Describes three groups of equestrians among the Canterbury pilgrims: those who ride proud horses, those who "ride either poor or at least un-caparisoned horses," and "those whose characters seem compromised by their 'inefficiency' as horsemen."…
Williams, George G.
Modern Language Notes 72.1 (1957): 6-9.
Proposes that the facade of the thirteenth-century "Maison des Musiciens" in Reims may have inspired Chaucer's description of the exterior of Fame's palace in HF 1189-1266, hypothesizing how and when Chaucer may have seen the historical building.
Miller, Mark.
Frank Grady, ed. The Cambridge Companion to "The Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 59-72.
Accounts for the "strangeness" of KnT, cataloguing various theoretical and interpretative approaches, beginning with Charles Muscatine's scholarly contributions and ending with Elizabeth Scala's "Desire in the Canterbury Tales." Links each of these…
Warren, Michelle R.
postmedieval 6.1 (2015): 79–93.
Reviews references to how Chaucer is represented and appropriated in Anglophone Caribbean literature and critical essays. Includes example of "fictional allusion" to CT in Jean Rhys's "Again the Antilles."
Jimura, Akiyuki, and Hisayuki Sasamoto, trans.
Hiroshima: Keisuisha, 2020.
Using the Riverside edition, translates LGW, ABC, Pity, Lady, Mars, Ven, Ros, Adam, Purse, Wom Unc, Compl d’Am, and MercB into Japanese, with introductory and supplementary notes. Includes brief timeline and description of Chaucer’s life. In…
Hartwell, Michael J.
Jennifer York Stock, ed. Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Vol. 283 (Farmington, Mich.: Gale, 2019), pp. 85-304.
Reprints seventeen critical studies of LGW published between 1904 and 2003, several excerpted from larger works. The introduction by Hartwell summarizes the plot of LGW, with little commentary on LGWP, and comments on the plots and sources of the…
Crane, Susan.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 39 (2017): 3-29.
Argues that PF offers an "innovative model of species uncertainty" that aligns with posthumanist rejection of human specialness. The poem evokes and challenges the dualism of Scipio's dream, offering alternatives in the animism of the tree catalogue…
Nolan, Maura.
Frank Grady, ed. The Cambridge Companion to "The Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 73-88.
Offers a "step by step" reading of MilT "as it unfolds its argument.: Focuses on the crafting of the fabliau that refers to common elements of the genre and to Chaucer’s specific context. Argues that the "artful carelessness of the Miller" is an…
Cawthorne, Natalie.
Dissertation Abstracts International 81C (2019): n.p.
Presents a novel modeled on CT that emulates Chaucer's frame-narrative collection of stories, "reinventing" his setting at a modern murder trial, and using a variety of narrative forms to represent the tales of the jury. The accompanying analysis…
Argues that the various parts of NPT, an "expanded fable," are unified by a thematic exploration of true and false knowledge, then identifies instances where the tale mirrors "some elements of theme, structure, and style" of other parts of CT.
Identifies three aspects of NPT that differ from those found in its analogues ("Roman du Renart" and "Reinhart Fuch"), arguing that Chaunticleer' s belief in dreams, the frugal poverty of the widow, and the limited role of the fox produce a "shifting…
Reviews seventeenth-century lexicographical interest in Scots dialect, and includes information about the extent to which Junius used Gavin Douglas's "Eneados" to understand Chaucer's vocabulary.
Argues that complex acrostic anagrams in PF reveal that it was written on the occasion of negotiations for a marriage between Lionel of Clarence and Violanta Visconti; identifies French analogues to this intricate practice, and helping to date…
Davis, Deborah Ann.
Ph.D. Dissertation. Texas Women's University, 1984. Freely Accessible at https://twu-ir.tdl.org/items/668fcba6-645b-4fcf-a8e3-1ef1c6f4ff36; accessed November 14, 2023.
Argues from internal and external evidence "that there is the strong possibility" that Chaucer's dream visions (BD, HF, PF, and LGWP) influenced five early works by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The Offshore Pirate" (1920), "The Ice Palace (1920), "The…
Aronstein, Susan, and Peter Parolin.
Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Tison Pugh, eds. Chaucer on Screen: Absence, Presence, and Adapting the "Canterbury Tales" (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2016), pp. 33-44.
Argues that Shakespeare's works have more often been adapted to the screen than Chaucer's works because the latter have widely been considered to be "guarded by experts." Comments on the Troilus frontispiece, Jonathan Myerson's animated adaptation of…
Using concepts derived from Roland Barthes, argues that PF is both a "text of pleasure with its reflection of courtly culture" and a "text of bliss with its unconcluded conclusion."
Pitard, Derrick.
Valerie B. Johnson and Kara L. McShane, eds. Negotiating Boundaries in Medieval Literature and Culture: Essays on Marginality, Difference, and Reading Practices in Honor of Thomas Hahn (Boston: De Gruyter; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 2022), pp. 323-45.
Argues that the "modes of religious expression" in PrT are "vernacular" insofar as they are simultaneously canny and naïve. Using romance discourse to express religious orthodoxy, the Prioress challenges patriarchal "Latinate institutions," evident…
Elliott, Charles.
Notes and Queries 209 (1964): 167-70.
Compares and contrasts the uses of northern dialectical words and forms in the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscript versions of RvT, assessing J. R. R. Tolkien's evaluations of them (1934), and extending the discussion beyond northern forms to…
Assesses the "aesthetic status" of RvT, gauging its "crude vulgarity" in relation to its "moral coherence" where social/sexual pretentions are punished commensurately. Argues that Malyne is "notably pathetic," that the parson is the "evil genius of…
Sutherland, Ronald, ed.
Oxford; Basil Blackwell, 1967;
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.
Facing-page edition of Rom (based on Thynne's edition) and its sources passage in the "Roman de la Rose," with the text of the latter drawn from various manuscripts that provide readings closest to Rom. Includes textual notes and an Introduction…
Compares ShT with Boccaccio's "Decameron" 8.1 and 8.2 in order to "see the two writers more minutely for what they are," arguing for Chaucer's "clear, almost measurable superiority" in matters of atmosphere, vitality, characterization, and moral…
One scribe included the "Tale of Beryn" in his copy of CT. The Prologue presents Chaucer's pilgrims after they arrive at Canterbury, and the tale is appropriate to its teller, a merchant. Argues that the "Beryn" author was "an intelligent and…
Fedewa, Kate L.
In The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu, 2017. Relocated 2025 at https://opencanterburytales.lsusites.org/
Approaches Mel as a mirror for princes, concerned with the power of lordship and the value and function of proverbs and didactic literature. Includes several classroom projects and questions for discussion.
Konagaya, Yataka.
Studies in English Literature 42 (1965): 13-18.
Distinguishes between Chaucer the poet and Chaucer the pilgrim, and considers the "singularities" of Mel as clues to the "author's intention," reading the Tale as a self-aware "travesty" of Chaucer's relation with his wife, Philippa.
The stanzas known as "The Tongue" in the Findern manuscript use source material from Lydgate's "Fall of Princes" and Chaucer's TC to create a coherent poem that is consistent with the manuscript's broader themes and is indebted to the literary legacy…
