Ikegami, Masa.
Yuichiro Azuma, Kotaro Kawasaki, and Koichi Kano, eds. Chaucer and English and American Literature: Essays Commemorating the Retirement of Professor Masatoshi Kawasaki (Toyko: Kinseido, 2015), pp. 402–16.
Compares usage of the different past forms of "see" in the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts to identify Chaucer's original forms as distinguished from the scribes' later alternations. In Japanese.
Smith, James L., ed.
.[Santa Barbara, Calif.]: Punctum, 2017.
Offers six essays that treat medieval texts "as transit systems in which we can glimpse the mobility of objects, figures, mentalities, tropes and other 'matter' in vibrant intermediate networks." For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for…
Stockwell, Robert P, and Donka Minkova.
Dieter Kastovsky and Arthur Mettinger, eds. Language Contact in the History of English (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2001), pp. 337-62.
Stockwell and Minkova argue that Chaucer's prosodic innovation is rooted in his familiarity with the "Romance decasyllabic model." The article focuses on duple and triple rhythmic units, suggesting that Chaucer imposed native iambic rhythm on romance…
Gellert, Anamaria Ramona.
Journal of the Early Book Society 23 (2020): 101-39; 7 b&w illus.
Discusses the Virtues and Vices miniatures that accompany ParsT in Cambridge University Library, MS Gg.4.27, as they relate to Chaucer's text, in the "context ofmtheir wider medieval iconographic tradition" and the "imagery of affective meditation."…
Wenzel, Siegfried.
David Raybin and Linda Tarte Holley, eds. Closure in The Canterbury Tales: The Role of The Parson's Tale (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000), pp. 1-10.
Surveys scholarship pertaining to ParsT, describing the recent emphasis on interpretation rather than on philology. Identifies a "perspectivist" approach that regards ParsT as equivalent to the other Tales and a "teleological" approach that sees it…
Newhauser, Richard.
David Raybin and Linda Tarte Holley, eds. Closure in The Canterbury Tales: The Role of The Parson's Tale (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000), pp. 45-76.
Assesses ParsT in its genre of vernacular penitential manual, demonstrating that in structure and detail it is closely affiliated with Heinrich von Langenstein's "Erchantnuzz der Sund." Similarities between these two contemporary works raise…
An entry on a "boke of schrift" found in a commonplace book compiled by Cheshire gentleman Humphrey Newton (1466-1536) contains the section against swearers and flatterers from ParsT (600-21, 626-27). Humphrey perhaps chose this passage for its…
Smith, Nicole D.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006): 117-40.
The indictment of fashionable male clothing in ParsT (10.422-30, "Superbia") is a "homoerotic moment" reflecting the Parson's own "scopophilic" pleasure, although the "turn to the fashionable female neutralizes any homoerotic tendency."
Though often viewed as the most unloved of the CT, ParsT is a fitting climax to the pilgrimage; it is a handbook for the play of the ultimate "sport," the race to salvation.
Taylor, Paul Beekman.
English Studies 64 (1983): 401-409.
The Parson offers religious and philosophical consolation by showing how sundered thought, word, and deed are conjoined in the salvific acts of contrition, confession, and satisfaction.
Lepine, David.
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. 334-51.
Provides historical background about the English Church in the late fourteenth century, and on several religious controversies, including the "culture of anticlerical complaint and the challenge of Wyclif and the Lollards," that contributed to…
Levitan, Alan.
University of Toronto Quarterly 40 (1971): 236-46.
Shows that Friar John of SumT is an "exemplar" of "reversals of apostolic qualities," essential to the anti-fraternalism of the Tale, rooted in the "Roman de la Rose." The description of the division of the fart that concludes the Tale adds to this…
Gellrich, Jesse M.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 73 (1974): 176-88.
Describes the "pervasive tone" of MilT as "comic irony" and explores how musical imagery contributes to this tone, especially through incongruous juxtapositions of profundity and profanity. Includes discussion of Nicholas's Annunciation song…
Chaucer's uses of parliamentary terminology throughout KnT, but especially in Saturn's counsel to Venus and in Theseus's "First Mover" speech, establish a parallel between divine and human realms, revealing "the abuse of power and authority" in…
Yamanaka, Toshio.
University of Saga Studies in English 20 (1992): 69-129.
The summary of "Somnium Scipionis" is closely linked with the dream, distinguishing the past narrator, who reads the "somnium" and dreams the dream, from the present narrator, who summarizes the "Somnium" and his dream. (In Japanese.)
Richmond, E. B., trans.
London : Hesperus Poetry, 2004.
Facing-page translation of PF and nineteen short poems and lyrics by Chaucer, with introduction and brief notes. The translations maintain Chaucer's metrical forms and, where possible, original rhymes, while normalizing spelling and modernizing…
McCall, John P., and George Rudisill, Jr.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 58 (1959): 276-88.
Argues that Chaucer's personal experience of the 1386 Parliament influenced his depiction of parliamentary activity in TC (4.141ff.), detailing events of the historical parliament, Chaucer's likely feelings about it, and changes and additions Chaucer…
Brewer, D. R., ed.
London and Edinburgh: Nelson, 1960.
An edition of PF based on University of Cambridge Library MS Gg.4.27, with end-of-text textual and explanatory notes, modern punctuation, and original spelling. The Introduction (pp. 1-68) presents the poem as the "best of Chaucer's shorter poems,"…
Bennett, J. A. W.
Oxford: Clarendon, 1957. 2d ed. 1965.
Reads PF as a thematic exploration of Christian love infused with Neoplatonic thought and imagery, and influenced by Cicero, Macrobius, Alain de Lille, John de Meun, and Dante. Demonstrates the poem's tight verbal structure and its allusiveness,…
Raymo, R. R.
Modern Language Notes 71.3 (1956): 159-60.
Identifies lines 1-4 of the "Speculum Stultorum" of Nigel de Longchamps as a source for the bird cacophony in PF 309-15, observing that Chaucer's "personal familiarity" with the "Speculum" is evident in the reference to "Daun Burnel the Asse" at NPT…
