David E. Lampe's thesis that the word "Vache" in "Truth," 22, is an iconographic pun is falsely reasoned on several accounts, the most glaring of which is that "vacca" has several evil connotations in addition to the favorable "worldly renunciation"…
Comments on brief selections from a translation of PardT as evidence that Chaucer accepts the validity of the True Cross even though he rejects the Pardoner's "fraudulent" practice. Discusses how John Calvin "took the matter several steps further"…
Nickell, Joe.
The Science of Miracles: Investigating the Incredible (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2013), pp. 91-99.
Comments briefly on PardT as "a satirical attack on relic mongering," and notes the Host's seemingly earnest reference to St. Helen's finding of the cross (6.951) and the possible implication that Chaucer "accepts the relic . . . as authentic."
The "complex" trouthe/routhe rhyme tracks the stages in the lovers' relationship: from its beginnings, when Troilus's trouthe is pledged for Criseyde's routhe; to its consummation, when mutual compassion assures reciprocal honesty and fidelity; to…
Kimmelman, Burt.
Ian Frederick Moulton, ed. Reading and Literacy in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 25-44.
Surveys representations of reading in literature from Abélard and Héloise to Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich, including commentary on TC. The "autonomy of the reader" developed in the fourteenth century.
Thompson, Diane P.
Jefferson, N. C. : McFarland, 2004.
Fourteen chapters on the cultural legacy of the Trojan War, from archeology through literary versions to recent popular culture. Includes chapters on Latin and Roman classics (the works of Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Virgil), the medieval…
Holtz, Nancy Ann.
Luanne Franke, ed. Literature and the Occult: Essays in Comparative Literature (Arlington: University of Texas at Arlington, 1977), pp. 159-73.
Despite his comic depictions of star-obsessed humanity, Chaucer respected astrology; but he did not find astrological determinism absolute. In KnT Palamon gains Emily by enduring the tests of Saturn, who is more neutral.
McAlpine, Monica E.
Robert R. Edwards, ed. Art and Context in Late Medieval English Narrative: Essays in Honor of Robert Worth Frank, Jr. (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994), pp. 79-92.
Critical studies of NPT fall primarily into two groups: allegorical, or interpretive readings, versus mock-epic, or "noninterpretive" readings, based on the premise that the poem has "no meaning except its escape from meaning."
Troilus's "double sorrow" is actually a triple sorrow caused by Criseyde's betrayal; the inability of Pandarus, his intercessor, to bring Criseyde back; and the failure of the goddess Venus to reunite him with Criseyde.
Smith, J. J.
J.J. Smith, ed. The English of Chaucer and His Contemporaries: Essays by M.L. Samuels and J.J. Smith (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988), pp. 51-69.
Analyzes the dialectical "Mischsprachen" (linguistic mixture) in Harley 7334 and Corpus Christi, Oxford, 198, and in products of the Gower D-Scribe. Since all three show an "idiosyncratic mixture of West Worcestershire forms and the learnt form,…
Thaisen, Jacob.
Margaret Connolly and Linne R. Mooney, eds. Design and Distribution of Late Medieval Manuscripts in England (York: York Medieval Press, 2008), pp. 41-60.
Linguistic analysis of the two copies of CT made by the copyist known as "Scribe D" (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 198, and British Library MS Harley 7334). Thaisen focuses on orthography, especially the distribution of common lemmata, and…
Rothwell, W[illiam].
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 16 (1994): 45-67.
Examines the relations among Latin, French, and English in late-medieval England, using evidence from documents of the twelfth-fourteenth centuries, the "Chaucer Life-Records," and Chaucer's works. Argues that the Latin of the time was often…
Movshovitz, Howard Paul.
Dissertation Abstracts International 38 (1977): 2768A.
The contradictions surrounding the Pardoner are an important thematic element in PardT. The trickster figure found in mythology represents a figure that is supposed to embody contradictions. Viewing the Pardoner as such a trickster figure allows…
Midonick, Henrietta O., ed.
New York: Philosophical Library, 1965.
Anthologizes 54 selections and excerpts from the history of mathematics and related sciences from around the world, ranging widely in date from classics to the nineteenth century. Includes a selection (pp. 220-42) of a modernization of Astr, from R.…
Yoshimura, Koji.
Eigo Seinen (Tokyo) 136 (1990): 118-22.
Examines Chaucer's various uses of color expressions: metaphorical, contrastive, mixed, etc. Yoshimura argues that there is a gradual transmutation from simplicity to complexity in Chaucer's use of such expressions.
Eleven essays by various authors and an introduction by the editors focus on the codicology and metrical forms of Middle English romances; the volume includes an index. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Transmission of Medieval…
Kennedy, Thomas C.
Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s., 22 (1995): 95-110.
Chaucer's translative and appropriative practice in SNP is characterized by "a limited personal perspective transcended by an authoritative source," plus a movement from abstraction (particularly in Dante) to concreteness.
Mahdipour, Alireza.
Literature Compass 15.6 (2018)
Explores cultural, prosodic, and personal aspects of translating selections from CT into Farsi verse, with sustained attention to GP, the translatability of Chaucer, and parallels between his work and Persian literature and culture.
Owen, Charles A..Jr.
Rossell Hope Robbins, ed. Chaucer at Albany (New York: Franklin, 1975) pp. 125-46.
CT is a storytelling contest involving a drama of contrasting visions. It was intended to end not with ParsT but with a feast of celebration and judgment.
Rowland, Amy.
Chapel Hill, N. C.: Algonquin, 2014.
A novel about a modern-day transcriptionist who works for a New York newspaper. Obsessed by a recent suicide, her distrust of truth and language grows. Includes recurrent references to Chaucer and his works, most extensively in Chapter 6, "Chaucer's…
McClellan, William.
Studies in Bibliography 47 (1994): 89-103.
Three important omissions (including omission of ClP) strip the HM140 text of ClT of its "Canterbury" context. Whether these were deliberate excisions or a consequence of problems in production cannot be demonstrated conclusively.
Zedolik, John J., Jr.
Dissertation Abstracts International A71.04 (2010): n.p.
Considers how "quyting" ("paying back or balancing") among the pilgrims enforces comic harmoniousness and balance in CT, despite the work's fragmentary structure. In addition, CT invites the reader to "'quyt' the author."
