23 107 166 213 236 289 320 389 414 453

484 541 549 571 611 660 732 742 748 782

 

 

     
  1. Abraham, David H. "Cosyn and Cosynage: Pun and Structure in the Shipman's Tale." 11 (1977): 319-27.
    The structure of the Shipman's Tale can be understood in terms of Chaucer's puns on "cosyn," referring to relationship (between the monk and the merchant, and, indirectly, between the monk and the merchant's wife), and "cosynage," referring to deception. Used no fewer than sixteen times, the two meanings of "cosyn" take on different emphases in the two parts of the tale. In the first part the "relationship" aspect of "cosyn" dominates, with the "deception" aspect submerged. In the second part, the deception aspect dominates. The structure of the tale depends, then, on the structure of the pun.

     

  2. Acker, Paul. "The Emergence of an Arithmetical Mentality in Middle English Literature." 28 (1994): 293-302.
    Arithmetical methods passed from Pythagoras to Boethius, who passed these ideas on to Cassiodorus and Isidore. Bartholomaeus Anglicus picks up these ideas in De proprietatibus rerum, translated by Trevisa into Middle English. In the twelfth century, algorism began to replace arithmetic. Gower refers to this new arithmetic in the Confessio amantis in a stanza borrowed from Brunetto Latini. The Court of Sapience also reveals a shift in mathematical models. The Art of Nombryng and Mum and the Sothsegger give evidence that even those writers not concerned with mathematics were becoming aware of it.

     

  3. Adams, Robert. "The Egregious Feasts of the Chester and Towneley Shepherds." 21 (1986): 96-107.
    The playwrights of the Chester and Towneley cycles include feasts at the beginning of each play in order to dramatize the difference between Christ, the coming Good Shepherd, and the poor shepherds who disregard the law by eating what is specifically forbidden in the Levitical codes and who are more interested in their own dinners than in feeding their sheep.

     

  4. Aers, David. "Criseyde: Woman in Medieval Society." 13 (1979): 177-200.
    Troilus and Criseyde examines the disparity between social reality and the courtly love tradition, especially for women. As a widow, Criseyde lacks a protective male figure, so she uses her sexuality (as best she can) to survive in a male-dominated society. Criseyde's response to Pandarus's reports of Troilus's love shows her awareness of her powerless social position. When she shifts to discussing love, Criseyde examines the inequality between her impotent social position outside of love and her powerful position with in the courtly love tradition. Criseyde's dream about the eagle reveals her well-grounded social and psychological fears. Pandarus uses Criseyde's subordinate social position to manipulate her into sleeping with Troilus. Emphasizing her powerlessness, Chaucer depicts Criseyde's relationship to Troilus in terms of hunter (male) and hunted (female). Later, she is equated with Antenor, a move by which Chaucer suggests that women are no better than prisoners. Troilus and Criseyde's love collapses because of the social status of women. Criseyde's refusal to elope with Troilus indicates her submission to antifeminist social norms. When Criseyde becomes Diomede's lover, her seeming betrayal of Troilus reveals her to be entirely socialized in a society which forces and condemns her betrayal. Finally, Troilus responds to Criseyde with compassion, while Pandarus's response to her demonstrates social convention.

     

  5. Aers, David. "The Parliament of Fowls: Authority, the Knower and the Known." 16 (1981): 1-17.
    Chaucer's poetic construction forces his readers to overlook problems inherent in the idea of "commune profyt." By choosing explicitly pagan material in considering questions posed by Augustine in the De civitate dei, Chaucer undermines the pagan text. By noticing the juxtaposition of the two texts, readers recognize the "human mediations involved in all human knowledge" (9). The conflict between the lower classes of birds and the eagles in the Parliament of Fowls indicates a social conflict. Ultimately, Chaucer subverts all dogmas and all attempts to replace personal knowing with authoritative interpretation.

     

  6. Alford, John A. "The Wife of Bath Versus the Clerk of Oxford: What Their Rivalry Means." 21 (1986): 108-32.
    Chaucer sets up the Wife of Bath and the Clerk as opposites. They represent rhetoric and philosophy respectively, and seen as personifications of these concepts, their rivalry makes sense. The debate between philosophy and rhetoric rests on a moral issue: philosophy seeks truth where rhetoric does not. A number of classical and medieval writers emphasized the conflict between rhetoric and philosophy. Among them are Plato (Gorgias), Cicero (De oratore), Lucan (The Double Indictment), Augustine (De doctrina christiana), Martianus Capella (The Marriage of Philology and Mercury), John of Salisbury (Metalogicon), and Petrarch (De vita solitaria). Lucan and Capella personify the two points of view, and Capella's creations have a number of qualities paralleled in Chaucer's descriptions of the Clerk and the Wife of Bath, whose descriptions evoke the traditional associations with philosophy and rhetoric. Chaucer adds the detail that the Wife is deaf, perhaps as an additional commentary on the nature of rhetoricians. Each tale exhibits the characteristics of the personified discipline telling the story. The Wife of Bath's Tale focuses on experience and uses a number of rhetorical devices, particularly in the argument. The Clerk's Tale displays a number of characteristics associated with logic and philosophy. The jabs that the Wife and the Clerk take at one another show the Clerk to be superior, even at rhetoric, thus reasserting the traditional view that rhetoric is subservient to philosophy both in "discourse and life" (130).

     

  7. Alford, John A., V. A. Kolve, and R. A. Shoaf. "Judson Boyce Allen (March 15, 1932-July 23, 1985)." 21 (1986): 85-89.
    Judson Boyce Allen brought new approaches to medieval studies. For a listing of Allen's criticism, see "Publications of Judson Boyce Allen," pp. 90-92.

     

  8. Allen, Judson Boyce, and Patrick Gallacher. "Alisoun Through the Looking Glass: or Every Man His Own Midas." 4 (1969): 99-105.
    The Wife of Bath creates a trap for the reader out of multiple views of metamorphosis. In the Middle Ages, metamorphosis had moral implications, contributing to irony which readers perceived as "real discontinuities behind apparent correspondence" (99). By holding up an ideal, an author could not only show readers God, but also cause them to evaluate their own flaws. In the Wife of Bath's Tale there are four levels of irony, and three probe the theme of judgment. In modifying the tale of Midas, the Wife tells on herself, a fact that readers recognize at the end of her Prologue. Both she and Midas are more victims than victimizers. She wants to possess what is unobtainable and to be someone she is not. Chaucer creates irony through the contrast between the Wife as she is and as she wants to be.

     

  9. Allen, Peter L. "Reading Chaucer's Good Women." 21 (1987): 419-34.
    The women Chaucer portrays in the Legend of Good Women are both writers and readers. In the Prologue, however, Chaucer asserts that, where possible, experience is a better authority than books. The prologue to the Legend of Good Women also raises questions regarding Chaucer's earlier works. Because the legends force readers to dispute their judgment and their ability to read perceptively, the legends highlight the reading process. Chaucer undermines the authority forcing him to write the legends especially in his use of abbreviatio and occupatio (occultatio) and in the alteration of his sources to make difficult women into tractable ones. By compelling the reader to challenge the narrator and the authorities, Chaucer pushes readers to become confident in their own judgment.

