Stemmler, Theo.
Beryl Rowland, ed. Chaucer and Middle English Studies in honour of Rossell Hope Robbins (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974), pp. 111-18.
Prosodic analysis of the Middle English lyric "Alysoun" that identiies several commonplace parallels with the description of Alisoun in MilT.
Shows how the theme of common profit and the figure of tolerant Nature bridge the opposing views of the love among the high- and low-class birds in PF. Other contrastive pairs in the poem--the two sides of the gate, Priapus and Venus,…
Building on three generally acknowledged biblical motifs in MerT, Fumo suggests "the presence, indeed the dominance, of a fourth": the Crucifixion. Januarie's pain in marriage is associated with "Christ's suffering on the cross"; however, the…
Shaner, Mary Carol Edwards.
DAI 34.02 (1973): 739A.
Surveys medieval attitudes toward the women featured as protagonists in Chaucer's LGW and reads Chaucer's characters in light of these attitudes, observing that they vary as "not-so-good" women and "not-so-bad" ones, a reflection of the limits of…
Calabrese, Michael.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2016.
Presents comprehensive overview of all three iterations of Langland's "Piers Plowman." Provides discussion of differences between Langland's characters and Chaucer's depictions of social characters in GP.
Jimura, Akiyuki.
Loren C. Gruber, ed. Essays on Old, Middle, Modern English and Old Icelandic in Honor of Raymond P. Tripp, Jr. (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen Press, 2000), pp. 409-46.
Compares each line of TC in Larry Benson's, F. N. Robinson's, R. K. Root's, and B. A. Windeatt's editions in preparation for a larger study that will account for differences of word choice and syntax among these editions.
General, introductory work in fourteen chapters on Chaucer's schooling, courtly life, literary traditions, BD, Chaucer as diplomat, HF and PF, from Boethius to Venus, KnT, TC, LGW, GP and CT, and Chaucer's last years.
Hussey, Maurice, A. C. Spearing, and James Winny.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
Designed as a "not too bulky" introduction to Chaucer and his life for the Cambridge University Press series "Selected Tales of Chaucer," providing fundamental information about Chaucer's life, language, social contexts, and intellectual background,…
Pugh, Tison.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2013. xviii, 251 pp.
Includes biographical information, historical context, Chaucer's sources, a pronunciation guide, and glossary of common Middle English words. Chapter 2, "Chaucer's Literature," is a comprehensive guide for beginning readers, and covers Chaucer's…
Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle.
New York: Prentice Hall, 1995.
Comments (pp. 6-7) on T. S. Eliot's allusion to GP at the beginning of his "The Waste Land" and discusses (pp. 78-79) the comedy of MilT as "very specifically linguistic," turning on a double meaning of the word "water," as well as depending upon the…
Textbook introduction to appreciating and analyzing poetry, with a chronological anthology of English and American verse which includes excerpts from GP: 1.1-34 (opening), 79-100 (Squire), 165-207 (Monk), and 445-76, (Wife of Bath). Expanded versions…
Kennedy, X. J., ed.
Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1966.
A textbook designed for reading and analyzing poetry in the college classroom, with discussions of prosody, poetic devices, and genres; study questions; and an anthology of illustrative poems, including Chaucer's Purse in Middle English (p. 292) with…
Bowers, John M.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2012.
Places the "Gawain"-poet "within the context of Richard II's court and its numerous intrigues" (ix), with chapters on each of his poems (including "Saint Erkenwald"); a life; "A Survey of Sources and Influences"; and a chronology, glossary of…
Phillips, Helen.
New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.
Discusses all of the Tales in Ellesmere order, surveying past and current critical approaches. Emphasizes the diversity of CT, discusses the narrative voice, and places the work in historical, political, and economic contexts. Concludes that Chaucer…
Schilling, Arnold.
[Jay Ruud, ed.] Papers on the "Canterbury Tales": From the 1989 NEH Chaucer Institute, Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota ([Aberdeen, S.D.: Northern State University, 1989), pp. 13-23.
Introductory comments on late-medieval musical notation, melody and harmony, rhythm and meter, instruments, and forms, with notes for an accompanying tape recording.
Presents various essays that introduce Chaucer, the European literary tradition on which his works draw, and the social conditions, art, and culture of his time. Includes a chronology of Chaucer and a list of recommended readings. In Japanese. For…
Thomas, Paul R.
Encyclia 59 (1985, for 1982): 45-52
Chaucer's learned audience would have seen great irony in Daun Russell's allusion to the cock in Nigel de Longchamps's "Speculum stultorum": that cock, unlike Chauntecleer, had the intelligence to refuse to crow. The textual Chauntecleer is…
Rea, John A.
Philological Quarterly 46 (1967): 128-30.
Offers the "tempting hypothesis" that Adenet le Roi's "Berte aud Grans Pies" is a source of the "coincidence of . . . three motifs" in GP ("pilgrimage, spring, framing device"); also observes several "interesting verbal similarities" between the two.
Item not seen. WorldCat records indicate that this facsimile of Dove's musical score includes a libretto by Alasdair Middleton based on ShT, and Italian singing translation by Adam Pollock. Also published as the third part of Dove's trilogy:…
Brown, Peter.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 231-43.
Three medieval optical authorities possibly known by Chaucer--Alhazen, Witelo, and Bartholomew--provide parallels for the visual deceptions at the end of MerT, which reflect the medieval tradition of "perspectiva."
The poem's use of "rare variants" such as "peregal," which appears in Chaucer's TC (5.840) and in Lydgate's "Reson and Sensuallyte" (ll. 1738, 4384), exemplifies its "rather refined" language.
