Gillespie, Alexandra, and Daniel Wakelin, eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
A collection of essays addressing the history of the book, manuscript studies, culture, and history of late medieval England. For two essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Production of Books in England under Alternative Title.
Murphy, Ann B.
The Centennial Review 28:3 (1984): 204-22.
The Wife's personality develops through five marriages from a materialistic, mercantile desire for power and wealth to "an earthly form of spiritual transformation through marital love." WBP traces how Allison learns to love and to stop equating…
Kang, Du-Hyoung.
Journal of English Language and Literature (Korea) 37 (1991): 825-41.
NPT subverts the idea of tragedy reflected in MkT, and KnT counterpoints its tragic view of fate. Diverse and comprehensive in his outlook, Chaucer is not content with a simple formula.
Crocker, Holly A.
Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 16, no. 1 (2016): 146-52.
Reconsiders the periodizations that separate medieval and early modern studies, focusing on "'premodern humanism' as a critical problem" and the "anthropocentric fantasy" of the "nonhuman–human divide." Includes comments on the privileging of…
Whereas the GP portrait of the Prioress raises questions about the operation of performances in general, we see in PrPT the efficacy of performative utterances in particular. Details of the boy's murder and postmortem singing demonstrate that the…
Bloomfield Morton W.
Burns, Norman T., and Christopher J. Reagan, eds. Concepts of the Hero in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Papers of the Fourth and Fifth Annual Conferences of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 2-3 May 1970, 1-2 May 1971 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), pp. 27-48.
Documents the "absence of a true charismatic hero who is valiant and noble" in the literature of medieval western Europe, commenting on a wide variety of works, including those by Chaucer, and attributing the late-medieval "retreat from heroism" to a…
Martin, June Hall.
Dissertation Abstracts International 28.10 (1968): 4136-37A.
Argues that the "innate absurdities" of the courtly love tradition invite parody and includes discussion of TC as a "sympathetic parody" in which "tone" is "governed by Boethian and Christian doctrines along with Chaucer's personal experience."
Myklebust, Nicholas.
Ad Putter and Judith A. Jefferson, eds. The Transmission of Medieval Romance: Metres, Manuscripts and Early Prints (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2018), pp. 149-69.
Attributes the lack of critical attention to John Metham's "Amoryus and Cleopes" to its "prosodic eccentricity," demonstrating that it "does not descend from, and does not participate in, the transmission or reception of Chaucer's Anglicized…
Owen, Charles A., Jr.
Philological Quarterly 46 (1967): 433-56.
Explores free will in Mars, KnT, TC, and CT, focusing on the relative balance of astrological determinism and character complexity. The "compulsions of astrology" in Mars are lessened in KnT, replaced by the "searching" for examples of providence in…
A textbook for religious studies that anthologizes theological, philosophical, and literary essays and excerpts. all concerned with the nature of evil. Includes excerpts from Chaucer's "Patient Griselda" (ClT in David Wright translation, pp.…
While the knight of WBT returns from his quest with the word that saves his life - "sovereynetee" - he never understands its meaning: "independence and self-government." The wedding-night conversation between the knight and the "wyf" demonstrates her…
Bechtel, Robert B.
Susquehanna University Studies 7.2 (1963): 109-18.
Reviews studies of Criseyde's character by G. L. Kittredge, George Mizener, and C. S. Lewis, and argues that she is "the finger pointing in accusation against the code of courtly love." She shows us that "we mortals are fools to think that by our…
Solopova, Elizabeth.
Norman Blake and Peter Robinson, eds. The Canterbury Tales Project Occasional Papers, Volume II (London: King's College, Office for Humanities Communications, 1997), pp. 133-42.
Analyzes the manuscript variants of the so-called added passages of WBP, concluding that the passages were composed by Chaucer and that they extend from a single exemplar, probably an unfinished authorial draft.
Robertson, D. W. (Jr.)
Medievalia et Humanistica 13 (1985): 143-71.
Treats the "relevant historical events, some basic attitudes (of the era), literary stragtagems," and TC itself, which is a "vivid example of the degrading and disastrous consequences" when a noble, valorous man places his seduced private will above…
Robertson, D. W.,Jr.
Studies in Philology 84 (1987): 418-39.
Given historical events in the age of King Richard II, details of the Knight's portrait in GP would have been irrelevant before 1393 or after 1396. Chaucer may have inserted the Knight's description into GP, altered other details in GP, planned…
Following the example set in V. A. Kolve's Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative, Brown develops the mimetic and iconographic relations of the prison in KnT and the castle in Roman de la Rose.
Introductory study guide to PrPT, WBPT, and the accompanying GP descriptions, focusing on the ambiguity of the Prioress and the "moral incoherence" of the Wife of Bath. Includes questions for discussion but no text of the poetry.
Kruger, Steven F.
Frank Grady, ed. The Cambridge Companion to "The Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 167-90.
Discusses the Prioress's antisemitism in PrT within the context of late medieval religious feeling, in order to "understand it from within so as more effectively to analyze it." Traces "the condensation of a complex set of antisemitic ideas, wrapped…
Burton, T. L., dir.
Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio, 1990.
Recorded at Campion College, University of Regina (side one), and at the Seventh International Congress of the New Chaucer Society, University of Kent (side two). Re-edited and digitally mastered as a CD-ROM by Troy Sales and Paul Thomas in 2004.
Boyd, Beverly, ed.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
Relying on Hengwrt as the basic text, Boyd--in the manner of all editors in this variorum series--surveys both manuscripts and printed editions, emending in light of both. The introduction provides critical and textual commentaries, the former…
Astell, Ann W.
Susan Yager and Elise E. Morse-Gagné, eds. Interpretation and Performance: Essays for Alan Gaylord (Provo, UT: Chaucer Studio Press, 2013), pp. 3-11.
The quotation of Psalm 8 in PrP would have reminded Chaucer's audience of two Gospel narratives of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, one referring to singing children, the other to speaking stones. The power of this combined allusion links the clergeoun…
Lynch, James J.
Modern Language Notes 72.4 (1957): 242-49.
Reviews arguments that identify and explicate "Seinte Loy" in the GP description of the Prioress (GP 1.120) as a reference to St. Eligius, and suggests an alternative possibility: St. Eulalia. Explores resonances of the reference--thematic and…
Looking beyond the OED's definition of "span"--a length of roughly nine inches--to a range of medieval senses of the word suggests that the width of the Prioress's forehead "offers no meaningful foothold for objecting to her."