     

  10. Ambrisco, Alan S., and Paul Strohm. "Succession and Sovereignty in Lydgate's Prologue to The Troy Book." 30 (1995): 40-57.
    In the prologue to the Troy Book Lydgate presents the problems of literary succession. Much like political successions, literary succession is continually interrupted and resumed. First Lydgate admits his debt to preceding authors, attempting to fill in the fissure between his present and the literary past by referring to the Troy Book. Because it is merely imaginary, the text does not have a temporal element, thus escaping the problems of historicity plaguing Guido delle Colone's Historia destructionis Troiae and Lydgate's reworking of it. The Troy Book thus reappears through various lacunae in the text in interrupted lines of succession. Lydgate contrasts this text to more historical texts such as De excidio Troiae historia and Ephemeris belli Troiani. A conflict erupts in Lydgate's work between historical, linear authority and self-asserted authority in Guido's text which rests on the subjugation of Benoît's Roman de Troie. But Lydgate makes merit the most important qualification for legitimacy. In his prologue, Lydgate attempts to create a gap in the succession of literary authorities which he and Guido can fill. Politically Henry IV follows much the same process, affirming himself as king in the line of succession. In both cases, memory reworks both political and social history, providing links for succession where before none existed.

     

  11. Anderson, David. "Theban Genealogy in the Knight's Tale." 21 (1987): 311-20.
    Chaucer never specifically records the genealogy of Palamon and Arcite in the Knight's Tale, but he carefully refers to Statius's Thebiad. These references suggest that Palamon and Arcite are the survivors of Oedipus's house. Once this genealogy is established, readers also perceive that it illuminates the theme of fraternal opposition in the tale.

     

  12. Anderson, J. J. "The Narrators in the Book of the Duchess and the Parliament of Fowls." 26 (1992): 219-35.
    Though the narrators of Chaucer's dream visions seem to share the same naiveté, they are all variations upon the narrators of the French dream visions, and this fact suggests that Chaucer was experimenting with different narrative personas. Comparing the personas in Book of the Duchess and Parliament of Fowls makes this conclusion particularly clear. The two speakers open their poems differently, expressing different views of love, reading, and writing. Their experiences of the dream world are similar in that the dream world provides a welcome respite from the waking world, but in the end, neither narrator seems to profit much from the dream, though their responses to their dreams are quite different.

     

  13. Anderson, J. J. "The Three Judgments and the Ethos of Chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." 24 (1990): 337-55.
    The writer of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight carefully presents most elements of romance while simultaneously critiquing romance. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the poet connects religion to chivalry so that the two elements are inseparable. The poet deemphasizes the supernatural elements, and permits the narrative to point to the subtext, a critique of chivalry and romance. Gawain, Bercilak, and Arthur represent three thematic elements that give three judgments of Gawain's behavior. The poet depicts the different sides of Gawain and of chivalry so that readers scrutinize the ethos of chivalry.

     

  14. Andreas, James. "'Newe science' from 'Olde bokes': A Bakhtinian Approach to the Summoner's Tale." 25 (1990): 138-51.
    In the Summoner's Tale Chaucer festively inverts tradition so as not to present a perversion of Christianity. Authorities in the Middle Ages approved the romance form for tales, and the fabliau was a comic, carnivalesque inversion of the romance. In Chaucer's use of these forms, laughter is produced by placing the past in the present. The Summoner develops a conflict between a friar and a layman. The Summoner fits the profile of a carnival tale-teller as a parody of his profession who is damned according to tradition. Numerous other associations and details connect the Summoner with carnival tradition. Throughout the Summoner's Tale and the following tales, the attitude of carnival allows the Summoner and other pilgrims such as the Squire to parody Christian traditions.

     

  15. Andreas, James R. "'Wordes betwene': The Rhetoric of the Canterbury Links." 29 (1994): 45-64.
    Bakhtin's theories of discourse are presaged in the works of Geoffrey of Vinsauf from which Chaucer borrows in the Canterbury Tales. This foreshadowing is most clear in Chaucer's views of language in which the word becomes a magical illusion allowing "the living and the dead [to] speak to one another through the magical medium of the utterance" (45). Such conversation is most apparent in the links between the Canterbury Tales. The feast metaphor accurately describes the amplificatio present throughout the tales. Chaucer also seems to use Vinsauf's trope of expolitio, in that Chaucer implies something is more important that what he says. Both Vinsauf and Bakhtin posit that the "most crucial aspect of languge . . . is the fact that it can . . . replicate itself with ever finer gradations of meaning and expression" (50). For Chaucer the activity of translation provides an opportunity for renewal which creates delight. The links between the tales not only provide the opportunity for dialogue, but they also characterize and aculturate each speaker. The nature of speech as dialogue is most apparent in the Man of Law's Prologue. The links also provide a space in the narrative for laughter to occur.

     

  16. Andrew, Malcom. "Context and Judgment in the General Prologue." 23 (1989): 316-37.
    The study of the Canterbury Tales has gone in some unsatisfactory directions because critics have "assumed a context in order to establish an interpretation" (317). Many scholars have attempted to focus on finding answers to detailed questions, such as the identity of the Tabard. This activity primarily creates a context for a particular interpretation, but often contexts so made are difficult to limit. Chaucer scholars often attempt to define a moral purpose for the Canterbury Tales, an activity that also leads to limiting the text. Though such kinds of interpretation have led to a greater understanding of the text, they have limited the text unnecessarily.

     

  17. Anonymous. "Chaucer's Audience: Discussion." 18 (1983): 175-81.
    This article is a transcription of the panel on Chaucer's audience at the April, 1982, meeting of the New Chaucer Society in San Fransisco. It followed four papers by Paul Strohm, Richard Firth Green, R. T. Lenaghan, and Patricia J. Eberle, also published in volume 18 (1983) of the Chaucer Review. The discussion includes contributions by Alan Gaylord, Richard Green, Lee Patterson, Paul Strohm, Rossell Hope Robbins, George Reineke, James Dean, Patricia Eberle, John Leyerle, John Fleming, Anne Middleton, and R. T. Lenaghan.

     

  18. apRoberts, Robert P. "Love in the Filostrato." 7 (1972): 1-26.
    Criseyde's sensuality makes her the ideal kind of woman to have a paramour. Boccaccio shows successful love only as that which is hidden because the lover cannot prove the force of his love unless it is forbidden by society. Pandarus convinces Troilus that he will be most capable of procuring Criseyde's love, though the kind of love Troilus desires is outside of marriage, and therefore dishonorable. This kind of love results in greater sensual delight. Boccaccio indicates that sensuality is one of the characteristics of the perfect mistress. Troilus and Criseyde have a love whose sensuousness results from its secret, dishonorable nature. Troilus wants Criseyde to desire him, not to pity him, and Boccaccio characterizes Criseyde as "burning with desire" (15). Criseyde, like other women according to Boccaccio, longs for love, and this longing fuels her desire. No matter how great her love and sexual desire grow, Criseyde is aware that theirs is an immoral love. Sensual desire motivates Troilus from the beginning, and the progress of his love is merely an increasing sexual desire. Boccacio presents Criseyde as the perfect mistress with the exception that she is not faithful, a weakness of all young women in Boccaccio's view. Troilus, however, believes that dishonorable love is so intense that those who participate in it become faithful. The great love which Boccaccio presents, therefore, is a love based on mutual physical desire, satisfied under circumstances which maintain this desire at its highest intensity. This love is possible only outside of marriage.

