Chaucer employed color adjectives more extensively than did his contemporaries. He preferred basic colors and used them most in connection with human beings. Chaucer's most "colorful" poem is KnT, followed by Rom and GP. Often, his colors are used…
Riehle, Wolfgang.
Herbert Foltinek et al., eds. Tales and "Their Telling Difference": Zur Theorie und Geschichte der Narrativik, Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Franz K. Stanzel (Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag, 1993), pp. 133-47.
Two tales in CT define Chaucer's role as an "implied author" and reflect his double vocation as a poet and diplomat. Th is a "brilliant example of his mastery as a poet"; Mel expresses his "ideological premises," anticipating the closing of the…
Rowland, Beryl.
Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Liteaturen 201 (1964): 110-14.
Surveys Chaucer's various metaphoric uses of animals, from "simple and conventional ideas about animals to throw light on man" to more elaborated or developed characterizations through more detailed comparisons.
Robertson, Elizabeth, ed.
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, eds. Chaucer's Religious Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), pp. 145-60.
Robertson encourages feminist critics to confront "the complexities of the relationship between women and religion" in Chaucer's religious tales, for "what appear in these tales to be extremes of female suffering and violence against women are…
Joselyn, M., O. S. B.
College English 25 (1964): 566-71.
Uses principles of Kenneth Burke's rhetoric of form to analyze NPT, commenting on aspects of its progressions (syllogistic, inverted, and repetitive), aspects of its genre conventions, and examples of its rhetorical ornamentation.
Yeager, R. F.
Studies in Philology 81:4 (1984): 42-55.
According to a theological tradition of the late Middle Ages, gluttony included swearing, blasphemy, sorcery, witchcraft, and devil worship, as well as excessive eating and drinking.
Rothwell, William.
D. A. Trotter, ed. Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 213-32.
Studies the "York Memorandum Book" for examples of the ways Latin, French, and English "intertwined" in medieval England. Rothwell opens with commentary on the vocabulary of a passage from MLP in which Chaucer "Englishes" several French words and…
Halverson, John.
Studies in Philology 57 (1960): 606-21.
Reinforces studies of structural and thematic order in KnT, identifying a threefold pattern of ordering principles: a backdrop natural order of cycles, rituals, folk customs; the noble social ordering of chivalry and tournament; and the universal,…
Burnley, J. D.
Durham Theses. Durham University. [http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7918/].
Examines the semantics of approximately fifty words that signify "benevolence and malevolence within courtly contexts in the works of Chaucer," exploring them diachronically and attending to "extralinguistic" factors in order to pursue a "literary…
Low, Anthony.
Pittsburgh, Penn. : Duquesne University Press, 2003.
Subjectivity and a sense of the importance of the inner self and the individual developed gradually from the early Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. Nothing is altogether new in the stunning early-modernist sense of a vast, inner world of the…
Blake, N. F.
Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 7 (1983): 1-20.
The lack of a clearcut distinction between connotative and denotative associations of words, as well as the looseness of syntactical patterns in Middle English, forces us to focus on the rhetorical arrangement of ideas and words--repetition, balance,…
Heffernan, Thomas J.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1990), pp.155-67.
Chaucer's canon evolved alongside a substantial body of virtually contemporary apocryphal texts attributed to him. But before the end of the last century, judgment concerning a text's authenticity was often indebted to extratextual biases: the…
Imahayashi, Osamu, Nakao Yoshiyuki, and Michiko Ogura, eds.
New York: Peter Lang, 2010.
Twenty-eight essays by various authors. For six essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Aspects of the History of the English Language and Literature under Alternative Title.
Minnis, A. J.
Margaret Gibson, ed. Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), pp. 312-61.
Considers the influence of Boethius's "Consolatione," with its medieval glosses, on Old French and Middle English literature, especially Jean de Meun's "Roman de la Rose" and Chaucer's MkT (Croesus, Nero), Bo, KnT, and TC.
Lock, Richard.
New York and London: Garland, 1985.
Concepts of time in nonliterate, oral traditions differ from those in literate, written traditions. Examines timing and logical linearity in ShT (pp. 234-39).
Fisher, John H.
Medieval Perspectives 4-5 (1989-90): 1-24.
CT exhibits tension between the corporate nature of medieval society and the domestic impulses of an "inner-directed society," in which the emergence of the poet is an important aspect of assertion of the self. In GP, the narrator signals irony. …
Ballesteros-González, Antonio.
In Antonio R. de Toro Santos and Eduardo Barros Grela, eds. Looking Out on the Fields: Reimagining Irish Literature and Culture (Rennes: TIR, 2018), pp. 922.
Presents Chaucer's Wife of Bath and James Joyce's Molly Bloom as counter-cultural figures, from the perspective of their characters, their views of man-woman relationships, and their sexuality. Contrasts the different forms of expression of their…
Moore, Marilyn L. Reppa.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1998): 2644A.
Rejects psychological characterizations of Troilus and Criseyde, arguing that they are better seen in light of rhetorical and devotional traditions. Associates Troilus with the ethos of petition and devotion and Criseyde with the pathos.
North, J. D.
Graziella Federici Vescovini and Francesco Barocelli, eds. Filosofia, scienza e astrologia nel Trecento europeo: Biagio Pelucani Parmense. Percorsi della scienza storia testi problemi, no. 2 (Padua: Poligrafi, 1992), pp. 95-104.
Surveys Chaucer's works for evidence of his knowledge and acceptance of astronomy and astrology. Argues that he uses astrological allegory as a structural device in his poetry.
Gordić Petković, Vladislava.
Sarajevo Notebook 51 (2017): n.p. Available at http://sveske.ba/en/content/astrologija-i-knjizevnost (accessed January 20, 2020).
A shortened version of an essay from a two-volume work not seen: Ljiljana Banjanin, Persida Lazarević Di Giacomo, Sanja Roić, and Svetlana Šeatović, eds. Il SoleLuna presso gli slavi meridionali, 2 vols. (Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2017).…
Illustrates a variety of ways astrology has been used in literature, drawing examples from Chaucer, Shakespeare, John Webster, and Samuel Beckett. Cites examples from Mars, MilT, and FranT, as well as Hypermnestra in LGW.
Laird, Edgar S.
Chaucer Review 6.3 (1972): 229-31.
The astrological details of "Complaint of Mars" indicate that in the anthropomorphic action of the poem Venus betrays Mars and becomes the mistress of Mercury, "eternally re-enact[ing] the eternal myth."
Studies the astrological references in WBP and casts her horoscope, interpreting it to show that Chaucer illumines "the entire character of the Wife with a configuration of planets unique in the fourteenth century," a configuration that occurred in…
