Swinford, Dean.
Blake Hobby, ed. The Trickster. Bloom's Literary Themes (New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2010), pp. 229-39.
Explores how WBT "ironizes the quest motif at the heart" of the romance genre and assesses the extent to which the loathly lady, the knight, and the Wife of Bath may be considered to be tricksters.
Struck, JoAnn.
[Jay Ruud, ed.] Papers on the "Canterbury Tales": From the 1989 NEH Chaucer Institute, Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota ([Aberdeen, S.D.: Northern State University, 1989), pp. 135-45.
Comments on romance conventions in WBT and its concern with "soveraynetee" and "maistrye."
Semper, Philippa.
Gail Ashton and Louise Sylvester, eds. Teaching Chaucer (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 120-38.
Describes efforts at the University of Birmingham (between 2000 and 2005) to incorporate web-based materials (computer-mediated materials and virtual learning environments) into teaching Chaucer and Middle English. Also considers methods of assessing…
Seaman, David M.
English Language Notes 24:1 (1986): 12-18.
The common assumption by critics that the Franklin purposely interrupts the Squire's tale is justified neither by context nor by rubric. Critics often attribute to CT a state of completion it does not have.
PF arranges its source materials in the dream narrative to repeat the fall from unity represented schematically by the universal disequilibrium in Cicero's "Dream of Scipio".
KnT's structure is paratactic, and the end is repeatedly called for but not brought into being. As a result, the ending is merely a ceasing of action, not closure, which would satisfy our need for aesthetic and philosophical completeness.
Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 84 (1983): 367-71.
The Old Man's significance depends on audience reaction, not on learned traditions; readers and pilgrims might easily associate him with the Green Yeoman of the FrT, for he too "seems to be a devil wandering the earth in search of prey."
Examines the titular writings as early examples of English prison writing, with an eye toward political implications of the texts and the establishment of a relationship between social status and "carceral experience" in these works. Includes…
Patterson, Lee.
Brigitte Cazelles and Charles Méla, eds. Modernité au Moyen Âge: Le défi du passé. Recherches et rencontres, no. 1 (Geneva: Droz, 1990), pp. 113-51.
Chaucer's Anel explores the "dilemma of the modern poet in the late Middle Ages." The "Thebanness" of the text engages its Boethianism as a competing and fatalistic view of memory and history. Allusions to Statius, Corinna, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, and…
Heijnsbergen, Theo van.
Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo-American Letters 17 (1987): 115-28.
Compared to Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato," TC is characterized by ambivalence in language, imagery, dialogue, theme, structure, and character, seen particularly in Criseyde as she follows her own sense of reality and social code while Troilus obeys the…
Caie, Graham D.
Geoffrey Lester, ed. Chaucer in Perspective: Middle English Essays in Honour of Norman Blake (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), pp. 47-60.
Examines several glosses to MLT to argue that the "glossator's aim is to show the reader how the narrator manipulates texts," helping us to realize that the Man of Law is too interested in "things of this world and is spiritually lacking."
By skewing their narrative deployment, Chaucer simultaneously undermines the viability of heroic and courtly romance themes in FranT and reevaluates their relationship to lived human experience. He does so through narrative pacing, repression and…
Though evidence is inconclusive, it seems likely that Chaucer's Friar was named for Saint Hubert, whose legend and confusion with Saint Eustace give characteristic resonances to the name and its bearer, particularly in his relationship with the Monk…
Tanabe, Harumi.
Koichi Kano, ed. Through the Eyes of Chaucer: Essays in Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Society for Chaucer Studies (Kawasaki: Asao Press, 2014), pp. 185-200.
Investigates the frequency and function of "this" as a pragmatic marker in MilT, RvT, FranT, KnT, PrT, and MerT, in relation to each narrator's social class and narrative genre. In Japanese.
The choices between ye and thou in CT are governed by the "interactional status of the characters," a set of principles differing "considerably from modern address systems." Jucker surveys previous criticism on the topic and assesses exchanges and…
Discusses Christine de Pizan's "isopathic mode of treatment (cure by similarities)" to deal with the melancholy expressed in "Chemin de long estude." Compares Pizan's treatment to the "allopathic mode of treatment (cure by contraries)" Chaucer…
Wilcockson, Colin.
Use of English 31 (1980): 37-43.
The Marquis in ClT addresses Janicola with the formal "ye" and, at certain points, Griselda as "thou," the intimate or insulting form. In keeping with her unfailing humility, Griselda never deviates from the formal "ye" when addressing Walter.
Knappe, Gabriele, and Michael Schümann.
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 42 (2006): 213-38.
Chaucer's use of thou and ye usually follows the standard pattern of his day. Some pronoun switching does appear, sometimes because of rhyme or textual variants but often because Chaucer uses a common formula, quotation, or other habitual lexical…
Luecke, Janemarie.
American Benedictine Review 33 (1982): 335-48.
Chaucer's revision of the Saint Cecilia legend emphasizes her desire to act as a free agent. Her virginity and her aggressive activity on behalf of Christ assert a "freedom of action to do her work" that parallels the Wife of Bath's.
Okuda, Hiroko.
Studies in English Literature (Tokyo) 66 (1989): 3-15.
Examines KnT with special attention to Arcite's definition of love, presented with deep sympathy by the narrator--a sympathy infused, nonetheless, with a strong sense of despair. (In Japanese.)