     

  19. Archer, John. "The Structure of Anti-Semitism in the Prioress's Tale." 19 (1984): 46-54.
    Medieval Christianity taught that the Jews were solely responsible for Jesus's death and that they perpetually commit that sin. In the Middle Ages, Herod's slaughter of the innocents continued to be associated with Jews, who were believed to kill male virgins in satanic rituals. The Prioress plays on the perception of Jews as murderous usurers in her depiction of the little boy. Anti-Semitism also informs perceptions of secular law and Old and New Testament law throughout the tale.

     

  20. Archibald, Elizabeth. "Declarations of 'Entente' in Troilus and Criseyde." 25 (1991): 190-213.
    Troilus and Criseyde is more than a psychological drama; it is a "drama of intentions" (190) examined from the angles of good intentions, bad intentions, and mistaken intentions. Recognition of how intentions differ from what happens or how intentions oppose what characters say allows readers to recognize ironies. Throughout the poem, "entente" is linked to truth, sexuality, and departure, among a variety of other meanings and connotations. Often these associations are created by rhyme patterns. Chaucer can thereby draw attention to the difficulty of following through one's intentions and suggest to the reader the complexities of the human psyche. Of course, Chaucer's intentions are most difficult to discern.

     

  21. Archibald, Elizabeth. "The Flight from Incest: Two Late Classical Precursors of the Constance Theme." 20 (1986): 259-72.
    The various Constance works are connected by a number of plot similarities. In these stories, the protagonist runs away because of an incestuous proposition. Previous scholars argued that an Exchanged Letter links these tales, but in fact, they are also connected by the Flight from Incest as seen in the Clementine Recognitions and Apollonius of Tyre. Both works lack the Exchanged Letter, but include the Flight from Incest and are thereby linked to the Constance group. The Incestuous Father motif probably developed out of a matriarchal society in which men gained legitimacy as rulers through marriage.

     

  22. Arn, Mary-Jo. "Three Ovidian Women in Chaucer's Troilus: Medea, Helen, Oënone." 15 (1980): 1-10.
    Chaucer uses Ovid's Medea as an ironic figure shadowing Criseyde. From Ovid's Helen, Chaucer borrows Criseyde's response to Troilus's first proposal and to his offer to elope. Chaucer's Criseyde also uses correspondence taken from Oënone, but this borrowing does not have the same effect as the material from Medea and Helen.

     

  23. Astell, Ann W. "Orpheus, Eurydice, and the 'Double Sorwe' of Chaucer's Troilus." 23 (1989): 283-99.
    The phrase "double sorwe" (I.1) is a key to understanding Troilus and Criseyde. The poem is split into two parts and parallels the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, though Boethian philosophy undergirds the poem. As in the treatment of the Orpheus and Eurydice story by Bernardus, Troilus's love for Criseyde is connected to a desire to know God, which Troilus reveals in the "Canticus Troili." Troilus must, however, continually struggle with the problem of loving in a fallen world. This conflict appears most clearly in the despair that both Troilus and Criseyde experience once Criseyde is chosen to be traded for Antenor. In the end readers recognize the "tension between philosophy and poetry, moralitee and myth" (296). Troilus's love for Criseyde transforms him, finally leading him to seek the divine.

     

  24. Bachman, W. Bryant, Jr. "'To maken illusioun': The Philosophy of Magic and the Magic of Philosophy in the Franklin's Tale." 12 (1977): 55-67.
    The two questions underlying Dorigen's complaint about the black rocks show Boethius's influence on Chaucer. In the Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius asserts that evil does not exist. Since experience contradicts this premise, however, Boethius must find an explanation for evil. Boethius then offers patience as a solution; patience is also a solution to Dorigen's problem of the black rocks. Dorigen's complaint can evoke two responses: readers either sympathize with her fears, or they condemn her for her lack of patience. Both the Consolation and the Franklin's Tale posit the role of human perception in terms of the problem of evil. Dorigen also attributes her problem to Boethian Fortune. Arveragus presents the only possible response to this kind of universe--a choice to keep his word, the only thing humans can control.

     

  25. Bailey, Susan E. "Controlled Partial Confusion: Concentrated Imagery in Troilus and Criseyde." 20 (1985): 83-89.
    Troilus and Criseyde reveals several image clusters such as "sterre" and "steere," "fall" and "faille," and "sonne," "sone," and "fader." These groups add depth to a number of passages and suggest greater varieties of meaning for the work as a whole.

     

  26. Baird, Joseph L. "The 'Secte' of the Wife of Bath." 2 (1968): 188-90.
    The Clerk's use of the legal sense of "secte" in the epilogue to his tale suggests that the Clerk recognizes and responds to the case the Wife of Bath makes for her view of women and marriage.

     

  27. Baird, Joseph L. "Secte and Suite Again: Chaucer and Langland." 6 (1971): 117-19.
    The use of "secte" in Middle English literature supports a reading of it as legal action or suit in the epilogue to the Clerk's Tale.

     

  28. Baird, Joseph L., and Lorrayne Y. Baird. "Fabliau Form and the Hegge Joseph's Return." 8 (1973): 159-69.
    Most of the Joseph plays show Joseph as an impotent old man with a young wife, but only the Hegge dramatist draws direct attention to the fabliau-love-triangle possibilities of this view. Examination of the Hegge Joseph's Return shows that it followed the lover's triangle pattern, borrowing the unexpected entrance of the husband, his loss of sight, discovery of the wife, her strategic escape from a difficult situation, and the husband's repentance and acceptance of the situation with joy.

    Baird, Lorrayne Y. See 28.

     

  29. Balaban, John. "Blind Harry and the Wallace." 8 (1974): 241-51.
    Traditionally, Blind Harry is Henricus Caecus and the author of Schir William Wallace. Though some of the evidence against Harry's authorship may be explained away, other problems are not so easily dismissed. That Harry's name is not mentioned in the earliest copy of The Wallace may result from the fact that this copy has no title page, or Ramsay, the scribe, may have left it off when making his copy. John Mair, in Historia majoris Brittaniae (De gestibus Scotorum) first mentions Blind Harry. From what scholars know of Mair, they can estimate that Blind Harry lived in the last half of the fifteenth century. As the writer of Wallace states in the eleventh book, his source is a Latin book by John Blair, perhaps the same one who serves Wallace in the tale, but this book most likely never existed and is the writer's nod to authority. The writer of Wallace does not state that he is blind, and metrical patterning suggests that this poem could not have been recited from memory. Harry seems to have been quite familiar with Chaucer, imitating metrical patterns, descriptions, and tone. Thus, the traditional Blind Harry does not seem to be the writer of Wallace. Scholars must also note that medieval writers often referred to the devil as "Harry," so the name "Blind Harry" must be an alias. The historical inaccuracies in Wallace serve to popularize it, making William Wallace seem a god instead of a rebel.

    Barkley, Lawrence. See 390.

     

  30. Barney, Stephen A. "Suddenness and Process in Chaucer." 16 (1981): 18-37.
    Chaucer uses sudden action to emphasize both good and bad events. Troilus and Criseyde has the most occurrences of sudden appearances and events of all of Chaucer's works, though the Wife of Bath's, Knight's, Miller's, and Squire's Tales also use this technique. Chaucer uses suddenness of emotions when depicting courtly manners and quick judgments for moral questions (26). By tracing suddenness through Troilus and Criseyde, readers realize that Chaucer makes "humorous, ridiculous, or contemptible" what is sudden (30). Chaucer also focuses significantly on process, the process of time as opposed to Fortune, the process of time as a consolation, and the process of penitence. Though Troilus falls in love suddenly, he continues to love Criseyde by process, thereby expressing patience.

