Taylor, Karla.
Brian Gastle and Erick Kelemen, eds. Later Middle English Literature, Materiality, and Culture: Essays in Honor of James M. Dean (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2018.), pp. 25-41.
Uses Sergej Karcevskij’s theory of miscommunication to clarify the amalgamation and "redoctrinations" of various versions and interpretations of the Midas story, exploring how Chaucer's version in WBT engages Ovid's original and related materials.
Hejaiej, Mounira Monia.
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 12.1 (2010): n.p.
Provides comparative analysis of the modern Tunisian tale "Sabra," an analogue of ClT, told by a woman to an exclusively female audience. Includes summary of and commentary on Chaucer's "ambivalent and ironic version," plus other medieval European…
Wentersdorf, Karl P.
Studies in Short Fiction 17 (1980): 249-54.
Scatological jests, such as dividing Thomas' "yifte," are derived from classical sources and adapted to Christian theology. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscripts frequently show defecation or breaking of wind to drive away the devil. The…
Miller tallies a number of "hybrid derivatives" from before 1500, focusing on top-frequency suffixes. Examples and conclusions involve Chaucerian usage, including Chaucer's tendency to develop "non-technical hybrids" and to use "non-prestige French…
Buhler, Curt F.
Mieczyslaw Brahmer, Stanislaw Helsztynski, and Julian Krzyzanowski, eds. Studies in Language and Literature in Honour of Margaret Schlauch (Warsaw: PWN—Polish Scientific Publishers, 1966), pp. 49-55.
Considers the authorship and manuscript provenance of a French version of the tale of Melibee, an analogue of Mel.
Langdon, Alison Ganze
Year’s Work in Medievalism 28 (2012): 2-9.
Examines ClT and Maria Edgeworth's "The Modern Griselda" in light of their respective contemporaneous conduct manuals for women, arguing that the protagonist of each narrative becomes "monstrous" in "fulfilling too completely the ideals of womanhood…
Burnley, J. D.
Yearbook of English Studies 6 (1976): 16-25.
The wording of MerT has many echoes, some heretofore unidentified, of medieval marriage services. Suggestions of the Christian ideal are thus juxtaposed to the characters' perverse misunderstandings of marriage throughout the tale, providing an…
Brondell, William J.
Dissertation Abstracts International 25.10 (1965): 5901-02A.
Uses ParsT as a standard by which to assess the morality of CT, discussing the "ubiquity of sin in the Canterbury pilgrims," the "prominence of Pride" in especially the Wife of Bath and Pardoner materials, and the balancing virtues found elsewhere in…
Mitchell, Charles.
College English 27 (1966): 437-44.
Asks why the Pardoner "always preaches against his own sin" and why he admits to doing so to the Canterbury pilgrims, using the questions to argue that he is a con-man rather than a hypocrite, and one who considers himself morally superior to his…
Hieatt, Constance B.
Studia Neophilologica 42 (1970): 3-8.
Identifies nine aphoristic statements in NPT and assesses the extent to which they can be considered the "moralite" referred to by the narrator in 7.3440. Considers analogous fables and claims that Chaucer's version demonstrates "a common Chaucerian…
Johnson, Bruce A.
David G. Allen and Robert A. White, eds. Subjects on the World's Stage: Essays on British Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1995), pp.54-61.
The geographic references in PardT, of which the stile is the central figure, represent a loosely symbolic, "moral" landscape that adds to the moral tone of the tale.
Tavormina, M. Teresa.
Ball State University Forum 22 (1981): 14-19.
The lunar calendar and imagery of TC 4, though inspired by a similar device in "Filostrato," are far more elaborate than those in the source. The title characters are often directly correlated to these images, which deepens their development.
In this last book Chaucer uses a number of devices inexorably to distance the reader from the personages in the poem. He suggests astral influence that brings about the inevitable movement of joy-to-sorrow in love.
Drake, Gertrude C.
Papers on Language and Literature 11 (1975): 3-17.
Negative elimination, sources, and proleptic passages isolate the moon, both symbol for inconstancy and threshold to immutability, as Troilus's port of death, logically compatible with the variants. Venus, traditionally combining the poem's themes…
Braswell, Laurel.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 8 (1986): 145-56.
A survey of medieval medical documents indicates that GP's Physician conforms accurately to expected medical practice; the astronomical position and astrological meaning of the moon provide a basis for medieval medical theory and practice.
Kendrick, Laura.
South Atlantic Quarterly 91 (1992): 835-64
Writing fixes texts, inviting marginal explication and commentary. Dante, Boccaccio, Deschamps, Langland, Gower, and Chaucer annotate their own texts to "authorize" them, although modern scholarship has been reluctant to accept glosses as…
Friedman, John Block.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Drawing from art, iconography, literature, canon law, theology, and cartography, Friedman examines the impact upon European culture of monstrous races.
Yıldız, Nazan.
Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi/Selçuk University Journal of Faculty of Letters 41 (2019): 127-42.
Explores the rebelliousness and animal imagery associated with the GP Miller and Symkyn of RvT, the in-between social status of medieval millers, and depictions of millers in accounts of the Revolt of 1381, arguing that medieval millers were depicted…
Waller, Martha S.
Indiana Social Studies Quarterly 31 (1978): 46-55.
Though the authentic detail of Nero's golden fishnets passed unchanged into medieval tradition, the fiction of Julius Caesar's low birth is peculiar to English historians of the later Middle Ages. It apparently arose in "exempla" of Caesar's…
Kim, Jung-Ai.
Medieval English Studies 07: 93-123, 1999.
Although the Monk seems to suggest that the tragedies he relates can be explained by the action of Fortune, there is no consistent concept of Fortune. As a result, MkT is a failure.
Thomas, Paul R., dir.
[Provo, UT] : Chaucer Studio, 2002.
Middle English audio recording of MkP, MkT, and NPP (through line 2807), read by Alan T. Gaylord. Recorded at the 36th International Congress of Medieval Studies.
