Argues that SqT is an exception among medieval romances because it investigates things that are not what they seem. The first section of the tale scrutinizes the mechanics of marvels and wonder; the second explores the mechanics of stories,…
MLT can be seen as an exposition and justification of the medieval Christian providential view of history. The concern with exemplifying this theory governs the teller's choice of source and emphasis. It is ironic that the Tale's philosophy can be…
Cooney, Helen.
Eilean Ni Cuilleanain and J.D. Pheifer, eds. Noble and Joyous Histories: English Romances, 1375-1650 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993), pp. 27-58.
Briefly examines the role of "wonders," or miracles, in romance and philosophy as background to the lack of justice in Arcite's death. Chaucer is heavily indebted to Boethian thought in TC, but the unsatisfying, even skeptical deployment of such…
An anthology of appreciative poetry, narratives, and essays (some in excerpts) that pertain to organs, organ music, and organists, including a selection from SNT in Middle English (pp. 5-6; lines 8.120-40) and a brief commentary.
Lochrie, Karma, and Usha Vishnuvajjala, eds
Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2022.
Collects twelve essays that celebrate friendship among women in medieval literature, with an Introduction by the editors, an Afterword by Penelope Anderson, and a cumulative Index. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Women’s…
Barefield, Laura (D.)
Medieval Perspectives 15.1: 27-34, 2000.
In a deliberate move to fit Constance of MLT to the genre of "hagiographic romance," Chaucer minimizes or eliminates the network of genealogical relations that gives the heroine significance and agency in Trevet's "Les cronicles," Chaucer's source.
Examines what "medieval romances convey about the possibilities for female social and cultural influence" during the Middle Ages. Chapter 1 analyzes how Chaucer's depictions of Cassandra and Criseyde were influenced by "representations of women's…
Meale, Carol M.
A. J. Minnis, Charlotte C. Morse, and Thorlac Turville-Petre, eds. Essays on Ricardian Literature: In Honour of J. A. Burrow (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), pp. 39-60.
Argues that Chaucer was familiar with the realities of female monastic existence but chose to create his GP sketch of the Prioress from literary satire. The spirituality of PrT, however, is particularly apt for females, and many discussions of the…
Barefield, Laura D.
Laura D. Barefield. Gender and History in Medieval English Romance and Chronicle (New York: Peter Lang, 2003), pp. 37-72.
Barefield contrasts the characterizations of Constance in "Les Cronicles" and MLT, focusing on how female patronage (by Mary of Woodstock) may have encouraged the character's active role in Trevet's version.
Chaucer's accounts of women who write and read letters in TC, MerT, and MLT reveal female privacy and autonomy to be sites of profound anxiety concerning the control of domestic space, women's actions, and women's bodies.
Compares LGW and Christine de Pizan's "Book of the City of Ladies" to Boccaccio's "Famous Women," arguing that Pizan's work is on equal footing with the other two texts.
McConnell, Matthew Clinton.
Ph.D. dissertation. Cornell University, 2017. Available at https://core.ac.uk/reader/83602191. Accessed February 6, 2021.
Shows that the "sustained concern about women's agency" in National Library of Scotland, MS Advocates 19.2.1 (Auchinleck) "mirrors" Chaucer's similar concern, and that "the complexity with which Chaucer treats that agency can be found in the…
McConnell, Matthew Clinton.
Dissertation Abstracts International A78.06 (2017): n. p.
Sets MS Advocates 19.2.1 (Auchinleck) and the works of Chaucer in conversation, suggesting that both works demonstrate concern about the agency of women, since they are tied to the culture of women readers of the romance.
Yoo, Inchol.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 24.2 (2016): 27-51.
Analyzes SNT, MLT, and ClT to find forms of women's authority and determine how women's authority is constructed. Argues that women in these tales possess "charismatic, positional, and spiritual" authority as a result of their confrontations with…
MilT constructs cuckoldry as a transaction between men that governs our reading of both the tale and the interactions between Miller and Reeve. The homosocial exchange of female sexuality is a secret concealed in cuckoldry but revealed in the…
A feminist reading of MerT as a diptych in which sympathy for May as the victim of marital rape is replaced by response to her as a fabliau shrew. May's reading and disposal of Damyan's letter are a "fissure" that marks her transformation and…
Doyle, Kara Ann.
Dissertation Abstracts International 61: 2293A, 2000.
Medieval male authors, anticipating female resistance to their treatments of Criseyde, often represented her as an example of natural feminine fickleness, leading women to accept this negative view. Doyle examines masculine treatments of Criseyde,…
Green, D. H.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Studies the literary climate of women readers, real and fictional, who inform Chaucer's world, with commentary on the depiction of women reading in TC.
Morrison, Susan Signe.
London and New York : Routledge, 2000.
Studies "medieval perceptions of pilgrimage, gender, and space," discussing literary and historical female pilgrims, their motives, and the effects pilgrimages had on their families and social dynamics. Discusses the shrines at Walsingham and…
Trigg, Stephanie.
In Holly A. Crocker and D. Vance Smith, eds. Medieval Literature: Criticism and Debates (New York; Routledge, 2014), pp. 480-90.
Describes several historical and literary representations of the clothing and ornaments of late-medieval processional "women in groups," commenting on Chaucer's depictions in his works, and focusing on depictions in "The Floure and the Leafe" and in…
Wilson, Katharina M., and Nadia Margolis, eds.
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004.
Alphabetical listing of entries related to women in the Middle Ages, with a guide to topics and an index. Volume I (A-J) includes a biographical entry on Alice Chaucer (pp. 159-64) by Karen K. Jambeck, a descriptive entry on Women in the Work of…
Lucas, Angela M.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983.
This book surveys the status, activities, and contributions of medieval women in such medieval documents as wills and charters; in treatises on theological, philosophical, and medical topics; in devotional literature such as sermons and homilies; and…
Olivares Merino, Eugenio M.
Ana Mara Hornero and Mara Pilar Navarro, eds. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of S.E.L.I.M. (Zaragoza: Institucion Fernando el Catolico (CSIC), 2000), pp. 159-68.
Assesses the descriptions of the Knight and Squire in GP for how they reflect differing chivalric views of femininity and, more broadly, wisdom versus pleasure.
