Patterson, Lee.
David Aers, ed. Culture and History, 1350-1600: Essays on English Communities, Identities, and Writing (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992), pp. 7-41.
During the reign of Richard II, love poetry such as Clanvowe's "Book of Cupid" was a means whereby courtiers could interrogate the "power, patronage and lordship" of the fetishized court. Patterson considers Clanvowe's allusions to Chaucer in this…
Chaucer's WBT destabilizes gender roles rather than focusing on the issues of kingship at the core of most of the loathly-lady tales. WBT engages issues of personal power politics as it creates a lively, garrulous character, but the moral lies in the…
Scarry, Elaine.
Elaine Scarry, ed. Fins de Siècle: English Poetry in 1590, 1690, 1790, 1890, 1990 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), pp. 1-36.
Explores why the world is "newly alert to its need for poetry" at the end of each century, including comments on Chaucer's writing of CT at the end of the fourteenth.
Miskimin, Alice S.
Studies in Medieval Culture 10 (1977): 133-45.
The "Letter of Dido to Aeneas" in Pynson's "Chaucer" (1526), omitted by Thynne (1532), inspired Wyatt to write "Lyke as the swan..."; for him Chaucer was Pynson's edition. Thynne's omission of Ret was not remedied until Urry (1721). Modern editions…
Lim, Hyanyang K.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 25.1 (2017): 67-97.
Explores Chaucer's reservations about the reliability of written documents by examining Donegild's counterfeit letters in MLT and Thomas Woodstock, duke of Gloucester's "Confession", written in 1397. Examines problems of written documents implicated…
Bateson, F. W.
Essays in Criticism 25 (1975): 2-24.
By intention Chaucer like Shakespeare was a phonetic speller, so that manuscript variations in spelling provide clues to his metrics. The text of the LGW Prologue in MS. Gg of the Cambridge University Library is perhaps the nearest to Chaucer's…
Stock, Lorraine K.
Susan Yager and Elise E. Morse-Gagné, eds. Interpretation and Performance: Essays for Alan Gaylord (Provo, UT: Chaucer Studio Press, 2013), pp. 135-47.
Oral performance of ambiguous lines can illustrate their various possible meanings. Emphasizes how recordings and online materials can supplement student reading and performance, and how films can help readers visualize key moments. Costumes, props,…
Hodges, Laura F.
Chaucer Review 29 (1995): 274-302.
The multilayered details of the Knight's clothing represent both a realistic and a symbolic knight, whose profession of chivalry in the fourteenth century was far from ideal.
Hodges, Laura
Susan Yager and Elise E. Morse-Gagné, eds. Interpretation and Performance: Essays for Alan Gaylord (Provo, UT: Chaucer Studio Press, 2013), pp. 171-83.
Alone among Chaucer's knights, Thopas receives a full costume description, but it defies readers' expectations of a top-to-toe effictio. Th also juxtaposes cheap and costly materials, mentions unattractive colors, and omits expected details, all for…
Explores international cultural exchange and openness in the Middle Ages, commenting on scenarios of medieval cosmopolitanism in three modern fictions: Youssef Chahine's film "Destiny," Tariq Ali's novel "Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree," and Milorad…
Edwards, Robert R.
In John M. Ganim and Shayne Aaron Legassie, eds. Cosmopolitanism and the Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 163-80.
Assesses the presence of cosmopolitan thinking in medieval literature, drawing examples from Fulcher of Chartres' "Historia Hierosolymitana," TC, and the medieval Troy story at large. In Chaucer's poem, Criseyde discovers through Diomedes' amorous…
Discusses the "contrarious juxtaposition" in KnT design as a factor in determinacy. At work in KnT, the familiar medieval "topos" of "concordia discors" and marriage as a mediating device are examined in light of symbol, imagery, and wordplay with…
Laird, Edgar (S.)
Richard J. Utz, ed. Literary Nominalism and the Theory of Rereading Late Medieval Texts: A New Research Paradigm (Lewiston, N.Y.; Queenston, Ont.; Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen, 1995), pp. 101-15.
KnT "participates in a tradition antagonistic to the new nominalism, "based on a "scientific ontology consonant with Boethianism" and understandable in light of the truth-theories of Albumasar, Robert Grosseteste, and John Wyclif.
From opening sign of Aries to closing sign of Libra, the pilgrimage moves between the termini of Creation and Doomsday, using symbolism of spring and autumn in the day's cycle.
Diachronic study of how the linguistic stress matches metrical strong positions in spoken poetry and songs of the Middle and early modern English periods, including discussion of Chaucer's works. Prominent mismatches are more frequent in earlier…
Mosser, Daniel W.
Studies in Bibliography 52: 97-114, 1999.
Proposes quire structures for four paper manuscripts, focusing on watermarks and commenting on implications of the proposed structures. Assesses British Library MS Arundel 140 (Ar); British Library MS Harley 2382 (Hl3); Magdalene College, Cambridge…
Kato, Takako.
Margaret Connolly and Linne R. Mooney, eds. Design and Distribution of Late Medieval Manuscripts in England (York: York Medieval Press, 2008), pp. 61-87.
Kato assesses the accuracy of the text of CT that appears in Cambridge University Library MS Gg.4.27. Quantifies and categorizes the scribe's errors, paying particular attention to the mistakes that the scribe himself corrected.
Bourgne, Florence.
Marie-Claire Rouyer, ed. Le corps dans tous ses etats. (Bordeaux: Universite Michel de Montaigne, 1995), pp. 69-79.
Although the manuscript is a typical instance of "compilatio" and unification (e.g., punctuation of ParsT), the virtues portrayed to illustrate ParsT do not belong to a typical iconographic program. After identifying the three virtues with two…
In a larger investigation of the philosophical concept of sympathy, Lopez discusses the lack of sympathy, both personal and spatiotemporal, between May and January in MerT.
Discusses the canon-law tradition and the sources of ParsT 565-69 but concludes that "the question of Chaucer's learning on this subject...must remain unanswered."
Ames, Ruth M.
Peter Cocozzella, ed. The Late Middle Ages (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1984 (for 1981)), pp. 71-88.
Treats themes of predestination, Lollardy, and priestly celibacy in CT and TC.
Discusses medieval scribal transmission and commercial book production in relation to the surviving copy of "The Tale of Beryn" and the "Beryn-Scribe." Examines the reception and transmission of the "Prick of Conscience" in late medieval England.…
Eagleton, Catherine, and Matthew Spencer.
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 37 (2006): 237-68.
Applies a technique from evolutionary biology - phylogenetic "neighborhood-joining" - to the witnesses to the text of Astr to produce a stemma, test the fragments and sections of longer versions against the stemma, and discuss the scribal conflation…
Dane, Joseph A.
Studies in Bibliography 44 (1991): 164-83.
Examines the use and misuse of W. W. Greg's term "copy-text" in recent editions of Chaucer and in the Kane-Donaldson Piers Plowman. Confusions among "copy-text," "base text," and "best text" will be alleviated only when editors use the terms…
