McMillan, Ann.
Constance H. Berman, Charles W. Connell, and Judith Rice Rothschild, eds. The Worlds of Medieval Women (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 1985), pp. 122-29.
In LGW, Chaucer explodes "the notion that women are, or should be, self-ordained victims." Women in Cupid's Paradise wallow in an "orgy of self-congratulation" for having died for love. The pathos of women destroyed by passion is emphasized in the…
Considers "connections between the thinking subject and affected body in the medieval period," focusing on "heaviness" as a state of health and a condition for communication. Cites instances in Mel and TC as examples of external and internal…
Cohen, Jeffrey James.
Helen M. Hickey, Anne McKendry, and Melissa Raine, eds. Contemporary Chaucer across the Centuries (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), pp. 91-108
Ecocritical examination of "heavy atmosphere" as an environmental state, an affective state, and/or a narrative tone or "feel" in several of Chaucer’s narratives, with focus on RvT, TC, and KnT. Explores parallels between medieval cosmology, humoral…
Kiernan, Kevin S.
Annuale Mediaevale 16 (1975): 52-62.
Chaucer has greatly expanded the role of Hector from his comparatively minor status in Boccaccio. As an honorable man of action and reason, Hector is a thematic contrast to Troilus, who is often prostrated by egocentric passions and loses Criseyde…
Collette, Carolyn P.
Chaucer Review 29 (1995): 416-33.
The concept of prudence was well known in the Middle Ages and was often seen as a specifically feminine virtue in medieval French texts. Drawing from those texts, Chaucer also underscores the feminine, making Mel a story for "real women living…
Surveys representations of Helen in literature, assessing the characterization in light of prevailing attitudes towards such topics as beauty, sexual culpability, and rape. Includes a summary of Chaucer's Helen in TC as an example of ambiguity, where…
Assesses the likelihood of Chaucer's familiarity with Peter Abelard's "Historia Calamitatum" and his knowledge of the story of Heloise and Abelard via Jean de Meun, arguing that the "Historia" has parallels with Chaucer's treatment of virginity…
Building on medieval "gender comedies," including Chaucer's (especially WBP and the fabliaux), Lydgate anticipates the family-state analogy that pervades early modern political theory. By giving the complaints of abused husbands a court hearing, the…
Analyzes the lexicon of Henry Daniel's medical treatise on urine, "Liber uricrisiarum," as it is found in Huntington, MS HM 505. Shows that often "Daniel and Chaucer share a precise vocabulary," detailing their similar uses of "piss," and tabulating…
Rothwell, W[illiam].
Modern Language Review 99 (2004): 313-27.
Henry of Lancaster is usually treated in the context of medieval English history; Chaucer, of medieval English literature. Better understanding of the Anglo-French language and culture familiar to both men helps us appreciate Anglo-French and assess…
MacDonald, Donald.
Texas Studies in Literature and Language 8 (1967): 451-61.
Shows that NPT was the "principal source" for Henryson's "Tale of the Cock and Fox," listing and discussing eight shared features that are found in "no other extant version of the fable."
Kindrick, Robert L.
New York and London: Garland, 1993.
Summarizes fundamental information about Henryson and surveys his use of and familiarity with the medieval rhetorical arts ("ars poetriae," "ars dictaminis," and "ars praedicandi"). Kendrick mentions Chaucer throughout as a source and model for the…
Torti, Anna.
Margarita Gimenez Bon and Vickie Olsen, eds. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval Language and Literature [SELIM, 26-28 September 1996] (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Dpto. Filologæa Inglesa, 1997), pp. 346-65.
Examines Henryson's treatment of Chaucer's story of Criseyde, focusing on Henryson's innovation and concern with artistic creativity, evident in his punishment of Cresseid with leprosy.
Quinn, William A.
Studies in Scottish Literature 31 (1999): 232-44.
Reads Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid" as a "compilatio" addressed to an audience of women, gauging the tone, theme, and unity of the poem. Includes recurrent comments on Henryson's uses of Chaucer's attitudes and perspectives, especially…
Regards Henryson's changes to Chaucer's TC in "The Testament of Cresseid" as evidence of Henryson's assertion of "his own authority." In changing Chaucer's plot, he remakes his poetic antecedent and emulates Chaucer's own poetic practice.
Kohl, Stephan.
Roderick J. Lyall and Felicity Riddy, eds. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Scottish Language and Literature (Medieval and Renaissance) (Stirling/Glasgow: Department of Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow, 1981), pp. 285-98.
Aruges that in its depiction of love Henryson's "Cresseid" is more a Renaissance poem than a medieval one. Though its subject matter and verse form follow Chaucer, the poem gives license "to love a human being for his or her own sake--not for God's…
Bennett, J. A. W.
J. A. W. Bennett. The Humane Medievalist (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura; Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer, 1982), pp. 89-103.
McKenna, Steven R.
Scottish Literary Journal 18:1 (1991): 26-36.
Explores Henryson's theory of tragedy and what is "tragic" about Cresseid, arguing for an inversion of the traditionally perceived structure of tragic action. Since Henryson anchors his poem in his audience's knowledge of TC,Cresseid's catastrophe…
Nakao, Yoshiyuki.
Yuko Tagaya and Masahiko Kanno, eds. Words and Literature: Essays in Honour of Professor Masa Ikegami (Tokyo: Eihosha, 2004), pp.105-28.
Discusses ambiguity in the character of Henryson's Cresseid from a lexical and semantic point of view, with a comparative note on Chaucer's Criseyde and Shakespeare's Cressida.
Considers "Testament of Cresseid" as a "Nebenmensch" (next man, or neighbor) to TC, doubting or negating it rather than emulating it, and, by "the logic of imperial translation," suspending England's rise as Scotland's "hostile neighbor."
Godman, Peter.
Review of English Studies 35 (1984): 291-300.
Reassesses several "flaws" perceived by J. A. W. Bennett in his analysis (1982) of Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," and argues that each has a "proper function" in the poem. Compares and contrasts Henryson's characterization of Cresseid…
