Knutson, Karla.
Bruce E. Brandt and Michael S. Nagy, eds. Proceedings of the 14th Northern Plains Conference on Earlier British Literature, April 7-8, 2006 (Brookings, S.Dak.: English Department, South Dakota State University, 2006), pp. 95-106.
Knutson argues that fifteenth-century imitators of Chaucer identified themselves as descendants of Chaucer, whom they constructed as father, to promote a conservative agenda, simultaneously antifeminist, hierarchical, and heteronormative.
The Second Nun's voice is undefined by Chaucer, yet it is intriguing since it probes the nature of "agency, voice, and reappropriation." The voice of the Nun becomes more clear as her character develops, and SNT "becomes a product of the voice."
Reis, Huriye.
Evrim Doğan Adanur, ed. IDEA: Studies in English (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), pp. 261-71.
Examines the "construction of parenthood" in medieval literature and criticism, focusing on Chaucer's role as "father" of English literature, which lacks a parallel "mother" figure.
Zonneveld, Wim.
Paula Fikkert and Haike Jacobs, eds. Development in Prosodic Systems. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003, pp. 197-247.
Zonneveld examines factors associated with iambic stress in the octosyllabic Dutch poem "Het Leven van St. Lutgart" [Life of St. Lutgart], comparing them with conditions in early English. Considers the "uncertain status of schwa syllables" in…
Examines the allusion to Constantinus Africanus's "De Coitu" in MerT 4.1810-11, suggesting that knowledge of the treatise helps us to understand that January's consumption of aphrodisiacs is "manically compulsive" and sinful.
The Man of Law in his Prologue, in his characterization of Custance, and in his concept of Christ's "prudent purveiaunce" consistently revises his sources, especially Nicholas Trevet, into the materialistic terms of the world governed by Fortune. …
Jost, Jean E.
Medieval Perspectives 2 (1987): 73-80.
Reads MLT and CYT as opposed tales. Custance of MLT is a "worthy victim" of the broken promises of others and someone who "steadfastly" keeps her own. CYPT, on the other hand, is "marked by changeability, mutability, and vacillation"; its characters…
Brunt, Andrew
Notes and Queries 214 (1969): 87-88.
Regards the detail of covering the child's eyes in MLT 2.840-41 as a "homely touch" of pathos, perhaps drawn from child-care advice found in Bartholomaeus Anglicus, "De Proprietatibus Rerum."
Clark, Susan L.,and Julian N. Wasserman.
Rice University Studies 64 (1978): 13-24.
Constance is that rarity, a romance "heroine," who, like the more familiar hero, learns through trials and difficulties. The tale is thus perhaps one of those narratives that marks the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in European culture. …
Wetherbee, Winthrop.
R. F. Yeager, ed. John Gower, Recent Readings (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University), pp. 65-93.
The pattern of sustained allusion to Gower's "Confessio Amantis" provides an important index to the purpose of MLT. Gower communicates the horror of a moral void; the Man of Law inveighs against Canacee's sinfulness. Chaucer's tale ultimately…
Loomis, Dorothy Bethurum.
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: Univeristy of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 207-20.
The story of Constance is not especially appropriate to the Man of Law. Chaucer was attracted to it because it is a good piece of fiction and because it gave him the perfect opportunity to set forth and justify his belief in astrology. The story…
Bracken, Christopher.
Critical Matrix: The Princeton Journal of Women, Gender, and Culture 8:1 (1994): 13-39.
Cast as a discussion among four participants (Reductio, Thea, Ceres, and Cassandra), this closet drama explores relations among power, gender, trade, religion, and their representation in MLT. The characters are, loosely, representatives of…
Offers a "partial explanation" for the paucity of fabliaux in Middle English: lack of concern with courtly sentiment in Middle English romance fails to "provide conditions conducive" to "parody and ironization of romance" that is fundamental to the…
Schrock, Chad D.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Explores how Abelard, Chaucer, and Langland used consolatory narratives in their writings. Chapter 5 (pp. 107-27) explores Augustinian and Boethian concerns in KnT.
Turu, Hisao.
Hisao Turu, ed. Reading Chaucer's Book of the Duchess. Medieval English Literature Symposium Series, no. 5 (Tokyo: Gaku Shobo Press, 1991), pp. 201-20 (in Japanese).
The Knight in Black is not John of Gaunt but his young squire, who admired and served his dear duchess.
Morrison, Susan Signe.
Notes and Queries 266.1 (2021): 45-49.
Contemplates the word "lemman" in Malyne's dawn song of RvT: its connotations elsewhere in Chaucer's corpus indicate that it names her experience the night before as sexual assault.
Lettau, Lisa.
Dissertation Abstracts International A69.09 (2009): n.p.
As part of an exploration of medieval efforts to understand a physical/spiritual dichotomy, the dissertation sets BD in conversation with Margery Kempe, with an eye toward development of a "unified selfhood."
Weisl, Angela Jane.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995.
Explores the relation of gender and the genre of romance in Chaucer's CT, especially the mutually defining and delimiting power of the two categories. Women conform to the particular roles romance carves out for them, while the genre is…
Presents debates surrounding intersection of art and paleography and the transmission of Middle English manuscripts. Focuses on CT manuscripts and research devoted to Gower, Langland, Hoccleve, and Chaucer. Argues that "scholars attend to how scribes…
Driver, Martha.
Elisabeth Dutton, with John Hines and R. F. Yeager, eds. John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 315-25.
Driver contrasts Shakespeare's limited attention to Chaucer with his lionization of Gower in "Pericles," commenting on representations of Gower in modern stage productions of the play.
Trigg, Stephanie.
Minneapolis and Londons : University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Examines critical discourses from the late Middle Ages to the late twentieth century that have constructed Chaucer for, and mediated his poetry to, subsequent readers. Trigg explores "Chaucer's status as an exemplary canonical author for English…
Yvernault, Martine.
Tatjana Silec, ed. Voix (et Voies) du Désordre au Moyen Âge. Volume Issu du Colloque du Centre d'Études Médiévales Anglaises de Paris-Sorbonne (22-23 Mars 2012). AMAES, no. 34. (Paris: Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2013), pp. 109-24
Explores the ambivalence of the forest in several examples, particularly ones drawn from KnT and BD.
Oliver, Paul.
Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey, ed. Critical Essays on The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale (Harlow: Longman, 1990), pp. 65-74.
Both PardP and PardT are "self-exposure" on the part of the Pardoner, although in the latter he is "unaware" of his similarity to the three rioters: "all four are spiritually dead . . . blasphemers and motivated by avarice . . . totally hardened…
