Burger, Glenn D., and Holly A. Crocker, eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Collection of essays charting new investigations of intersectionality of affects, feelings, and emotions in non-religious texts. Authors range from Chaucer to Gavin Douglas, and essays explore practices of witness to the "adoration of objects," and…
Yoshikawa, Naoe Kukita, ed.
Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2015.
Investigates religious and medical medieval discourses in the Middle Ages. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer search for Medicine, Religion and Gender in Medieval Culture under Alternative Title.
Everest, Carol Ann.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1993): 4331A.
Because modern medical theories tend to slight classical and medieval theories (Galen, Aristotle, Avicenna), some of Chaucer's works are usually imperfectly understood. (For instance, flatulence was associated with virility.)
Harvey, E. Ruth.
Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 440-55.
Examines the influence of Dominican friar Henry Daniel, and his efforts, along with other English scientists, "to appropriate into their language the scientific learning available in Latin, and to lay the foundations for future development.”…
Stieve, Edwin M.
Dissertation Abstracts International 49 (1989): 3037A.
Surveys medical and historical writing as well as clerical interpretations of the bubonic plague. Treating literary representation of the plague as emblematic of ethical and societal cataclysm, Stieve considers the role of the plague in the writings…
Kruger, Steven (F.)
Peter Brown, ed. Reading Dreams: The Interpretation of Dreams from Chaucer to Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 51-83.
Traces the influence of medieval medical texts on the understanding of the bodily causes of dreaming, arguing that the dreamer's body plays an important role in dreams. In BD, the dream works to masculinize and "heterosexualize" the ailing narrator,…
Capdevielle, Elizabeth Gibbons.
Dissertation Abstracts International A76.01 (2015): n.p.
Studies "the moral meaning of spiritual and political mediation" in late medieval England, focusing on miracles of the Virgin, TC, Julian of Norwich's "A Revelation of Love," and Thomas Hoccleve's "Regiment of Princes," using aspects of Emmanuel…
Boitani, Piero, and Anna Torti, eds.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996.
Ten essays by various authors on topics that include depictions of nature, Chaucer and his reception, Spenser, and medievalism. For six essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Mediaevalitas: Reading the Middle Ages under Alternative Title.
In KnT, Chaucer presents Arcite's love sickness in scientific terms. Boccaccio reveals Arcite to be changed into a savage-looking creature, whereas Chaucer's description recreates the ideal world of chivalry.
Sketches the development of "Gothic humanism," Platonism, and naturalism in medieval "plastic arts" and theory, locating similar principles and practices in CT--the principles expressed at the opening of PhyT and the practices found in a variety of…
Strmelj, Lidija.
ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries 14.1 (2014): 37–47.
Assesses examples from GP, KnT, MilPT, WBPT, and SNPT, deducing that medieval metaphors of emotion are similar to modern ones, although they depend more closely upon social categories, with negative metaphors typical of middle-class speakers, and…
Includes a section entitled "Shorter Chaucer Tales" (pp. 21–51) with five pieces inspired by CT: "The Host Tale," "The Summer Tale (Deus Hic, 1)," "The Franker Tale (Deus Hic, 2)," "The Not Tale (Funeral)," and "Fried Tale (London Zoo)." The…
By framing his "Pentacostal parody" within a parody of fourteenth-century English academics' preoccupation with measuring "both physical and metaphysical realities," Chaucer registers "a cautious but not gloomy attitude" regarding the spectrum of…
Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20 (1998): 101-65.
Examinies civil and criminal documentary evidence of the meanings of the term "rape," reconsidering their applicability to Cecily Champain's 1380 claim against Chaucer. The "inherent ambiguity" of the term and its "very wide range" of legal and…
Machan, Tim William.
Chaucer Review 55, no. 3 (2022): 317-26.
Traces the definition and history of "knarre' in GP, cataloguing evidence for both a Dutch and Old Norse etymology. Offers some considerations for the role of the lexicographer and historian in general by addressing the particular history and meaning…
Explores why the Parson is neither a rector nor a parish priest, examining historical contexts and speculating about Chaucer's intentions, especially as they relate to backgrounds to the "Summa de poenitentia."
Holland, Norman N.
College English 28 (1967): 279-90.
Reads WBT psychoanalytically, exploring its "sexual taboos," its phallic and vaginal significations, and the sexual fantasy that is "at the heart of the story." The tension between authority and submission in the Tale conveys meaning equally well for…
McGerr, Rosemarie P.
R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesye": Essays in Criticism. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, no. 104. Pegasus Paperbacks, no. 10 (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 179-98.
The unresolved ending of TC capitalizes on concern with means and ends throughout the poem, encouraging readers to resist the illusion of closure in any act of interpretation.
Harvey, Patricia A.
Notes and Queries 213 (1968): 243-44.
Adduces two instances in Middle English of the use of "point" with musical connotations, and suggests that the use of the term in TC 3.695 gains complexity from such connotations.
Crane, Susan.
New Medieval Literatures 2 (1998): 159-79.
Suggests that "maying" shapes participants' sexuality, thereby furthering the "ritual's enactment of social status." Uses LGW as an example of the mirroring of human qualities in the natural world.
Barbaccia, Holly, Bethany Packard, and Jane Wanniger.
Merry Wiesner, ed. Gendered Temporalities in the Early Modern World (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), pp. 213-34.
Explores how the "unfulfilled outcomes" of characters who are possibly mothers or possibly pregnant in TC, MerT, Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well," and John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" “simultaneously enable author, character, and…
Jost, Jean (E.)
Bonnie Wheeler, ed. Feminea Medievalia I: Representations of the Feminine in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Academia Press, 1993), pp. 117-38.
Not acknowledged or accounted for, feminine desire is a powerful force in the plot of MerT. Because January ignores May's sexual desires, he involuntarily provokes her to pursue a more appropriate mate. May takes what January proffers--his money…
