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During the Middle Ages, widowhood usually brought legal, social, and economic benefits. Although the Wife of Bath makes calculated use of these advantages, May in MerT foolishly jeopardizes her inheritance. Fertility lore indicates that she is…

Interprets the pear and enclosed garden of MerT by the Christian iconography of a medieval painting of Saint Barbara in an enclosed garden. Lloyd finds both January and May choosing the garden of pleasure over the love of Christ or of Mary.

The lack of a defined perspective from which to judge exposes a profound ambivalence in the Merchant, an ambivalence that manifests itself in a series of confusing and disconcerting shifts in narrative viewpoint, suggesting a narrator who is quite…

Chaucer is assumed to have had a high level of astronomical knowledge, unusual for medieval times. Olson and Jasinski used an Apple IIe microcomputer to investigate certain celestial constellations and to prove that Chaucer was correct in his…

In SqT, Chaucer obliquely introduces the astrolabe, an instrument used for celestial observation in navigation and timekeeping. According to Osborn, the diagram and operation of the astrolabe clarify our understanding of both time and place in CT.

Seymour takes various "absurdities" in SqT to demonstrate "unambiguously" that, like Th, the tale is an intentional parody of courtly romances.

By skewing their narrative deployment, Chaucer simultaneously undermines the viability of heroic and courtly romance themes in FranT and reevaluates their relationship to lived human experience. He does so through narrative pacing, repression and…

Unlike Horn and Havelock, who mature into heroism in fulfilling their vows, Chaucer's characters in FranT make promises that govern personal relationships; their "gentilesse" transcends class and gender.

FranT is comedic in structure from first to last since all the events are equally lucky for all the characters by the end of the tale. Noble gestures are made, even by the magician,but neither harm nor disadvantage results for any of those who make…

Speed gives a careful reading of FranT based on the Franklin's statement of contradictory intentions in his prologue: to tell a Breton lay and to render his tale plain and simple because he has never studied rhetoric. Presenting a romantic fairy…

Congeries of word and image in FranT relate to truth, figuration, and creativity, foregrounding the polysemy of artistic language.

The source of PhyT 30-120 and 238-50 is the thirteenth-century "Communiloquium" of John of Wales, not (as argued by Martha S. Waller in 1976) a fourteenth-century commentary by Castrojeriz.

Despite Chaucer's satirical manner, his delineation of the GP Physician demonstrates his respect for physicians and his understanding of medicine.

A study of language in PhyT reveals intricate patterns of cohesion among elements sometimes regarded as disparate. The text invites the reader to consider several ethical and literary issues.

Comparing the old man in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" and the old man in PardT, Boitani explores the medieval "other" or "discarded image of the universe," which depends on a "hermeneutic openness" that makes the modern reader perceive the…

PardT is not organized according to modern sermon form; rather, it follows a homiletic genre exemplified by the sermons in John Mirk's "Festial," in "Jacob's Well," and in "Speculum sacerdotale," among others. Often "themeless," with an "associative…

Compares Chaucer's PardT with contemporary sermons by Honorius de Augustoduno and Giles of Rome using the theme of "radix malorum est cupiditas." Despite similarities among the three, only Chaucer's exemplum contains highly sophisticated linguistic…

Summarizes some medieval semantic theories that are helpful as an approach to the literature and suggests that the Pardoner by his transgressions calls attention both to the semiotics and to the ethics of truth-making processes in fourteenth-century…

Evidence from a Latin handbook for preachers ("Fasciculus morum"), mendicant literature, and canon law suggests that the "association of pardoners with fake relics was not as uncommon...as is currently believed."

The social background of ShT offers a rationale for the actions of the characters, especially of the wife. Her struggle to achieve parity in her mercantile marriage transforms her into a reflection of her husband. The monk, who is a "competing…

Despite the crossed purposes of the Prioress's secular and religious impulses, each impulse paradoxically reaches fruition in PrT. In creating the young boy as an innocent so like herself and then describing his martyrdom with the particular…

The differences between modernity and the Middle Ages can enable, rather than disable, interpretation. Applying modern critical theory to PrT can undo the absoluteness on which much historical thinking is based and can enlighten the dilemma of…

A non-Augustinian, antifeminist English tradition of the devil's mousetrap interprets it as a symbol for temptation and entrapment of the soul. The Prioress's distress in GP 143-45 therefore need not signify her sinfulness, as argued by Stephen…

Stocker's is the first full publication on and attempted reconstruction of the shrine of the child invoked at the end of PrT. The shrine is associated with Edward I's royal propaganda.

Th and Mel should be read in light of Chaucer's struggle to define his authorial role in opposition to courtly "makers"--thus, the appropriation of minstrel performance in Th and of a narrator and hero described in terms associated with children. Th…