     

  31. Beichner, Paul E. "Confrontation, Contempt of Court, and Chaucer's Cecilia." 8 (1974): 198-204.
    Direct translation of the Latin version of the dialogue between Cecilia and Almachius in the Second Nun's Tale will demonstrate how Chaucer improved on the Latin. Chaucer omits material to heighten the tension of the dialogue or adds other material for similar effect.

     

  32. Beidler, Peter G. "Art and Scatology in the Miller's Tale." 12 (1977): 90-102.
    Chaucer changes his analogues by making Alisoun put her buttocks out of the window and by adding the fart. That Alisoun would participate in a trick like this emphasizes her unladylike qualities and allows the Miller to demonstrate a contrast to the elevated Emily of the Knight's Tale. Alisoun's behavior also points out that Absolon's courtly love should be more holy and directed towards the Virgin Mary. The fart more cleverly ties the flood plot to the kiss-and-burn plot, and it completes the effrontery to all of Absolon's senses.

     

  33. Beidler, Peter G. "Chaucer and the Trots: What to Do about Those Modern English Translations." 19 (1985): 290-301.
    Modern students often succumb to the temptation to read Chaucer's works in a modern English translation instead of taking the time and effort to read his writings in Middle English. Though translations sometimes succeed in giving an accurate rendering of Chaucer's meaning, such good fortune lasts only for a few lines. Though there is no one way to encourage students to put away their modern English translations, teachers can teach their students to read Middle English and point out the places, such as those discussed here, where Chaucer's original is so much better than the modern English translation. Furthermore, many translations are downright inaccurate and misleading.

     

  34. Beidler, Peter G. "Chaucer's Reeve's Tale, Boccaccio's Decameron IX, 6, and Two 'Soft' German Analogues." 28 (1994): 237-51.
    Chaucer was most likely familiar with Decameron IX, 6, a story quite similar in many ways to the Reeve's Tale. Close comparison of the various analogues reveals a series of specific similarities--not present in other analogues--between Chaucer's version of the cradle-trick story and Boccaccio's. Critics should make a distinction between various kinds of analogues. A "source" is a story that Chaucer is known to have used directly; a "hard analogue" is one that he probably knew, to judge by the date of the analogue, the language in which it was written, and the details of plot and characterization, but that cannot be proven to be a direct source; a "soft analogue" is one that Chaucer could scarcely have known, to judge by the date, the language in which it was written, and the lack of specific similarities. Decameron IX, 6 is a hard analogue because Chaucer knew Boccaccio's work, knew the Italian language, and adopted certain details not available in other known analogues. On the other hand, two German tales are soft analogues. Chaucer presumably did not know either Das Studentenabenteuer or Rüdiger von Munre's Irregang und Girregar. No evidence shows that Chaucer knew German or was familiar with German literature. While both of the German tales share certain similarities with the Reeve's Tale, there are fundamental differences between these versions and Chaucer's cradle-trick story.

     

  35. Beidler, Peter G. "The Climax in the Merchant's Tale." 6 (1971): 38-43.
    Similarities between Damyan and Priapus, and between the situations of Damyan and May and Pyramus and Thisbe, have been suggested as evidence that Damyan does not reach climax in his love-making with May. Damyan and Priapus, however, are more different than alike, and the situation of Pyramus and Thisbe is not at all like that of Damyan and May. Nor can readers use timing as a basis upon which to decide that Damyan does not reach climax. In the garden scene, Chaucer demonstrates that he is more interested in telling January's tale than in speculating about whether Damyan achieves climax. Questions regarding Damyan's sexual climax are extraneous to the tale.

     

  36. Beidler, Peter G. "Noah and the Old Man in the Pardoner's Tale." 15 (1981): 250-54.
    The plague background of the Pardoner's Tale suggests that the old man was a Noah-figure to Chaucer's audienc--the good survivor of a purifying destruction.

     

  37. Beidler, Peter G. "The Pairing of the Franklin's Tale and the Physician's Tale." 3 (1969): 275-79.
    The Physician's Tale and the Franklin's Tale are essentially alike. Virginia's strengths highlight Dorigen's impatience, her careless creation of her situation, and her wavering between death and dishonor.

     

  38. Beidler, Peter G. "The Plague and Chaucer's Pardoner." 16 (1982): 257-69.
    Reading the Pardoner's Tale in light of the plague deepens readers' understanding of the tale. The three rioters of the tale enjoy themselves in the tavern as did those who historically survived the plague. The treasure appears under the tree because it had belonged to a victim of the plague, and the old man is a survivor of the plague from a nearby village. Boccaccio's Decameron provides useful contemporary evidence about medieval attitudes toward the plague. A plague setting allows the Pardoner to suggest that money is corrupt and that all humans must be prepared to die. The Host responds angrily to the Pardoner because the Pardoner's sinfulness makes the Host and the other pilgrims vulnerable as the next plague victims.

     

  39. Beidler, Peter G. "The Reeve's Tale and Its Flemish Analogue." 26 (1992): 283-92.
    The Flemish Een bispel van .ij. clerken, a derivative of Jean Bodel's Old French De Gombert et des deux clers, is a likely source for the Reeve's Tale. Chaucer probably also knew the Old French tale from which the Flemish version derives. Careful analysis of ten elements in De Gombert and the Flemish version shows how each contributes to the Reeve's Tale.

     

  40. Beidler, Peter G. "William Cartwright, Washington Irving, and the 'Truth': A Shadow Allusion to Chaucer's Canon's Yeoman's Tale." 29 (1995): 434-39.
    The epigraph to Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" borrows from Chaucer's Canon's Yeoman's Tale, though Irving was probably not aware of the derivation of his quotation. Rather, he took the epigraph from a seventeenth-century play by William Cartwright. Irving treats the subject of truth in a manner similar to that of Chaucer.

     

  41. Beidler, Peter G., and Albert E. Hartung. "Jonathan Burke Severs." 12 (1977): 85-89.
    Jonathan Burke Severs sought to instill in others his love of Chaucer. Severs spent his life learning and writing about Chaucer, and he deserves honor for his efforts. For a bibliography of Severs's criticism, see pp. 87-89.

  42. Beidler, Peter G., and Therese Decker. "Lippijn: A Middle Dutch Source for the Merchant's Tale?" 23 (1989): 236-50.
    Most scholars have ignored Middle Dutch plays, but the fourteenth-century play Lippijn may have been a source for Chaucer's Merchant's Tale. Chaucer may have encountered this play on one of his trips to the Low Countries. A number of parallels exist between Lippijn and the Merchant's Tale, including the specific details of the love triangle, the description of love making, and the husband's blindness. If Chaucer did know Lippijn, he altered his source to create more depth. A prose translation of Lippijn is provided.

     

  43. Bennett, Michael. "John Audley: Some New Evidence on His Life and Work." 16 (1982): 344-55.
    John Audley was a monastery chaplain at Haughmond during the early fifteenth century. Blind and deaf at the end of his life, he wrote a number of works that research into his biography can illuminate. Before going to Haughmond, he served as chaplain to the Lestrange family and was with them in London. This exposure to aristocracy and to the culture of London lends sophistication to his poetry.

     

  44. Benson, C. David. "Incest and Moral Poetry in Gower's Confessio Amantis." 19 (1984): 100-09.
    In the Confessio amantis Gower treats two incestuous stories, those of Canacee and Apollonius of Tyre. Gower creates a sense of necessity in both, suggesting that passionate love is so strong that it overwhelms reason and that these characters can therefore be exonerated to some extent. While demonstrating the sinfulness of such passion, however, Gower does not provide genuine penitential solutions for these sins.

