Lynch, Kathryn L.
R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C. Morse, eds. Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A. Kolve (Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press, 2001), pp. 393-409.
The Pardoner's "misunderstanding" of gluttony as a sin "becomes emblematic of his inability to appreciate significance in general." Lynch discusses digestive imagery from medieval commentaries on memory and meditation to clarify the nature of the…
Copeland, Rita.
Sarah Kay and Miri Ruben, eds. Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 138-59.
Explores the roles of sexuality and gender in the institutional history of rhetoric and argues that the Pardoner's ambiguity dramatizes a double sense of rhetoric, both as an academic discipline and as a regulated body of practice.
Reads PardPT for the ways they reveal more about the Pardoner than he intends. The Old Man shows the pain of the Pardoner's "joyless existence," even though he has attempted to disguise it in his Prologue; the rioters reveal his obsession with death…
Argues that the reference to ale and cake in PardP (6.321-22) is a "device operating on three levels": 1) creating cohesion in PardPT; 2) introducing the theme of gluttony; and 3) reinforcing the irony of the portrait of the Pardoner through a…
Explores the differences between PardP and PardT—differences in genre, atmosphere, and temporal dimension—arguing that they are part of the Pardoner's efforts to manipulate his audience. Contrasts the self-interested, time-bound play of the…
Rhodes, James F.
Modern Language Studies 13:2 (1983): 34-40.
Various legends, iconography, and etymology of Saint Veronica illuminate the "vernycle" emblem on the Pardoner's cap as a clue to his character and motives."
Trigg, Stephanie.
Ruth Evans, Helen Fulton, and David Matthews, eds. Medieval Cultural Studies: Essays in Honour of Stephen Knight (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 166-78.
Trigg addresses relationships among the reading audience, the pilgrim audience, and the "lewed peple" of PardPT. Set against the GP description of the Parson and his flock, the Pardoner's description of his preaching to the people may indicate their…
Jordan, William Chester.
Sheila Delany, ed. Chaucer and the Jews: Sources, Contexts, Meanings (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 25-42.
Examines the framing narratives and the relics in PardT to demonstrate that Chaucer achieves dramatic closure at the end of the Tale with the pilgrims' rejection of the relics.
Jungman, Robert E.
Chaucer Newsletter 1.1 (1979): 16-17.
Cites "De Doctrina," IV, xxvii, 59 as a source or gloss at least on the Pardoner's "confession": Augustine notes that the wicked may preach what is right and good.
Dane, Joseph A.
Notes and Queries 230 (1985): 155-56.
Three motifs in PardT have antecedents in Virgil's "Eclogue" 10, where basket weaving is a metaphor for making poetry. Rejecting physical labor, the Pardoner asserts "otium," associated with begging. In genre, PardT is a begging poem.
Krummel, Miriamne Ara.
Kathleen A. Bishop, ed. "The Canterbury Tales" Revisited--21st Century Interpretations (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008), pp. 88-109.
The violent anti-Semitism of PrT attracts critical attention, but a variety of brief, positive depictions of Jews occurs elsewhere in CT, reflecting the dynamic nature of medieval attitudes.
Grennen, Joseph E.
English Language Notes 25:2 (1987): 18-24.
The potential medieval etymologizing of "envoluped" and the association of "fundament" with Christ and his Church deepen the significance of the exchange between the Host and the Pardoner.
Pettibon, Robin.
Sigma Tau Delta Review 8 (2011): 121-28.
Uses details of the Pardoner's description in the GP and his interactions with other pilgrims to support the hypothesis that Chaucer depicts him as a castrato and satirize an aspect of corruption in the medieval Church.
Sturges, Robert S.
Jeffrey Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler, eds. Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (New York and London: Garland, 1997), pp. 261-77.
Provides Freudian and Lacanian analysis of two references to veils in the GP sketch of the Pardoner and the Host's threat at the end of PardT. The Pardoner's vernicle signifies his collusion with masculinist equations of penis and word, while his…
The reception of the Pardoner can be more fully understood by examining medieval preachers' and orators' uses of examples, or stories that would "excite" an audience to behave virtuously. By "laying bare" his own selfish desires, the Pardoner elicits…
Sturges, Robert S.
College Literature 33 (2006): 52-76.
Sturges assesses the Pardoner and Kit from the Prologue to Beryn as "comic critiques" of fifteenth-century urban concerns about class and gender. Three metaphors define urban space in the narrative: cathedral, walls, and tavern.
Gardiner, Alan.
Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey, ed. Critical Essays on The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale (Harlow: Longman, 1990), pp. 86-95.
Assesses the rhetorical power of PardT in light of the conventions and stylistic features of medieval sermons. The Pardoner adheres to most conventions effectively, but his "delight in his own powers of persuasion and the purpose of his preaching"…
Evanoff, Alexander.
Brigham Young University Studies 4.3-4 (1962): 209-17.
Treats the Pardoner as a "foot-in-the-door salesman" who is confident in his own skills and believes that his "frankness is disarming." The "agonized sincerity" that George Lyman Kittredge perceived in lines PardT 6.916-18 is not "agonized" but…
Wilson, James H.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 74 (1973): 292-96.
Argues that the theme of idleness and the triads of characters in PardT and SNT encourage us to read these tales in sequence--a feature of the ordering of the fragments of CT proposed by Henry Bradshaw.
The Pardoner's motivation is understandable if we hear his prologue and tale through the ears of Harry Bailly; the Pardoner's performance is not merely one more ad hominem attack by one of the pilgrims but a questioning of the story-telling rules…
Lavezzo, Kathy.
Frank Grady, ed. The Cambridge Companion to "The Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 166-77.
Catalogues the contours of criticism of the Pardoner in PardT, including critical praise of the tale’s alleged “superiority as a tale.” Argues that the pilgrims' revulsion toward the Pardoner is rooted in his homosexual identity, which is…
Horrox, Rosemary.
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. 443-59.
Surveys current and past scholarship on Chaucer's Pardoner. Provides historical background on the office and practices of pardoners in the late medieval Church and reviews debate over Pardoner's "sexual ambiguity."
López Santos, Antonio.
Viorica Patea, ed. Short Story Theories: A Twenty-First Century Perspective. DQR Studies in English, no. 49 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012), pp. 25-48.
Argues that Chaucer's innovations in CT "announce the ulterior evolution of the modern short story," focusing on NPT and WBPT as "unequivocal precursors" to the modern genre in their techniques of representing time, space, characters, and narrators,…
Manning, Stephen.
Journal of Narrative Technique 15 (1985): 29-42.
The traditional paratactic style of folktales and a literary style emphasizing causation and motivation relate to allegorical themes: Walter's self-centeredness and Griselda's self-effacing love. A markedly different style in the Envoy relates to…
Jenkins surveys scriptural, Latin patristic, Anglo-Saxon, and late-medieval English representations and appropriations of mysticism, arguing that "medieval indeterminacy" is in many ways epistemologically and theologically grounded in mysticism.…
