Jardillier, Claire.
Bulletin des Anglicistes Médiévistes 71 (2007): 35-41.
Explores connections between text and places (landscapes, architecture, textual architecture) in KnT, focusing on Theseus's efforts to organize space and events and on the narrative's introduction of original motifs and discrepancies.
Green, Richard Firth.
English Language Notes 18 (1981): 251-57.
Chaucer's digression from Boccaccio concerning Arcite's career at court should be interpreted not biographically but rather in the context of the career of Havelock the Dane. Both tales show the social stigma of being a page; Arcite's role…
Explores how the figure of a drunken man, originating in Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" and "De topicis differentiis," and used by Chaucer in Arcite's complaint in KnT, I.1260–67, "blurs the line between universal and particular" and thereby…
Infusino, Mark H., and Ynez Viole O'Neill.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 221-30.
The bitterest controversy between "ancients" and "moderns" in fourteenth-century medicine concerned the treatment of wounds. Whereas Boccaccio in "Teseida" aligns his "medici" with the ancients and prolongs Arcita's death, Chaucer in KnT aligns…
Donaldson, E. Talbot.
Douglas Gray and E. G. Stanley, eds. Middle English Studies Presented to Norman Davis in Honour of His Seventieth Birthday (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 65-67.
The traditional reading is that Arcite's horse pitches him to the ground so that Arcite, falling on his head, has his chest shattered by the saddlebow. The words "pomel" and "pighte," however, show that Arcite is not thrown from his horse but is…
Explores prosimetrum in the Arthurian "Tristan en prose" as a way to understand Palamon's actions after he overhears Arcite's "formally elegant rondeau" in KnT 1.1510ff.
"Grene" in many contexts in Middle English poetry including Chaucer implies fertility and sexual desire. Hence, the line "In hope that I som grene gete may" may mean "In hope that I may get some sex."
Spencer, William
Chaucer Review 4.3 (1970): 147-70.
Tallies evidence that the "twelvefold pattern of [zodiacal] signs and planets" of medieval astrology is the "hidden ground plan" of GP, underlying its sequence of characters and some details of their descriptions.
Kuhn, Wiebke.
Dissertation Abstracts International 61: 2705A, 2001.
Medieval idealizations of motherhood developed alongside the rising emphasis on the suffering of Christ and the saints. Kuhn discusses works by Jacobus de Voragine, Chaucer (LGW, MLT, ClT, and PrT), Osbern Bokenham, and Margery Kempe. The tradition…
Argues that in their ordering of Chaucer's text and in their various and dynamic forms, manuscripts of CT successfully instantiate Chaucer's dynamic idea of his text, the complex conditions for pre-print book production, and the disaggregated forms…
Maíz Arévalo, Carmen.
Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre and M. Nila Vázquez González, eds. Medieval English Literary and Cultural Studies (Murcia: Universidad de Muscia, 2004), pp. 81-94.
Discusses linguistic pragmatics to disclose parallels between WBPT and PardPT, focusing on the relationship between the characters' uses of speech and the two works.
The "accumulation of Chaucerisms" in Henryson's Orpheus encourages readers to posit a fallible narrator; the gap between tale and moralization can be seen as an artful effort to dissuade readers from too easily accepting the premise that meaning is…
Mack, Peter.
Scott D. Troyan, ed. Medieval Rhetoric: A Casebook (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 109-26.
Mack examines public and private oratory in Book 4 of TC, exploring the emotional emphases that Chaucer adds to Boccaccio and focusing on the relationship between emotion and argument in rhetorical theory. Mack's essay tallies Chaucer's various ways…
Chaucer defines characters through both natural and conventional theories of etymology. Argyve, related to Argus and foresight, succintly describes the wife of Calchas the visionary. Convention, not inherent association, connects Criseyde with…
Fumo, Jamie C.
Alison Keith and Stephen Rupp, eds. Metamorphosis: The Changing Face of Ovid in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2007), pp. 129-50.
The Wife of Bath's "manipulations of the Argus and Midas myths" reflect her Ovid-like "delight in sensuality and embeddedness of narrative" and her recognition of the power of story to "control and deceive." The myths help unify WBPT; through them,…
Hill, John.
Robert G. Benson and Susan J. Ridyard, eds. New Readings of Chaucer's Poetry (Rochester, N.Y., and Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 165-82.
In light of Cicero's "De amicitia," the noble friendship between Troilus and Pandarus helps to elevate TC to a great tragedy.
Grennen, Joseph E.
Medievalia et Humanistica 14 (1986): 125-38.
Chaucer's concept of "fyn," or end, is illuminated by the "Nicomachean Ethics" of Aristotle, which is more important as a source for Chaucer than has been recognized.
Graybill, Robert (V.)
Proceedings of the Medieval Association of the Midwest 2 (1993): 90-98.
TC exemplifies the Aristotelian idea of tragedy, with Troilus undergoing the "perepetia" ("reversal") and the ending of the tale presenting a Christianized version of catharsis.
Examines Giles of Rome's social theory and its vision of unity and hierarchy, as well as the degree to which it might have been influential in Chaucer's time, commenting on the Wife of Bath's discussion of "gentilesse." Also refers to LGW; HF; KnT;…
Collette, Carolyn.
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne and others, eds. Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England c.1100-c.1500 (Woodbridge, Suffolk; and Rochester, N.Y.: York Medieval Press, 2009), pp. 373-85.
Collette explores interest in "mediation and moderation" in vernacular texts, commenting on the vernacular as a way to make learning more broadly available, on "the mean" in such texts as Nicole Oresme's translations of Aristotle, and on Chaucer's…
North, John
Giancarlo Marchetti et al., eds. Ratio et Superstitio: Essays in Honor of Graziella Federici Vescovini (Louvain-la-Neuve: Fédération Internationale des Instituts d'Études Médiévales, 2003), pp. 263-83.
North summarizes medieval arithmetic theory and practice, describes Chaucer's professional familiarity with arithmetic, and explores arithmetic allusions and structuring in BD, particularly its shape as an abacus.
Brewer, Derek.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds. Literature in Fourteenth-Century England (Tubingen: Gunter Narr; Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1983), pp. 155-64.
Examines arithmetic aspects of Chaucer's poetry in an effort to understand the mind of the man. The arithmetic devices of RvT, ShT, SumT, etc. indicate the strong vein of "modernistic rationalism" in Chaucer, a distinctive feature of his mentality.
Kirby, Thomas A.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 73 (1972): 127-33.
Gauges Matthew Arnold's familiarity with Chaucer's works, judging it to be "thin" and "not extensive until the last eight years of his life," and suggesting that Arnold might not have misjudged Chaucer's "high seriousness" if had he read more of him.
Describes Chaucer's arrangements of multiple adjectives (preposed, postposed, and combined), contrasting his practice with other Middle English writers, and exploring the poetic value of his usage, suggesting that he seems to have been "the writer…
