works and those of early printed editions, especially William Thynne's 1532 edition of "Works." Focuses on the heterogeneous mixture of Chaucerian materials, apocrypha, and works by other authors in…
Smith, Francis J.
Ball State University Forum 14.1 (1973): 15-22.
Reads PF as a "poem of love and marriage, touching upon the question of pleasure versus the duty of procreation, realistically set in the framework of a dream, and seasoned with wit." Emphasizes the poem's balanced sensibility and "refreshing…
Allen, Mark.
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D.S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 9-21.
In the transformation from Deduit in the "Roman de la Rose" to the Host of CT, and in the actions of the Host during the pilgrimage, we can see intersections of gender and class as Chaucer constructs the Host's distinctively "bourgeois masculinity."
Cox, Catherine Stallworth.
Dissertation Abstracts International 52 (1992): 2930A.
Ovid's Narcissus becomes polysemous, generating figures of language among "Pearl" (Dreamer as Narcissus); TC (narrator's drawing on the myth for rhetoric to link pagan and Christian); "Piers Plowman B" (Christian Narcissus and "dreamer-Will"); and…
Frank, Robert Worth,Jr.
Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel, eds. The Wisdom of Poetry (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University, 1982), pp. 177-88.
Anti-Semitism is a commonplace in miracles of the Virgin, the special enmity between the Virgin and the Jews deriving from the apocryphal "Transitus." Some miracles end in conversion of the Jews; others in their destruction wholesale; PrT in…
Discusses Marian identification in PrT, in particular Marian miracles, as well as connections to the Virgin Mary in SNT, Th, and WBPT. Emphasizes development of Middle English Marian miracle texts, and Mary's "symbolic connection to Jews." Claims…
Johnson, William C., Jr.
Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 28.2 (1974): 57-65.
Compares the miracles in MLT with those in its source in Nicholas Trevet, arguing that by emphasizing emotion over religion Chaucer renders the narrative more powerful and humanistic.
Ward, Benedicta.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
Surveys patristic commentary and theory regarding miracles, and treats miracles associated with various shrines: Saint Faith, Saint Benedict, Saint Cuthbert, Saint WIlliam, Saint Godric, Saint Friedeswide, and Saint Thomas of Canterbury, as well as…
Raybin, David.
Susanna Fein and David Raybin, eds. Chaucer: Visual Approaches (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016) pp. 154-74.
Emphasizes Chaucer's biographical connections to Kent to support the claim that a "visual source" for the narrative framework of CT exists in pictorial representations of the miracles of Thomas Becket on stained glass in Trinity Chapel at Canterbury…
Jaeger, Vanessa.
Dissertation Abstracts International A81.07 (2019): n.p.
Intersectional analysis of four character types in medieval romance. Includes discussion of the loathly lady, WBT, and its analogues, arguing that Chaucer's version offers a figure of power, ambiguous because we remain "unsure whether she will use…
Owen, Charles A., Jr.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Chaucer and Middle English Studies in honour of Rossell Hope Robbins (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974), pp. 303-19.
Accepts that variants in manuscripts of TC provide evidence of Chaucer's revisions and studies a number of small changes that affect meter, style, and emphasis; cancellations or moving of stanzas have broader implications for Chaucer's…
Tormey examines metal and metalworking as symbols of economic forces shaping the development of epic form and subject matter. Discusses CT and Dante's "Inferno" as "proto-commercial travel narratives."
Partridge, Stephen.
A. S. G. Edwards, Vincent Gillespie, and Ralph Hanna, eds. The English Medieval Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths (London: British Library, 2000), pp. 51-87.
Summarizes the manuscript information pertinent to The Cook's Tale and The Squire's Tale, focusing on scribal confrontations with their fragmentary state, including continuations and, especially, gaps and notes. Evidence suggests that the notes and…
Downes, Stephanie.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 38 (2016): 287-97.
Considers the "non-lyric French inclusions" in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.20 as evidence of what "French meant to [John] Shirley" and what this indicates about fifteenth-century English reception of French literature.
Wheeler, Bonnie, ed.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Seventeen essays by various authors on topics ranging from the Middle English St. Francis to the Passion plays, the York Cycle, John Wycliff, "Piers Plowman," Gower, Margery Kempe, and other medieval writers and their literature. For two essays that…
Saunders, Corrine.
In Stephanie M. Hilger, ed. New Directions in Literature and Medicine Studies (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 119-41.
Identifies where "[a]cross his writings . . . Chaucer treats mind, body, and affect in sophisticated ways that go far beyond convention," focusing particularly on lovelorn knights in BD, KnT, and TC, and swooning women in ClT, MLT, and LGW. Argues…
Owen, Charles A., Jr.
Modern Philology 67 (1969): 125-32.
Contrasts the consummation scene of TC with its source in Boccaccio's "Filostrato," arguing that the changes produce a "far greater emotional intensity," largely because the narrative puts the reader through the process of partial fulfillment…
In KnT, Chaucer presents three conceptions of knighthood, each arising from individual desires that displace social responsibility. Arcite and Palamon's rivalry is based in mimetic desire for ontological being. Theseus arbitrates their rivalry by…
Makes the case that Boccaccio responds in the many trial scenes of the "Decameron" to contemporary concerns about verisimilitude in judicial proceedings. Claims that Boccaccio shifts in the role of judicial figures from mediators to determiners of…
