Cullum, P. H.
D. M. Hadley, ed. Masculinity in Medieval Europe (London and New York: Longman, 1999), pp. 178-96.
Uses several case studies to assess medieval male clerical behavior and its transgressions. Briefly discusses Nicholas and Absolon of MilT as an illumination of the dilemma of young medieval clerics, caught between their vows of celibacy and their…
Dauby, Helene.
Danielle Buschinger and Wolfgang Spiewok, eds. Etudes de linguistique et de litterature en l'honneur d'Andre Crepin. Greifswalder Beitrage zum Mittelalter, no. 5. WODAN ser., no. 20 (Greifswald: Reineke, 1993), pp. 107-12.
Mel capitalizes on a pattern of attention to women earlier in CT, reflecting Chaucer's own concern with female rights of speech and self-expression.
Gleason, Mark J.
A. J. Minnis, ed. The Medieval Boethius (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987), pp. 89-105.
Gleason addresses three misunderstandings: disparagement of the literary value of Bo and its sources; inaccurate evaluation of Chaucer's use of sources, especially Trevet; and lack of information about Trevet's commentary, which is significant in…
Hallissy, Margaret.
Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood, 1993.
Using a tripartite structure of woman's role in society drawn from medieval codes of conduct, Hallissy explores Chaucer's depictions of women in light of accepted modes of behavior. Each section establishes medieval expectations for female behavior…
Kivimaa, Krista
Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, Societas Scientarum Fennica 43.1 (1968): 1-75.
Identifies, tabulates, and analyzes the clauses introduced by conjunctions in Chaucer's works (except Th and his lyrics), with or without pleonastic "that," attending to stress (verse and prose) and meter, and concluding, generally, that Chaucer…
Houlik-Ritchey, Emily.
Allison Gulley, ed. Teaching Rape in the Medieval Literature Classroom: Approaches to Difficult Texts (Amsterdam: Arc Humanities, 2018), pp. 91-112.
Identifies contradictions and complications in legal and ethical understandings of rape, and describes how issues of consent and culpability can be used productively in classroom discussion of RvT to help students understand their own values as well…
Comprises appreciative discussions of sixty "classics" of world literature, from "Gilgamesh" to the plays of Chekhov, including a discussion of CT (pp. 141-45) that emphasizes Chaucer's skills of characterization and comments on relations between…
Sutherland, John.
Chantilly, Va.: The Teaching Company, 2008.
Audio-visual recording of twelve lectures by Sutherland (from Anglo-Saxon roots to Paradise Lost), illustrated with occasional still pictures and linguistic examples. Two thirty-minute lectures pertain to Chaucer: Lecture 2, "Chaucer--Social…
Knight, Stephen.
Helen Phillips, ed. Chaucer and Religion (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010), pp. 143-55.
Contends that although BD, HF, and PF are secular poems, Chaucer's structure and wordplay in the dream poems "juxtaposes the secular and the spiritual, the classical and the Christian in complex tension."
Argues that Chaucer drew on Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and the "Ovide moralise" rather than on Geoffrey of Monmouth for his description of Pyramus's death in LGW.
Classical and medieval theories of allegory profoundly affected the interpretation and creation of medieval allegorical literature. The medieval audience believed that all worthwhile writing represented some truth, not necessarily Augustinian…
Lever, Katherine.
The Classical Journal 64 (1969): 216-18.
Looks at multiple examples of reference and allusion to Greek and Roman literature in works by Chaucer and Milton to contemplate ways in which these poets parallel modern classical scholars in their approach to the ancient world.
Saunders, Corinne J.
Susan Deacy and Karen F. Pierce, eds. Rape in Antiquity (London: Duckworth, in association with The Classical Press of Wales, 1997), pp. 243-66
Assesses medieval literary representations of rape in light of law, medicine, and theology. Reads Chaucer's account of Lucretia in LGW as a challenge to Augustine's admonitions against suicide, and the account of Philomela as proto-feminist. Compares…
DeMaria, Robert, Jr., and Robert D. Brown, eds.
Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2007.
Collects excerpts from various "British, Irish, and Caribbean Writers" (Chaucer to Seamus Heaney) and from various classical writers (Homer to Juvenal) to demonstrate classical influence. Opens (pp. 3-10) with a selection from WBP (ll. 627-822) in…
Fleming, John V.
Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
Engages major critics of TC on the matter of interpretation, accepting the Robertsonian definition of TC as a tragedy and viewing Robertson's work as implicit in three decades of critical controversy. Examines textual dilemmas basic to the…
Wejksnora, Louise R.
Dissertation Abstracts International 47 (1986): 1317A.
Examination of all references and allusions to the Christian God and pagan gods in TC reveals that Chaucer works within a broad spectrum of tonal variations in the classical and medieval traditions. The poem carries simultaneously two opposing yet…
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…
Medcalf, Stephen.
Roger Ellis, ed. The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English. Volume I: To 1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 364-90.
Surveys the tradition of medieval translation from Latin into English, commenting on Continental mediators and awareness of Greek literature. Focuses on translations of Boethius (including Chaucer's) and those of Apollonius of Tyre, treating them as…
Spearing, A. C.
Susan J. Ridyard, ed. Chivalry, Knighthood, and War in the Middle Ages (Sewanee, Tenn.: University of the South, 1999), pp. 53-73.
Chaucer uses classical, pagan setting as a "screen" on which to "project alternatives to medieval social reality." He capitalizes on the strangeness of presenting classical privacy in TC. In KnT, especially in the temple of Diana, Chaucer explores…
Bishop, Kathleen A.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1998): 4643A.
Explores how classical comedy (especially Plautus and Ovid) and medieval elegiac comedies influenced Chaucer's fabliaux and the fabliau elements of ManT, WBP, TC, and the Prologue to the apocryphal Tale of Beryn.
Windeatt, Barry.
Piero Boitani, ed. The European Tragedy of Troilus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 111-31.
Drawing on classical and medieval sources, Chaucer's TC incorporates multiple genres, each representing its own view of experience. The resulting masterpiece is neither an epic, a tragedy, a romance, a chronicle, a lyric, nor an allegory but a rich…
Morris, Max, ed.
Chichester, U. K.: Summersdale, 2010.
An anthology of lyrics and excerpts, including lines from KnT (1.1074-1122) in Middle English. Earlier versions of the volume were published in 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2008.
Liebman, Arthur, ed.
New York: Richards Rosen, 1975.
An anthology of eighteen examples of short crime fiction, arranged chronologically from Chaucer to Ray Bradbury, with a general Introduction and brief comments introducing the tales. Includes PardT (pp. 3-12) in the prose translation of R. M.…
An anthology for children of animal tales from Aesop, the Grimm brothers, etc., including a selection from NPT (pp. 51-56; excludes the dream commentary and philosophy), as "retold by" Stephen Corrin. Plates and illustrations by Angel Dominquez.
Davis, Isabel.
Marion Turner, ed. A Handbook of Middle English Studies (Chichester: Wiley, 2013), pp. 285-98.
Explores Middle English nuances of a set of related concepts: class, estate, identity, calling, and "clayme," investigating them in light of Pauline distinctions between use and possession and between old and new, discussed by Giorgio Agamben.…
