The anti-Robertsonian introduction (pp. 1-7) argues that Chaucer's art is realistic rather than a "system of tropes." Given over to the study of "codes, conventions,...and 'language,'" criticism fails Chaucer, and modern critical approaches…
Harwood, Britton J.
Review of English Studies 39 (1988): 413-17.
The haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer, and tapestry maker of the GP must each have belonged to his own "communitas," or mystery, and the five could not (by law and custom) be members of a sixth company. Harwood shows that the "fraternitee" was…
Henderson, Jeff.
Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association 14 (1988): 13-24.
Argues that Chaucer perhaps intended to allow the GP pilgrims to serve as the "'dramatis personae' of the Tales themselves" and to move among the complicated levels of reality in CT.
The red hose of the Wife of Bath may be her method of preventing venereal disease. According to the "doctrine of signatures," a fancied resemblance of a color to a disease could aid in remedy of prevention. Red was thought to be obnoxious to evil…
Richardson-Hay, Christine.
Dissertation Abstracts International 49 (1988): 43C.
Discusses the artistry of Chaucer's GP portraits: their relationship to contemporary literary expectations and the "conventional medieval portrait," their order, their importance in creating a "sense or 'reality,'" and their "interaction" with…
Anderson, David.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.
Explores Boccaccio's use of Statius's "Thebaid"--his "systematic transformation" of the epic in the historical context of Boccaccio's day--and Chaucer's reshaping of the epic in KnT. Chapter 4, "Imitation of the 'Thebaid' in the "Knight's Tale,"…
The anti-Robertsonian introduction (pp. 1-10) sees Chaucer's KnT as a "triumph of Chaucer's comic rhetoric, monistic and life-enhancing." A collection of eight previously published articles on KnT by various hands.
Mroczkowski, Przemyslaw.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Genres, Themes, and Images in English Literature from the Fourteenth to the Fifteenth Century (Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1988), pp. 40-58.
Elucidates the puzzling portrait of the GP Knight by "historical information on chivalry" and especially on knights who went to Prussia as "Crusaders"; modifies opposing views of the Knight (as chivalric ideal or murderous hypocrite).
Nicholson, R. H.
English Language Notes 25:3 (1988): 16-22.
The reference to the slaughter of Antonius in KnT 2032 is not to Mark Antony, as is commonly believed, but to Antonius Bassianus. Usually known as Caracalla, Emperor Antonius was betrayed and murdered--a reference far more suitable to Chaucer's…
Nicholson, R. H.
Chaucer Review 22 (1988): 192-213.
The public ceremonies--the triumph, trial by battle, and the state funeral--underlining the Knight's conversion of romance into figurative narrative suggest that the public personality of Theseus, the ruler, is the dominant personality in KnT.
Rowe, Elizabeth Ashman.
Florilegium 8 (1986): 169-86.
The form of KnT not only is characterized by "layers of order and disorder" but also is "circular, interlocking, and repeating." Structurally, the tale can be divided into five parts: a prologue (lines 1-1032), the conflict between Palamon and…
Sanderlin, George.
USF Language Quarterly 26:3-4 (1988): 11-12.
Addresses two questions: Is KnT a romance? and Whose story is it, Palamon's or Arcite's? More lines are devoted to these issues than to philosophic matter and Theseus. Arcite shows more nobility than any other character in KnT, and the story…
Andrew, Malcolm.
Archiv fur das studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 224 (1987): 355-57.
The comparison of Alison to a swallow in MilT 3257-58 may refer to the story of Procne. The tale (from Ovid) is mentioned both in Gower's "Confessio Amantis" and in Chaucer's TC; it suggests the very sort of material woe found in MiltT.
Cowen, J. A.
Edward Donald Kennedy, Ronald Waldron, and Joseph S. Wittig, eds. Medieval Studies Presented to George Kane (Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Wolfeboro, N.H.: D. S. Brewer, 1988), pp. 147-52.
Examines the lexicographical records of "child" in Middle English and suggests that like Thopas, Absolon may be a Narcissistic figure, influenced by the "Roman de la Rose."
Edden, Valerie.
Ilha do Desterro 18:2 (1987):15-33.
Analyzes MilT "using a theory of narrative analogous with transformational grammar," which assumes not merely a "grammar of narrative" but also "narrative competence," or ability of the reader or hearer to understand. Edden explores the function of…
A. A. MacDonald's objection to reading "woman" for "wo man" in line 847 of MLT is a misunderstanding of a more fundamental problem--that traditional attitudes toward gender may have played a part in separating two letters in a context wherein certain…
MacDonald, Alasdair A.
Chaucer Review 22 (1988): 246-49.
John C. Hirsh's proposed emendation of "wo man" to "woman" in MLT 847 is probably unwarranted. Consideration of manuscript evidence, as well as syntax and cultural context, render Hirsh's reading implausible.
Bishop, Ian.
London and Melbourne: Everyman's University Library, 1987.
Reviews various theories about the overall design of CT, warning that individual tales can be ignored, though CT is greater than the sum of its parts, and that Chaucer's final intentions concerning the order of the tales are unknown. In an analysis…
Crane, Susan.
English Language Notes 25:3 (1988): 10-15.
No case can be made that the Wife of Bath murdered her fourth husband. Such claims are made only by readers who invent for her an extratextual history and psychology or who believe that she "merely fulfills antifeminist expectations rather than…
Hamaguchi, Keiko.
Essays Commemorating the Retirement of Professor Sachiho Tanaka. (Tokyo: Kirihara Shoten, 1988), pp. 107-21.
Explores why Chaucer made the Wife of Bath an ideal wife after she became physically "somdel deef," tracing the meaning and effect of "deef" in the context of her revolt against the antifeminist tradition. In Japanese.
