Pitard, Derrick G.
Richard Newhauser, ed. The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 207-27.
Pitard comments on William of St. Amour's "Tractatus brevis" and assesses SumT as a vernacularized adaptation of it--one in which fraternal pretenses are satirized for their Latinate elitism. The satire occurs because "it is hilarious that the friar…
Bozick, Morgan M.
Chaucer Review 54.2 (2019): 162-90.
Offers a new interpretation of Wom Unc, a lyric attributed to Chaucer. Argues for different punctuation in the poem, and claims that the lady and subject of the poem is green herself rather than dressed in green, thus symbolizing May. The poem, then,…
Rudd, Gillian.
New York: Manchester University Press, 2007.
Explores relationships between humankind and natural landscapes through critical readings that combine ecological emphases with literary analysis. In a chapter titled "Trees," Rudd suggests that the eventual fate of the forest in KnT illuminates the…
Jucker, Andreas H.
Päivi Pahta and Andreas H. Jucker, eds. Communicating Early English Manuscripts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 229-42.
Describes the pragmatic complexities of greetings and farewells and the limitations of using edited literary examples to explore their history. Tabulates and analyzes 140 instances of greetings and farewells in CT, attending to concerns of social…
Applying A. J. Greimas's systems to MilT leaves Alison in the role of passive object. Claude Bremond's model discloses a more active Alison as she learns about seduction and dissimulation, which are overvalued in the world of MilT.
Barrington, Candace.
European Journal of English Studies 15 (2011): 143-56.
Discusses General Ethan Allen Hitchcock's 1865 published explication of Chaucer's BD. Argues that this study of Chaucer's dream visions offers new insights into "Chaucer's reception in the nineteenth-century United States."
Compares nine versions of the Griselda narrative (including ClT), exploring what virtues in addition to patience are emphasized in each and arguing that shifts in emphasis account for the story’s medieval and early modern popularity. ClT emphasizes…
Crocker, Holly A.
Frank Grady, ed. The Cambridge Companion to "The Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 136-50.
Argues that ClT offers a view of what it means to be human, and that Chaucer's view differs significantly from Petrarch’s presentation, in his translation of Boccaccio's Griselda story in the "Decameron," of Walter's cruelty and Griselda's patience…
Astell, Anne.
Sharon M. Rowley, ed. Writers, Editors, and Exemplars in Medieval English Texts (Cham: Macmillan Palgrave, 2021), pp. 43-78.
Argues that allusions to Mary in ClT "disturb a reception of Grisildis as Stoic heroine and Chistian saint." Claims Griselda is a "failed Pietá and that the tale is "caught between two worlds, critical of its own sacrificial gestures."
Green Richard Firth.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 33 (2011): 3-38.
Details of the tale of Griselda indicate that the "key to the tale's power" in the late Middle Ages is its "startling role reversal, from marchioness to chambermaid, and the fundamental questions about the marital relationship it so dramatically…
Morse, Charlotte C.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 347-92.
Identifies "uncanny" resemblances between Griselda of ClT and Philippa de Coucy, wife of Robert de Vere. Similarities between the women and their treatment at the hands of their husbands (divorces) would have prompted Chaucer's immediate audience to…
Bettridge, William Edwin.
Dissertation Abstracts International 27.09 (1967): 3005A.
Studies fourteenth- and fifteenth-century versions of the Griselda story, including ClT, arguing that it does not derive from the Cupid and Psyche myth and that several versions thought to be analogues are not in fact so.
Examines ClT 911-17 and concludes that, because of textual ambiguities, it is difficult to know whether Griselda has physically changed upon returning to her former home or, as Harding seems to believe, her "olde coote" is no longer fit to be worn.
Harding, Wendy.
Roger Ellis, Rene Tixier, and Bernd Weitemeier, eds. The Medieval Translator/Traduire au Moyen Age, 6. ([Turnhout, Belgium]: Brepols, 1998), pp. 194-210.
Assesses Chaucer's transformation of ClT in his process of translating his sources, focusing on the imagery of clothing. Through his alterations of the clothing motif, Chaucer disclaims the traditional notion that translation is merely superficial…
Hansen, Kristine.
Literature and Belief 12 (1992): 53-70.
Like Abraham, Griselda is justified or made perfect by works, evidenced by her willingness to sacrifice her children. Through three clothing changes, she becomes an emblem of salvation: the first change symbolizes baptism; the second, the trial of…
Yoon, Minwoo.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 16 (2008): 113-41.
Although Griselda is "translated" in three different ways in ClT (language, place,and social class), her labor is constant throughout. Her labors (domestic, wifely, and public) define her essential selfhood and grant her a kind of power that Walter…
Shimogasa, Tokuji.
Nobuyuki Yuasa et al., eds. Essays on English Language and Literature in Honour of Michio Kawai (Tokyo: Eihosha, 1993), pp. 37-43.
Demonstrates through word study that Griselda is "the personification of the virtues of meekness, humility, fortitude, and modesty," a figure of medieval love.
Hernández Pérez, M. Beatriz.
Manuel Brito and Juan Ignacio Oliva, eds. Traditions and Innovations Commemorating Forty Years of English Studies at ULL (1963-2003) (Tenerife, Canary Islands: RCEI, 2004), pp. 273-80.
Hernández Pérez explores kinship models implicit in the cultural "memory" of ClT, especially those that involve Walter's sister and the sending of children to a relative's household. Griselda's class and deference may reflect vestiges of marriage…
Chaucer modifies his sources for ClT in a way that emphasizes Griselda's virtue as specifically "feminine" and exclusively "wifely." The reflections of her wifely virtue in the pagan wives of LGW, who "view devotion to their husbands as their highest…
Valdés Miyares, Rubén.
SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Mediaeval English Language and Literature 8: 101-15, 2001.
Explores two folkloric motifs in ClT and "Lay le Freine": the patient wife and twin sisters who are rivals in love. Rooted in the same myth, the stories imagine alternatives to patriarchal culture as well as dramatizing wifely obedience and female…
Wallace, David.
Andrew Galloway and R. F. Yeager, eds. Through a Classical Eye: Transcultural and Transhistorical Visions in Medieval English, Italian, and Latin Literature in Honour of Winthrop Wetherbee (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), pp. 207-22.
Wallace reviews letters between Boccaccio and Petrarch, suggesting that it is not unreasonable to "consider Petrarch and Boccaccio toiling, sparring, and loving one another in bonds suggestive of matrimony" (210). Aligns events of the Griselda tales…
Discusses the meaning of "woe that is in marriage" and the antifeminist attitude of the Clerk in ClT, juxtaposed to the Wife of Bath, and shows that the Clerk preaches skillfully about the abnormal relationship between man and wife.
