Mandel, Jerome.
Papers on Language and Literature 11 (1975): 407-11.
The word "boy" occurs infrequently in contexts evocative of demonic connotations when ordinary denotations of the word are not appropriate. Boys whose actions in CT seem to be supernaturally evil illustrate the possibility that one connotation of…
Cooper, Christine F.
Yearbook of English Studies 36 (2006): 27-38.
In MLT, Chaucer uses the case of Custance's Latin being understood by Northumbrians - an instance of xenoglossia, more characteristic of the saint's life genre - to focus on translation in various genres and to make Custance, "subtly active," an "apt…
Lucas, Angela M.
Anne Marie D'Arcy and Alan J. Fletcher, eds. Studies in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts in Honour of John Scattergood (Dublin: Four Courts, 2005), pp. 181-200.
Surveys approaches to FranT and discusses it as "an exemplum on a young man's learning of gentillesse, by way of serving an apprenticeship in love." Set against actions in other Breton lays, Aurelius's behavior reflects the gentillesse that the…
Cowgill, Bruce Kent.
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 15 (1985): 157-81.
With comic irony Chaucer contrasts Harry Bailly with the Monk and with Dante's Virgil. The Host is a failed spiritual guide and a burlesque Christ-mass priest.
PF is an epithalamium. Epithalamia are not always occasioned by human marriages; they do affirm the heavenly benediction and public recognition of marriage and celebrate the cycle of procreation; they contain "fescennine" verses, which poke fun at…
Numerous fourteenth-century documents that address the practice of extortion by institutional "middlemen" point to systemic problems rather than to individual turpitude. FrT reflects this contemporary explanation, albeit without exonerating the…
McCormack, Frances.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 107-20.
Discusses the relationship between the Prioress's "empty" rhetoric, audience reception, and emphatically feminine representation. The Prioress, in this reading, is a kind of false prophet, more dangerous than the Pardoner who plays a similar role.
Studies the "imaginative dimension" of medieval anti-fraternalism in many manifestations, including SumT; in it, traditional anti-fraternalism is affiliated with Pentecost because the Franciscan General Chapter was held on this feast day.
The activities of Pandarus in TC and Celestina in Gernando de Rojas's "Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea" show the similarities in the panderer's roles and the fundamental disparities between Chaucer's and Rojas's visions. Celestina's world is…
Nineteen of the tales are concerned with poetry, style, genre. In KnT the Knight uses four rhetorical conventions--"occupatio," "brevitas" formula, "digressio," and "descriptio"--but the Knight is a flawed rhetorician-storyteller.
Gorlach, Manfred.
Notes and Queries 218 (1973): 263-65.
Confronts the scribal and editorial difficulties of the variants "armee"/"arryue" in GP 1.60, preferring the latter because of parallel usage in a fifteenth-century manuscript of the "Gilte Legende."
Gillam, D.
A. P. Treweek, ed. Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association 1969. Proceedings and Papers of the Twelfth Congress Held at the University of Western Australia, 5-11 February 1969 ([Sydney]: AULLA, 1970), pp, 435-55.
Explores the "fruyt" and "chaf" of WBT, arguing that it is "eminently suited" to the character established in GP and WBP, that the teller manipulates her narrative material intentionally, and that Chaucer signals her tendentiousness. The female…
Buckmaster, Elizabeth Marie.
Dissertation Abstracts International 42 (1981): 2136A.
HF classifies memory as an aspect of Prudence, as reflected in its three-part structure and reinforced by its thematic meditation on fame. GP portraits develop with details of "artificial" memory, as do the pilgrimage itself and the game. KnT…
Briggs, Julia Ruth.
Martha W. Driver and Sid Ray, eds. Shakespeare and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Performance and Adaptation of the Plays with Medieval Sources or Settings (Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 2009), pp. 161-77.
Briggs describes Shakespeare's "emendation and expansion" of his medieval sources in "Troilus and Cressida" and "The Two Noble Kinsmen," assessing the importance of KnT and TC in Shakespearian work. Also explores how the various medieval influences…
Applies Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of "work-utterance" to Chaucer's influence on Shakespeare, focusing on how Chaucerian (and other medieval) narratives are involved in Shakespeare's "generic innovations" in "Troilus and Cressida," "Pericles," and "Two…
Boffey, Julia,and A. S. G. Edwards.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20 (1998): 201-18.
Assesses John Shirley's role in the construction of the canon of Chaucer's shorter poems, using as test cases three poems attributed to Chaucer by Shirley but not by modern tradition: "The Chronicle [of Nine Women] Made by Chaucer" (Bodleian Library…
"The Isle of Ladies" --first published as "Chaucer's Dreame" with the "Fairest of the Fair" as "Additions" in Speght's 1598 edition--has been confused by both scribes and early editors with BD and Lydgate's "Temple of Glass." This confused…
Eagleton, Catherine.
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 38 (2007): 303-26.
Evidence from diagrams in the manuscripts of Astr suggests that the diagrams may have influenced construction of later extant medieval astrolabes, perhaps encouraged by Chaucer's "posthumous fame." Includes black-and-white and color illustrations.
Mosser, Daniel W.
Margaret Connolly and Linne R. Mooney, eds. Design and Distribution of Late Medieval Manuscripts in England (York: York Medieval Press, 2008), pp. 11-40.
Considers whether the Hengwrt manuscript (Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 392D) of CT was produced during Chaucer's lifetime. Mosser finds conflicting evidence of authorial involvement among corrections to the text, particularly…
Yeager reads Purse as a political poem rather than a begging poem, addressed initially to Richard. When Chaucer added the envoy, he was under duress from the court of Henry, not financial distress. The poem undermines Lancastrian legitimacy and if…
Considers Chaucer's realism, seeking to define it "inductively" through close reading of GP, the links between the tales, and the "confessional monologues" of CT. Focuses on concrete descriptions, dialogue, and "haphazard organization and…