     

  45. Benson, C. David. "The Knight's Tale as History." 3 (1968): 107-23.
    Though many scholars classify the Knight's Tale as a romance, it actually bears great similarity to fourteenth-century chronicles, as Chaucer's attention to realistic historical detail suggests. Chaucer adds to and deletes from Boccaccio's Teseida as well as Statius's Thebiad to create a classical world which would be believable to a medieval audience, though the poem does not accurately represent the world of Greece and Thebes. By including a large amount of historical detail, Chaucer also examines chivalry in a pre-Christian state. Chaucer shows the best of secular knighthood and suggests that it foreshadows Christian chivalry.

     

  46. Benson, C. David. "'O nyce world': What Chaucer Really Found in Guido Delle Colonne's History of Troy." 13 (1979): 308-15.
    Chaucer borrows the narrative stance for Troilus and Criseyde from Guido's Historia destructionis Troiae. Following Guido, Chaucer makes the narrator a cynical historian.

     

  47. Benson, C. David. "Their Telling Difference: Chaucer the Pilgrim and His Two Contrasting Tales." 18 (1983): 61-76.
    Chaucer does not give enough information about the pilgrim identified with himself in the Canterbury Tales for critics to claim that the pilgrim is a well-developed character. The tales this pilgrim tells, however, present a dramatic contrast between clever and poor art. The Tale of Sir Thopas is not satiric, but a highly imaginative, carefree tale of nothing. The Tale of Melibee is the stylistic opposite of Thopas. Melibee is highly moral and has little imaginative content either in words or ideas. Chaucer does not merely contrast good with bad art, but different ways to use language. Thus Thopas and Melibee work best when read as a unit.

     

  48. Benson, C. David. "Troilus and Cresseid in Henryson's Testament." 13 (1979): 263-71.
    Troilus represents the pagan chivalric hero whose knightly prowess and virtue are brought into question by readers' awareness of the Fall of Troy, by Criseyde's rejection of chivalric virtues, and by a Christian awareness of the restrictions of pagan virtue. Because Fortune allows Criseyde to suffer longer, she gains insight into her world and herself. Troilus never attains this kind of knowledge. When, in Henryson's Testament of Cresseid, Troilus gives Criseyde money, readers recognize that Troilus is faithful to a memory only; he does not recognize the beggar--Criseyde. The parallel deaths of Troilus and Criseyde indicate that Criseyde has learned to look beyond herself but that Troilus has not.

     

  49. Benson, C. David, and Barry A. Windeatt. "The Manuscript Glosses to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde." 25 (1990): 33-53.
    Because of printing and binding conditions, many of the glosses on Troilus and Criseyde are not printed. In order to rectify the situation, all the glosses from all the manuscripts are reproduced here and connected to the text by line numbers.

     

  50. Benson, Donald R. "The Marriage 'Encomium' in the Merchant's Tale: A Chaucerian Crux." 14 (1979): 48-60.
    The Merchant's encomium on marriage presents several interpretive problems. The audience has great difficulty determining the speaker, whether or not the passage is an encomium or a mock-exhortation, and what kind of marriages the passage praises as exemplary. Because scholars lack decisive information from the tale, this passage is likely to remain a crux.

     

  51. Bergan, Brooke. "Surface and Secret in the Knight's Tale." 26 (1991): 1-16.
    Language constantly fluctuates between transparency and opacity, and standard forms are always shifting. The Knight's Tale can be read with greater understanding when readers recognize the "transitional moment" in which "the shock of the new makes us conscious of language as surface" (3). Comparison to Boccaccio's Book of Theseus shows Chaucer's rhetorical changes and choices. Ironic subtext lies under every intense emotional moment. The narrator maintains the suddeness that ceremony should ritualize out of existence. The Knight's fascination with order leads him to partition off sections of his tale, as he does in the three temples, the three prayers, and the three signs. The Knight is, however, intent on subverting the romance genre, so the order he creates is always undercut. The "interpenetration" of romance and epic that the Knight creates mirrors Chaucer's interpenetration of oral and written tradition in the Canterbury Tales (14).

     

  52. Berger, Harry, Jr. "The F-Fragment of the Canterbury Tales: Part I." 1 (1966): 88-102.
    The Squire's Tale may be about magic, but the Squire tells the tale in such a way that he spends an inordinately large amount of time announcing what he will not include. The material that the Squire chooses to include is often complicated and awkward, but it reveals his interests and how he wants his audience to think of him. Clearly, the Squire desires the noble life of the past as does the Knight, but he gets in the way of his own story. Unfortunately, the Squire is not as skilled a narrator as the Knight. Where the Knight can use disclaimers, occupatio, apologies, and style shifts to control the tale,the Squire's use of the same devices indicates that he has lost control of his story. The Franklin points to the Squire's advantage of birth and urges the Squire to cultivate his natural tendencies of gentillesse into knightly virtues, but he also points out the dangers of the aristocratic idyll. Like the Knight and the Squire, the Franklin also wants to see the renewal of courtly ideals, but he realizes that one must be detached from them to see their weaknesses and correct them.

     

  53. Berger, Harry, Jr. "The F-Fragment of the Canterbury Tales: Part II." 1 (1967): 135-56.
    The Franklin's Tale is highly symbolic. Unlike the Squire, the Franklin has the ability to control his tale: rhetorical devices do not get in the way. The tale presents the dangers of recreation, while at the same time, it is a recreation. The Franklin aligns himself with the forces of common sense as opposed to those of courtly love. He spends a good deal of time on magic, and in the process "magic, courtly love, [and] fiction are given qualified approval as amusements for the social hour" (148). The Franklin's digressions demonstrate his view of life--that the future is not a decline from youth, but full of promise--and they follow the Franklin's pattern of "withdrawal and return, play and work" (151). The conclusion of the tale attempts to examine the application of old knightly ideals to a new world filled with commerce and clerkly activities.

     

  54. Berry, Craig A. "The King's Business: Negotiating Chivalry in Troilus and Criseyde." 26 (1992): 236-65.
    Chaucer's poetic negotiation of the chivalric code appears most prominently in Troilus and Criseyde. Reading Troilus and Criseyde against the backdrop of contemporary events suggests a number of parallels, such as that between England and Troy. This kind of reading also suggests the kinds of social and court views Chaucer would have supported, such as the one which suggested that a knight successful in the bedroom might experience defeat on the battlefield. The tensions Chaucer engages, however, express the dichotomy of the chivalric code and its relationship to knighthood and the behavior of both men and women. The use of fear to manipulate the reactions of women particularly addresses an incident in Andreas Capellanus's Art of Courtly Love, and records of real instances in which knights rescued "ladies in distress" can be found in the fourteenth century.

     

  55. Berryman, Charles. "The Ironic Design of Fortune in Troilus and Criseyde." 2 (1967): 1-7.
    At the beginning of Troilus and Criseyde, the characters believe that Fortune is fickle, but they behave as if they can defeat Fortune by "trouthe." Finally, however, they experience Fortune's capriciousness and realize that the world is mutable and that no one is free from Fortune's wheel.

     

  56. Besserman, Lawrence L. "Chaucerian Wordplay: The Nun's Priest and His Womman Divyne." 12 (1977): 68-73.
    The Nun's Priest's line "I kan noon harm of no womman divyne" (70) is filled with punning references to the Prioress, her tale, and her sins.

