Heyworth, P. L.
P. L. Heyworth, ed. Medieval Studies for J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 140-57.
The punctuation of medieval texts, including Chaucer's, imperfectly shows relationships between parts of the sentence. Standardized punctuation adopted in early Chaucer reprints often confuses meaning.
Earnshaw, Steven.
Manchester and New York : Manchester University Press, 2000.
Explores drinking establishments (inns, taverns, alehouses, pubs) in English literature for how they have helped to constitute what is thought to be particularly English, starting with CT and Langland's "Piers Plowman" and ending with Martin Amis's…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
In Speaking of Chaucer (London: Athlone, 1970), pp. 102-18. Published originally in Ilva Cellini and Giorgio Melchiori, eds. Lectures and Papers Read at the Sixth Conference of the International Association of University Professors of English Held at Venice, August 1965 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1966).
Describes illusions of objectivity in recension, the genetic method of textual editing, cleverly though earnestly articulating that subjectivity--or "common sense"--is needed in the process of editing. Challenges the principle of grouping manuscript…
Recent studies have attributed psychological realism to CT characters. This "old critical ghost" unfortunately diverts the "critic from his (or her) proper task, the analysis of the functioning of verbal constructs constituting the text, to…
The psychological condition of ClT must be understood in terms of fourteenth-century, not twentieth-century, psychology. The relationship between Griselda and Walter can be compared to a man-to-God, child-to-parent, or colonial-to-colonizer…
Schricker, Gale C.
Philological Quarterly 72 (1993): 15-31.
The epilogue reveals that the narrator of TC undergoes (in Freudian terms) a neurotic crisis. Ultimately, however, he demonstrates the psychic health of his ego by integrating conflicting forces of the id (functions of the received tale), the…
Fowler, Elizabeth.
Cristina Maria Cervone and D. Vance Smith, eds. Readings in Medieval Textuality: Essays in Honour of A. C. Spearing (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2016), pp. 15-30.
Considers the hermeneutic value of Spearing's concept of "experientiality" in KnT. Defines "roaming" as "an investigation of the relation between bodily experience and language."
Uses examples from CT, TC, and the anonymous Middle English Dialogue of Solomon and Marcolf, read in a context created by Bakhtin's theory of "speech genres," to demonstrate the power of proverbs to transform the situations in which they are…
Rose, Christine M.
Harvard Library Bulletin, n.s., 3:4 (1992-93): 38-55.
The existence of a fifteenth-century Middle English translation of Trevet's "Chronicle" indicates that one may have been available to Chaucer and Gower in the fourteenth century.
Georgianna, Linda.
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 55-69.
Focusing on such critics as Thomas Lounsbury, E. Talbot Donaldson, D. W. Robertson, John Fleming, and Derek Pearsall, Georgianna suggests that twentieth-century scholars, like their sixteenth-century predecessor John Foxe, have constructed a…
Depres, Denise L.
Sheila Delany, ed. Chaucer and the Jews: Sources, Contexts, Meanings (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 145-64.
Unlike the isolated narrative of Jews in CT (PrT), various narratives in the Vernon manuscript investigate the Jew in markedly different ways, going beyond demonization of Jews to debate their essential nature.
Crampton, Georgia Ronan.
Dissertation Abstracts International 28.06 (1967): 2205A.
Traces the topos of the sufferer as protagonist in classical, Christian, and late Latin sources and explores it "as an element" in KnT, TC, and Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene," arguing that Chaucer tends to emphasize "the value of acceptant…
Abelson-Hoek, Michelle Christine.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 4418A, 1999.
Studies the medieval whore figure as rebel, outlaw, and heretic through historical and sociological analysis of the Norman Latin poem "Jezebel." Chaucer and Langland consider the whore evil but also emblematic of this world's carnal pleasures.…
Flood, Victoria.
Helen Fulton, ed. Chaucer and Italian Culture (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2021), pp. 169-92.
Examines the significance of the eagle as a "common symbol of empire in medieval political prophecy." Discusses how the "Dantean figure of the Eagle" in the "Inferno" is transformed by Chaucer into a "humorous--and human--personality" in HF.
Scholars continue to reflect on whether particular readings of CT are authorial revisions or scribal editing and on what Chaucer's plans for the work might have been. Understanding manuscript relationships for any particular tale can help set the…
Caon, Luisella.
C. C. Barfoot, ed. "And Never Know the Joy": Sex and the Erotic in English Poetry (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2006), pp. 33-47.
Chaucer's uses of thou and ye pronouns "systematically" indicate the "degree of closeness or distance" between lovers in CT, indicating not only formality and informality but also intensity of emotion and shifts in attitudes. Caon surveys previous…
Johnston, Everett C.
Language Quarterly 1 (1962): 17-20.
Discusses the uses of “familiar ‘thou’ and polite ‘ye’” by the major characters in TC, demonstrating that, in general, Chaucer “observed the mode of his day in the use of the pronoun of address,” and offering hypotheses about instances where the…
Argues that FranT is one of Chaucer "satiric masterpieces" and that it reveals "how ludicrously and inadequately the Franklin grasps the essence of gentle behavior." The Franklin is well intended, but the morality and reasoning of his Tale are…
Parodies GP, featuring twenty-nine character sketches of people who intend to travel together to Pokerbury, a site for gambling, planning to tell tales along the way. Modern professions include the Broker, the Dentist, the Scientist, etc.
Alexander, Michael, and Mary Alexander.
Harlow: Longman; London: York, 2005.
Study guide to GP that includes a synopsis, commentary, and glosses (text not included, except for three passages in Middle English for closer analysis--lines 1-18, 118-62 [Prioress], and 331-60 [Franklin]). Also includes descriptions of Chaucer's…
Cunningham, John E., ed.
Middlesex: Penguin, 1985.
Classroom text of GP in Middle English with facing-page notes, study-guide Introduction, a brief glossary, and brief bibliography. The Introduction includes commentary on Chaucer's life, the "Framework" of CT, "how to read" Chaucer, and "Further…
Limited edition (210 copies), photo-litho facsimile of GP from British Library copy of William Caxton's 1476 first edition, with facing-page modern translation by Nevill Coghill, two original wood engravings (a portrait of Chaucer and the Knight…
Spraycar, Rudy S.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 81 (1980): 142-49.
The spring opening of GP may reflect Alain de Lille's concepts in "De Planctu Naturae," indicating the connection between nature's amorous regeneration and man's need for spiritual renewal.
