Identifies difficulties in translating Chaucer for American audiences: linguistic difficulties (especially false cognates such as "countrefete" and "lust") and several social changes that make Chaucer the "absent father in the United States."
Shepherd, Geoffrey T.
Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell, eds. J. R. R. Tolkien: Essays in Memoriam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979), pp. 204-20.
Chaucer questions the nature of storytelling and the possibility of writing "truth" in imaginative literature. Two words express the divergence of the problem in the Middle Ages: "sooth," which is axiomatic truth (often expressed proverbially);…
Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn.
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Maidie Hilmo, and Linda Olson, eds. Opening up Middle English Manuscripts: Literary and Visual Approaches (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012), pp. 39-94.
Section 5, "Some of the Earliest Attempts to Assemble the Canterbury Tales," analyzes structural and scribal differences in CT manuscripts.
Kennedy, Kathleen E.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Examines a variety of medieval social relations as forms of "maintenance," i.e., "being provided or providing the wherewithal to live." Lord-retainer, master-servant, and husband-wife relations are analogous forms of maintenance that inform one…
Kennedy, Kathleen E.
Chaucer Review 39 (2004): 165-76.
Events depicted in Chaucer's French source "mirror a popular English legal remedy, the loveday or accord," and Chaucer uses the occasion to comment on the importance and role of "maintenance" (the "exchange of money and influence between a lord and…
Craig, Lisa Renee.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 1119A, 1999.
In this study of a specialized kind of computer manual, Chaucer's Astr is cited as a prototype and analyzed for its use of three characteristic rhetorical features.
Armstrong, Dorsey, Ann W. Astell, and Howell Chickering, eds.
Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2013.
Contains nineteen essays by various authors, with an introduction by the editors, on literary and historical topics, Arthuriana, and women in the Middle Ages. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for "Magistra doctissima" under…
Kellman, Steven G., ed.
Pasadena, Ca.: Salem Press, 2009.
Introductions to 380 writers who are "at the heart of literary studies for middle and high school students and at the center of book discussions among library patrons." Originally published in 1993-95, edited by Frank N. Magill. The entry about…
Williams, Tara.
New Medieval Literatures 12 (2010): 179-208.
Argues that a "relationship between magic, spectacle, and morality . . . preoccupies a number" of fourteenth-century Middle English texts, focusing on the magical objects in SqT and other instances of magic in CT to exemplify the variety and…
Saunders, Corinne [J.]
Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre and M. Nila Vázquez González, eds. Medieval English Literary and Cultural Studies (Murcia: Universidad de Muscia, 2004), pp. 121-43.
Surveys medieval beliefs and learning about magic and explores the narrative function and resonance of magic and the supernatural in Chaucer's writing. Also considers relations to natural philosophy or "science" and the shift from medieval to…
Chaucer most often depicts technology as an aid to trickery and fraud. Chaucer's mechanical wonders--such as those in FrT, SqT, and CYT--are potentially dangerous to persons lacking inside knowledge. Even simple machines can deceive. Though Chaucer…
Sweeney, Michelle.
Dublin : Four Courts Press, 2000.
Magic enables discussion of contemporary political and social issues and timeless questions of faith, love, loyalty, fate, and destiny. The concluding chapter shows how magic in FranT enables discussion of free will and challenges the Franklin's…
Saunders, Corrine J.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010.
Saunders studies medieval understandings of "magic, enchantment, the demonic, marvel and miracle." Surveys these topics in biblical and classical precedents, focuses on a range of romances in Middle English, and provides an epilogue that looks toward…
Battles, Paul.
Timothy S. Jones and David A. Sprunger, eds. Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles: Studies in the Medieval and Early Modern Imaginations (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2002), pp. 243-66.
Similarities between magic and tale-telling and between the clerk of Orléans and the Franklin recur in FranT, despite the Franklin's attempts to distance them. As the clerk seeks to educate Aurelius, the Franklin tries to teach the Squire.
Runde, Joseph.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1980): 2128A.
An examination of some works commonly classified as romances--WBT, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," "The Tale of King Arthur," "The Tempest," "The Winter's Tale," and "As You Like It"--yields a definition of "romance." It is the magician who…
Classen, Albrecht, ed.
Boston, Mass.: De Gruyter, 2017.
Twenty-five essays by various authors on a wide array of topics. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Magic and Magicians in the Middle and the Early Modern Times under Alternative Title.
Luengo, Anthony E.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 77 (1978): 1-16.
The magic of the Orleans clerk is nothing but stage illusion achieved by natural means. The inability of the characters (and indeed of the narrator himself) to distinguish these harmless tricks from astrology and witchcraft reveal their cultural…
Hatton, Thomas J.
Papers on Language and Literature 3 (1967): 179-81.
Contends that parallels between the "sacrifices" in FranT and two analogous ones found in Jean Froissart's "Chroniques" 2.137-38 encourage us to see the offer of the Franklin's magician to be illusory and worthless while Arveragus's offer of the…
Petrarch's account of a gemstone ring that, under the tongue of a beautiful corpse, drove Charlemagne mad with passion ("Familiares" 1.1.4) may have been known to Chaucer. The legend provides a suggestive analogue for the motif of the "grain" in the…
Braswell, Mary Flowers.
English Language Notes 23 (1985): 55-70.
Chaucer's influence on Faulkner is evident in the similarities between PardT and "Lizards in Jamshyd's Courtyard." Both stories concern three treasure seekers who make an ironic vow of loyalty and are guided in motion by a figure who represents…
Cutts, John P.
Studies in the Humanities 7.2 (1979): 34-38.
Chaucer's characterization of the Prioress mirrors the struggle of "a country bumpkin trying to upgrade herself." The St. Loy of her oath might best be identified with St. Louis IX, King of France. The Bell edition of 1890 cites St. Loy as the…
Fleming, John V.
Donka Minkova and Theresa Tinkle, eds. Chaucer and the Challenges of Medievalism: Studies in Honor of H. A. Kelly (Frankfurt and New York : Peter Lang, 2003), pp. 205-33.
The description of the Prioress's rosary exemplifies Chaucer's word play and his literary engagement with other writers, particularly Jean de Meun and Ovid. Fleming compares the Prioress's rosary with rosaries in medieval art and assesses the…
Alexander, Philip S.
Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 74 (1992): 109-20.
Reviews anti-Semitism in PrT from a historical point of view. Defines anti-Semitism and its typical features: the death of the clergeon mirrors that of Christ; the Jews are linked with the devil; and they engage in usury. PrT is definitely…
Orsten, Elisabeth M.
Florilegium 11 (1992): 82-100.
The Prioress's combination of pious sentiment, moral blindness, and indifference to official church doctrine can be paralleled in a 1985 attempt, in an Austrian village, to defend and preserve an anti-Semitic legend about the murder of a…
