Sensitive to contemporary political events, Shakespeare parodies Spenser's Tears of the Muses in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In addition, the dream of the elf queen in Chaucer's Th is the source of Bottom's dream, as well as Arthur's dream in Faerie…
Wakelin, Daniel.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
Investigates how the practices of fifteenth-century scribes of manuscripts of English poetry and prose--particularly CT manuscripts, and works by Lydgate and Hoccleve--reveal "traces of immaterial traditions, intentions, assumptions, activities and…
Wilson, Anna Patricia.
Dissertation Abstracts International A77.07 (2015): n.p.
Considers how the three titular authors equate excessive emotional response and similar qualities to texts with immaturity. Reads ClPT as Chaucer's reaction to Petrarch on the vernacular.
Anderson, Miranda, and Stefan Iversen.
Poetics Today 39 (2018): 569-95.
Describes "the concept of immersion as seen from cognitive narratology" and the "concept of defamiliarization as seen from unnatural narratology,” applying these theoretical constructs to BD, Jorge Luis Borges's "The Circular Ruin," and Franz…
Johnstone, Boyda.
Dissertation Abstracts International A78.07 (2018): n.p.
Argues that fourteenth-and fifteenth-century dream visions "challenged routine modes of thinking about and being in the world." Chapter 4 includes discussion of stained glass in HF and John Lydgate's "Temple of Glass."
Chaucer leaves both suffering and heroism "open to ambiguous interpretation" in KnT, prompting readers to go beyond disorder and hopelessness and discover Boethian consolation, which is anchored in recognition of the true good.
Jimura, Akiyuki.
Osamu Imahayashi, Yoshiyuki Nakao, and Michiko Ogura, eds. Aspects of the History of the English Language and Literature: Selected Papers Read at SHELL 2009, Hiroshima (New York; Peter Lang, 2010),, pp. 93-100.
Jimura cites instances of impersonal constructions in TC and KnT in which verbs of "occurrence or happening" (e.g., "befal," "hap") are used to present important events and to suggest inevitability.
Considers the medieval interest in Boethius as a personal model as well as a literary influence, with particular regard to Usk's deployment of Boethius in an effort at self-justification and Hoccleve's connections between Boethius and Chaucer.
Bowers, R. H.
Modern Language Notes 73.5 (1958): 327-29.
Transcribes (with modern punctuation, capitalization, and commentary) a 26-line compilation of proverbial misogynistic sentiment from London, British Library MS Harley 7333, fol. 121v-122r, attributed there to "Impingham," identified by Manly and…
Delany, Sheila.
New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Reads Bokenham's "Legends of Holy Women" as a parody of Chaucer's LGW, itself a parody of hagiography. By inverting Chaucer's parody, Bokenham critiques Chaucer's emphasis on the classics and reasserts an Augustinian emphasis on Christian aesthetics…
Lyons describes twenty-four journeys derived from early travelogues, now known to be fictional or fanciful. Includes description of the likely spurious "Inventio Fortunata," attributed to Nicholas of Lynn by Richard Hakluyt. Also speculates that…
Al-Hariri of Basra.
Cooperson, Michael, trans.
New York: New York University Press, 2020.
Translates al-Harırı's Arabic classic "Maqamat," with sections imitating
or emulating the styles of various writers in English (Mark Twain, Virginia
Woolf, John Lyly, etc.). The "Author's Retraction" is "modeled on" Ret.
Al-Hariri of Basra.
Cooperson, Michael, trans.
New York: New York University Press, 2020.
Translates al-Harırı's Arabic classic "Maqamat," with sections imitating or emulating the styles of various writers in English (Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, John Lyly, etc.). The "Author's Retraction" is "modeled on" Ret.
Ransom, Daniel J.
Chaucer Review 43 (2009): 376-99.
An examination of Chaucer's use of temporal terminology—from references to "eternity and perpetuity" to references to seconds and moments, including seasons, days, nights, and hours—suggests that he uses such terminology with a modicum of…
Van, Thomas A.
Papers on Language and Literature 7 (1971): 3-12.
Traces the imagery and diction of hunting, snaring, imprisoning, and entrapment in TC and KnT, showing how it informs the concern with destiny, freedom, and interpersonal manipulation in the poems.
Dalton, Emily.
Dissertation Abstracts International A79.03 (2017): n.p.
Considers names in BD as part of a larger examination of nomenclature's role in defining Englishness within the context of other linguistic traditions.
Woods, Marjorie Curry.
Charlotte Cook Morse, Penelope Reed Doob, and Marjorie Curry Woods, eds. The Uses of Manuscripts in Literary Studies: Essays in Memory of Judson Boyce Allen (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992), pp. 19-39.
Medieval rhetorical textbooks and school commentaries illuminate Chaucer's attention to literal meaning. Discussions of such devices as amplification and abbreviation help explain interrelations and conflicts between poetical structures and…
Observes that in Chaucer's short-line verse, headless lines are much more common than initial inversion, whereas in his iambic pentameter the exact opposite occurs. Argues that Chaucer and his predecessors used such metrical license "very…
Weisl, Angela Jane.
In Alison Langdon, ed. Animal Languages in the Middle Ages: Representations of Interspecies Communication (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 113-32.
Analyzes the speech of Chaucer's birds and claims that Chaucer "endows the avian world with a series of communicative strategies as diverse as--and profoundly linked to--his own poetic strategies." Looks at SqT, GP, and PF.
Shigeo, Hisashi.
Essays Commemorating the Retirement of Professor Sachiho Tanaka (Tokyo: Kirihara Shoten, 1988), pp. 15-24.
Surveys theories of Criseyde's betrayal in TC; maintains that her depravity results in Pandarus's deliberate actions and Troilus's passion, along with her own weaknesses; and emphasizes Chaucer's characterization of Criseyde as a complex woman.
Argues that "Inferno" V does not justify dismissing Francesca's love for Paolo as "lust," given the continuity between the "disiato riso" that leads them to kiss and the "santo riso" of Beatrice that draws Dante upward to Paradise. Echoing Dante and…
Taitt, Peter.
Notes and Queries 216 (1971): 284-85.
Explains that Chaucer's source for his account of Lot's incest, followed as it is by reference to Herod and the slaying of John (PardT 7.485-91), is likely to have been Peter Comestor's "Historia Libri Genesis" rather than the biblical account. Also…
