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In Search of Chaucer.
Bronson, Bertrand H.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960.
Engages several critical approaches to Chaucer works and incorporates them into appreciative commentaries, with particular attention to the poet's "habit of working" or process of composition, his narrative techniques (not inorganic, but…
The Parlement of Foulys.
Brewer, D. R., ed.
London and Edinburgh: Nelson, 1960.
An edition of PF based on University of Cambridge Library MS Gg.4.27, with end-of-text textual and explanatory notes, modern punctuation, and original spelling. The Introduction (pp. 1-68) presents the poem as the "best of Chaucer's shorter poems,"…
Fals Eneas and Sely Dido.
Bradley, D. R.
Philological Quarterly 39 (1960): 122-25.
Adduces details and emphases in Virgil's "Aeneid" to suggest that Chaucer used it directly in composing his Dido legend in LGW, though perhaps in combination with parallel sources.
Chaucer's "Troilus" as an Elizabethan "Wanton Book."
Bowers, R. H.
Notes and Queries 205 (1960): 370-71.
Identifies several sixteenth-century statements of censorship of romances (one that mentions TC) and describes several early modern "justifications" for the "perennial itch to censor."
The Squire's Yeoman.
Birney, Earle.
Review of English Literature 1.3 (1960): 9-18.
Explores the GP description of the Yeoman, affiliating him with the Squire rather than with the Knight, and concentrating on details of his dress and equipage that contribute to a "sense of gay holiday panoply" associated with the Squire.
The Inhibited and Uninhibited: Ironic Structure in the "Miller's Tale."
Birney, Earle.
Neophilologus 44 (1960): 333-38.
Explores the diction and imagery of MilT, focusing on oral and olfactory instances for the ways that they ironically anticipate details of the plot, particularly the misdirected kiss received by Absolon and colter-burn he directs at Nicholas.
Chaucer's "Gentil" Manciple and His "Gentil" Tale.
Birney, Earle.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 61 (1960): 257-67.
Explores details, emphases, ironies, and double ironies in the GP description of the Manciple and in ManPT, characterizing him as "shrewd," "smug," and "indiscrete"--a "successful rascal" who aspires to "gentil" status, is "insecure," and overly…
Chaucer's General Prologue, A 696-698.
Biggins, D.
Notes and Queries 205 (1960): 93-95.
Clarifies the reference to Christ catching Peter as he sailed in GP 1.696-98, focusing on the figurative meaning of "hente" and its implications regarding the Pardoner's faux relic, Peter's sail-cloth.
Chaucer's General Prologue, A 497.
Biggins, D.
Notes and Queries 205 (1960): 129-30.
Explores the denotative, connotative, figurative, and ironic implications of the GP description of the Wife of Bath as one who knows "muchel of wandrynge by the weye" (1.497).
On Translating Ovid in Chaucer's "House of Fame."
Bevington, David M.
Notes and Queries 205 (1960): 129-30.
Addresses Chaucer's translation of Ovid's "portis" ("Metamorphoses" 12.45) as "porters" rather than "portals" in his House of Rumor (HF 1954).
Chaucer and Dante.
Schless, Howard.
Dorothy Bethurum, ed. Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 132-54.
Advocates a "contextual" approach to source study, arguing that several discussions of Dante's influence on Chaucer depend upon weak correspondences, better treated as shared tradition than direct influence. Discusses the lists of lovers in PF and…
Classical Fable and English Poetry in the Fourteenth Century.
Green, Richard Hamilton.
Dorothy Bethurum, ed. Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 110-33.
Summarizes theories and meanings of conventional mythographic images and allusions in medieval literature, derived from classical fables and allegorized in late-classical and medieval commentaries on such fables. Includes comments on the allusion to…
Folklore, Myth, and Ritual.
Utley, Francis Lee.
Dorothy Bethurum, ed. Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 83-109.
Examines critical opinions about the presence of mythic, folkloric, and ritualistic images and allusions in medieval English literature, commenting on various works and critical views of them: "Beowulf," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," accounts of…
Patristic Exegesis in the Criticism of Medieval Literature: The Defense.
Kaske, R. E.
In Dorothy Bethurum, ed. Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 27-60.
Exemplifies the wide-ranging importance of "exegetical tradition" in explicating images and allusions in medieval literature, drawing examples from "Piers Plowman," from the Summoner's taste for garlic, onions, and leeks (GP 1.634), and from various…
Patristic Exegesis in the Criticism of Medieval Literature: The Opposition.
