Armour-Hileman, Victoria Lee.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1989): 950A.
Three paradigms of the Celtic universe made their way, through either oral or literary tradition, into early English literature, as is shown in "Sir Orfeo," "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," passages from four of the tales in CT, Spenser, and…
Ashley, Kathleen M.
Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, eds. Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1989), pp. 272-93.
From preaching tradition Chaucer borrowed the "topos" of renaming the sins "to make them seem more attractive to sinners," a "topos" that took two major forms: "a narrative "exemplum" about the Devil's unmarriageable daughters," and a "non-narrative…
Cooper, Helen.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. 2d rev. ed., 1996. 3d rev. ed, 2023.
The Oxford Guides offer summaries of what is known about Chaucer's work and include "fresh interpretations based on recent advances in both historical knowledge and theoretical understanding." Cooper includes commentary on all aspects of CT as a…
Emmerson, Richard Kenneth,and Ronald B. Herzman.
Werner Verbeke, Daniel Verhelst, and Andries Welkenhuysen, eds. The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Ser. 1, no. 15 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988), pp. 404-24.
After advocating eschatological explication of medieval poems not explicitly apocalyptic in nature and concluding that Thomas Wimbledon's "Sermon" (1388) exhibits personal and universal eschatological elements, Emmerson and Herzman examine such…
Hilberry, Jane Elizabeth.
Dissertation Abstracts International 50 (1989): 935A.
By giving a voice to the shrewish Wife of Bath and to Katherine of Padua, Chaucer and Shakespeare demonstrate their grasp (if not their personal views) of the proper role of gender in the ancient debate. Treats "Othello," "King Lear," "Measure for…
Lee, B. S.
UNISA English Studies 24:1 (1986): 1-6.
Augustine and Jerome influenced the medieval Church's use of hierarchy to evaluate a woman's spiritual standing. Chaucer, however, refuses to be bound by the limitations of theological stereotypes. He shows that women often neither choose nor get…
Simes, G. R.
Geraldine Barnes, John Gunn, Sonya Jensen, and Lee Jobling, eds. Words and Wordsmiths: A Volume for H. L. Rogers (Sydney: University of Sydney, 1989), pp. 91-112.
One of the most consistent strands of controversy has been Chaucer's reputation for the "bawdy" in CT. What has been objected to as "bawdy," "ribaldry," "wantonness," "scurrility," "incivility," and so on "has "shifted and changed over the…
Review article covering six recent books: B. Boyd's Variorum edition of PrT; R. Jordan's Chaucer's Poetics and the Modern Reader; L. Kendrick's Chaucerian Play; L. Koff's Chaucer and the Art of Storytelling; C. Lindahl's Earnest Games; and L.…
Three types of secret love can be found in TC and CT--KnT, MilT, RvT, MerT, FranT, ShT. The first type concentrates on secret feelings; the second, on illicit relations. The third, found particularly in TC, is distinct in that the story "follows…
Wetherbee, Winthrop.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Wetherbee's book briefly discusses Chaucer's language; the social and literary contexts of his work; the incomplete status of the text; and the reception of the tales, from Caxton, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Dryden to the editions of Skeat and…
Analysis of typical scholarly and critical comment on GP reveals that the common practice of assuming a context for the pilgrims' daily lives has some unsatisfactory consequences. Chaucer creates a fiction of travel to free the pilgrims from the…
Chaucer's use of an identifiable late-Gothic portrait technique can be seen by comparing one of the most familiar portraits of GP--the Prioress--with a roughly contemporary sculptural portrait of Philippa of Hainault. These late-Gothic portraits…
Barnes, Geraldine.
Geraldine Barnes, John Gunn, Sonya Jensen, and Lee Jobling, eds. Words and Wordsmiths: A Volume for H. L. Rogers (Sydney: University of Sydney, 1989), pp. 4-12.
If Chaucer intended to turn Boccaccio's "Teseida" into a chivalric romance, he did not succeed, "but if his purpose was to make the frequently banal conventions and optimistic outlook of that genre play an ironic counterpoint to the tale's bleak…
Lester, G. A.
English Language Notes 27:1 (1989): 25-29.
The "De re militari" of Flavius Vegetius Renatus--translated three times into Middle English-condemns poorly kept armor. This passage supports the argument of Terry Jones ("Chaucer's Knight" SAC 5 (1983), no.137) that the physical deterioration of…
Okuda, Hiroko.
Studies in English Literature (Tokyo) 66 (1989): 3-15.
Examines KnT with special attention to Arcite's definition of love, presented with deep sympathy by the narrator--a sympathy infused, nonetheless, with a strong sense of despair. (In Japanese.)
Wasserman, Julian N.
Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, eds. Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1989), pp. 194-222.
Treats the "ambiguous relationship between 'aventure' and 'tydynges'" mentioned in HF, or one of Chaucer's most frequent themes: Fortune (or Providence) versus necessity, divine prescience, and free will, as seen in KnT and TC. Discusses the…
Zhang, John Z.
English Language Notes 26:4 (1989): 1-5.
The inconsistencies of voice (Palamon, the Knight, or Chaucer?) in KnT 1303-27 indicate that the poet is manifesting his own artistry in the poem; writing is not merely an imitation of speaking.
MilT serves as a corrective to KnT (where chaos in effect breaks down order) by exceeding the typical symmetry of the fabliau (a genre in which order properly has no part). Departing from the "pryvete" set up in its many senses, MilT develops and…
Fuller, David.
Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 9 (1988): 17-28.
A wide variety of interpretations and levels of meaning make MilT both oblique and clear. Chaucer yokes contradictory elements and obscures an underlying morality "to catch off guard his sophisticated readers--the 'clerical and courtly elite'--who…
Knapp, Peggy A.
Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, eds. Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1989), pp. 294-303.
Studies MilT for its "intersecting strands of linguistic coding" and contrasts Robertsonian character typing with Bakhtin's "dialogic imagination," semantic open-endedness. The stock character type of the Miller is "quited" by his tale. Bakhtin's…
Questions the gloss of "gnof" (MilT 3188) in major editions of CT. In all of medieval literature, the word appears only here, and it cannot be elucidated from the context. The editor's gloss ("churl") is inconsistent with the behavior of John, whom…
