Krug, Rebecca.
Jane Tolmie and M. J. Toswell, eds. Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010), pp. 225-41.
Explores the depictions of grief over lost children in the Wakefield mystery play "Slaughter of the Innocents"; a Middle English life of Saint Bridget; and ClT. The depictions present grief as variously natural, unnatural, and a response to conflict;…
Ruud, Jay.
Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 9 (1988): 29-45.
Behind the grotesque circumstances of PhyT, Chaucer presents an ironic view of natural law: Nature gloats as she forms Virginia to glorify God in purity; yet, the Physician mocks the sheltering of perfection since natural law will soon corrupt her.
Demonstrates that PF reflects a movement from natural law to a more subjective interpretation of individual rights and ties this transition to the crisis of "commonalty" in the late fourteenth century.
Dunleavy, Gareth W.
Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters 52 (1963): 177-87.
Identifies references in Chaucer's works to "natural law," or "law of kynde," describing its status in medieval legal theory and philosophy, including Boethius, and exploring Chaucer's possible experiences with the practices of "law merchant" and…
Wilkinson, Anouska.
Seventeenth Century 29 (2014): 381-402.
Discloses John Dryden's "profound interest in the rich cultural history of natural law philosophy" through close comparisons of his translations/adaptations of KnT and WBT with their Chaucerian originals, as well as through similar examinations of…
Houwen, L. A. J. R.
Geoffrey Lester, ed. Chaucer in Perspective: Middle English Essays in Honour of Norman Blake (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), pp. 100-17.
Derived from Boethius's Consolation and from the Roman de la Rose, the exemplary image of the caged bird invoked for the audience of ManT and SqT the "natural law" of sexual drive and the requirement that human beings, unlike birds, curb this drive.…
The prologue of LGW is a kind of "ars poetica" that contrasts seasonal renewal with eternal regeneration in order to show that poetry can mediate between them and serve as a true guide to love.
Discusses what naturalism is and how it links a set of normative intuitions about gender and desire to a broader theory of what it means for humans to be a law to themselves. Central to MilT is Alisoun, the "single most compelling instance of a…
Asakawa, Junko.
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. 81-99.
Examines the notions of nature and chance represented in TC in light of medieval philosophical and cosmological theories. In Japanese.
Aristotelian natural philosophy, specifically the doctrines of natural place and natural motion, lie at the heart of the structure and meaning of TC. Troilus and Criseyde are bodies in motion toward their natural resting places; their natures--her…
Burrow, J. A.
Review of English Studies 66, no. 276 (2015): 624-33.
Considers how Nature brings forces to bear that "incline" Hart to feel and behave the way he does in "King Hart." Argues that Chaucer's Wife of Bath uses the same technical term when she says "I folwed at myn inclinacioun / By vertu of my…
Steadman, John M.
Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1979.
In a section called "Chaucer and Medieval Tradition" (pp. 67-114), reprints (with revisions and expansions) several previously published essays by Steadman, all of which explore iconographical or allegorical aspects of Chaucer's works. Includes the…
Robertson, Kellie.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
Discusses how Aristotelian natural philosophy--physics--was debated in the Middle Ages, and its influence on the aesthetic practice of Latin and vernacular writers, including Chaucer, Jean de Meun, Guillaume de Deguileville, and John Lydgate. Argues…
McMullen, A. Joseph.
A. Joseph McMullen and Erica Weaver, eds. The Legacy of Boethius in Medieval England: The "Consolation" and Its Afterlives (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018.), pp. 143-54.
Identifies Chaucer's "cosmological additions" to Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" when translating it as "Boece," identifying the sources of these additions in earlier translations and commentaries, and speculating that Chaucer includes glosses…
Phillips, Helen.
Marios Costambeys, Andrew Hamer, and Martin Heale, eds. The Making of the Middle Ages: Liverpool Essays. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007, pp. 71-92.
Phillips gauges Romantic responses to LGW and the "Flower and the Leaf" (attributed to Chaucer in the Romantic age), indicating that Keats, Tennyson, William Morris, Pre-Raphaelite artists, and others admired the poems for their depictions of Nature…
White, Hugh.
New York and Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2000.
Questions the notion that Nature was universally considered a positive force in the Middle Ages. Although depicted as God's vicar, Nature was also aligned with sexual impulses, complicating the image. White traces depictions of and attitudes toward…
St. John, Michael.
Michael St. John, ed. Romancing Decay: Ideas of Decadence in European Culture (Aldershot, Hants; and Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 17-26.
Political theory from Alain de Lille and Aristotle underlies PF, and events of the Good Parliament (1376) are reflected in it. Chaucer's Priapus and Venus allude to Edward III and Alice Perrers, while Nature's parliament is Chaucer's political ideal…
Havely, Nick.
Seeta Chaganti, ed. Medieval Poetics and Social Practice: Responding to the Work of Penn R. Szittya (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), pp. 109-23.
Reads the relationship between the formel and Nature in PF in light of late medieval practices of wardship, informed by attention to "yerde" as an emblem of authority. Comments on the formel's decision not to marry and on parallels between the formel…
Birds as the participants in the "demande d'amour" game are comic, as is Nature the judge: her ineptness is both risible and serious, as traditionally she is limited by the Fall.
Assesses Chaucer's presentation of women in TC, LGW, and CT (especially MLT) for the various ways that he invigorates them as characters to give them voice and dimension.
Pan Sánchez, María Rosa.
Notas y estudios filológicos 10 (1995): 111-24.
Gauges the influence of Navarre on English literature at two crucial junctures: the Norman Conquest and during the march of Edward, the Black Prince, when both Chaucer and John Chandos were involved. Reproduces several archival documents and includes…
