Morrison, Theodore, ed.
New York: Viking Press, 1975.
Originally published in 1949, the volume includes modern translations of selections from CT (all except for ShT, Mel, MkT, ClT, SqT, PhyT, MancT, and ParsT, which are described in summary); TC; selections from HF and LGWP; and samples of the short…
Bratcher, James T., and Nicholai von Kreisler.
Southern Folklore Quarterly 35 (1971): 325-35.
Assesses narrative suspension and crossing motivations in MilT and three analogous U.S. version of the "misdirected-kiss and branding story," including two folktales and George Milburn's "Old John's Woman" (also titled "Julie"; 1956). Suggests that…
Kinney, Thomas L.
Literature and Psychology 28 (1978): 76-84.
PhyT has presented critics a problem. One way to account for it is to read it by dream analysis--as a dream-tale presenting the refusal of a girl to accept sexual maturation. Apius represents the power of sexual awakening,eros; the father her male…
Heffernan, Thomas J., ed.
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985.
Includes the following: D. W. Robertson, "Who Were 'The People'?"; Leonard E. Boyle, O.P., "The Fourth Lateran Council and Manuals of Popular Theology"; Judith Shaw, "The Influence of Canonical and Episcopal Reform on Popular Books of Instruction";…
Scott, Anne M. Vergasser.
Sharon Farmer, ed. Approaches to Poverty in Medieval Europe (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 229-52.
Explores enigmatic medieval attitudes toward poverty through the allegorical figures of three "loathly ladies"--Lady Poverty (Franciscan "Sacrum commercium"), Chaucer's Wife of Bath's hag, and Glad Poverty (Prologue to Book III of Lydgate's "Fall of…
Gunn, Alan M. F.
Betsy Feagan Colquitt, ed. Studies in Medieval Renaissance American Literature: A Festschrift [Honoring Troy C. Crenshaw, Lorraine Sherley, Ruth Speer Angell] (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1971), pp. 1-18..
Proposes a "taxonomy" of medieval romance, which is epitomized by "chivalric romance," but ranges widely in mode, tone, and motif from "proto-romance" to "counter-romance." Characterizes various forms and sub-forms and includes tabular anatomies of…
In the fifteenth century, Chaucer was admired chiefly as the founder of English eloquence, betraying English anxiety about French influences. The patronage networks that promoted Chaucer as a literary icon also promoted translations of the works of…
Though Mary Giffin suggests a connection between SNT and Cardinal Adam Easton, the more important connection is between SNT and the schism in the church during his time. ManT relates thematically to SNT by providing a counter-point to the Second Nun…
"Pearl" reflects the political and social turmoil of Richard's reign and is a product of the rich visual and verbal culture of his Cheshire coterie. Political and social allusions in the poem engage Lollardy, labor laws, court magnificence,…
Watson, Nicholas.
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor, and Ruth Evans, eds. The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280-1520 (University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press; Exeter: University of Exeter Press 1999), pp. 331-52.
Provides a history of vernacular writing in English from ca. 1300-1500, reducing traditional emphasis on the importance of Chaucer and his works by adding complementary emphasis on religious writing--Lollard and anti-Lollard, "Piers Plowman," works…
Lecky, Kat.
Megan Moore, ed. Gender in the Premodern Mediterranean (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, 2019), pp. 203-33.
Traces from Chaucer (MLT) to Shakespeare ("Othello") to Milton ("Samson Agonistes") a "literary tradition that seeks to understand England's place on [the] international stage." Identifies the economic/political models that underlie Custance's two…
Little, Katherine C.
Exemplaria 31 (2019): 117–28.
Disagrees with "theorists of materiality" who regard lists as "transparent," or "utopian, or egalitarian, or decentering." Examines how the list of "thynges" in KnT (3017ff.), though different from the analogous list in Boccaccio’s "Teseida,"…
The discourse of KnT displays the Knight's ideological desire to construct a boundary between a stable Christian cosmos and the restless eros of unregulated taletelling by establishing a political and narrative paradigm for the other pilgrims to…
Yoo, Inchol.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 18 (2010): 361-84.
Reads Bo as Chaucer's advice to young Richard on the subject of tyranny; later, Bo had "potential resonance" for opponents of Richard as king and may have served to support the usurpation of his crown.
Assesses the cock-and-fox fable in Lydgate's "Isopes Fabules" and his "The Churl and the Bird" as public poetry, exploring how underlying concerns with authority and translation link with his "conscious concern with social conditions and with his…
Presented as an antidote to the "indoctrination" that is imposed on literature classes by "PC English professors." Chapter two, entitled "Medieval Literature: 'Here Is God's Plenty'" (pp. 23-47) focuses on CT, Langland's "Piers Plowman," the vigor of…
Critten, Rory G.
Modern Philology 111 (2014): 339-64.
Contends that the poet's self-presentation in English, which bears a resemblance to Chaucer's self-deprecating persona, may have been intended to quell anxieties about his release from prison.
Harwood, Britton J.
Richard Utz and Tom Shippey, eds. Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1998), pp. 379-92.
Recent works of Chaucer scholarship depict a bourgeois Chaucer articulating contemporary American ideology; thus, they work to reproduce that ideology.
Identifies an allusion to HF (lines 703-4) in "King Lear" (5.3.17), arguing that, although Chaucer's poem was "marginalized" in sixteenth-century editions because of its stance on literary fame, Shakespeare read it and echoed it "unconsciously,"…
Son, Byung-Yong.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 23.1 (2015): 61-81.
Argues that Chaucer's alterations of the conventions of romance in KnT indicate the poet's political caution in giving advice to his king, advising him in the figure of Theseus to deal with political trouble by valuing Parliament. In Korean with an…
Byeong-yong, Son.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 22.2 (2014): 61-81.
Looks at the political and social context of Chaucer's life, and claims that in KnT Chaucer appropriated and transformed the conventions of romance to reflect his own political views about medieval kingship.
MacCurdy, Marian Mesrobian.
Dissertation Abstracts International 41 (1980): 2596A.
The image of woman is the focal point for the controversy regarding the good or evil nature of the physical world. Early Christian and Gnostic writings, selected troubadour lyrics, "Gawain and the Green Knight," Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur," and…
Includes the Middle English text of GP 1-42, with Lithgow's reading of the passage and his commentary on how it "grabs you" and makes you want to hear more.
Knight, Stephen
Sydney: Angus and Roberstosn, 1973.
Argues that Chaucer's "poetic powers" are consistently evident throughout CT and that the formal qualities of his poetry are as important to his high reputation as are his wit and humane sensibility. Reads CT sequentially, tale by tale, focusing on…
