Lawton, David, ed., with prose texts ed. Jennifer Arch and dream poems ed. Kathryn Lynch.
New York: Norton, 2019.
A comprehensive edition of all of Chaucer's works (without Rom or Equat), with bottom-of-page notes, side-bar glosses, headnotes to the individual works and each part of CT, and a glossary. The text is based on manuscript witnesses and on E. Talbot…
Despite Tolkien's praise of Chaucer's "accurate observation" of dialects in RvT, examination of the mss of CT reveals that Chaucer's knowledge of northern dialect was in no way exceptional and that many of the northern speech characteristics of the…
Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Gregory Kratzmann and James Simpson, eds. Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986), pp. 92-114.
Reviews scholarship and corrects mistaken assumptions about medieval tragedy. The first vernacular writer in Europe to consider himself a tragedian, Chaucer was anticipated by several Latin writers but drew mainly from Boethius. The tragic falls in…
Reads MerT as a composite of "various comic attitudes toward lust and marriage," not as the bitter vituperation of an angry narrator, arguing that the latter, conventional view results from seeking to impose "organic unity" on four "strikingly…
Sands, Donald B.
Chaucer Review 12 (1978): 171-82.
The Wife of Bath is neither a comic figure as Donaldson and others see her, nor a tragic figure as several other critics see her. Instead she is, as Beryl Rowland suggests, a neurotic and a misfit.
Hartung, Albert E.
Mediaeval Studies 29 (1967): 1-25.
Evaluates MerT in light of its sources and analogues, including the "Miroir de Mariage," Boccaccio's "Ameto," and the "Elegies of Maximianus," the latter identified here as an analogue for the first time, with its presentation of "amorous senility…
Surveys the importance of classical and medieval rhetorical theories that underlie late medieval poetry, and discusses the "flowering of rhetorico-poetic technique in Chaucer's verse," analyzing samples of his poetry in light of Geoffrey of Vinsauf's…
McDonald, William C.
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fur Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 60 (1986): 543-71.
ParsT's statement of the medieval idea (of Peraldus) that true virtue derives from nobility of the spirit rather than from nobility of birth is examined in relation to its treatment by the late-medieval German authors Heinrich von Langenstein and…
Schibanoff, Susan.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 10 (1988): 71-108.
The glosses to the Ellesmere and Egerton manuscripts of WBP and WBT illustrate how differently two readers may respond to a single text. Condemning not only the Wife's sexuality but her "textuality" as well, the Egerton commentator struggles to…
Representative British poetry (lyrics and selections from narrative verse), ranging from Middle English lyrics to poetry written in the 1990s. Arranged chronologically, with no introduction or notes, but with indexes of poets, first lines, and…
Capacious anatomy of Middle English literature, with a variety of essays by individual authors; a selection of lyrics, narrative, poems, and dramas; suggestions for further readings, and comprehensive index. The selection includes no works by…
Includes selections from Chaucer's poetry, in Middle English with editorial titles: "The Complaint of Troilus" (TC 5.547-53, 561-81, 638-44, 1688-1901), "Love Unfeigned" (TC 5.1835-48), "Ballade" (LGWP F249-69), and "Madame Eglantine" (GP 1.118-62).
Trigg explores how efforts to introduce philology and recent challenges to canonicity complicate Chaucer pedagogy and its relations with the teaching of other medieval authors, contemplating questions of Chaucer's continuing appeal despite these…
Examines the evolution of the word "humanism" and explores Chaucer's artistic application of fourteenth-century nominalism as it relates to his fusion of medieval ideas of community, tradition, and the emerging figure of the individual. Treats CT,…
Woodward, Daniel.
Martin Stevens and Daniel Woodward, eds. The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation (San Marino, Calif.: Huntingon Library; Tokyo: Yushodo, 1995), pp. 1-13.
Describes the new facsimile of Ellesmere and the project that led to its production and the accompanying volume.
Edmondson, George.
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011.
Applies psychoanalytical analysis to Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato," Chaucer's TC, and Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid," tying "literary neighbor relations to the social and political realities of the late Middle Ages."
Prendergast, Thomas, and Stephanie Trigg.
Elizabeth Scala and Sylvia Federico, eds. The Post-Historical Middle Ages ((New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 117-37.
The authors contemplate the relationship of medievalism to medieval studies, considering several (re)constructions of the Middle Ages, including Brian Helgeland's A Knight's Tale and various critics' efforts to gloss "queynte." Such considerations…
Vásquez Gonzalez, Nila.
International Journal of English Studies 5.2 (2005): 161-73.
Justifies the need for a new edition of the "Tale of Gamelyn" on the grounds that previous editions rely on limited manuscript authority and reflect various editorial biases.
Patterson, Lee.
Bonnie Wheeler, ed. Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 187-210.
Patterson reads ClT in light of negotiations over the marriage of Richard II and Isabelle of France in 1396 and of the texts surrounding those negotiations, especially those concerned with the ideology of sacral kingship. Chaucer knew of the marriage…
Murnighan, Jack, ed.
New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001.
Anthologizes excerpts from more than eighty works of literature, from the Old Testament to the Starr Report, including a selection from WBP (pp. 128-31), modernized by Murnighan; includes an appreciative introduction which refers to the Wife as "a…
Bowers, John M.
R. F. Yeager and Toshiyuki Takamiya, eds. The Medieval Python: The Purposive and Provocative Work of Terry Jones (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 105-17
Dates HF in the mid-1380s, positioning it as a "transitional work" between TC and CT and a reflection of Chaucer's status at the time as a king's man. Argues that LGW was written concurrently with CT, with LGWP-F as early as 1392, and revised as…
Seeks to define "romance" in Western literary tradition, commenting on its development from classical roots up to modern fantasy literature. Common formal features help to define the term, along with recurrent narrative patterns and themes. The…
Knapp, Peggy Ann.
Chaucer Review 13 (1978): 133-40.
Criseyde's characterization and role in Chaucer's fiction define the way Nature herself looks and functions in the world. Troilus and Pandarus as "priests of Nature" cannot reconcile their image of her with a nature that is "slyding of corage."
Horobin, Simon.
Tim William Machan, ed. Imagining Medieval English: Language Structures and Theories, 500–1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 147-65.
Considers how manuscript evidence informs our understanding of Middle English, addressing the value of autograph manuscripts and personal letters, the process of standardization, and the importance of sociolinguistics. Includes analysis of the habits…
