Cook, Megan L.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
Examines how Tudor English antiquarians, including "historians, lexicographers, religious polemicists, and other readers with a professional, but, not necessary literary interest in the English past," played significant role" in the development and…
Roe, John, ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Includes discussion (pp. 35-41) of the influence of Chaucer's account of Lucrece (LGW) on Shakespeare's "The Rape of Lucrece," focusing on Chaucer's "particularly sympathetic defence" of Lucrece, despite his overstating of St. Augustine's compassion…
Strakhov, Elizaveta.
Emily Steiner and Lynn Ransom, eds. Taxonomies of Knowledge: Information and Order in Medieval Manuscripts (Philadelphia: The Schoenberg
Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, 2015), pp. 7-36.
Considers the appearance of the "mysterious inscription 'Ch'" beside several poems in MS Codex 902 in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries collection. Scholars have assumed that the "Ch" stands for Chaucer, but Strakhov argues that the poems are…
Greenfield, Stanley B., ed.
Weatherhead, A. Kingsley, ed.
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1968.
An anthology of English poetry, arranged chronologically, with a brief introduction on "The Experience of a Poem" and a glossary of poetic terminology. The selections from Old and Middle English poetry are generally given in modern verse translation,…
McCarl, Mary Rhinelander, ed.
New York and London: Garland, 1997.
Prints two versions of "The Plowman's Tale" (ca. 1400)--the 1533 edition originally intended for publication in Francis Thynne's 1532 edition of Chaucer's "Works" but suppressed and the 1606 edition by additional explanatory notes, a glossary and…
Cannon, Christopher.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 32 (2018): 315-31.
Argues that Mel and Langland's "Piers Plowman" share common features that derive from medieval school texts: axioms and proverbs, recurrent attention to the "Distiches of Cato," and citational and translational practices grounded in school exercises.…
Bailey, Mark.
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. 352-67.
Reviews the history of rural society in late fourteenth-century England, as well as stereotypes of medieval ploughmen. Reinforces how the plagues affected labor issues and "social relations within the third estate." Argues that Chaucer's Ploughman…
Refers to Elizabeth Gaskell's footnotes to "Mary Barton" that explain unfamiliar phrasing in terms of Chaucer and Langland, identifying them as evidence for the synchronic nature of the bigamous return plot in sensation novels.
An anthology of poetry for beginners, with an introduction to understanding and explicating poetry, selections from "Ten Great Poets," and an additional "One Hundred Poems" which includes the GP description of the Wife of Bath
DeVries, David N.
Studies in Scottish Literature 27 (1992): 113-27.
The major interpretations of Dunbar's poem fall into two groups: those arguing the poem is representational and those arguing it is reflexive. Comparing "Golden Targe" to Chaucer's dream poetry and to other dream poetry by Dunbar reveals that both…
Contains essays on Chaucer's use of language, speech, and tone. For essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for The Pleasure of English Language and Literature under Alternative Title.
Rowland, Beryl B.
Chaucer Review 5.2 (1970): 140-46.
Reads Chaucer's reference to "game" in MilT 1.3186 as a reference to mystery drama and discusses allusions to cycle plays in the details and correspondences of the Tale, including aspects of the Fall, the Flood, the Annunciation, the Slaughter of the…
Shoaf, R[ichard] A[llen].
Jonathan Culler, ed. On Puns: The Foundation of Letters (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp. 44-61.
Unpacks the meanings and implications of sample puns from Chaucer, Langland's "Piers Plowman," and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," suggesting that they evince a medieval respect for the transcendent potency of language. Chaucerian examples include…
BD offers a sampler of medieval literary genres including lyric and several varieties of narrative. Consolation comes from the recognition of Blaunche's virtue and her comparison with the Virgin Mary. The answer to the question "Where is she now?"…
Saunders, Corrine.
Arthur Rose, Stefanie Heine, Naya Tsentourou, Corrine Saunders, and Peter Garratt, Reading Breath in Literature ([Cham]: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 17-39.
Treats the connections between "mind, body and affect" in BD, KnT, TC, MLT, LGW, and elsewhere, describing classical and medieval theories of breathing, sighing, and swooning as physiological movements of vital spirits. Playing a key role in…
Parkes, M. B.
Martin Stevens and Daniel Woodward, eds. The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library; Tokyo: Yushodo, 1995), pp. 41-47.
Codicologically, Ellesmere was constructed by methods commonly used for fifteenth-century English books, including techniques by which "the scribe and the artists accommodated their work so precisely to the format predetermined by the size and number…
Mann, Jill.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 91-106.
In giving the planetary gods a role in the narrative dynamics of "The Testament of Cresseid," Henryson is following in the steps of Chaucer in KnT, Mars, and TC. Mann examines "both the resemblances and the differences between the two poets in their…
Beidler, Peter G.
Chaucer Review 16 (1982): 257-69.
Only Chaucer places the story of the rioters' search for gold in plague time. The article examines the implications of the plague setting and the plague in literature to explain Chaucer's choice of plague setting.
Simmons, J. L.
Modern Language Quarterly 27 (1966): 125-35.
Argues that the "ability of the poet to secure a just and enduring fame" is an important and unifying theme in HF, focusing on the poem's concerns with poetic authority and patronage, and suggesting that its "missing conclusion" was to entail the…
Stanbury, Sarah.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 37 (2015): 133-61.
Contextualizes the bedchamber of BD, exploring its adaptations of French source material, the otherness of France, the social and psychological implications of beds and textiles, and the imagery of black and white. Emphatically English in its…
Greetham, D. C.
Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 82 (1988).
Review controversies regarding the editing of medieval texts, faults the new "Riverside Chaucer," which represents no "textual advance over Robinson 2," and judges that "what Bowers offers is the best of two worlds--fidelity to auctorial usage…
Fresco, Karen.
Juliette Dor and Marie-Élisabeth Henneau, eds. Christine de Pizan: Une femme de science, une femme de lettres. Études christiniennes, no. 10 (Paris: Champion, 2008), pp. 289-300.
Fresco draws attention to the imitation of Chaucer's enchâssement (encasement, enshirement) in Christine's Enseignemens moraulx BnF fr. 1551.
Federico, Sylvia.
Laura L. Howes, ed. Place, Space, and Landscape in Medieval Narrative (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), pp. 171-79.
Federico explores how "Ricardian court culture haunts the chivalric spaces inhabited and visited by" Chaucer's TC and by Gawain in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Parallels between the "moral lapses" of Richard II and those of the two protagonists…
Ugoretz, Joseph.
Dissertation Abstracts International 61: 1392A, 2000.
Defines oral performance art as an artistic genre, with written representations of it also manifesting distinctive generic qualities. Ugoretz examines these matters on the basis of contemporary oral performance and analyzes them in relation to five…
