Miskimin, Alice S.
New York: Yale University Press, 1975.
The medieval Chaucer developed by a process of accretion and transformation into "England's Homer." Metamorphoses occur in the language, text, and image of the poet. The history of TC is the metamorphosis of a beautiful idea into an ugly one. …
Describes various features of Thomas Becket's shrine at Canterbury as recorded in Erasmus's satiric "Peregrinatio Religionis Ergo," focusing on its account of Becket's "hair breeches" and suggesting that this relic underlies the Host's…
Focuses on TC as an example of Chaucer's outlook during his "Italian period," charting his borrowings and "digressions" from Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato." the influence of Boethius, and courtly love. Describes the attitudes toward Fortune of the major…
Guerra Bosch, Teresa.
Philologica Canariensia 0 (1994): 181-91.
Comments on examples of ecclesiastical satire in CT and "The Decameron," arguing that Chaucer viewed contemporary abuses as comic, through Boccaccio's ironies are "slyer."
Watson, Charles S.
Studies in Short Fiction 1 (1964): 277-88.
Regards MkT and NPT as "Chaucer's highest literary achievement in the construction of pairs of tales," arguing that the faults of the MkT are "redeemed" by juxtaposition with the "brilliant" NPT insofar as the pair pose several "arresting contrasts":…
Pulliam, Willene.
Dissertation Abstracts International 28.09 (1968): 3646-47A.
Argues that Chaucer is "not an antifeminist" despite his uses of misogynistic materials from Theophrastus, Juvenal, Jerome, and others. His uses of such material in TC, LGW, and CT is self-aware and often comic, evidence of his "rising above" his…
Brewer, D. S.
D. S. Brewer, ed. Chaucer and Chaucerians: Critical Studies in Middle English Literature (University: University of Alabama Press; London: Nelson, 1966), pp. 1-38.
Describes the conditions under which Chaucer developed his verse and prose styles, focusing on the former. Argues that English verse romances are the foundation of Chaucer's poetic style to which he "grafted" the continental traditions of "fin…
El is based on Hg, the first published text. Hg arranged the thirteen apparently unrelated fragments of the one copytext left by Chaucer not by geographical and chronological features which exercise modern critics but by a sequence of…
Caie, Graham D.
Päivi Pahta and Andreas H. Jucker, eds. Communicating Early English Manuscripts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 149-61.
Presents evidence that William Thynne used MS Hunter 409 as his source when preparing Rom for his 1532 edition of Chaucer's Workes," "resorting to the French original when in doubt," and recurrently archaizing the text by adding the y-prefix to…
Hanly, Michael Gerard.
Dissertation Abstracts International 49 (1989): 2213A.
Supporting Robert A. Pratt's theory in SP 53 (1956) that Chaucer drew on a French translation of Boccaccio, Hanly explores parallels, both verbal and thematic; the likelihood of Beauvau as translator; and the possibility of Chaucer's familiarity with…
Ormrod, W. M.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990.
Analyzes the contribution of Edward III to England's growth as a nation, emphasizing such institutional changes as the development of the Commons in Parliament, the emergence of a systematic exchequer, and the commissioning of justices of the peace. …
Describes Chaucer's life and works in a brief subsection of chapter two (pp. 47-56), offering appreciative commentary that characterizes the poet as one who "loved life," despite awareness of the "faults, sins, crimes, follies, and vanities of…
Argues that "the original Old English concessive conjunction 'peah' transformed into Middle English 'theigh,' survived much longer than is admitted in standard Middle English reference books."
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Tolkien Studies 5 (2008): 173-83.
Reprints the "rare pamphlet version" of Tolkien's lightly abbreviated performance version of RvT, adapted from Skeat's edition with diacritical marks to aid pronunciation and several adjustments to emphasize dialect features of the Tale. In his…
Bayard, the horse in RvT, is presented as a mare, a gelding, and a stallion. The stallion image represents the clerks, foreshadowing the bedroom activity; the gelding image represents the Reeve, who--though he wants to chase mares like the…
Tamakawa, Asumi.
Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature 31 (2016): 33-2.
Examines the functions and placement of the northern dialects in RvT, and argues that they reflect the Reeve's negative feeling toward the clergy. In Japanese.
Beidler, Peter G.
Chaucer Review 26 (1992): 283-92.
Chaucer likely knew "Een bispel van .ij. clerken," a fourteenth-century Flemish analogue that provides more similarities to RvT than either "Le meunier et des II clers" or "De Gombert et des deux clers." Beidler includes a translation of the Flemish…
Burton, T. L., dir.
Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio, 1996.
Recorded at radio station KRCW, Santa Monica College, during the Tenth International Congress of the New Chaucer Society. Re-edited and digitally mastered as a CD-ROM by Troy Sales and Paul Thomas in 2006.
Brewer, Derek.
Joerg O. Fichte, ed. Chaucer's Frame Tales (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 1987), pp. 67-81.
Places RvT in the context of oral literature: fluidity, a plot pattern more important than characters, fulfillment more important than suspense. RvT emphasizes the victory of young over old and shows no concern with moral values, except that "pride…
Explores the "really profound difference" between the Reeve and the Miller, commenting on the Miller's rich characterizations in MilT and the vitality and "kind of justice" that underlies the outcome of his Tale. RvT, conversely, is an unwholesome…
