Jordan, Robert M.
Michio Kawai, ed. Language and Style in English Literature: Essays in Honour of Michio Masui. The English Association of Hiroshima (Tokyo: Eihosha, 1991), pp. 96-107.
Gothic aesthetic combines opposing propensities for regularity and embellishment. These features are manifest in Dante's Commedia, while CT is more irregular and improvisatory.
Tripp, Raymond P., Jr.
Michio Kawai, ed. Language and Style in English Literature: Essays in Honour of Michio Masui. The English Association of Hiroshima (Tokyo: Eihosha, 1991), pp. 141-58.
Argues that the difference between the mechanical powers of humans and the essential power of God is central to the literary discussion of craft. Concern with craft as natural religion and with faith as the canonical craft provides a strong thread…
Kawasaki, Masatoshi.
Eigo Seinen (Tokyo) 135:9 (1990): 433-35.
Considers the conflict between "authority," which is based on higher culture, and "experience," characteristic of folk mode, emphasizing the significance of "game in ernest" in CT. "Game" derives from the festive storytelling contest.(In Japanese).
Mann, Jill.
Proceedings of the British Academy 76 (1990): 203-23.
Anger and glossing--linked by their common "refusal to accommodate the self either to events in the world outside, or to the autonomous meaning of the text"--are evident in SumT and throughout CT. The Marriage Group centers around patience, the…
Neuse, Richard.
Berkeley. Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press, 1991.
CT responds to Dante's Commedia in a "conscious attempt " to continue its "poetic tradition" of pilgrimage narrative. Chaucer's pilgrims "comment or focus on one or more aspects of the Dantean pilgrimage," and both works define the human image and…
Ridley, Florence (H.)
Robert Graybill, Judy Hample, and Robert Lovell, eds. Teaching the Middle Ages IV (Terre Haute: Indiana State University Press, 1990), pp. 1-26.
Pedagogical commentary on CT aligned with reader-response theory and affective stylistics.
Taylor, Paul Beekman.
English Studies 72 (1991): 209-18.
Chaucer's knights reflect three errors in their service of love: (1) the subjection of women's bodies to male wills for the sake of public order and honor (KnT, FranT, PhyT); (2) the rapine pursuit of women's bodies for pride or lust (MLT, WBT,…
Williams, Andrew.
Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 3 (1990): 127-36.
In his depiction of clerical celibacy, Chaucer may have been influenced by Andreas. The two authors approach the topic in similar fashion and reflect contemporary attitudes and turmoil.
Discusses Chaucer's characterization of the Summoner in GP and asserts that, despite modern assumptions, it is based on the confluence of medical and astrological theories prevalent during Chaucer's time.
Cigman, Gloria.
Literature and Theology 5 (1991): 162-80.
Although elite cultural views, such as those of theologians, set the polarities of moral judgment as good and evil, vernacular writings in Middle English--including Lollard sermons, Piers Plowman, and CT--set up instead a dialectic of sin and evil. …
Cooney, Helen.
Studia Neophilologica 63 (1991): 147-59.
Argues that social identity is fundamental to description of each pilgrim and determines how each is presented; examines how Chaucer presents himself in rhetorical terms, with particular reference to the "diminutio" of GP 745-48.
Cooper, Helen.
Yearbook of Langland Studies 1 (1987): 71-81.
GP was inspired by the A text of Piers Plowman, echoing its concern with estates satire, its concern with social and moral cohesion, and many of its details.
David, Alfred.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching, n.s., 2 (1991): 23-30.
Individual GP pilgrims represent distinct groups or organizations within medieval society, epitomizing social diversity--yet the community functions as a cohesive whole.
Hodges, Laura F.
Chaucer Review 26 (1991): 133-46.
Places the Monk in the mainstream of medieval monastic modes of dress; his "grys," his boots, and his gold pin are not excessive in comparison to clerical fashions and practices of the period.
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.
Comparison of traditional rites to the feelings and actions of the characters shows that lack of structure does not mean disorder. Moore contends that there is no correlation between ritual and the outcome of KnT; in fact, a ritualistic beginning…
After a full review of criticism, Savoia explores Chaucer's use of motifs found in other romances. KnT exploits traditional romance only to transcend it, setting the "romance" of Palamon in the perspective provided by the "tragedy" of Arcite and…
Woods, William F.
Studies in Philology 88 (1991): 276-306.
Discusses Emelye's role as Prime Mover in KnT, "structurally and thematically central to the tale" and parallel to Saturn's role as mediator among the gods. Central in each of the four parts of the tale, she develops from a chaste maid in the garden…
Discusses herb paris as a premedieval symbol of Christ's passion and divine love, traces its development from religious to romantic sign, and explores its dual meaning in MilT.
Deliberately drawn links between Alisoun of MilT and the Wife of Bath enable Chaucer to carry forward the moral and spiritual implications of the scriptural allusions in MilT, using them to inform and reinforce the audience's response to WBP.
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…