     

  57. Besserman, Lawrence. "A Note on the Sources of Chaucer's Troilus V, 540-613." 24 (1990): 306-08.
    Troilus's address to Criseyde's "paleys desolat" (v 540-53) in Troilus and Criseyde borrows from a passage in the Filostrato which borrows from Lamentations 1:1 and Ovid's Remedia amoris.

     

  58. Bestul, Thomas H. "Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: The Passionate Epic and Its Narrator." 14 (1980): 366-78.
    In Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer creates a narrator whose story saddens him and who is concerned to express emotion in his own narrative. In Books II and III, the narrator's intrusions into the story become vehicles to express emotions the characters must feel and to keep the narrator in the readers' minds. The narrator's emotional involvement continues; it deepens as the work progresses, and in Book V, the narrator introduces the inexpressibility topos. Though he is saddened, the narrator distances himself from the action of the story, thereby demonstrating a Christian response that the audience should emulate.

     

  59. Bestul, Thomas H. "The Man of Law's Tale and the Rhetorical Foundations of Chaucerian Pathos." 9 (1975): 216-26.
    Chaucer's use of rhetorical devices creates an emotional response to Griselda and Constance. In the Man of Law's Tale, as in others, Chaucer explores the idea that emotion is the most convincing part of poetry. Rhetorical tradition encourages the use of detail, which Chaucer uses to his advantage in describing Donegild's mistreatment of Constance in order to increase the pathos of this section. The Man of Law's Tale thus gives evidence for the medieval view that as long as the passions are properly directed, they are not dangerous. The intense pathos of their stories causes the audience to recognize the virtues of Constance and Griselda. Indeed, the pathos of the Man of Law's Tale derives in large measure from Chaucer's use of rhetorical devices to shape the emotions of his readers.

     

  60. Biggam, C. P. "Aspects of Chaucer's Adjectives of Hue." 28 (1993): 41-53.
    Chaucer uses primarily English hue lexemes, and he uses the most basic formation for each word. He uses color adjectives primarily for people; the greatest occurrence of these adjectives is in the Knight's Tale. Overall, Chaucer uses more color terms than his contemporaries. Chaucer also employs colors symbolically in accordance with ancient and pagan traditions.

     

  61. Blake, N. F. "Chaucer and the Alliterative Romances." 3 (1969): 163-69.
    Because of the mention of alliteration in the Parson's Prologue, most scholars assume that Chaucer knew alliterative romances. Examination of his work suggests, however, that while Chaucer was familiar with the technique of alliteration, he did not set out to copy alliterative romances.

     

  62. Blamires, A. "A Chaucer Manifesto." 24 (1989): 29-44.
    The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women is a "poetic manifesto" (29). The poet struggles with Cupid's tyranny that has denied him the experience of love and forced him to rely on book knowledge. In the beginning the speaker focuses on book learning and devalues experience, a point of view closely associated with his religious sensibilities. Later however, the poet shifts his attention from books to daisies, thus directly contradicting his earlier stance. Because readers do not realize that the daisy represents Alceste, they laugh at the narrator's worship of the daisy and perceive heretical overtones in that activity. Thus in this instance, Chaucer proclaims himself a poet of texts, not of sight or experience.

     

  63. Blanch, Robert J. "Supplement to the Gawain-Poet: An Annotated Bibliography, 1978-1985." 25 (1991): 363-86.
    This bibliography fills the need of medievalists for a more complete bibliography of criticism on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Purity, and Patience.

     

  64. Blanch, Robert J., and Julian N. Wasserman. "The Current State of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Criticism." 27 (1993): 401-12.
    Current criticism centers on the problem of "poetic closure" through "historical backgrounds and cultural studies; socio-historical interpretations . . .; feminist analyses; semiotic theories; psychological investigations; and myth-and-ritual stances" (401). New Historical approaches would greatly benefit scholarship on this poem, as would the application of psychoanalytic and feminist theories.

     

  65. Bleeth, Kenneth. "Joseph's Doubting of Mary and the Conclusion of the Merchant's Tale." 21 (1986): 58-66.
    The end of the Merchant's Tale in which January regains his sight parallels the end of the story of Joseph and Mary, told in the Cherry-Tree Carol and Ludus Coventriae, where Joseph is enlightened with regard to the spiritual nature of Mary's pregnancy. May's explanation of her behavior in terms of January's blindness is an ironic reversal of Joseph's response to Mary. Both January and Joseph apologize, and both finally respond to the pregnancy by stroking the womb of their wives. But in the end Joseph has been enlightened, whereas January refuses to perceive.

     

  66. Bloomfield, Morton W. "The Friar's Tale as a Liminal Tale." 17 (1983): 286-91.
    The Friar's Tale is a tale of a liminal experience in which the summoner fails to avoid passing over the threshold of death and hell.

     

  67. Bloomfield, Morton W. "Personification-Metaphors." 14 (1980): 287-97.
    Some images function like personifications but are veiled, and these are personification-metaphors. True personifications continue for an extended period in the text, while a personification-metaphor may only encompass one or two lines. Unlike Shakespeare and Milton, Chaucer did not use personification-metaphors often. The appendix provides a list of additional personification-metaphors in Keats.

     

  68. Blyth, Charles. "Virgilian Tragedy and Troilus." 24 (1990): 211-18.
    Troilus and Criseyde may be defined as a Virgilian tragedy placed between recorded history and the emotional response such a tragedy evokes. Gavin Douglas's translation of the Aeneid demonstrates his recognition of this position in that he alludes both to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and to Henryson's Testament of Cresseid in his wording and by his use of rhyme royal. Virgil refers to tragedies in both the books about the fall of Troy and tragedy of Dido. To view these passages as tragic, however, readers must view them in retrospect.

     

  69. Boenig, Robert. "Musical Irony in the Pardoner's Tale." 24 (1990): 253-58.
    Machaut popularized an antiphonal music style during the early decades of the fourteenth century. In this music the melody line shifts between parts with great frequency and is distinguished by the different instruments playing each part. The musicians in the Pardoner's Tale play "the wrong instruments for a successful performance" (257); thus they foreshadow the lack of cooperation between the three rioters.

     

  70. Boffey, Julia. "The Reputation and Circulation of Chaucer's Lyrics in the Fifteenth Century." 28 (1993): 23-40.
    Though the impact of Chaucer's lyrics on fifteenth-century writers is difficult to determine, his influence can be traced in three different ways: "general situations" and "rhetorical strategies" (28), rhyme royal and ballad stanza forms, and rhymes. Examinations of sample texts illustrate imitations in each of the three ways. That other writers imitate Chaucer so much suggests that Chaucer's short poems circulated in some form. Among the poems in which passages which specific passages can be found illustrating that other writers borrowed passages and methods from Chaucer's works are Hoccleve's Mother of God and Balade to Sir Henry Somer, Lydgate's Temple of Glass, the Complaint of the Black Knight, the Troy Book, A Pageant of Knowledge, Thoroughfare of Woe, the Fall of Princes, and the Flower of Courtesy. In addition, the translator of Partonope de Blois, and the writer of the Kingis Quair also use some of chaucer's methods and lift certain passages. Unfortunately, however, because the original poems were never bound and scribes had difficulties copying them, there are a number of textual problems which make the influence of Chaucer's works difficult to trace.

     

  71. Boitani, Piero. "Chaucer's Labyrinth: Fourteenth-Century Literature and Language." 17 (1983): 197-220.
    In the House of Fame, Chaucer borrows from a number of sources, showing the literary milieu of his time. The poem may be"a maze where signs are lost and confused" (216), but it is a wonderful dream.

