Wicher, Andrzej.
Iudaica Russica 1.4 (2020): 102-14.
Compares the antisemitism in the three works, describing the Jews of PrT as "an undistinguished mass with no face, and no individuality, a mass that can instinctively react, if given a chance, against their Christian neighbour"; they are less…
Wurtele, Douglas J.
Mediaevalia 11 (1989, for 1985): 151-68.
Those similarities to Lollard doctrine--protest against blasphemy, unwillingness to "curse for tithes," and distaste for storytelling--that have been used to argue that Chaucer's Parson was a Lollard or Wycliffite were not peculiar to the Lollards;…
Szittya, Penn R.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Hostile propositions about the friars ("antifraternalism") in polemical tracts, works of theology, and literary fictions belong to a common literary tradition that began with the polemics against the friars of William of Saint Amour, with arguments…
Fleming, John V.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 65 (1966): 688-700.
Challenges arguments that seek to identify the friar of SumT with a specific fraternal order and adduces the Rules of various fraternal orders and commentaries on these Rules to show that "general antifraternal literature" underlies many details of…
Lakshmi, Vijay.
Osmania Journal of English Studies 17 (1981): 19-25.
Woolf manages, in her essay "The Pastons and Chaucer," artfully and expertly to conjure up the medieval period while also insisting that Chaucer's gift as a storyteller depends on his creation of an art that improves upon life.
Weidhorn, Manfred.
Studies in Philology 64 (1967): 65-82.
Offers background and context for various kinds of "unsettling" dreams in literature, mentioning that Pertelote treats Chanticleer's "anxiety dream" in NPT 7.2882ff. "as a cryptic diagnosis [of humoral disorder] which required immediate prescription…
Analyzes John Fletcher's and William Shakespeare's collaboration on "The Two Noble Kinsmen," an interpretation of KnT, and offers how "The Two Noble Kinsmen" represents a "meditation . . . of the vernacular literary canon," as it allegorizes the…
Bertolet, Craig E.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 33 (2011): 183-218.
Reads CYP and ManPT in light of Agamben's theories of sovereignty and exclusion and de Certeau's notion of a "person in-between," considering as well several instances of slander and accusation in late-medieval London records. London, the Host, and…
Emmerson, Richard K., and Ronald B. Herzman.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.
Examining Joachim of Fiore, Bonaventure's Legenda Maior, Roman de la rose, Dante's Commedia, and CT, Emmerson and Herzman argue that, in eschatological perspective, CT exemplifies typical medieval apocalyptic thought. The general structure,…
Wimsatt, James I.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 66 (1967): 26-44.
Argues that in BD Chaucer "heavily inlays the Black Knight's long description of his lady with imagery of the Blessed Virgin" and "that the effect produced by such imagery is an apotheosis not inconsonant with the traditional apotheosis of the…
Beach, Charles Franklyn.
Anthony Giffone and Marlene San Miguel Groner, eds. Proceedings, Northeast Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature, 2003, Farmingdale State University of New York (Farmingdale, N.Y.: Farmingdale State University, 2004), pp. 5-10.
Comments on various assessments of the Prioress as a figure of false appearances and suggests that Chaucer undercuts PrT through the reference to Hugh of Lincoln, which ironically evokes the twelfth-century Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, who defended Jews.
Somerville, Elizabeth S.
Dissertation Abstracts International 28.08 (1968): 3158-59A.
Illustrates how literary works "can be read existentially from the point of view of the reader's ontological concern with them," discussing James Joyce's "Clay," William Blake's "The Little Black Boy," and WBPT. Reads WBT as a "reflection of the…
Hanna, Ralph, [III].
Studies in Bibliography: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia 53: 163-72, 2000.
Examines variants in WBP 3.115-17 (especially "wight" versus "wright") to identify flaws in applying cladistic theory to manuscript stemmatics. Cladistic analysis underlies the Canterbury Tales Project.
Dwyer, Richard A.
Chaucer Review 8 (1974): 221-40.
Savors the indeterminacies of manuscript transmission, treating them as a form of "anonymous or indeterminate revision" in contrast with strict, modern notions of authorial revision. Exemplifies the variety found in manuscripts of "Piers Plowman," CT…
Ussery, Huling E.
Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters 50 (1965): 545-56.
Maintains that the PhyT was "specifically adapted especially to the Physician as teller," arguing that the opening of the Tale and its rhetoric reflect the arts training common to late-medieval physicians, that various details reflect the teller's…
Wood, Chauncey.
Modern Language Quarterly 25 (1964): 259-71.
Argues that the astrological data in GP and MLH establish the date of the beginning of the Canterbury pilgrimage as April 17, the same day as the departure of Noah's ark, evoking notions of sinfulness and salvific baptism, reinforced by imagery of…
Brewer, Derek.
Derek Brewer, Tradition and Innovation in Chaucer (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 1-21.
Characterizes several differences between the archaic (prescientific) and modern mindsets: literal vs. relative, oral vs. literate, mythic vs. scientific. Includes a brief discussion of Chaucer's mixture of the two.
Saito, Mother Masako, R.S.C.J.
Dissertation Abstracts International 25.03 (1964): A1897.
Explores the archetypal imagery of bondage and liberation from bondage in five "clusters" in CT: chivalric prison, animal confinement, "juridical bondage with its emphasis on 'wit,' entrapment, and hell and purgatory.
Roger, Euan, and Andrew Prescott
Chaucer Review 57 (2022): 498-526.
Highlights the amount of potential material in The National Archives as compared to more traditional repositories for high-value manuscripts. Considers approaches to find and use this material with new examples for Chaucer, Gower, and Skelton.
The Pardoner's interruption of the WBP causes shifts in her tone and subject, but also alerts us to parallels between the two characters: wide travels, sermon-like autobiographical prologues, and tales which feature central characters who are…
Brewer, Derek.
Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy, ed. Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner, C. S. C. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 221-43.
Recognition of the arming of the warrior "topos" guides us to many formal arming passages: in the Babylonian epic, the "Iliad," The Bible, the "Aeneid," Irish literature, "Beowulf," the "Chanson de Roland," "Erec et Enide," the Arthurian series,…
