Chaucer freely coins derivations, such as the Summoner's "preambulacion" from "preamble" (D837), for the sake of rhyme, rhythm, economy, and forcefulness.
In translating Bo from the original Latin and a French translation, Chaucer often adapts a word from the latter to create new concepts, especially with English gerunds.
Pearsall, Derek.
Charlotte Brewer and Barry Windeatt, eds. Traditions and Innovations in the Study of Middle English Literature: The Influence of Derek Brewer (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2013), pp. 18-33.
Reflects on the significance of Brewer's early writings on Chaucer and his importance as a "critic and literary and cultural historian." Discussion of Brewer's exploration of the "Gothic" in connection with CT.
Analyzes the grammar and usage of the “man” and related locutions that convey independent agency in late Middle English and Early Modern English, considering pronouns, modals, and passive verbal forms as well as “man” and other generalized…
Bergner, Heinz.
Xenia von Ertsdorff and Marianne Wynn, eds. Liebe--Ehe--Ehebruch in der Literatur des Mittelalters: Vortrage des Symposiums vom 13. bis 16. Juni 1983 am Institut fur deutsche Sprache und mittelalterliche Literatur der Justus Liebig-Universitat Giessen (Giessen: Wilhelm Schmitz, 1984),pp. 140-47.
FranT mirrors contemporary contradictory beliefs about marriage, criticizing standards and legal constraints that force paradoxical and confusing demands on married partners,and exposing the predicament of three moral characters who fall short with…
Ullmann, Ingeborg Maria.
Bern: Herbert Lang, 1973.
Analyzes narrative aspects of CT and the readers' role in understanding the functions and significance of various structural features, the pilgrimage frame, and point of view; uses late-medieval illustrations to explore and illuminate reader…
Fischer, Andreas,and Roland Luthi.
Archiv fur das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 231 (1994): 44-58.
An annotated bibliography of thirty German translations of Chaucer's works published between 1826 and 1992, with additional commentary that notes patterns of reception.
Stemmler, Theo.
Fritz Peter Knapp and Manuela Niesner, eds. Historisches und Fiktionales Erzählen im Mittelalter (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2002), pp. 45-62.
Stemmler assesses representations of the Uprising of 1381 in several contexts: the "Anonimalle Chronicle," Henry Knighton's "Chronicon," Thomas Walsingham's "Historia Anglicana," Jean Froissart's "Chroniques," John Gower's "Vox Clamantis," Chaucer's…
Bauer, Renate.
Thomas Honegger, ed. Authors, Heroes and Lovers: Essays on Medieval English Literature and Language (Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 2001), pp. 47-71.
Bauer compares examples of anti-Jewish discourse in the "Ludus Coventriae" ("deicide"), PrT ("ritual murder"), and the Croxton Play of the Sacrament ("desecration of the host"). All three texts criminalize, victimize, and dehumanize Jews,…
Wolpers, Theodor.
Theodor Wolpers, ed. Der Sturz des Mächtigen: Zu Struktur, Funktion, and Geschichte eines Literarischen Motivs (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), pp. 105-47.
Traces the "fall of the mighty" (or "fall of princes") motif in "de casibus" narratives and its intersections with tragedy in works by Boccaccio and Chaucer and in the sixteenth-century "Mirror for Magistrates," with particular attention to Adam and…
Examines the use of whiteness in a variety of medieval works, arguing that being "white" is a mark not merely of ethnicity but also of Christianity, "beauty," and rank. Examples include mystery plays, "Pearl," and BD.
Johnston, Andrew James.
Christoph Kleinschmidt and Uwe Japp, eds. Der Rahmenzyklus in den europäischen Literaturen: Von Boccaccio bis Goethe, von Chaucer bis Gernhardt (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, 2018), pp. 41–57.
Examines features of CT that make it difficult to fit the work into the modern “frame” of teleological development, medieval to modern. Focuses on "postmodern" features of the work, its tensions between allegory and realism, and its game-like…
Nicknames for geometric propositions occur in TC ("dulcarnon," "flemyng of wrecches") and one seems to be at play at the end of SumT ("figura demonis"), where the squire's "natural" solution to the problem of dividing the fart opposes the…
Schuurman, Anne.
Craig E. Bertolet and Robert Epstein, eds. Money, Commerce, and Economics in Late Medieval English Literature (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 77-91.
Examines relations between theology and economics in FrPT and SumPT (with glances at WBP and PardPT), focusing on the polysemous implications of debt, and suggesting that these tales are “key source texts” for modern “economic theology”…
Burger, Douglas A.
Chaucer Review 12 (1977): 103-10.
May's final answer is the culmination of "an incongruence between words and truth that is manifest throughout the entire poem." The preamble of antifeminist material is glossed by an old man's fantasy. The Merchant's "inability" to gloss allows him…
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…
Lawler, Traugott.
Robert G. Benson and Susan J. Ridyard, eds. New Readings of Chaucer's Poetry (Rochester, N.Y., and Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 75-90.
Lawler argues that Chaucer privileged simplicity and disapproved of decadence and over-refinement. Lexical examination demonstrates Chaucer's preference for "delicacy," evident most clearly in Griselda of ClT and supported by evidence from KnT and…
Fleming, John V.
Chaucer Review 21 (1986): 182-99.
The rich Virgilian background of TC brings into focus Hector and Deiphoebus--bound to Troilus by brotherly love and manipulated by Pandarus--and the parallel perfidies of Helen and Criseyde. In TC, the betrayal of Deiphoebus is "a feminist…
Sundwall, McKay.
Modern Philology 73 (1975): 151-56.
According to Virgil (Aeneid, VI) Deiphobus became the husband of Helen after Paris' death. Perhaps Pandarus reveals a covert knowledge of this burgeoning romance when, in TC II, he confidently sends Helen and Deiphobus into the garden for an hour,…
In TC, Deiphebus serves as an important foil to Troilus. He exposes Troilus not only as weak and inadequate but also as human, something Hector is not.
Dickson, Lynne.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 15 (1993): 61-90.
Although WBP does not succeed in fictionalizing a discourse community of women, it makes clear the possibility in its struggle with patriarchal authority. WBT poses such a community in a transient, illusory form. Chaucer capitalizes on the…
Romances are distinguished not by the presence of certain features--the erotic, the fabulous, etc.--but by attitudes toward those elements. WBT is "deliberately" not a romance.
Confused in definition, "romance" designates both a value system and a method of treatment. The presence of the marvelous, courtly love, and chivalric adventure is not enough to form a definition. A parody like Th helps, since it indicates what is…
Nisse, Ruth.
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
Assesses the biblical and theatrical allusions in MilT for the ways that they engage the theme of interpretation, challenge gender categories, and dovetail with contemporary concerns about the dangers of drama and reading. Compares these with similar…
Straker, Scott-Morgan.
Review of English Studies 52: 1-21, 2001.
Lydgate appropriates Chaucer not so much to pay tribute as to distance himself from anticlericalism, to redeem the narrative and monastic voice, and to assert its freedom from authority, as represented by Harry Bailly. Lydgate's apparent compliance…
