Pearcy, Roy J.
American Notes and Queries 23 (1985): 64-68.
Only one analogue, Jean Bodel's "Gombert et les deus clers," includes after the cradle story a "moralitas" against the danger of harboring strangers (in Bodel, friars). The moral of RvT, spoken by the Cook (CkP 4331), recalls the passage.
Olson, Glending.
Modern Language Review 64 (1969): 721-25.
Shows that in details and atmosphere the relation between RvT and its analogue, Jean Bodel's twelfth-century "Gombert et les Deux Clers," is a "good deal closer than has been realized." Suggests that Chaucer's source combined details of "Gombert" and…
Justman, Stewart.
Studies in Short Fiction 32 (1995): 21-27.
Explores relations among cuckoldry, charivari, and notions of masculine honor in MilT and RvT to argue that the pretensions to honor in RvT are debunked and that traditional notions of honor are themselves questioned.
Giaccherini, Enrico.
Rivista di Letterature Moderne e Comparate 26 : 99-121, 1976.
Compares and contrasts RvT and Boccaccio's version in the Decameron with their respective sources: Le meunier et les II. clers and De gombert et des II. clers. Plots and characterization in the works are similar, although outlook and purpose vary.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 3375A, 1999.
Juxtaposition of sixteenth-century editions of works of Chaucer and Langland with Elizabethan plays and pamphlets shows how the later authors use "Reformation-inspired literary traditions" to develop a sense of popular traditions that bind together…
Studies "virtual" narratives in FranT. Compares FranT to earlier lais of Marie de France and "Sir Orfeo." Suggests that Chaucer's "unrealized possibilities" mark a moment in the history of genre development when medieval lais begin to resemble modern…
Edwards, Robert R.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Mediaevalitas: Reading the Middle Ages (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), pp. 15-41.
ClT maintains a tension between the interpretive multiplicity of Boccaccio's version of the tale and the hermeneutic closure of Petrarch's translation. The integration of Griselda and her heirs into hereditary hierarchy may help explain the…
Treats PhyT as an instance of Chaucer's use of "indirection" when applying a moral to an exemplary narrative. Like ManT in this respect (also ClT, NPT, and part of TC), and unlike its analogues in Livy, Gower, and the "Roman de la Rose," PhyT closes…
Narin van Court, Elisa.
Chaucer Review 29 (1995): 227-48.
"The Siege of Jerusalem" is not simply another anti-Semitic text but instead one that responds humanely to the Jewish plight. Evidence indicates that this poem was written by an Augustinian canon at Bolton Priory, were there was regard for the…
Howes explains how walking through landscape ("pedestrian logic") helps to organize many medieval narratives, including "Sir Orfeo," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and Chaucer's BD. She illuminates her explanations with comparisons to the layouts…
Baumann, Eric James.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59: 483A, 1998.
Traces the development in English literature of attempts to "establish a poetic language mimetic of God's Logos." Explores writers from Chaucer to Eliot.
Conner, Edwin Lee.
Dissertation Abstracts International 47 (1986): 534A-535A.
A study of appropriate "medieval traditions of mythography, symbolism, iconography, religious devotion, and textual exegesis" demonstrates the coherence of GP portrait of the Squire and SqT.
Larson, Charles.
Revue des Langues Vivantes 43 (1977)
The origin of SqT is traced to Chacuer's experimental period of Anel in 1380. The source of SqT is believed to be an unidentified Oriental tale "Europeanized" by Chaucer.
This line from PF has been taken to mean that the "stare" (magpie) divulges secrets, or betrays. However, "bewrye" can also mean "cover up," suggesting that the bird knows "how to keep a secret." Such a nuance could also apply to TC; Troilus's…
Hanning, Robert W.
Literary Review 23 (1980): 519-41.
Statius celebrates the triumph of Theseus' righteous wrath as an agent of civilization and order over murderous rage and chaos; Boccaccio celebrates the triumph of the courtly code variously applied. As teller of the Theban tale, Chaucer's Knight…
Read in the context of Proverbs 21-14 ("a gift in secret pacifieth anger; and a reward in the bosom, strong wrath"), Thomas's gift is comic and condemns Friar John.
Bowers, John M.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 7 (1985): 23-50.
Explores the literary nature of these two continuations of CT and their importance as early readings, which assume that the pilgrimage is round trip rather than one way.
Askins, William.
John V. Fleming and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 2, 1986 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1987), pp. 103-12.
The subject matter and "didactic thrust" of Mel may have been inspired by the political unrest and Parliamentary disputes of 1386-88. The neglected Mel should be studied again with the care and enthusiasm that went into its writing.
Turner, Robert K.
Notes and Queries 225 (1980): 175-76.
The detail in "The Two Noble Kinsmen" IV.ii.103-05, where the blond prince's locks are said to be "hard-haired" and "curled," suggest that Shakespeare and Fletcher used Speght's 1602 edition of Chaucer when they based their play on KnT. In that…
Pattwell, Niamh.
Kathy Cawsey and Jason Harris, eds. Transmission and Transformation in the Middle Ages: Texts and Contexts (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), pp. 115-30.
Patwell explores how the Pardoner "transgresses the boundaries between lay man and cleric and between lollardy and orthodoxy," focusing on how in PardPT Chaucer exposes extreme views about the Eucharist and how he targets what is being condemned…
Tuma, George W., and Dinah Hazell, eds.
Medieval Forum, Special Issue (2008): n.p.
Second half of a two-part special edition of this electronic journal: an online collection of translations of Middle English texts. The first part translates ten Middle English romances, with introductions, notes, and commentary; this second part is…
