Pearson, Richard.
Clíodhna Carney and Frances McCormack, eds. Chaucer's Poetry: Words, Authority and Ethics (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), pp. 158-84.
Examines the significance of William Morris' direct engagement with Chaucer's works. The illustrations and intricate frames of his Kelmscott Chaucer are complex and communicative, serving as creatively productive interruptions to the act of reading.
Ashbrook, Susan.
Liana De Girolami Cheney, ed. Pre-Raphaelitism and Medievalism in the Arts. (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1992), pp. 281-305.
William Morris reissued many of Caxton's medieval texts, and his love for beautiful books led to his Kelmscott Chaucer, described by Edward Burne-Jones as "a pocket cathedral."
Hewett-Smith, Kathleen M., ed.
New York and London : Routledge, 2001.
Ten essays on Piers Plowman, including three that pertain to Chaucer. For essays pertaining to Chaucer, search for William Langland's Piers Plowman: A Book of Essays under Alternative Title.
Tomko, Andrew Stephan.
Dissertation Abstracts International 56 (1996): 3950A.
Though recent studies of Dunbar emphasize the traditional, the Scottish, and the Renaissance elements of his poetry, his aureate verse derives from familiarity with the rhetoric of Dante and Boccaccio, and his prosody from Chaucer. He is closer to…
Mosser, Daniel W.
Christopher de Hamel and Joel Silver, with contributions by John P. Chalmers, Daniel W. Mosser, and Michael Thompson. Disbound and Dispersed: The Leaf Book Considered (Chicago, Ill.: Caxton Club, 2005), pp. 24-51.
A portion of a copy of Caxton's first edition of CT was "harvested" to make a run of "leaf books" for the Caxton Club. Mosser describes the project, the known portions of the dismembered book, the known copies of Caxton's first edition, collectors'…
Kuskin, William.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59 (1998): 164A.
Explores how Caxton's technical and mechanical modifications of CT, Bo, Malory's "Morte Darthur," and the "Boke of Eneydos" claim authority for these texts and help to shape their audience.
Boyd, Beverly.
Paul Ruggiers, ed. Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition (Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1984), pp. 13-34.
Summarizes the life of William Caxton and his place at the head of the English printing tradition, providing basic information about fifteenth-century printing, linguistic conditions, and orthographical practice. Focuses on the seven volumes of…
Beidler, Peter G.
Chaucer Review 29 (1995): 434-39.
The "Rip Van Winkle" epigraph on keeping one's word until one dies (meaning that one will "not" keep one's word) is taken from a passage spoken by an old man to a widow in search of a husband in Cartwright's comedy, "The Ordinary."
Describes and assesses Blake's understanding of Chaucer and his Canterbury pilgrims, and surmises (in Appendix A) that Blake used Tyrwhitt's edition of CT. Includes reproductions of Blake's engraving of Chaucer's Pilgrims and of Thomas Stothard's…
Reisner, M. E.
Roger L. Emerson, Gilles Girard, and Roseann Runte, eds. Man and Nature: Proceedings of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 1 (London, Ontario: Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario, 1982), pp. 185-98.
Demonstrates that details of dress in William Blake's "Canterbury Pilgrims" derive from the monuments in Westminster Abbey. Focuses on Blake's depictions the Pardoner, Prioress, and Wife of Bath.
Chaudhuri, Aparna.
Dissertation Abstracts International A82.04 (2019): n.p.
Studies obedience in Middle English literature, including discussion of the theme in LGW and Ovid’s "Tristia" and comparison of ClT and "Pearl" as works which indicate that imperfect obedience "is as culturally and theologically important and perhaps…
Rex, Richard.
Papers on Language and Literature 22 (1986): 339-51.
The reference at the end of the tale to the offending Jews being drawn by wild horses and hanged (not in the tale's analogues) points out the cruelty of the Prioress. Reserved for traitors, equine quartering was rare in England.
User-generated online encyclopedia that includes a variety of links to information pertaining to Chaucer, his language, works, sources, influences, and social and literary contexts, composed by users both expert and amateur, but subject to…
Crocker, Holly A.
T. L. Burton and John F. Plummer, eds. "Seyd in Forme and Reverence": Essays on Chaucer and Chaucerians in Memory of Emerson Brown, Jr. (Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio Press, 2005), pp. 59-73.
The wife in ShT refuses to submit to the "comprehensive masculine dominance" of the competitive world of her husband and the monk. The two men understand their manliness in terms of the "image of potency"; like commerce, manliness is based on…
Brief comments about "pairing" WBP and Christine de Pizan in the classroom; mentions the Wife's "deliberate misreading, invective, and outright mockery" of misogynistic writing, and Chaucer's irony that "slices Jerome and the Wife with a single…
Contrasts FranT with analogous medieval accounts of wife exchange to argue that Chaucer's "unusual" version "testifies to Arveragus's regard for his wife and to Aurelius's regard for Averagus's regard for his wife." Other versions testify to male…
Taylor, Paul Beekman.
Udo Fries, ed. The Structure of Texts (Tubingen: Narr, 1987), pp. 123-32.
Among the many "para-texts," or "refigurings" of material from other tales in CT, we find WBT, PardT, and Th, which refract, "correct," and refigure each other.
Silverstein, Theodore.
Modern Philology 58 (1961): 153-73.
Characterizes the Wife of Bath through a sustained, appreciative summary of and commentary on WBP and, more extensively, WBT, showing that "Comic exaggeration is her forte, but tempered by delicate play and a fatal aim, the more precise for being…
Walker, Sue Sheridan.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993.
Eight historical and legal essays by various hands, including two of potential value to Chaucer studies, especially treatments of WBPT: Barbara A. Hanawalt, "Remmarriage as an Option for Rural Widows in Late Medieval England"; and Richard M.…
Hallissy, Margaret.
Studies in Short Fiction 26 (1989): 295-304.
During the Middle Ages, widowhood usually brought legal, social, and economic benefits. Although the Wife of Bath makes calculated use of these advantages, May in MerT foolishly jeopardizes her inheritance. Fertility lore indicates that she is…
Includes a brief comical introduction to Chaucer’s poetry and a modernized selection from the conclusion to NPT, with b&w illustrations by Philip Reeve.
Tolhurst, Fiona.
Gail Ashton and Louise Sylvester, eds. Teaching Chaucer (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 46-64.
Describes procedures for incorporating student performances of portions of LGW into classroom activities and using these performances to help students evaluate other Chaucerian texts.