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Dorothy Bethurum, ed. Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 1-26.
Challenges patristic criticism for its claim that medieval literature is univocally concerned with asserting Christian "caritas" allegorically, arguing instead that poetry has a right to "say what it means and mean what it says." Illustrates the…
Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature: Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59.
Bethurum, Dorothy, ed.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.
Six essays by various authors and a summary Introduction by the editor. For five essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature under Alternative Title.
Characterization in the "Miller's Tale."
Beichner, Paul E.
Richard J. Schoeck and Jerome Taylor, eds. Chaucer Criticism, Volume I: "The Canterbury Tales" (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1960), pp. 117-29.
Praises the "high organic unity" of MilT, attributing it to effective characterization of the major actors: "by making him 'hende' in one sense or another, Chaucer has motivated each incident of the plot involving Nicholas; and similarly, he has…
Love and the Code: "Troilus and Criseyde."
Bayley, John.
John Bayley. The Characters of Love: A Study in the Literature of Personality (London: Constable, 1960), pp. 51-123.
Explores the characterizations in TC of Troilus, Pandarus, and, most extensively, Criseyde, explaining how Chaucer modifies their antecedents in Boccaccio's "Filostrato" by adapting the conventions and rhetoric of courtly love and creates rich…
Chaucer and the "Panthère d'Amours."
Baugh, Albert C.
Wolfgang Iser and Hans Schabram, eds. Britannica: Festschrift für Hermann M. Flasdieck (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1960), pp. 51-61.
Reviews discussions that consider Nicole de Margival's "La Panthère d'Amous" to be a source of HF, challenging most of them for lack of specificity or because shared details are conventional. Only two brief passages evince Margival's influence and…
Recent Interpretations of Chaucer's "House of Fame" and a New Suggestion.
Baker, Donald C.
University of Mississippi Studies in English 1 (1960): 97-104.
Argues that "the role of the artist as purveyor of Fame" is the fundamental unifying theme of HF and suggests that Chaucer may have intended to resolve tensions between Dantean and Boethian views of the poet (as teacher and misleader, respectively)…
Chaucer's Pilgrimage Device of the Fabliau Tales.
Hira, Toshinori.
Bulletin of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Nagasaki University, Humanities 18 (1978): 59-78.
Considers the techniques of characterization in CT, with particular attention to the range of social classes and the assigning of fabliaux to particular tellers. Comments on the gender of individual tellers and on the likelihood of class and gender…
Chaucer's Gentry in the Historical Background.
Hira, Toshinori.
In [Anonymous ed.,] Essays in English and American Literature: In Commemoration of Professor Takejiro Nakayama's Sixty-First Birthday (Tokyo: Shohakuska, 1961), pp. 31-44.
Offers historical context for and commentary on the characterizations of the pilgrims in the CT who may be considered "gentry," both those of traditional gentle birth and those on the rise as a class of new gentry.
Il Poema Onirico: Boccaccio e Chaucer.
Giordano, Roberta.
Avellino: Sinestesie, 2014. Open access ebook at https://en.calameo.com/read/005864328fc7b606cf080; accessed March 3, 2022.
Studies Chaucer's and Boccaccio's dream vision narratives and their references to dreaming in light of the history of the genre, focusing on the secularization of the genre, the rising importance of the poet as dreamer-viator, and aesthetic successes…
Entendre des Voix: Réception et Perception dans Deux Lais Bretons Moyen-Englais ("Lay le Freine," "Sir Orfeo") et le "Franklin's Tale" de Chaucer.
Yvernault, Martine.
Cercles 32 (2014): 90-107. Open access journal; available at http://www.cercles.com/n32/yvernault.pdf. Accessed February 10, 2022.
Explores relations among voice, genre, music, orality, and memorial transmission in "Lay le Freine," "Sir Orfeo," and FranT, including assessment of the ambiguities and Bahktinian polyphony of voices in the GP description of the Franklin's oral…
Delicious, Tender Chaucer: Coleridge, Emotion and Affect.
Trigg, Stephanie.
Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 30 (2014): 51-66.
Explores relations between the reception of Chaucer and the "study of the history of emotion," focusing on the "symbolic capital" of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's brief comments on Chaucer in "Table Talk," the "social context" in which the comments were…