Williams, Tara.
New Medieval Literatures 12 (2010): 179-208.
Argues that a "relationship between magic, spectacle, and morality . . . preoccupies a number" of fourteenth-century Middle English texts, focusing on the magical objects in SqT and other instances of magic in CT to exemplify the variety and…
Huerta, Monica.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2021.
Creative non-fiction contemplation of storytelling, Chicanx identity, and spatial politics, including, in Chapter 3, “Disciplines and Disciples,” a brief consideration of “discipline” in CYT (8.1253), as it relates to alchemy, deception,…
Kellman, Steven G., ed.
Pasadena, Ca.: Salem Press, 2009.
Introductions to 380 writers who are "at the heart of literary studies for middle and high school students and at the center of book discussions among library patrons." Originally published in 1993-95, edited by Frank N. Magill. The entry about…
Armstrong, Dorsey, Ann W. Astell, and Howell Chickering, eds.
Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2013.
Contains nineteen essays by various authors, with an introduction by the editors, on literary and historical topics, Arthuriana, and women in the Middle Ages. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for "Magistra doctissima" under…
Craig, Lisa Renee.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 1119A, 1999.
In this study of a specialized kind of computer manual, Chaucer's Astr is cited as a prototype and analyzed for its use of three characteristic rhetorical features.
Kennedy, Kathleen E.
Chaucer Review 39 (2004): 165-76.
Events depicted in Chaucer's French source "mirror a popular English legal remedy, the loveday or accord," and Chaucer uses the occasion to comment on the importance and role of "maintenance" (the "exchange of money and influence between a lord and…
Kennedy, Kathleen E.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Examines a variety of medieval social relations as forms of "maintenance," i.e., "being provided or providing the wherewithal to live." Lord-retainer, master-servant, and husband-wife relations are analogous forms of maintenance that inform one…
Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn.
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Maidie Hilmo, and Linda Olson, eds. Opening up Middle English Manuscripts: Literary and Visual Approaches (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012), pp. 39-94.
Section 5, "Some of the Earliest Attempts to Assemble the Canterbury Tales," analyzes structural and scribal differences in CT manuscripts.
Shepherd, Geoffrey T.
Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell, eds. J. R. R. Tolkien: Essays in Memoriam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979), pp. 204-20.
Chaucer questions the nature of storytelling and the possibility of writing "truth" in imaginative literature. Two words express the divergence of the problem in the Middle Ages: "sooth," which is axiomatic truth (often expressed proverbially);…
Identifies difficulties in translating Chaucer for American audiences: linguistic difficulties (especially false cognates such as "countrefete" and "lust") and several social changes that make Chaucer the "absent father in the United States."
Meale, Carol M., and Derek Pearsall, eds.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014.
Collection of essays honoring A. S. G. Edward's career, as well as his scholarly work on the "transitional period between manuscript and print culture." For two essays pertaining to Chaucer, search for Makers and Users of Medieval Books under…
Assesses Pandarus's house and its literary functions in light of architectural details of fourteenth-century houses such as the "privy," "stewe," and "trappe" and in relation to conventions of medieval dramatic staging. Pandarus, leading Troilus…
Bordalejo, Barbara, Lina Gibbings, Richard North, and Peter Robinson.
Digital Medievalist 14, special issue (2021). 32 pp.
Reviews the history, planning, making, distribution, an early use of the CantApp edition of GP (2020), designed to be accessed on a mobile device, the first of its kind. Offers suggestions for similar efforts in the future and includes description of…
Thomson, Peter.
Peter Thomson. On Actors and Acting (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), pp. 16-25.
Includes commentary (pp. 16-18) on the "entrances" of Chanticleer and Russell into NPT, suggesting parallels between features of the Tale and the staging of a play.
Cook, Megan L.
Spenser Studies 26 (2011): 179-222.
Considers how Edmund Spenser's "Shepheardes Calender" "influenced the reception and presentation of Chaucer in the late Tudor period," focusing particularly on how the editorial apparatus of Thomas Speght's "Works" influenced "two of the most…
Olson, Glending.
Comparative Literature 31 (1979): 272-90.
Chaucer's distinction between "makere" and "poete" is found elsewhere in medieval writings. Serving both to separate classical from contemporary and to distinguish artistic quality from moral seriousness, the distinction suggests the relationship…
Kordecki, Lesley.
Nona C. Flores, ed. Animals in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 85-101.
The overt hermeneutic directives of many animal books are evident in HF, WBP, and, especially, the silencing of the crow in ManT. The latter combines with the Parson's "antiliterary prologue" to undercut the whole of CT.
Proposes a reading for PF 215-16: "and with a harde file / She couched hem." "Couched" comes from French "cocher," meaning "to cut a notch or groove," a necessary step in arrow-making.
Fumo, Jamie Clire.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2015.
Studies the history of interpretation of BD, surveying scholarly commentary, material transmission, and late medieval/early modern creative reception. Emphasizes the (re)making of BD over time, by means of the interrelated textual processes of…
Maffuccio, Christine.
Dissertation Abstracts International A77.09 (2018): n.p.
While examining Thomas Hoccleve, John Skelton, and Ben Jonson, suggests that Hoccleve "channels" Harry Bailly from CT as a demotic voice, drawing upon the routines of London life in the establishment of an "English writerly voice worthy of laureate…
Payne, Robert O.
Chaucer Review 9 (1975): 197-211.
The "G" Prologue to LGW is central to Chaucer's poetic career both chronologically and artistically. The Prologue and its narrator are a "mythic distillation" of Chaucer's earlier works and show the love poet's mature awareness of his position in…
Stock applies semiotic theory to MerT: the reason-passion motif in May's stepping on January's back to climb the pear tree; the cough, the garden, and the May-Mary association; the serpent-Damien; the January-creator. The tale's verbal "signes"…
Zimmerman, Erin Royden.
Dissertation Abstracts International A74.11 (2014): n.p.
Includes comments on Cassandra, Persephone, and Philomela as victims of "acquaintance rape" in Chaucer's works (TC, MerT, and LGW), treating his and other versions (classical, medieval, and modern) as adaptations of myths that create "metanarratives…
Hieatt, Constance B.
Martha Carlin and Joel T. Rosenthal, eds. Food and Eating in Medieval Europe (London and Rio Grande, Ohio: Hambledon Press, 1998), pp. 101-15
Corrects a number of misconceptions about medieval recipes and includes clarification of the meaning of "gyngebreed" in Th (CT 7.854).
