Recent critics of Chaucer--Terry Jones, David Aers, and others--are conventional in their desire to moralize medieval literature. The trend of contemporary criticism of FranT, TC, and KnT, as examples, is to isolate from the story tableaux serving…
Nolan, Edward Peter.
Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 1990.
Studies the figure of the Pauline paradigm "videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate" (1 Cor. 13.12) in Western ontology and epistemology, examining "the functions of intra- as well as intertextual literary mirroring" (Virgil's use of Homer, Chaucer's…
Item not seen. The WorldCat records indicate that this is a score for three pieces of choral music: the roundel from the conclusion of PF (here titled "Now Welcome"), along with "Sweet Rose of Virtue" by William Dunbar and "Pleasure It Is." by…
Reiss, Edmund.
Medievalia et Humanistica 1 (1970): 161-74.
Includes brief comments (pp. 168-69) on Chaucer's use of the number 29 in GP and ParsP, and, in BD, on the use of 8 (Octovyen) and references to Argus (the "Arab mathematician Al-Kwārizm") and number symbolism.
Peck, Russell Albert.
Dissertation Abstracts International 25.07 (1964): 2894-95A.
Describes the "metaphysical associations" that numbers had in medieval imagination, and explores Chaucer's uses of number symbolism in his verse forms, the dates and astronomical calculations within his works, numbers associated with his characters,…
Peck, Russell A.
English Studies 48 (1967): 205-15.
Analyzes the symbolic import of the numbers used in lines 1-12 of ParsP (29, 4, 11, and 6), considering them in light of medieval number theory, time-telling, and the astrological sign of Libra. Together, the numbers "suggest the approaching…
Baker, David.
Robert Tubbs, Alice Jenkins, and Nina Engelhardt, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp. 23-40.
Exemplifies how Chaucer "has a great deal of fun with the coalescence of medieval arithmetic, geometry and logic into a single discipline more recognizable today as mathematics," exploring the "proto-probabilistic" dicing and poison-bottle selection…
Nohara, Yasuhiro.
English Review (Momoyama Gakuin University) 11 (1996): 27-47.
Argues that the intensive use of "wel" in "wel nyne and twenty" (GP 24) helps account for the apparent discrepancy between the phrase and the number of pilgrims in CT.
Outlines medieval number theory and its applications to literary composition and interpretation, describing the significances of seven and five. Then explores how and where numerological significance is evident in TC: in its five-part structure,…
Wallace, David.
Brian Cummings and James Simpson, eds. Cultural Reformations: Medieval and Renaissance in Literary History (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 502-23.
Wallace explores "degrees of enclosure" for nuns and surveys representations of nuns in medieval and Renaissance literature and art. Comments on Chaucer's depictions of the Prioress and the Second Nun: Chaucer "tells us much about one of his nuns and…
Fictional autobiography of Chaucer in which he recounts the arrival of a thirty-first Canterbury pilgrim, a woman who narrates how she has been impregnated by an extraterrestrial being. Illustrated by Giselda Leirner. In Portuguese.
Galler, Matthias.
Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007.
Galler studies the theme of death in Middle English literature and argues against the "pessimistic" dictum that the people and works of the late Middle Ages were primarily concerned with the transience of life, the dominant approach on this subject…
Halfim, Miriam.
Rio de Janeiro : Civilização Brasileira, 1984.
Halfim summarizes social conditions of Jews in early English society and assesses the depiction of Jews in PrT (pp. 22-34), Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta," and Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." The authors of all three works reiterate Christian…
Rowe, Donald W.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
TC is best understood in terms of the tradition of "discordia concors," the harmonization of opposites, which Chaucer saw exemplified in the "school of Chartres" and Jean de Meun. Chaucer's profound philosophical insight, which linked the perfection…
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani. The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 56-74.
Discusses links among eros, melancholia, and acedia as well as the tragic psychological dilemma of love in Petrarchan sonnets, Dante, and TC, especially in Chaucer's use of the Petrarchan sonnet "S'amor non e." The "oxymoronic essence" of TC allows…
The Host's use of "tredefowel" in MkT and NPE suggests that he may have been aware of "cock" as an obscenity (as well as a symbol for priest), a meaning supported by evidence from other languages, literature, and iconography.
Blythe, Hal,and Charlie Sweet.
Explicator 55:1 (1996): 49-51.
Argues that CT is a major source for O'Connor's story, evident in their shared motifs of pilgrimage and storytelling, the name Bailly/Bailey, and specific echoes of PardT
Parkin, Gabrielle.
Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Delaware, 2014. Dissertation Abstracts International 84.02(E) (2022).
Explores the agency of objects in medieval understanding, focusing on this concern in books of hours, Margery Kempe, the Tale of Albinus and Rosemund in Gower's "Confessio Amantis," and the stone idol in SNT.
Johnson, Eleanor.
Jenny Adams and Nancy Mason Bradbury, eds. Medieval Women and Their Objects (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), pp. 201-28.
Discusses Chaucer's thematic thread of accessibility of legal rights to women in FranT and PhyT. Dorigen, in FranT, and Virginia, in PhyT, are women trapped as objects of medieval law, or as properties whose control or outright ownership is the…
Harris, Carissa M.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018.
Examines late medieval British literary texts (lyrics, pastourelles, flytings, "alewife poems," "schoolroom texts," etc.) for their use of obscene language and imagery to shape and convey attitudes toward gender and sexuality, both positive and…
Morgan, Gerald.
English Studies 91 (2010): 492-518.
Chaucer's intentional contrasting of the language of the Knight and that of the Miller challenges his readers' openmindedness. The Miller's obscene language is cleverly applied and should on no account be censored from prudishness.
