Medieval courtly literature must be seen as a reflection of the chivalric ideal. The chivalric ideal in England was less integrated than on the Continent because it was the ideal of an alien Norman aristocracy. Native English landowners were…
Surveys critiques of court culture in English writing from John of Salisbury to Edmund Spenser; includes discussion of (pp. 124-36) of NPT as a moral-satirical narrative.
Kaylor, Noel Harold, (Jr.)
Medieval English Studies 8: 95-114, 2000.
Relates the structure of TC (with Troilus's happiness reaching its apex at the numerical center of the poem) to structures found in Dante's "Commedia" (Divine Comedy) and to themes of fortune's changes in Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy."
A study of the representation of animals in late-medieval literature, focusing on how human identity is defined in relation to animals. Using examples from late-medieval hagiography and romance, Salter argues that medieval writers reflect on their…
Surveys the "traditions of preaching theory that Chaucer drew on in creating his Parson and Pardoner," focusing on the preacher's paradoxical "persona," the relationship between the "person" and the "office," and the use of the physical body in the…
Although the Wife of Bath is a character constructed from masculine discourse, she appropriates that discourse into her own autoerotic sexual/textual glossing. In WBP, the Wife reveals an ambivalent feminine poetics within an apparently masculine…
Explores the link between fear of God and literary expression, usually manifested as "overwhelming prolixity." Considers several of the tales in CT as part of this exploration.
Zeikowitz, Richard E.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Examines homoerotic acts between knights (kissing, expressions of love, and forming of lifelong bonds) in a variety of late medieval texts: "Amys and Amylion," the "Prose Lancelot," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," the "Stanzaic Morte Arthur," and…
Ingham, Patricia Clare.
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 23-35.
Examines masculine suffering and Theseus's stoic masculinity, particularly how it demands the suffering of the ruler's soldiers and the sorrowing of women. Concludes that the Tale depicts Theseus's creative power as specifically masculine.
Brewer, D[erek]. S.
Essays and Studies 26 (1973): 1-19.
Defines the private and social aspects of "honor" in Chaucer's works, exploring its relations with related concepts such as "worth," "worship," shame, gentility, heritability, and, for women, chastity. Focuses on TC and FranT, but comments on these…
Mooney, Linne R., and Daniel W. Mosser.
Takami Matsuda, Richard A. Linenthal, and John Scahill, eds. The Medieval Book and a Modern Collector: Essays in Honour of Toshiyuki Takamiya (Cambridge: Brewer; Tokyo: Yushodo, 2004), pp. 179-96.
Offers a "new listing of the hooked-g group of scribes" and attributes Takamiya MS 24 and two Takamiya fragments (MS 30 and single leaf from Plimpton MS) to the more specific "slanted hooked-g scribe," also responsible for Cambridge, Trinity College…
Kaske, R. E.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 73 (1972): 122-26.
Exemplifies the "allusive richness" of SumT by explaining the references to horn and ivory (3.1741-42) which emphasize the falsity of the tablets of the Summoner's Friar.
North, J. D.
London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1986.
Studies development (up to the 1500s) of seven modes of "domification"--i.e., the construction by mathematics of mundane houses used in horoscopes. Includes applications through the seventeenth century.
Bolens, Guillemette.
Miranda Anderson and Michael Wheeler, eds. Distributed Cognition in Medieval and Renaissance Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), pp. 66–85.
Exemplifies how the interactive and "enactive" process of reading details of the frame narrative of CT (GP and links between tales) prompts cognition in ways that are analogous to the "distributed cognition" of human sensorimotor operations. Focuses…
Yvernault, Martine.
Colette Stévanovitch,ed. L'Articulation langue-littérature dans les textes médiévaux anglais (Nancy: Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2005), pp. 191-215.
Posits that uncertainty and ambiguity are structuring stylistic techniques of Chaucer's descriptions in PF.
Stanbury, Sarah.
Bonnie Wheeler, ed. Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 211-24.
Accusations of eucharistic host desecration in Prague in 1389 may be read as a backdrop for PrT. Stanbury summarizes the events of mob violence that led to a massacre of Jews.
Echard, Siân.
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30: 185-210, 2000.
Cultural and institutional practice has frequently estimated the status of Gower's poetry and the value of his manuscripts, not through assessment of his own achievements, but through his historical and literary proximity to Chaucer.
Medieval Murderers, The. [Bernard, Knight, Ian Morson, Michael Jecks, Philip Gooden, and Susanna Gregory.]
London: Simon & Schuster, 2007.
Historical fiction in a series of five "interlinked mysteries" that pertain to Bermondsey Priory and its curse. The section titled "Act Four," by Philip Gooden, "relates to how the poet Chaucer becomes embroiled in the priory's dark history."
Burger, Glenn D., and Rory C. Critten, eds.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020.
Focuses on a variety of late medieval households and argues that there is "a dynamic and reciprocal relationship between domestic experience and its forms of cultural expression" and cultural production. For an essay that pertains to Chaucer, search…
Boffey, Julia.
Elizabeth A. New and Christian Steer, eds. Medieval Londoners: Essays to Mark the Eightieth Birthday of Caroline M. Barron (London: University of London Press, 2019), pp. 55-70.
Includes discussion of the location and implications for readership of Chaucerian materials found among the fascicles of MS HM 140: ClT, Truth, and a selection from Anel.
Stanbury, Sarah.
Glenn D. Burger and Rory C. Critten, eds. Household Knowledges in Late-Medieval England and France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), pp. 129-53.
Focuses on "household music" and the "intermingled melodies of birdsong and . . . musical instruments" in ManT. Argues that ManT can be analyzed as a "poignant record of the vibrant household world filled with music and song" that is connected to…
Hernández Pérez, María Beatriz.
SELIM 16 (2009): 103-20.
Analyzes HF in light of Saint Augustine's understanding of memory, showing how Chaucer proposes a dialogue with history and literature of the past in which the author and the reader are recipients of a common legacy.
