Chaucer's hedonist monk tells unexpectedly conservative tales. But his "accessus" and first four tales betray him as a "grammaticus" bent on "curiositas," evoked by hunting (Augustine) and "vagatio" (Peter Damian). The rest define "what is man" by…
Facsimile reproduction of Greaves' grammar (1594), which was the second grammar of English to be printed; includes as an appendix a six-page "Vocabula Chauceriana," the first glossary of Chaucer's lexicon.
Renevey, Denis.
Medieval Translator/Traduire au Moyen Age 14 (2018): 363-77.
Clarifies the biography of Oton de Grandson (here "Othon"), particularly his role as "one of the leading knight-poets of his time," exploring how his status inflected his influence on other writers, including Chaucer. Chaucer's lower social status…
Smallwood, Philip.
Cedric D. Reverand II, ed. Queen Anne and the Arts (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2015), pp. 99– 117.
Explores Alexander Pope's "transformation" of MerT in his "January and May," focusing on his "reading of Chaucer," and his poem's "consonance with the time of Queen Anne." Also comments more generally on Pope's reception and uses of Chaucer's…
Noble, Thomas F. X.
Chantilly, Va.: Teaching Company, 2004.
Includes two thirty-minute audio-visual recordings of lectures (nos. 35 and 36) on "Geoffrey Chaucer--Life and Works" and "Geoffrey Chaucer--'The Canterbury Tales'." The first surveys Chaucer's life and works; the second describes CT, with attention…
Ormond, Richard and Leonee.
London: H. M. S. O., 1969.
Reproduces portraits or busts of twenty-four English poets, from Chaucer to T. S. Eliot, held in England's National Portrait Gallery, with a very brief biography and short selection of poetry for each. The portrait of Chaucer is labeled as "By an…
The section on Chaucer (pp. 5-28) includes a biographical introduction, a reader's guide to CT, brief summaries of PF and TC, and discussion of the literary and historical contexts in which Chaucer wrote.
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.
