Thiébaux, Marcelle.
Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974.
Traces the varieties of the stag-hunt motif in the art and literature of the Middle Ages, including classical roots, considering hunting manuals, imagery and fictive presentations, and allegorical uses. Includes recurrent references to Chaucer's…
Contends that the "Joce"/"croce" rhyme in WBP 3.483-84 is not just a convenient rhyme but a set of sexual puns, dependent upon the association of St. Joce with a staff.
Haskell, Ann S.
Chaucer Review 7.3 (1973): 221-26.
Explicates features of the reference to St. Giles in CYT (8.1185), drawing on the various traditions of Giles as patron saint of "'those struck by some sudden misery, and driven into solitude.'"
Birney, Earle.
Review of English Literature 1.3 (1960): 9-18.
Explores the GP description of the Yeoman, affiliating him with the Squire rather than with the Knight, and concentrating on details of his dress and equipage that contribute to a "sense of gay holiday panoply" associated with the Squire.
Baker, Donald C., ed.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
A variorum edition of Chaucer's SqT based on the Hengwrt and built on the model that has evolved over many years: critical and textual introductions, newly established text for SqT, collations providing evidence both of the manuscripts and of the…
Osborn, Marijane.
Patrick J. Gallacher and Helen Damico, eds. Hermeneutics and Medieval Culture (Albany : State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 121-31.
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.
McCall, John P.
Chaucer Review 1.2 (1966): 103-09.
Describes patterns of "elaborate inconsequence, incongruity and downright bathos" in SqT, attributing them to the Squire's naïve efforts to be impressive and, by extension, Chaucer's skillful weaving of character and theme.
Pearsall, D. A.
University of Toronto Quarterly 34 (1964): 82-92.
Characterizes the Squire as a "young man among his elders" on the pilgrimage, describing his "nervous, apologetic tone" that derives from his uses and abuses of "rhetorical decorum, "tinged with "self-regard" and snobbish "anti-intellectualism." The…
Taylor, Craig.
Stephen H. Rigby, ed., with the assistance of Alastair J. Minnis. Historians on Chaucer: The "General Prologue" to the "Canterbury Tales" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 63-76.
Details the history of the chivalric relationship between the Squire and the Knight, concluding that the Squire "offers a complete portrait of aristocratic masculinity."
Norem, Lois Elizabeth.
Dissertation Abstracts International 52 (1991): 1753A.
With the inevitable variations produced by different scribes, CT has been edited by copyists who interpret the work variously (e.g., as ordered or unordered). A critical edition of the spurious links is here presented.
Woo, Constance and William Matthews.
Comitatus1 (1970): 85-109.
Comprised of two related essays. The first, by Woo, assesses the pilgrimage frame of CT, its ecclesiastical pilgrims, ParsPT, and Ret, emphasizing the contrasts between the Pardoner and the Parson as religious figures. The second, by Matthews,…
Studies commentaries on the biblical Song of Songs written before the sixteenth century, and explores the motif of spiritual marriage in various literary works, including works by Chaucer.
Keiser, George R.
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 121-36.
In MLT, Chaucer exploited "contemporary taste for stories of beleaguered and pathetic heroines," simultaneously appropriating conventions from his sources and manipulating them to evoke stronger than usual emotional and intellectual responses.
Ruszkiewicz, Dominika.
Romanian Journal of English Studies 23 (2008): 85-96.
Interprets Troilus's failure to take action to keep Criseyde in Troy as a lack of "mesure," a courtly quality praised by troubadour poets. His lack, however, evinces the depth of his love and he, at times, "takes on the role a troubadour" by seeking…
Emerson, Francis Willard.
Notes and Queries 203 (1958): 284-86.
Shows that in his "Cambus Khan" Leigh Hunt is indebted to Edmund Spenser (and others who followed him) in modernizing Part I of SqT "almost as much as he is to Chaucer."
Watkins, John.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
Includes discussion of how Chaucer's influence on Spenser's works inflects the Virgilian "epic paradigm" of the Renaissance poet, observing how in his treatments of Dido in HF and LGW Chaucer "figures his poetic identity . . . in terms of…
Covella, Sister Francis Dolores.
Chaucer Review 4.4 (1970): 267-83.
Gauges the "literary probability" that the Envoy to ClT (and the preceding stanza), 4.1170-1212, was intended by Chaucer to be voiced by the Clerk, suggesting that either the Host or the Wife of Bath may be considered the speaker, adducing manuscript…
Strohm, Paul.
Andrew James Johnston, Russell West-Pavlov, and Elisabeth Kempf, eds. Love, History and Emotion in Chaucer and Shakespeare: "Troilus and Criseyde" and "Troilus and Cressida" (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), pp. 46-60.
Identifies parallel concerns with privacy and erotic tension in TC and Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," both of which pose the closed space of the bedchamber against the pressures of crowdedness in Troy/London, gossip, and public observation.…
Hughes, Geoffrey.
English Studies in Africa 25 (1982): 61-77.
The literature of courtly love does not accurately reflect medieval behavior in matters of love and sexual relations. Criseyde's "Who yaf me drinke?" (TC 2.651) derives from the motif of the love potion, which symbolizes "the overwhelming, obsessive…
Carson, M. Angela.
Annuale Mediaevale 8 (1967): 46-58.
Argues that BD draws on Welsh mythology for a number of its details including the king named Octavian, the hunt motif, and the "white castle on a rich hill." King Octavian is a "composite figure" with several onomastic resonances.
Jae-cheol, Kim.
Medieval and early Modern English Studies 23.2 (2015): 25-47.
Investigates the logic of "sovereignty" in PhyT, and how sovereignty is transferred from God, to nature, then to Virginia, and back to the people who "subvert the
entire political order" toward the end of the tale. Sovereignty is directly associated…
Tokunaga, Satoko.
The Library (ser. 7) 3: 223-35, 2001.
Argues that de Worde's text of MkT results from collation of Caxton's second edition with a manuscript probably of the Hengwrt group. There is no sign of editing beyond the evident desire to produce a complete text of MkT.
Alexander, Gavin.
Notes and Queries 260 (2015): 52-53.
In this "first printed work of English vernacular literary criticism" (dated 1575), Gascoigne refers to ParsT (10.43) in arguing "For it is not inough to roll in pleasant woordes, nor yet to thunder in Rym, Ram, Ruff, by letter (quoth my master…
