Plummer, John F.
T. L. Burton and John F. Plummer, eds. "Seyd in Forme and Reverenceœ": Essays on Chaucer and Chaucerians in Memory of Emerson Brown, Jr. (Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio Press, 2005), pp. 237-45.
Considers citations of Paul's epistles to Timothy in WBPT, PardPT, and ParsPT, reading them in light of late fourteenth-century concern with preaching and pastoral care--Lollard and anti-Lollard, mendicant and antimendicant. Chaucer was concerned…
Reinecke, George F.
Paul Ruggiers, ed. Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition (Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1984), pp. 231-51.
Describes the "elephantine gestation" of Robinson's edition of Chaucer's "Works," summarizes its early reception and progress to becoming a "standard edition," and assesses the text as "conservative, highly informed, and eclectic, though arrived at…
Ramsey, Roy Vance.
Studies in Bibliography 42 (1989): 134-52.
Robinson's first edition (1933) is founded on unsound editorial practices, most notably an overreliance on Skeat (Robinson's true base text, not Ellesmere as usually claimed). Even in his second edition (1957), Robinson failed to profit from the…
Spencer, H. L.
Review of English Studies 66, no. 276 (2015): 601-23
Details Furnivall's founding of the Chaucer Society in 1868, and argues that his greatest contribution was his parallel text edition of CT, a publication that has far-reaching consequences for the later editing of Chaucer. Brief references to Astr,…
Spencer, H. L.
Review of English Studies 65, no. 272 (2014): 790 -811.
F. J. Furnivall founded seven literary and publishing societies (including the Chaucer and New Shakespeare Societies). Furnivall describes Wyclif "as the first translator of our Bible and THE FATHER OF ENGLISH PROSE" in an attempt "to foist prose…
Gugelberger, Georg M.
Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1978
Surveys the influence of Provençal and Italian poets on the works of Ezra Pound, and examines Pound's critical commentary about Chaucer (in his "ABC of Reading"), comparing passages from the two poets and exploring the extent to which the "three…
Contextualizes MerT by looking at medieval scientific writings on "pica" ("deviant pregnancy cravings") and the medieval "pathology of pregnancy," assessing May's pregnancy and her "sexual longings."
Argues that TC "dramatizes" the relations among vision, imagination, reason, and intellect found in Bo, tracing the effects of the lovers' "faulty reasoning" in failing to progress from sight-based earthly pleasure to eternal good, emphasized in…
Jacobs, Kathryn.
Publications of the Medieval Association of the Midwest 6: 25-33, 1999.
Identifies the legal features of the lovers' pacts in CT. Legal diction (e.g., "accord"), careful preparation, and various kinds of delay connect the illicit relations in MilT, WBPT, ShT, MerT, RvT, and others with the legal contract of marriage.
The relation between public and private in MilT may be understood as the condition of "extimacy": "the presence of the Other at the place thought to be most intimate." The "structure of extimacy" frustrates masculine attempts to control or acquire…
Walker, Warren S.
Chaucer Review 33: 432-37, 1999.
Turkish tales that parallel the folkloric formula at the end of FranT-"Which was the noblest act?"-generally treat who is the most ignoble. So many Turkish stories fall into this category that Chaucer's Knight may have "previewed a performance"…
Davis, Isabel.
Literature Compass 6.4 (2009): 842-63.
Surveys uses of first-person narrative in late medieval English literary texts, agreeing with and extending earlier critics' arguments that find in this literature notions of selfhood often attributed to the early modern period. Observes how and…
Davis, Isabel.
Literature Compass 6 (2009): 842-63.
Davis assesses late medieval, first-person narration in English literature as a rhetorical and allegorical device and as an autobiographical stance. She comments on the influence of Augustine and Boethius and explores a range of Middle English…
Aers, David, and Thomas Pfau.
Christianity and Literature 70.3 (2021): 263-75.
Argues that theological modes of inquiry are needed in interdisciplinary approaches to literature that have tended toward secular and "reductive" methodologies. Notes the difficulty of teaching theological modes of inquiry through Chaucer when few…
McDonald, Richard.
In-Between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism 7 (1998): 31-48.
Shows that throughout his career Chaucer "attempts to stike a balance between apologizing for the instability of his meaning and open acceptance of the capricious nature of language." Comments on Chaucer's attitudes toward language, interpretation,…
Lee, Brian S.
Philological Quarterly 74 (1995): 17-35.
The rape victim in WBT quickly vanishes from the text because she is "excommunicated," or denied access to the privileges of the knight who exploits her.
Nohara, Yasuhiro.
English Review (Momoyama Gakuin University) 8 (1993): 71-87.
Argues that function shifts and the development of impersonal constructions reduced the nouns and verbs associated with dreaming in the development of English. Nohara focuses on the loss of forms of "sweven" and "meten" from Middle English, drawing…
Pedersen, David.
Medieval Feminist Forum 55, no. 2 (2019): 98-114.
Argues that the Wife's non-congenital deafness signifies not spiritual deafness, but damage done to her by the contents of Jankyn's book, which she, ironically, destroys. Compares Alison's interpretations of Scripture in WBP with those of Jerome in…
Howard, Donald R.
Jerome Mandel and Bruce A. Rosenberg, eds. Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of Francis Lee Utley (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1970), pp. 173-92.
Explicates a "series of four scenes" in TC (2.596-931) that enable readers to "know what it feels like to 'be' Criseyde," establishing a fundamental empathy with her by, unusual in the age, seeing "into the mind of a woman." Examines the passage as a…
Mentions Chaucer (WBP) while discussing the rise of experience as an acceptable authority in the writing of female mystics, supplanting a previous exclusive reliance on traditional authority.
Sayers, Edna Edith.
Joshua R. Eyler, ed. Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 81-92.
Sayers reviews commentary on the Wife of Bath's deafness; suggests that we treat it more literally than metaphorically; and posits that, through the deafened Wife, Chaucer "does not resolve the opposition between experience and authority, but rather…
Harrington, Norman T.
Chaucer Review 10 (1976): 187-200.
CT is the last formulation of one of Chaucer's strongest literary preoccupations: the dynamic interaction of experience and art. The links present reality as it is immediately perceived: chaotic but vital. The tales present reality as it is…
