Kinneavy, Gerald B.
Chaucer Review 3.4 (1969): 280-303.
Reads Gavin Douglas's poem as an examination of how poetry can lead to honor, focusing on the originality of the poem but noting its dependencies as well, including the influence of the eagle from HF.
Finnel, Andrew J.
Chaucer Review 8.2 (1973): 147-58.
Argues that Purse was written soon after the accession of Henry IV, addressed to the new monarch and composed as Chaucer's plea for funds while he was residing in the close of Westminster Abbey in order to avoid debts.
Gardiner, Alan.
Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey, ed. Critical Essays on The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales (Harlow: Longman, 1989), pp. 19-27.
Describes the narrator of the GP as "naïve but all-seeing," used variably by Chaucer to guide reader response and provoke unsettled reactions. Not wholly consistent, the narrator is a device that evokes "complex, contradictory attitudes" that seem…
Burrow, J. A.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 61-75.
Although Chaucer frequently uses petitionary devices, he seldom seems comfortable in the humble role (cf. For, Purse,Scog). Usually he distorts the pattern in fictive and outrageous fashion (HF, LGW) to make jest of humility.
Carruthers, Mary (J.)
New Literary History 24 (1993): 881-904
Dante and Chaucer use "buildings of the imagination" to organize lists of names, lists less informational than "inventional"--sets of associated plots or ideas that may reverberate in the work in which they appear. Examples from HF and BD as well as…
Looks at Tudor scholarship's role in the development and maintenance of Chaucer's fame and canonicity, with particular attention to Speght, Thynne, and post-Reformation views of Chaucer's work.
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…
