Chaucer's catalogues of feminine delights seem totally original, but upon closer scrutiny they reveal techniques employed by many other poets both serious and humorous.
By examining Chaucer's handling of his material and the verbal texture of MilT, we can determine the nature of the prior acquaintance of the Reeve and the Miller. The tale "is almost certainly based on a real episode...Robyn the Miller is Old John's…
Alisoun, the Wife of Bath, confesses certain details that parallel incidents in the Miller's story about young Alisoun. If the two Alisouns are one, then Old John is the Reeve, the Wife's fourth husband; and he suffers in embarrassed silence while…
Richards, Mary P.
Chaucer Review 9 (1975): 212-15.
Since chronicle accounts of St. Neot's habits are contradictory, three extant recensions of the saint's life provide the best explanation of Chaucer's allusion in MilT. These recensions suggest that the poet establishes an ironic parallel between…
Ross, Thomas W.
English Language Notes 13 (1976): 256-58.
Nicholas' seduction of Alisoun is an impudent parody of the Annunciation, of which he sings in the "Angelus ad virginem." Absolon is clad "ful smal," i.e., in a tight-fitting garment, as a sign of his lechery and vanity.
Storms, G.
Handelingen van het drieendertigste Nederlands Filologencongress: Gehouden te Nijmegen op woensdag 17, donderlag 18, en vrijdag 19 april 1974. (Amsterdam: Holland University Press, 1974) pp. 1-12.
Intended for an upper-class public, MilT has high literary value owing to its structure, motivation, style, and place in CT (especially the contrast with the preceding KnT), consistency with the Miller's personality, and also characterization,…
The long tradition describing the relationship between rhetoric and emotion is reflected in Chaucer's pathetic tales. Particularly in MLT, narrative comment upon the action and vivid description are the conventional strategies used to lead the…
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 77 (1976): 227-40.
The Man of Law, in the telling of his tale, wants to present himself as a fount of knowledge. In Part I he frequently interrupts the narrative to voice his own comments. In Part II, as the power of God manifests itself in the trial scene,the…
The dialogue between Virginius and Virginia and other intensely religious elements suggest that Chaucer's PhyT was directly influenced by the account of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac given in contemporary mystery plays. This dramatic influence is…
McKenna, Isobel
Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa 45 (1975): 244-62.
Investigates the relations between the sketch of the Sergeant of the Law in GP and historical evidence of contemporary members of the "Order of the Coif." Surveys the nature, activities, garb, and affiliations of fourteenth-century legal sergeants,…
The Man of Law in his Prologue, in his characterization of Custance, and in his concept of Christ's "prudent purveiaunce" consistently revises his sources, especially Nicholas Trevet, into the materialistic terms of the world governed by Fortune. …
Weiss, Merle Madelyn.
Dissertation Abstracts International 36 (1975): 2861A.
In MLT and ClT scenes are juxtaposed and time spatialized. Dramatic moments never occur. In both tales, the shaping of expectations underscores the artifice of the poet.
Wurtele, Douglas (J.)
Neophilologus 60 (1976): 577-93.
Chaucer uses the art of "proprietas" or decorum when he makes the language and substance of MLT conform to his personality and vocation. The narrator subscribes to Quintillian and Ciceronian theories of rhetoric and employs the techniques of…
Braswell, Laurel.
English Studies in Canada 2 (1976): 373-80.
Two narratives of the "Legenda aurea" are likely sources for the anti-mendicant satire in WBP and WBT. Imagery in the legends of Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Francis of Assisi parallels the Wife's anti-mendicant satire, and provides a close…
The WBT and its analogues have in common the archetype of transformation from ugly age to beautiful and fertile youthfulness. The psychic transformation of unconsciousness to consciousness, a phenomenon central to human individual and collective…
Glosses to the early manuscripts of CT may be read as important commentaries on the text. In particular glosses to WBT point out the wife's misquotations and, ultimately, her spiritual deafness to the New Law and the deeper meaning of marriage.
Delany, Sheila.
Minnesota Review, New Series 5 (1975): 104-15.
The Wife of Bath turned the sexual economics of her time to her advantage. Margery Kempe could not so capitulate. Religion became her way of asserting ownership of herself.
Fleissner, R[obert] F.
Chaucer Review 8 (1973): 128-32.
Though the Wife of Bath states that she never heard "diffinicioun" upon "fyve," the number of her husbands, Chaucer was probably aware of this number's significance as a symbol of earthly love in the numerological tradition of Dante, Macrobius, the…
Magoun, Francis P.,Jr.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 77 (1976): 253.
The so-called original "Dunmow Oath" quoted by G.E.L. Johnson in the quarterly "This England" V (1972), 53, col. 3 is much more recent than the Dumdow [sic] Flitch spoken of by Chaucer's Wife of Bath in her prologue.
Considers medieval depictions of old age as part of the tradition of "contemptus mundi," focusing on female old age. Treats Chaucer's Wife of Bath as the most individual and entertaining of the comic randy old women of medieval narrative, here…
Oberembt, Kenneth J.
Chaucer Review 10 (1976): 287-302.
The Wife of Bath first weakens the conventional notion of men as reasonable and women as sensual by showing how sensual and unworthy of sovereignty were her five husbands. Then she overthrows this notion when her own feminine-sensual image dissolves…
By subtle allusions and a skillful balance of opposites, Chaucer reveals that the Wife of Bath conspired with Jankyn to kill her fourth husband, caused Jankyn's death by betraying him to her friends, and became a garish, cynical old woman incapable…
Verbal echoes and character parallels such as the Wife's hag and the Friar's yeoman/fiend indicate that the Friar's purpose is parody. He uses his theme of moral "maistrie" to debunk the Wife's marital "maistrie." His view of human nature is…
Bugge, John
American Notes and Queries 14 (1976): 82-85.
The Prioress by omitting the passage which extolls King David in Psalm 8 betrays herself as ignorant of history. The Friar in blending vv.8-9 of Psalm 10 omits passages which chastise the aggrandisement of the friars at the expense of the poor. …