     

  72. Bolton, W. F. "The Topic of the Knight's Tale." 1 (1967): 217-27.
    The Knight's Tale is more than the story, love, history, or imagination, but rather it particularizes fiction, history, and "concepts of knighthood, courtly life, and courtly literature" (271) which do not appear overtly in the tale. Ultimately, the tale is about love and death.

     

  73. Booth, Mark W. "'Sumer Is Icumen in' as a Song." 14 (1979): 158-65.
    "Sumer Is Icumen in" cannot be properly evaluated as a text unless scholars view it in the context of performance as a round. The "cuccu" sound repeated throughout the song commemorates and produces the coming summer in a state of "inattentive levity" (163).

     

  74. Børch, Marianne. "Poet and Persona: Writing the Reader in Troilus." 30 (1996): 215-28.
    In Troilus and Criseyde the narrative voice disappears and reappears throughout the text. But regardless of the different situations throughout the poem, readers experience a single voice and presence that Chaucer establishes by building in a number of carefully selected details. Chaucer places this narrator in a position between the text and the reader so that it is "impossible for the mode of reception to become other than essentially moral" (222). Furthermore, as he does in Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer experiments with the position of author and narrator in the Canterbury Tales, particularly the Clerk's Tale,.

     

  75. Bornstein, Diane. "An Analogue to Chaucer's Clerk's Tale." 15 (1981): 322-31.
    The material of the Clerk's Tale was popular as didactic material promoting wifely obedience. Even Christine de Pisan refers to Griselda in her Cité des Dames. Brian Anslay of Henry VIII's household translated the material analogous to the Clerk's Tale, closely following Christine's French version. Anslay's text is reprinted here.

     

  76. Bornstein, Diane. "Chaucer's Tale of Melibee as an Example of the Style Clergial." 12 (1978): 236-54.
    In order to develop a uniquely English prose style, translators during Chaucer's time followed methods popular in France such as the style clergial or the style curial (237), since an English poetry had developed by following, then diverging from, continental models. Examination of the text (as indicated in a table following the article) shows that Chaucer deviated from the French Livre de Melibee et Prudence, deliberately adding phrases and making other changes in order to develop a chancery style.

    Bosse, Roberta Bux. See 524.

     

  77. Boswell, Jackson Campbell, and Sylvia Wallace Holton. "References to the Canterbury Tales." 29 (1995): 311-36.
    As a result of updating Caroline Spurgeon's 500 Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusions for the Short-Title Catalogue, Boswell and Holton found a number of previously unnoticed references to the characters, both pilgrims and characters in the tales themselves. Their findings are listed in this article.

     

  78. Boswell, Jackson Campbell, and Sylvia Wallace Holton. "References to Troilus, Criseyde, and Pandarus." 29 (1994): 93-109.
    As a result of updating Caroline Spurgeon's 500 Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusions for the Short-Title Catalogue, Boswell and Holton found a number of previously unnoticed references to the primary characters in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. The list presented in this article refers only to those items not previously mentioned.

     

  79. Boucher, Holly Wallace. "Nominalism: The Difference for Chaucer and Boccaccio." 20 (1986): 213-20.
    Dante and the poet of the Queste del Sainte Graal both believed that poetry revealed truth and imitated divine order. Chaucer and Boccaccio, however, display different attitudes toward literature. Nominalism altered artists' perception of literature so that by the fourteenth century, they no longer thought that art revealed truth or divine order. Fourteenth-century writers play with words and meanings, as Boccaccio does in the tale of Frate Cipolla and as Chaucer does in the Summoner's Tale.

     

  80. Bowers, Bege K. "Chaucer Research, 1984, Report No. 45." 20 (1985): 70-78.
    Bowers presents an annotated bibliography of Chaucer research.
    "Chaucer Research, 1985, Report No. 46." 21 (1986): 67-83.
    "Chaucer Research, 1986, Report No. 47." 22 (1987): 62-79.
    "Chaucer Research, 1987, Report No. 48." 23 (1988): 162-79.
    "Chaucer Research, 1988, Report No. 49." 24 (1989): 77-94.
    "Chaucer Research, 1989, Report No. 50." 25 (1990): 152-69.
    "Chaucer Research, 1990, Report No. 51." 26 (1991): 184-204.
    "Chaucer Research, 1991, Report No. 52." 27 (1992): 200-18.
    "Chaucer Research, 1992, Report No. 53." 28 (1992): 187-203.
    "Chaucer Research, 1993, Report No. 54." 29 (1994): 207-225.

     

  81. Bowman, Mary R. "'Half as she were mad': Dorigen in the Male World of the Franklin's Tale." 27 (1993): 239-51.
    As a male poet, Chaucer experiences the difficulty of presenting women's voices, as the controversy over the Wife of Bath indicates. His female heroines must use masculine discourse to express themselves. Though Dorigen seems to achieve equal mastery in marriage, the Franklin reduces her to an object at the end of his tale. The Franklin espouses gentillesse, franchise, and freedom, but he assumes that men and women have the same relation to these virtues. The response of the different male and female characters in the tale indicates that this assumption is faulty at best. The final actions of the male characters appear much different from Dorigen's point of view. Dorigen expresses her grief, but in a different manner from the men in the tale, highlighting the difficulty of women faced with male discourse.

     

  82. Bradbury, Nancy Mason. "Gentrification and the Troilus." 28 (1994): 305-29.
    In Troilus and Criseyde readers see the movement of popular, folkloric material from the lower classes to the upper classes. Scrutiny of stanzas throughout the work reveals the influence of English on the courtly idiom of French, and tension between high and low elements is constant throughout the poem. To accomplish the shift in register between learned language of the upper class and popular language, Chaucer often uses proverbs which were readily accessible to any class. Chaucer also alludes to several popular stories.

     

  83. Braswell, Mary Flowers. "Chaucer's Palimpsest: Judas Iscariot and the Pardoner's Tale." 29 (1995): 303-10.
    The story of Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Christ appears beneath the surface of the text of the Pardoner's Tale, adding an additional layer to the black Communion of the three rioters. Chaucer uses a number of details, like the association of Judas with greed, the oak tree, and the conflation of the story of Judas with that of the Wandering Jew, to add a darker level to his tale.

     

  84. Braswell, Mary Flowers. "Chaucer's 'Queinte termes of lawe': A Legal View of the Shipman's Tale." 22 (1988): 295-304.
    Chaucer's biography indicates that he would have had knowledge of the law. The Shipman's Tale, when closely examined, reveals that Chaucer used laws controlling trade and commerce as an informing principle for imagery, diction, and "characters, plot, and theme" (296). The wife and the monk negotiate for 100 francs, reaching a contractural agreement confirmed by repeated oaths sworn in legal language. In the plot, Chaucer also uses the medieval law that makes the husband responsible for the wife's debt. The prologue to the Shipman's Tale mentions "queinte termes of lawe" (1189), suggesting to readers the importance of the legal aspects of the tale which follows.

