Tinkle, Theresa Lynn.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 3240A-3241A.
Although the medieval Venus and Cupid are usually interpreted interchangeably on the basis of "courtly love" or the Robertsonian concept of "caritas" and "cupiditas," analysis of texts (including HF, PF, KnT, TC, and LGW) indicates otherwise. Venus…
Takamiya, Toshiyuki.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 263-68.
The list of Derek Brewer's writings that closes this volume reveals the range and energy of his interests: critical interpretation of Chaucer, editing of medieval texts, historical views of Chaucer's life and work, Chaucer as a narrative poet, and…
Strohm, Paul.
Lee Patterson, ed. Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1530 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 83-112.
London politics in the 1380s were characterized by "shifting planes of alliance." Such shifting in the early years of the decade led to the eventual struggle of 1385-88 between Richard's court party and the duke of Gloucester's aristocratic…
Storm, Melvin.
Jane Chance, ed. The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 215-31.
Examines the role of tone and narratorial voice in Chaucer's manipulations and distortions of the myth of Theseus in HF, Anel, LGW, and KnT. Theseus is vilified in HF and LGW as a betrayer of women; in KnT, he exemplifies mature "martialism…
Southworth, John.
Woodbridge and Suffolk : Boydell & Brewer, 1989.
Traces the traditions and explores the functions of harpers, minstrels, fools, actors, acrobats, singers, magicians, and other entertainers from Anglo-Saxon times through the reigh of Henry VII.
Scase, Wendy.
Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 1989.
The anticlericalism of "Piers Plowman" and its time period is not traditional, as has been assumed, but new and requires fresh examination. It transforms and unifies traditional attacks on monastics, friars, and secular clergy into an attack on all…
Salisbury, Joyce E.
New York and London : Garland, 1990.
Interdisciplinary (covering religion, medicine, history, literature, and philosophy from early Christian times through the late Middle Ages), this annotated and indexed guide to medieval sexuality and attitudes toward sex and the body contains…
A collection of new and previously published articles (1984-88), including five on the relationship between human beings and God. Reinterprets various images, spiritual and secular, in saints' lives, sermons, religious lyrics, and especially…
Paxson, James J.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 2484A.
Although personification is currently devalued, analysis of its poetic codes of invention reveals its complexity in the works of Prudentius, Langland, Spenser and Chaucer (HF and PF).
Reed, Thomas L.,Jr.
Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1990.
A prominent feature of Middle English debate poetry from 1200 to 1450 is irresolution, a quality appreciated in the context of carnival laughter (Bakhtin). Reed rejects univocal interpretation through allegory or symbolism in favor of "experiential…
Patterson, Lee, ed.
Berkeley : University of California Press, 1990.
A collection of seven articles on late-medieval culture, literature, and the problems of historical interpretation. Treats Chaucer, Langland, and others.
Fyler's assertion that Chaucer's ambiguous use of generic and gendered "man" is both self-conscious and consciously feminist assumes a false stability of meaning for the generic masculine and ignores the critical construction of authorial…
North, J. D.
London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1986.
Studies development (up to the 1500s) of seven modes of "domification"--i.e., the construction by mathematics of mundane houses used in horoscopes. Includes applications through the seventeenth century.
Vance's concept of "power semantics" articulates how Chaucer uses transgressive exempla--"meta-examples which confound expectations"--to pit the discourse of medieval history against itself in PardT, predicating a literal critique of medieval culture…
Nolan, Edward Peter.
Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 1990.
Studies the figure of the Pauline paradigm "videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate" (1 Cor. 13.12) in Western ontology and epistemology, examining "the functions of intra- as well as intertextual literary mirroring" (Virgil's use of Homer, Chaucer's…
Muscatine, Charles.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 249-62.
Posits that "different ages or cultures do not so much misread a great text (from a different time or place) as make from it special abstractions, acutely suited to their particular concerns." At midcentury, the twentieth-century reception of…
Mroczkowski, Przemyslaw.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Religion in the Poetry and Drama of the Late Middle Ages in England (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 83-100.
In the context of medieval culture from the late eleventh century to Chaucer's time, the author examines Chaucer's faith and orthodoxy in ABC, ParsT, MLT, Mel, ClT, PrT, SNT, and Ret, as opposed to his critical spirit in his portrayals of various…
Morse, Ruth, and Barry Windeatt,eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Eighteen articles by colleagues, friends, and former pupils honor Derek Brewer's retirement and serve as a tribute to his achievements in the study of medieval literature and especially of Chaucer. Responses to Chaucer and Chaucer's tradition treat…
Miller, Paul Scott.
Dissertation Abstracts International 51 (1990): 1222A.
Although classical, Renaissance, and modern satire may represent recognizable genres, a definition of medieval satire must be sought through consideration of how classical satirists were studied in medieval schools and how three poets wrote.
Machan, Tim William.
Roger Ellis, ed. The Medieval Translator: The Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages. Papers read at the University of Wales Conference Centre, Gregynog Hall, 20-23 August 1987 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1989), pp. 55-67.
Evaluates Chaucer as a translator according to the theories and principles of translation current in Chaucer's day.
