Echard, Siân.
Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Tison Pugh, eds. Chaucer on Screen: Absence, Presence, and Adapting the "Canterbury Tales" (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2016), pp. 167-83.
Explores the "unexpected points of contact between" Brian Helgeland's "A Knight's Tale" and Chaucer's poetry, discussing ways that the film and KnT focus on tilting arenas and order, their affinities with pastiche, their concern with the power of the…
Delany, Sheila.
Mediaevalia 13 (1989, for 1987): 275-94.
A twelfth-century "lai" and its fourteenth-century moralization, both in the 'Ovide moralise,' provided Chaucer verbal details and a general concept for his treatment of "Thisbe" in LGW. Echoing the fissure between the 'lai' and the…
Delany, Sheila.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Analyzes LGW as an under-appreciated work, using an ecletic combination of approaches derived from semiotic, historicist, and feminist theories. LGWP and the separate legends are coherent but not organic; they combine in their recurrent…
Heinrichs, Katherine.
University Park and London : Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.
Examines "conventions governing allusions to certain Ovidian and Virgilian tales of love in the works of Boccaccio, Machaut, Froissart, and Chaucer," addressing "questions of narrative voice, thematic unity, and purpose" and concentrating on…
Rehyansky, Katherine Heinrichs.
Dissertation Abstracts International 48 (1987): 123A-124A.
Rehyansky studies classical allusions Chaucer introduced into TC: they underscore its themes. Oenone, Daphne, Europa, and Venus represent the folly and tragedy of love; Niobe, Tantalus, Ixion, and Tityus show the folly of pride, greed, and…
Though Chaucer obliquely refers to the positive interpretation of the Mars-Venus-Vulcan myth (in the gift by Vulcan to Harmonia of a brooch), he stresses the negative--that the martial man is best advised to avoid the temptations of love. The…
Explores political implications of PF, commenting on the theme of common profit and on Chaucer's political situation. Examines the role of Nature as an advocate of hierarchy and a suppresser of rebellion.
Chance, Jane.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1995
Examines Chaucer's astrological and mythological allusions in light of medieval mythographic commentaries, arguing that such analysis discloses "embarrassing secrets."
Chance, Jane, ed.
Gainesville : University of Florida Press, 1990.
A collection of articles covering mythographic art in the literature of early France, early England (Chaucer), and Renaissance England (Shakespeare). Chance defines mythography as "the explanation of classical mythology that often involves…
Freer, Scott.
Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 27 (2007): 357-70.
Freer examines modernist uses of the past in Eliot's "The Waste Land" and the English movie "A Canterbury Tale," directed by Michael Powell. Explores several allusions to Chaucer.
Sharpless, F. Parvin, ed.
Rochelle Park, N.J.: Hayden, 1974.
An anthology of short works and excerpts from the Bible to modern poetry pertaining to the Fall and Redemption, with brief introductions and discussion questions designed for classroom use. Includes an excerpt from ParsT (10.316-57; pp. 33-36) in…
Dane, Joseph A.
Buffalo and Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 2003.
Wide-ranging discussion of the opposition between evidence (physical materials) and discourse (abstractions covered by the word "text") in bibliographical and literary study, with sustained attention to editions of Chaucer and their methods and…
Trivellini, Samanta.
Interferences litteraires / Literaire interferenties 17 (2015): 85-99. Available at http://www.interferenceslitteraires.be.
Considers four frame-tale versions of the Philomela story--Margaret Atwood's "Nightingale" in "The Tent" (2006), George Pettie's in "A Petite Pallace of Pettie His Pleasure" (1576), Chaucer's in LGW, and Gower's in "Confessio Amantis"--focusing on…
Linguistic claims that Chaucer's English is the origin of English literary language are self-fulfilling, based on the "myth," in the sense of Levi-Strauss, that Chaucer originated English poetic tradition. The OED credits Chaucer with the first…
Donaldson, E. Talbot
Ventures: Magazine of the Yale Graduate School 5 (1965): 16-23. Reprinted in "Speaking of Chaucer," pp. 154-63.
Challenges the idea that adultery in inherent to courtly love and attributes the notion to critics' failure to recognize the humor of Andrea Capellanus. Cites various examples of courtly love in medieval literature, and includes comments on Absolon…
Dane, Joseph A.
Papers on Language and Literature 24 (1988): 115-33. Reprinted in Joseph A. Dane, The Critical Mythology of Irony (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1991), pp. 135-49.
Now a mainstay of Chaucerian criticism, the term "irony" has designated at least three different concepts in literary history, variously emphasizing the authority of the text, the poet, and the critic. Rhetorical irony, the "appeal to an absent…
Foster, Michael.
Medieval and Early Modern English Studies 18 (2010): 341-60.
It is "anachronistic to assume" that Chaucer distinguished between the "reading and hearing of his literary works." His "style is best understood as a versatile adaptation of language to suit both silent and vocalized readings."
Warner, Lawrence.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Surveys the "Langland archive" to address the history of the production and reception of "Piers Plowman."The "Conclusion" (pp. 129-40) reveals early eighteenth-century textual scholarship that attributes "Piers Plowman" to Chaucer.
Friedman, Albert B.
Chaucer Review 11 (1977): 328-33.
The grain which the Virgin places on the clergeon's tongue and which is removed after his death to stop his singing is simply a prop necessary to the structure of the tale; elaborate allegorizations are unnecessary.
Rudat, Wolfgang E. H.
Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitatsverlag, 1985.
Includes chapters on classical allusion in Pope, More, and Milton, and two chapters devoted to Chaucer. Chapter 2 explores Chaucer's allusions to Virgil's "Aeneid" in KnT, concerning fate. Chaucer's view of a chaotic universe is compared to…
Tamakawa, Asumi.
Koichi Kano, ed. Through the Eyes of Chaucer: Essays in Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Society for Chaucer Studies (Kawasaki: Asao Press, 2014), pp. 125-37.
Examines connotations of words concerning oaths and mutilation of body in PardT in relation to contemporary attitudes toward the worship of relics. In Japanese.
Mogan, Joseph J., Jr.
American Notes and Queries 8 (1969): 19.
Observes that carpenter John's sense of worldly instability in MilT is established in 1.3423-30 and 1.3449-50, anticipating his ready acceptance of Nicholas's prediction of the Flood later in the Tale.
Chamberlain, David
Chaucer Review 5.1 (1970): 32-56.
Argues that Chaucer "weaves through the structure and themes of [PF] all four medieval species of music, and numerous subspecies, in a way that emphasizes the failing of the eagles" and "that the [planetary] spheres are . . . the cause of almost all…
Newhauser, Richard G.
Annette Kern-Stahler, Beatrix Busse, and Wietse de Boer, eds. The Five Senses in Medieval and Early Modern England (Boston: Brill, 2016), pp. 199-218.
Explores the "full sensory expression" in Chaucer's "construction of space," emphasizing the interconnectedness of the five senses in medieval understanding and their ethical dimensions that require proper training to engage volition correctly.…
Pichaske, David R.
Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1977.
A reading of the CT as "Chaucer's aesthetic and metaphysical pilgrimage" in which his religious orthodoxy eventually supersedes "alternatives and legitimate philosophical doubts." Follows the Ellesmere order of the tales (defending it on thematic…
