Contrasts Chaucer's version of Custance in MLT with that of Gower and Trevet in order to show how Chaucer emphasizes the foreignness of Custance in England and the negative reaction to her, comparing them with documentary instances of xenophobia…
Koff, Leonard Michael.
Medieval Translator/Traduire au Moyen Age 14 (2018): 395-409.
Contrasts medieval Augustinian views of translation with those of modern translation theory and practice, applying the former to the adaptation/translation of CkT found in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 686. Argues that the Bodley scribe…
Liszka, Thomas R.
Leeds Studies in English 49 (2018): 87-99.
Contends that the beating in RvT alludes to an incident in the life of St. Oswald the Bishop, arguing that the allusion enhances the Reeve's attack on the Miller and creates a sense of irony, as the Reeve suffers in comparison with his priestly…
Harris, Carissa M.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018.
Examines late medieval British literary texts (lyrics, pastourelles, flytings, "alewife poems," "schoolroom texts," etc.) for their use of obscene language and imagery to shape and convey attitudes toward gender and sexuality, both positive and…
Newhauser, Richard, and Michael Raby.
ELH 86 (2019): 1-25.
Contends that the confrontation between the carpenter John and the clerk Nicholas in MilT provides dramatic context for the exploration of anti-intellectualism and intellectual curiosity. Claims that in MilT it is the "combination of humor and…
Links the characterizations of Nicholas and John in MilT to the genre fluidity of medieval literature and the interdependence of reading and performance. Focuses on Nicholas's "hyperliterate status," the "theatrical props of his learning implements,"…
Friedman, John Block.
Chaucer Review 54.2 (2019): 119-40.
Focuses on a study of status in MilT and traces the positioning of Nicholas and Alisoun and their displays of their buttocks in the window toward Absolon. Fleshing out the context and history of bottom-kissing as well as the averting of demons by…
Includes brief comments on MilT as an example of "a carnival-like rejection of hierarchies," aligning it with Alenca Zupančič's theory that "comedy creates what we understand 'human' to be."
Bertolet, Craig E.
Anna Riehl Bertolet and Carole Levin, eds. Creating the Premodern in the Postmodern Classroom: Creativity in Early English Literature and History Courses (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018), pp. 83-93.
Describes how to use Pierre Bourdieu's notion of "habitus" and the modern idea of public relations to help students explore how and to what extent the punishments in MilT are or are not "fair"; students are grouped as PR advocates for each of the…
Stewart, James Trevor.
Ph.D. dissertation. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2017. Available at https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4427. Accessed February 5, 2021.
Argues that like "Guy of Warwick" and "Ywain and Gawain," KnT promotes "ideals of both prowess and lordship," with Chaucer emphasizing the ideals of "chivalric interdependence" and the bonds of "mutual loyalty."
Scott, Anne.
Albrecht Classen, ed. Travel, Time, and Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Explorations of World Perceptions and Processes of Identity Formation (Boston, Mass.: De Gruyter, 2018), pp. 379-423.
Explores what Chaucer's romances "say about . . . individuality and identity," interpreting spaces, movements, and characters' perception of them in KnT for how they "delimit" behaviors even though these limitations are disrupted by individual…
Mann, Jill.
Elizabeth Archibald, Megan G. Leitch, and Corinne Saunders, eds. Romance Rewritten: The Evolution of Middle English Romance; A Tribute to Helen Cooper (Martlesham, D. S. Brewer, 2018), pp. 85-102.
Argues that various narrative and stylistic devices in KnT evoke the question "Does human life have a final meaning?" The poem begins with an ending and ends with a beginning, these complemented throughout by stoppings and startings and various…
Bruso, Steven Paul Woodcock.
Dissertation Abstracts International A78.10 (2017): n.p.
Argues that Middle English romances reflect "medieval awareness of the problems caused by militarization." Includes discussion of KnT where, "for hardened fighting men who have seen years of service in war, combat is always 'real,' and conduct…
Clopper, Lawrence M.
Thomas A. Goodmann, ed. Approaches to Teaching Langland's "Piers Plowman" (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2018), pp. 112-19.
Treats GP and Langland's Prologue in relation to the traditional model of three estates, arguing that the order of the pilgrims in GP reveals inadequacies in the "trifunctional model" (fight, pray, labor) and alludes to the Fall of Humanity in the…
Builds on Homi K. Bhabha’s definition of hybridity and studies the pilgrims as "the hybrids and/or mimics of medieval borderline society." Contextualizes these hybrid identities within economic and social changes, and concentrates on the Knight in…
Warren, Nancy Bradley.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019.
Traces a history of Chaucer reception in the context of Christian controversies by "situating Chaucer and the Chaucerian tradition in an international environment of religious controversy spanning four centuries." Emphasizes how Chaucer "engaged with…
Seal, Samantha Katz.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Examines the role of paternal authority and the figure of the father and their use and depiction in CT. Interrogates the construction of "Father Chaucer" to show how widespread this motif of paternal authority is in discussions of Chaucer and his…
Papica, Raymund.
Dissertation Abstracts International A78.01(E) (2017): n.p.
Studies "depictions of armor" in CT, Malory's "Le Morte D’Arthur," and Spenser's "The Faerie Queene," "exploring how these works help us understand medievalism in contemporary media," and investigating "how armored bodies function as a way to think…
Theorizes ecopoetic criticism, considering anthropocentrism, anthropotropism, and the "writability" of voices, whether human or nonhuman. Considers the "turn" to the human that opens GP and how the "impenetrability" of the human in GP is "often…
Meyer-Lee, Robert.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019
Discusses literary value and the value of continued interest in Chaucer's CT, focusing on parts 4 and 5. Argues that these parts function as a unified group, a framing that offers a new way to read and discover the value of the other CT tales.
Considers CT--primarily SNT, Mel, ManT, and Sted--to argue that Chaucer’s frequent depictions of characters employing "parrhesia," which Michel Foucault associates with speaking truth to power, suggest that Chaucer admired those who spoke truth to…
Matsuda, Takami.
Tokyo: Keio University Press, 2019.
Provides background on Chaucer and CT and emphasizes how each tale in CT addresses the particulars of the literary genre to which it is related. In Japanese.
Kooper, Erik.
Maarten De Pourcq and Sophie Levie, eds. European Literary History (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 128-38.
Introduces Chaucer's life and works, emphasizing CT and its innovations of social tension and variety as reflections of changes in English society during Chaucer's lifetime. Also comments on the fragmentary nature of CT, compares the work with…
Erol, Burçin.
Lorna Piatti-Farnell and Donna Lee Brien, eds. The Routledge Companion to Literature and Food (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 283-96.
Exemplifies the variety of references to food and uses of food imagery in CT, especially GP, observing how they serve as indicators of social and moral conditions--particularly high status and the sin of lust--and aid in characterization.
