Low, Anthony.
Chapter 5 in Anthony Low, The Georgic Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 155-220.
Two subsections of chapter 5 examine political and philosophical attitudes toward work in the Middle Ages and later eras, specifically the relationships among the revolution in agricultural technology, "the Protestant work ethic," and "modern…
Lloyd-Kimbrel, Elizabeth D.
Mediaevistik 1 (1988): 115-24.
Discusses the "Gothic" aesthetics of Chaucer's work: duality, complexity, progression, juxtaposition of jarringly opposite elements, exposure of structural features, audience participation, incompleteness, ambiguity, and physicality of thought.
Kirk, Elizabeth D.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 2 (1988): 1-21.
Against the sociopolitical background of the fourteenth century, Kirk examines the Plowman as worker and religious symbol in "Piers Plowman" and Chaucer's GP.
Kessel-Brown, Deidre.
Medium Aevum 59 (1990): 228-45.
Medieval literature utilizes landscape symbolism for both positive and negative emotional effects. The article touches on KnT, FranT, BD, and medieval lyrics.
Kallstrom, Martha Ann.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 3945A.
The deserted woman, deriving from classical sources through medieval tradition, embodied the conflict of "amor" and "pietas." Appearing in allusion, exempla, and the poems HF, LGW, MLT, FranT, Anel, and TC, the deserted woman demonstrates for…
Both Spearing and Leicester focus on the question of authorial intention as an interpretive norm. By acknowledging that Chaucer may intend private allusions, Spearing opens the possibility that one audience's "use" is another audience's "allusion,"…
Holley, Linda Tarte.
Houston, Tex.: Rice University Press, 1990.
Explores Chaucer's use of "the physics of measurement," an aspect of the science of optics (new in Chaucer's day), which measured "motion and relationships among objects inside a framed space." Chaucer's "verbal structures often move as the eye…
A defense of Margery Kempe's religious visions, with extended discussions of other medieval devotional and mystical works,including the writings of Julian of Norwich, Richard Rolle,and Margaret Porete as well as devotional prayers recorded in MS…
Heinrichs, Katherine.
University Park and London : Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.
Examines "conventions governing allusions to certain Ovidian and Virgilian tales of love in the works of Boccaccio, Machaut, Froissart, and Chaucer," addressing "questions of narrative voice, thematic unity, and purpose" and concentrating on…
Although Chaucer criticism divides into prefeminist, feminist, and postfeminist eras, postfeminist criticism often lapses into prefeminist exclusion of female readers and critics by assuming transhistorical categories of the masculine and feminine…
Haigney, Catherine Reisky.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 2046A-2047A.
Although earlier dream visions aimed at revelation of universal truths, Chaucer's poems in this mode present individuals who achieve no direct answers to their questions. William of Ockham, not necessarily a direct influence, provides methods for…
Hahn, Thomas, ed.
Special Issue of Exemplaria 2 (1990):1-353.
A collection of seventeen essays arising out of a conference entitled "History/Text/Theory: Reconceiving Chaucer," held at the University of Rochester on 21-23 April 1988. The essays use the discourses of modern literary theory to reconsider the…
Chaucer studies are often considered neutral and unpoliticized, whether they are subjective, personalized readings, or objective and "professionalized." The construction of the Middle Ages as unalterably "Other," combined with the lack of a…
Goodman, Thomas A.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 1607A.
Religious learning as an aid for salvation is a theme running through late-fourteenth-century works including CT, Piers Plowman, and Wycliffite writing. Chaucer satirizes scholastic studies in WBT, FrT, and SumT. Although not involved in the…
Gloss, Teresa Guerra.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1990): 3221A.
Humor may be classified as visual, antirepressive, and linguistic-stylistic (sophisticated and often ironic). Gloss treats seven authors of four nationalities, including Chaucer.
Gaylord, Alan T.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990): 215-38.
Review article evaluating Chaucerian videotapes distributed by Films for the Humanities and tape cassettes of the Chaucer Studio produced subsequent to Betsy Bowden's guide to recorded Middle English (Garland, 1988). Ford Madox Brown's painting…
Chaucer represents popular discourse as analogous to social, historical, and even apocalyptic disruption. He thus variously attempts to contain and to release its power: In TC, disruption can be temporarily contained by heroic action; in KnT, it…
A comparison of Chaucer's narrators and the narrative voices of the "Roman" may clarify the continuing debates on the characteristics of his narrators, their function within the dream poems, and their relation to other narrative voices.
Edwards, Robert R.
Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 1989.
Analyzes the intricate relationship among literary theory, poetry, and music, with examples from Chaucer and others--specifically, the "strategies of poetic composition" and the "location of invention within the text"--to produce "a literary reading…
Dyer, Christopher.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Bridging the social and economic histories of medieval England, Dyer examines the inequalities of English society as inherent rather than as economically shaped among the upper classes, townsmen, and peasants. GP offers criticism of a simplistic…
Doob, Penelope Reed.
Ithaca, N.Y., and London : Cornell University Press, 1990.
Considers models, taxonomy, metaphor, etymologies, and verbal implications of the labyrinth; mazes in medieval art and architecture; moral labyrinths; and textual labyrinths in medieval literature. Examines Chaucer's use of the labyrinth in BD, CT,…
Derived from St. Bonaventure, the Franciscan model of meditation afforded the laity of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries a "means of participating in an eternal present," as demonstrated in "Piers Plowman," "Pearl," and "The Book of…
A collection of essays previously published, to which Delany has added a new essay, "Run Silent, Run Deep: Heresy and Alchemy as Medieval Versions of Utopia," to examine utopian discourse in the Middle Ages.
Davidoff, Judith M.
Rutherford, N.J.; Madison, Wis.; and Teaneck, N.J.:
Basing her work on a study of 189 poems, Davidoff analyzes common features of "framing fictions." With attention to Chaucer's sources and literary tradition, she offers readings of BD, demonstrating relationship of meaning to structure; of HF,…
Christianson, C. Paul.
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr., ed. Standardizing English: Essays in the History of Language Change, in Honor of John Hurt Fisher (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), pp. 82-112.
Presents a sketch of the development of the written trades and the connections among scriveners in the late Middle Ages.
