The alchemists' discourse echoes Chaucer's, and one might serve as a "metaphor for the other." Alchemists, like poets, were concerned with interpretations of the written word and with concealment.
Salas Chacón, Alvaro.
Káñina (Costa Rica) 17.2 (1993): 105-9.
Surveys Chaucer's Marian allusions and critical commentary on them. Suggests that Chaucer wrote his Marian poetry (ABC, PrT, SNT, and allusions elsewhere) for political and aesthetic reasons, not out of religious devotion.
Thompson, Mary Kay.
[Jay Ruud, ed.] Papers on the "Canterbury Tales": From the 1989 NEH Chaucer Institute, Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota ([Aberdeen, S.D.: Northern State University, 1989), pp. 104-11.
Identifies parallels between Chaucer's Pardoner and Arthur Dimmesdale of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," without claiming influence.
Phelan, Joseph.
SEL: Studies in English Literature 59 (2019): 855-72.
Explains how written correspondence between Arthur Hugh Clough and Francis James Child--recurrently concerned with metrical and linguistic issues--reveals influence of Clough on Child's "Observations on the Language of Chaucer"(1862); Clough's…
Suzuki, Takashi, and Tsuyoshi Mukai, eds.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993.
Twenty-six essays on linguistics, early publishing, and English literature, especially Malory, other Arthurian materials, and Chaucer. Also includes a few Renaissance and modern topics.For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Arthurian…
Knight, Stephen.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983.
In an effort to "historicize" Arthurian legend, Knight discusses the societies that "produced and consumed" various Arthurian works. Does not discuss works by Chaucer.
Examines postmodern elements in two pseudomedieval films, arguing that awareness of film theory and formal film analysis are more illuminating than comparison with medieval sources. Jerry Zucker's First Knight is a "star vehicle" and a "director's…
Hoagwood, Terence Allan.
Studia Monastica 11:2 (1988): 57-68.
BD contains analogies within analogies and poems within poems. The poem's subject is the mental movement from figure to embedded figure. The redemption offered in the poem is "the salvation that is opened within the mind as it recedes into…
Cooper, Lisa H.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Explores literary production and representations of craft labor and artisans in the Middle Ages. Looks at works by Chaucer, Lydgate, and Caxton, as well as lesser-known medieval writers.
Thurston, Paul Thayer.
Dissertation Abstracts International 29.03 (1968): 882A.
Argues that for readers sensitive to literary tradition and genre expectations KnT is a "delightful satire" of courtly love and the metrical romance genre, along with the "chivalric code implicit in them."
Thurston, Paul T.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1968.
Argues that "for the sophisticated reader" KnT satirizes the "hallowed institutions of the chivalric tradition and their literary and supposed societal foundations." While "literal-minded" readers may justifiably find that the Tale "idealizes the…
Although PF ends inconclusively, Chaucer gives it a sense of ending through the concluding roundel, which provides an image of resolution, affirming that, while life may be inconclusive, art can provide an ending.
Thompson, Louis Felsinger.
Dissertation Abstracts 20.05 (1959): 1771.
Compares TC with Boccaccio's "Filostrato," arguing that Chaucer "adapted more portions" of it "than has previously been noticed," subordinating formulas, conventions, thematic concerns, and moral concerns to artful construction and "psychological…
Reames, Sherry L.
Teresa Tavormina and R. F. Yeager, eds. The Endless Knot: Essays on Old and Middle English in Honor of Marie Borroff (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995), pp. 177-99.
Retellings of the Cecilia legend exemplify the range and flexibility of Middle English hagiography.
Furrow surveys medieval verbal and visual depictions of the love-tryst beneath the tree, focusing on the duping of Mark by Tristan and Isolde. Adaptations of the scene in romances include MerT and its analogue, "The Comedy of Lydia."
Figg, Kristen Mossler, and John Block Friedman, eds.
Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.
An encyclopedic survey of medieval arts and humanities. The section on Literature, by Lorraine Stock, includes a summary analysis of CT (pp. 199-201) and a description of Chaucer's life and works (p. 205).
Smith, D. Vance.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Explores a tradition of literature about dying that "combines medieval work
on the philosophy of language with contemporary theorizing on death and dying." Analyzes dying and tragedy in KnT, PardT, and BD.
Page, Colleen Barcel.
Dissertation Abstracts International 60: 1124-25A, 1999.
The medieval "ars dictaminis" evolved from fusion of rhetorical theory and letter-writing practice. Though originally an all-male art, epistolary form eventually became accessible to women. Examines PardT and other works.
Smith D. Vance.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Considers the household as a complex image central to understanding late-medieval England, exploring literary, historical, and economic representations for what they disclose about the "ethics of possession." Analyzes aspects of "Winner and Waster,"…
Analyzes Chaucer's self-consciousness as a writer though the narrator in the prologue, the proems, and the ending of TC. Not the result of naivete, the contradictions, emotional involvement, and irony suggest that the narrator's design is to whet the…
Fumo, Jamie C,.
Larissa Tracey ed. Medieval English and Dutch Literatures: The European Context. Essays in Honour of David F. Johnson (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2022), pp. 207-32
Compares and contrasts SqT and the analogous Middle Dutch "Roman van Walewein," focusing on their eastern settings, treatments of marvel, and other romance conventions. Considers Chaucer's possible knowledge of Middle Dutch and "Van Walewein,"…
Neto, Jonatas Batista.
São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, 1977.
Investigates Chaucer's biographical and literary "travels" to Italy, with chapters dedicated to 1) English travel to Italy; 2) Chaucer and the "Italian wedding" of Prince Lionel; 3) Chaucer and Petrarch; 4) Chaucer in Milan; and 5) the influence of…
