Far from viewing herself as a "passive pawn," Criseyde sees herself as actively fleeing from an unhealthy relationship with Troilus to a healthy one with Diomedes. At the end of TC, she is no longer the cynical widow of Book 2, but instead a more…
Carruthers, Leo, ed.
Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1994.
Fourteen essays on heroism and anti-heroes in "Beowulf" and other Old English poetry, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and the works of Dunbar, Malory, and others. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Heroes and Heroines in Medieval…
Gallacher, Patrick J., and Helen Damico, eds.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.
Essays began as papers read at the sixty-first annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, April 1986. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search under Alternative Title.
McGuire, Peter Joseph, III.
Ph.D. Dissertation. Brown University, 1975. Dissertation Abstracts International A42.12 (1982). Fully accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses; accessed August 20, 2025.
Argues that CT is "the source" of Part II of Melville's "Clarel," comparing the behaviors of the characters of the two works for the ways they reflect a "single perspective" among Chaucer's pilgrims and "totally different perspectives" among…
Rudat, Wolfgang E. H.
Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire 54 (1976): 823-36.
The imitation in GP's opening of Virgil's Second "Georgic" suggests a sexual motivation for the pilgrimage and some of the stories. This allusive effect is seen in MerT but it affects other tales and portraits, e.g. the Prioress's. Similarly Horace…
Mulryne, J. R.
J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring, eds. War, Literature, and the Arts in Sixteenth-Century Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), pp.165-89.
Mulryne assesses attitudes toward chivalry in early seventeenth-century shows and plays, including discussion of how Shakespeare and Fletcher's Two Noble Kinsmen reflects the magnificence and human pain of KnT.
Somerset, Fiona.
Fiona Somerset, Jill C. Havens, and Derrick G. Pitard, eds. Lollards and Their Influence in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press, 2003), pp. 127-38.
Argues that details of SumT gain dimension in light of the contemporary debate concerning the Eucharist and transubstantiation as recorded in the "Upland Series." Division of the indivisible fart is a blasphemous joke on questions of divisibility in…
GP, KnT, MilT, RvT, WBT, SumT, ClT, FranT, PardT, and NPT in comic-book style, with watercolor-and-ink drawings and synoptic modern English text. Middle English phrases included in illustrations. Designed for children / early readers (grades 3-7).
Nitzsche, Jane Chance.
Chaucer Newsletter 2.1 (1980): 6-8.
Licorice, according to medieval herbals, quenched thirst (thus allowing Nicholas to stay in his room for a long time?). Cetewale, as zedoary, dispels gas (Nicholas' fart?). It is also an aphrodisiac and the "nardus" of Canticles, a symbol for the…
Explores relationships between heralds and poets as reflected in works by Chaucer (including HF and KnT), Malory, Skelton, and Spenser. These works "reveal complex concerns about literary and political authority, the public status of the poet, and…
Chaucer weaves heraldic allusions into the portraits of Lygurge and Emetreus, the two kings who support Palamon and Arcite in the tournament. These allusions indicate the contemporaneity of KnT.
Sanok, Catherine.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
Discusses the creation of female audiences, examining LGW and other works (including WBT) to explore how saints' lives shaped literary history, thus making women "visible participants" in vernacular literary culture. Alceste is a metonym for a…
In MLT, Gower's tale of Constance, and Émaré, the role of daughter--the woman cast adrift--is ambiguous, entailing both helplessness and independence, subversion and female power. Such tales reflect the notion of the daughter moving from…
Higl, Andrew.
Joshua R. Eyler, ed. Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 167-81.
Treating a book or a "corpus" of literature as a body encourages a prosthetic approach to texts and to narratives. Henryson's addition to Chaucer's TC in his "Testament of Cresseid" works as a "double prosthesis" in which Henryson seeks to…
Godman, Peter.
Review of English Studies 35 (1984): 291-300.
Reassesses several "flaws" perceived by J. A. W. Bennett in his analysis (1982) of Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," and argues that each has a "proper function" in the poem. Compares and contrasts Henryson's characterization of Cresseid…
Considers "Testament of Cresseid" as a "Nebenmensch" (next man, or neighbor) to TC, doubting or negating it rather than emulating it, and, by "the logic of imperial translation," suspending England's rise as Scotland's "hostile neighbor."
Nakao, Yoshiyuki.
Yuko Tagaya and Masahiko Kanno, eds. Words and Literature: Essays in Honour of Professor Masa Ikegami (Tokyo: Eihosha, 2004), pp.105-28.
Discusses ambiguity in the character of Henryson's Cresseid from a lexical and semantic point of view, with a comparative note on Chaucer's Criseyde and Shakespeare's Cressida.
McKenna, Steven R.
Scottish Literary Journal 18:1 (1991): 26-36.
Explores Henryson's theory of tragedy and what is "tragic" about Cresseid, arguing for an inversion of the traditionally perceived structure of tragic action. Since Henryson anchors his poem in his audience's knowledge of TC,Cresseid's catastrophe…
Bennett, J. A. W.
J. A. W. Bennett. The Humane Medievalist (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura; Wolfeboro, N.H.: Boydell & Brewer, 1982), pp. 89-103.
Kohl, Stephan.
Roderick J. Lyall and Felicity Riddy, eds. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Scottish Language and Literature (Medieval and Renaissance) (Stirling/Glasgow: Department of Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow, 1981), pp. 285-98.
Aruges that in its depiction of love Henryson's "Cresseid" is more a Renaissance poem than a medieval one. Though its subject matter and verse form follow Chaucer, the poem gives license "to love a human being for his or her own sake--not for God's…
Regards Henryson's changes to Chaucer's TC in "The Testament of Cresseid" as evidence of Henryson's assertion of "his own authority." In changing Chaucer's plot, he remakes his poetic antecedent and emulates Chaucer's own poetic practice.
Quinn, William A.
Studies in Scottish Literature 31 (1999): 232-44.
Reads Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid" as a "compilatio" addressed to an audience of women, gauging the tone, theme, and unity of the poem. Includes recurrent comments on Henryson's uses of Chaucer's attitudes and perspectives, especially…
Torti, Anna.
Margarita Gimenez Bon and Vickie Olsen, eds. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval Language and Literature [SELIM, 26-28 September 1996] (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Dpto. Filologæa Inglesa, 1997), pp. 346-65.
Examines Henryson's treatment of Chaucer's story of Criseyde, focusing on Henryson's innovation and concern with artistic creativity, evident in his punishment of Cresseid with leprosy.
Kindrick, Robert L.
New York and London: Garland, 1993.
Summarizes fundamental information about Henryson and surveys his use of and familiarity with the medieval rhetorical arts ("ars poetriae," "ars dictaminis," and "ars praedicandi"). Kendrick mentions Chaucer throughout as a source and model for the…
