Martin, Priscilla.
R. F. Yeager and Toshiyuki Takamiya, eds. The Medieval Python: The Purposive and Provocative Work of Terry Jones (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 207-13.
This is a short story, told from the first-person point of view of Chaucer's Plowman, who describes his early life, his distaste for his brother the Parson, and their pilgrimage to Canterbury.
Dates the macaronic lyric "On the Times" ("Syng y wold, butt, alas!") at 1380, reading it as a commentary on events and attitudes leading to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Heyworth, P. L., ed.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Edits "Jack Upland" (wrongly attributed to Chaucer from the 16th century to the 18th), along with "Friar Daw's Reply" and "Upland's Rejoinder," with full critical apparatus.
Cooper, Helen.
Theresa M. Krier, ed. Refiguring Chaucer in the Renaissance (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998), pp. 189-209.
Renaissance dramatic adaptations of Chaucer's works often resolve tensions left reverberating in his narratives (e.g.,John Fletcher's "Women Pleased" and WBT; Fletcher's "Four Plays" and FranT). But Fletcher and Shakespeare's "Two Noble Kinsmen"…
The restaurant scene in "The Sun Also Rises" echoes the conclusion of Chaucer's PardT. Like the Pardoner, Jake Barnes is "sexually disabled" and spiritually remiss. Both characters see money as power; both substitute food and drink for sex; both…
Weber, Lindsay.
Jon Alexander, ed. American POW Memoirs from the Revolutionary War Through the Vietnam War: The Autobiography Seminar, Providence College, Spring Semester 2006. (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf & Stock, 2007), pp. 71-78.
Describes the context and content of Hall's 1930 publication, "Flying with Chaucer," focusing on his quotations from CT and their role in his memoir.
Reviews Furnivall-Halliwell correspondence, which is concerned mainly wiht the affairs of the New Shakespeare Society, but also includes accounts of Furnivall's work on Chaucer manuscripts.
Delasanta, Rodney.
Essays in Criticism 22 (1972): 221-25.
Critiques James Smith's essay "Chaucer, Boethius, and Recent Trends in Criticism," while admiring his sensitivity to nuance in Chaucer's quotations of and allusions to Boethius in KnT and TC; argues that Smith mistakenly attributes the attitudes of…
Pedagogical website dedicated to CT, with separate pages for selected tales that include introductions and ancillary information. Considers KnT, MilT, RvT, MLT, WBPT, FrT, ClT, FranT, PardPT, PrT, MkT, Mel, and NPT. Also includes links to related…
Wright, Stephen K.
English Language Notes 26:1 (1988): 4-7.
Jankyn's scheme for the equal distribution of the fart in SumT may be derived from Boethius's theory of the propagation of sound waves in "De musica," a Boethian passage also echoed in HF.
In WBP, Alison asserts the primacy of "experience" but is challenged by Jankyn's "authority." Alison's greatest enemy is Heloise, whose arguments against marriage inspired Abelard to make the first antigamous collection, prototype of Jankyn's book…
Lawler, Traugott, and Ralph Hanna III, eds., using materials collected by Karl Young and Robert A. Pratt.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014.
Edits the seven known commentaries on Walter Map's "Letter of Valerius to His Friend Ruffinus, Dissuading Him from Marrying," with Latin-English facing pages and scholarly apparatus. The Introduction (pp. 1–14) clarifies the importance of the…
Pratt, Robert A.
Annuale Mediaevale 3 (1962): 5-27.
Articulates the evidence for an "antifeminist, antimatrimonial" tradition in medieval Oxford and Paris that lies behind the contents of Jankyn's book in WBP, describing the backgrounds, transmission, availability, and collocations of Walter Map's…
Hanna, Ralph III, and Traugott Lawler, eds., using materials collected by Karl Young and Robert A. Pratt.
Athens, Ga. and London: University of Georgia Press, 2014.
Critical edition of seven commentaries (one excerpted) on Walter Map's Latin antifeminist treatise, with analyses of contents and impact, manuscript information, variants and emendations, extensive notes, and facing-page translations. The…
Hanna, Ralph, III, and Traugott Lawler, eds., using materials collected by Karl Young and Robert A. Pratt.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997.
Critical edition of the three Latin antifeminist works that influenced Chaucer most significantly, especially his WBP, MerT, and FranT. Includes a complete version of Map's "Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum" and portions of Jerome's "Adversus Jovinianum"…
Adapts aspects of CT (particularly WBPT, PardPT, and MilT), "Everyman," and "Piers Plowman" in a single plot, designed for the stage, with a brief Introduction and stage directions.
Cooke, Jessica.
English Studies 78 (1997): 407-16.
Medieval texts on the ages of humankind (such as "The Parlement of the Thre Ages") indicate that January of MerT is not extremely old or about to die; he is at the transition between middle and old age. May is in early stage of adulthood.
Economou, George D.
Comparative Literature 17.3 (1965): 251-57.
Argues that the image of the mirror of January's mind in MerT (4.1577-87) derives from the "Roman de la Rose" and connects with Chaucer's garden setting to underscore the selfish narcissism of January's distorted love-seeking.
Beidler, Peter G.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 72 (1971): 735-38.
Summarizes the plot of French fabliau "Bérenger au long cul" and suggests that it helps to "explain the background upon which Chaucer was drawing when he decided to make January a knight of Lombardy" in MerT.
Considers January's social status and asks why MerT concerns a knight. Examines portrayal of January's household, finding him well-bred but lacking gentility; MerT is thus more firmly situated in the debate about "gentilesse." Also argues that part…
Kaske, R. E.
Modern Language Notes 75.1 (1960): 1-4.
Observes in MerT several commonplaces of the "aube" in the description of January and May's wedding-night, suggesting that they help "to point up the bitterly comic incongruities in January's marriage," and echo details of RvT and TC.
When January shaves for his wedding night, he only makes himself like a "houndfyssh." Earlier, he would join "Oold fissh and yong flessh" (line 1418)--but with himself in the role of a sexually satisfying "pyk," not a disgusting dogfish. The…
