The French narrative poems of Machaut and Froissart reveal the source of the voice in Chaucer's early poems. Even though BD imitates the conventions of its French models, it shows how Chaucer adapted the conventions to his own use.
Robinson, Peter.
Joe Bray, Miriam Handley, and Anne C. Henry, eds. Ma(r)king the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page ( Aldershot, Hants; and Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 309-28.
Summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) encoding for electronic texts in the humanities, advocating a middle ground between "realist" and "anti-realist" theories of what can and should be represented. Expresses…
Aloni, Gila.
Danielle Buschinger and Arlette Sancery, eds. Mélanges de langue, littérature et civilisation offerts à André Crépin à l'occasion de son quatre-vingtième anniversaire (Amiens: Presses du Centre d'Études Médiévales, Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, 2008), pp. 1-10.
Explores how Chaucer's reflections on maternity expose a relationship between Christianity and other religions in MLT.
Kim, Jae-Whan.
Journal of English Language and Literature (Korea) 44: 255-74, 1998.
Chaucer prompts his readers to recognize that the Wife of Bath misreads and adapts the authorities she confronts, reminding us that multiple meanings are everywhere possible. This deconstruction of meaning prompts deconstruction of the male/female…
Creekmore, Hubert, ed.
New York: Grove Press, 1959.
Anthologizes samples of Greek, Latin, Provençal, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Welsh, Irish, Norse, Danish, Dutch, German, and Old and Middle English verse--generally in modern English translation--from the fifth to the fifteenth century.…
Holsinger, Bruce.
Seth Lerer, ed. The Yale Companion to Chaucer (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 179-212.
Holsinger explores each of Chaucer's lyrics and short poems, explicating tensions of form and theme and explaining Chaucer's "cagey manipulation" of metrical and lyric conventions - English, French, and Italian. Rarely an inventor, Chaucer was a…
Nelson, Ingrid.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
Asserts that Chaucer's inset lyrics in TC and LGW have a "tactical" quality that gives them flexibility and contingency. In TC, Antigone's song, using both English practices and French and Italian sources, demonstrates "a tension between negotiation…
Delahoyde, Michael.
Brief Chronicles: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Authorship Studies 5 (2014): 69-100.
Tallies a number of specific "[i]nfluences, echoes, or borrowings from Chaucer in English poetic tradition as it developed between Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, and Shakespeare," mentioning familiar instances and adding ones previously unnoticed.…
Robertson, Elizabeth.
Julia Boffey and Christiania Whitehead, eds. Middle English Lyrics: New Readings of Short Poems (Cambridge: Brewer, 2018), pp. 174-88.
Argues that three lyric moments in Book II of TC (Antigone's song, the lay of the nightingale, and the dream of the eagle) "distil the complexity of Criseyde's
inner deliberations," show “how Criseyde's choice to love is inflected by the…
Boyar, Jenny.
Dissertation Abstracts International A78.01 (2016): n.p.
Traces "the creative potentials of technologies of memory in the rise of English lyric poetry," focusing on Chaucer and Thomas Wyatt, and including assessment of how "innovations of lyric form are introduced" in TC "at moments in which memory is most…
Haskell, Ann S.
English Symposium Papers 3 (1973): 1-45.
Characterizes medieval lyrics and various sub-genres by illustrative examples; then comments on several themes and topoi in Chaucer's lyrics and lyrical passages from his longer works.
Butterfield, Ardis.
Medium Aevum 60 (1991): 33-60.
Analyzes Chaucer's treatment of bereavement and its consolation, particularly in relation to the exploitation of lyric in French narratives (both dit and elegy).
Looks at Lydgate's Parisian poems with a focus on "Pilgrimage of the Life of Man." Aims to define and construct "virtual coteries" and identify connections between Lydgate's coteries and the poetry of Gower and Chaucer. Refers to Mel, ABC, Purse, and…
Lydgate's introduction of new critical terms and definitions--"enlumyn," "adourne," "enbelissche," "aureate," "goldyn," "sugrid," "rhetorik," and "elloquence"--shift poetry's emphasis from the variety and pleasure found in Chaucer's writings, to…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 10 (1985): 175-82.
Early in his career Lydgate borrowed from Chaucer for particular effects: echoes of GP appear in "The Siege of Thebes." In his later career Lydgate tried to create a Latin-derived poetic language linked to Chaucer.
Sweet, W. H. E.
Vincent Gillespie and Kantik Ghosh, eds. After Arundel: Religious Writing in Fifteenth-Century England (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 343-59.
Assesses the use of secular and sacred topics in Lydgate's corpus, arguing that his expressions in his late poems of regret for writing secular verse in mid-career are sincere. Contrasts Lydgate's "retractions" of his poetry in "Testament" and…
Lydgate was not an incompetent Chaucerian imitator; he used a different verse design. Parametric comparison of Chaucer's and Lydgate's verse designs demonstrates Lydgate's use of a tradition older than Chaucer's iambic pentameter. Lydgate had only…
Nolan, Maura.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 27 (2005): 59-92
Reads Lydgate's tale of Canacee (Fall of Princes, Book 1) as a subtle response to its source (Gower's "Confessio Amantis"), complicated by several allusions to Chaucerian narratives (ClT, MLT, PrT). Lydgate's confrontations with various kinds of…
Reads "The Churl and the Bird" as John Lydgate's self-conscious rumination on "the poetic and philosophical implications" of willfully refusing to accept confinement. Includes comments on SqT, ManT, and Chaucer's influence on Lydgate.
Denny-Brown, Andrea.
Lisa H. Cooper and Andrea Denny-Brown,eds. Lydgate Matters: Poetry and Material Culture in the Fifteenth Century (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 35-56.
Denny-Brown explores roots of the medieval legends of Bicorn and Chichevache, examining how Chaucer develops the "themes of beastly appetites" in ClT and how Lydgate expands the theme of appetite in his "Bycorne and Chychevache."
Bale, Anthony.
Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 580-600.
Examines connections between Chaucer and Lydgate, tracing "some of the ways in which Lydgate received and (re)constructed Chaucer’s poetry." Concentrating on "The Mumming at Bishopswood," the "Siege of Thebes," and the patronage between Lydgate and…