     

  85. Braswell-Means, Laurel. "A New Look at an Old Patient: Chaucer's Summoner and Medieval Physiognomia." 25 (1991): 266-75.
    Using medieval medical theory based on Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates, and medieval physiognomy, Chaucer constructs the Summoner's portrait so as to describe the Summoner's medical conditions. The Summoner is clearly unnaturally hot as both his description and his cures indicate. The combination of these two suggests that the Summoner is choleric, according to Galen and Avicenna. Chaucer sees the Summoner and the Pardoner as variations of the same humor character. The Summoner's disease is also associated with sexuality, and astrological details associate him with Mars. This combination suggests that the Summoner would experience his most difficult time of year in the spring. The Summoner's disease is incurable, except by the spiritual healing he would experience at the shrine of Thomas à Becket.

     

  86. Breeze, A. C. "Chaucer's Miller's Tale, 3700: Viritoot." 29 (1994): 204-06.
    The term "viritoot" most likely means "fairy toot" or "fairy hill," given the exchange of f- for v- sounds and the other recorded meanings of "toot" in English. The word "viritoot" probably derives from words meaning "old witch" and referred to a woman like the old woman in the Wife of Bath's Tale or Morgan la Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

     

  87. Brewer, Derek S. "The Reeve's Tale and the King's Hall, Cambridge." 5 (1971): 311-17.
    Though no accounts indicate that King's Hall was ever called Soler Hall, records do indicate that King's Hall during Chaucer's time was occasionally called Scoler Hall. Thus, "Soler" may be an error for "Scoler," and the Reeve may indeed refer specifically to King's Hall, Cambridge, when he tells us that Aleyn and John are students in Solar Hall.

     

  88. Brody, Saul Nathaniel. "Chaucer's Rhyme Royal Tales and the Secularization of the Saint." 20 (1985): 113-31.
    Chaucer's tales written in rhyme royal have a common focus on saints' lives and martyrs. In the Second Nun's, Clerk's, Prioress's, and Man of Law's Tales, divine justice controls the outcome of the tale. Even the Clerk's Tale teaches us that we should obey God in adversity. These tales all follow the traditional pattern of saints' lives and evoke a heightened emotional response from the audience. The rhyme royal tales complement each other, showing how secular values influence written accounts of saints' lives. Ultimately, however, such influence robs the stories of some vitality.

     

  89. Brody, Saul Nathaniel. "Truth and Fiction in the Nun's Priest's Tale." 14 (1979): 33-47.
    The Nun's Priest constructs his tale around the tension between literature and life. He employs digression to remind his audience that his tale is fiction but that it still has implications for "real" life. By consistently equating Chanticleer and Pertelote with a man and a woman respectively, the Nun's Priest underscores the connection between reality and fiction. When the Nun's Priest refers to Dante's portrait of Paolo and Francesca, he further explicates the relationship between truth and fiction. The fact that Paolo and Francesca begin their affair while reading about Lancelot and Guinevere implies that reading or hearing about human action can alter human behavior. The digressions in the Nun's Priest's Tale remind the audience that, though a fable, the tale contains some truth. The truth in the Nun's Priest's Tale is difficult to determine, however, because there are so many ambiguities in the tale. The Nun's Priest asserts that all stories, no matter how unreal, contain moral truths.

     

  90. Brosnahan, Leger. "The Authenticity of And Preestes Thre." 16 (1982): 293-310.
    The half-line "and preestes thre" (24) in the General Prologue has caused a number of scholars to advance various explanations which will reduce the 31 pilgrims to the stated 29. Careful examination of the pattern of portraits in the General Prologue suggests that the Second Nun's portrait was interrupted and the rest of the line filled with the phrase "and preestes thre." Removing this half-line on the basis that it is a scribal filler simplifies the Prioress's entourage, reduces the number of pilgrims, and better conforms to the pattern of the other portraits in the General Prologue.

     

  91. Brosnahan, Leger. "'And don thyn hood' and Other Hoods in Chaucer." 21 (1986): 45-52.
    Given the use of hoods in Chaucer's other works, readers can assume that the hood Pandarus refers to in Troilus and Criseyde, II, 954, is a piece of clothing, probably cloth, not a piece of armor. In light of this definition, critics may infer that Pandarus is telling Troilus to stop begging.

     

  92. Brosnahan, Leger. "The Pendant in the Chaucer Portraits." 26 (1992): 424-31.
    The pendant in Chaucer's portrait is not an ampullae but a penner, as comparison to other ampullae shows. The portrait in the manuscript was probably drawn from a free-standing bust and had to be made disproportionate in size in order to fit in the space available. The penner was removed from the belt and turned into a pendant so that it would more easily be recognized as a sign of Chaucer's profession.

     

  93. Brown, Carole Keopke. "'It is true art to conceal art': The Episodic Structure of Chaucer's Franklin's Tale." 27 (1992): 162-85.
    The Franklin's Tale is a series of episodes carefully connected so as to be a seamless whole. Chaucer arranges the narrative in a repeating series of three, but each episode alters the material of the previous one so that no one is like any other. The structure contributes to the meaning of the tale in that the "trouthes" and the complaints decline, but the compassion shown to the victim increases.

     

  94. Brown, Emerson, Jr. "Chaucer, the Merchant, and Their Tale: Getting Beyond Old Controversies: Part I." 13 (1978): 141-56.
    The Merchant's Tale is misogynistic at heart, and the Merchant cannot be separated from it. The bondage imagery, the narrative voice, and the personal affront suggested by Damyan's description connect the prologue and the tale. The Merchant's Tale cannot be reduced to a happy or sarcastic fabliau because the Merchant's voice is too complex.

     

  95. Brown, Emerson, Jr. "Chaucer, the Merchant, and Their Tale: Getting Beyond Old Controversies: Part II." 13 (1979): 247-62.
    The "L'Envoy de Chaucer a Bukton" contains statements about women similar to those made by the Merchant, suggesting that Chaucer cannot be so easily separated from the narrator of the Merchant's Tale as some previous scholars have thought.

     

  96. Brown, Emerson, Jr. "Hortus Inconclusus: The Significance of Priapus and Pyramus and Thisbe in the Merchant's Tale." 4 (1969): 31-40.
    The reference to Priapus in the Merchant's Tale should make readers think of Ovid's Priapus. The allusion to Priapus in the garden points to its sensual overtones, and his link to Damyan suggests that the sexual encounter with May does not end satisfactorily. January thus becomes Silenus; he cannot participate but becomes a defeated spectator. The Merchant thus ridicules courtly love and explores the idea that love of any kind lacks fulfillment. Also, the allusion to Pyramus and Thisbe highlights the coarseness of the affair between May and Damyan.

     

  97. Brown, Emerson, Jr. "The Knight's Tale, 2639: Guilt by Punctuation." 21 (1986): 133-41.
    The usual way of punctuating this line gives the meaning that Emetreus stabs Palamon while Palamon and Arcite are fighting. Details in the story, however, make such a meaning unlikely. Removing the comma adds a different meaning--that Palamon stabs Arcite. Though present-day readers cannot determine which meaning Chaucer intended, scholars can preserve the possibility of two meanings by using manuscripts and not accepting the editorial decisions that come with punctuation.

     

  98. Brown, Emerson, Jr. "The Merchant's Tale: Why is May Called 'Mayus'?" 2 (1968): 273-77.
    The masculine name "Mayus" for the female protagonist suggests a theme of healing in the pear-tree episode. Damyan is named for St. Damian, known for healing various illnesses, including blindness. In the tale, Damyan is the agent for January's healing, thus suggesting that there might be other references to healing as well. May was the month associated with healing.

     

  99. Brown, Emerson, Jr. "The Poet's Last Words: Text and Meaning at the End of the Parson's Prologue." 10 (1976): 236-42.
    John M. Manly's rearrangement of the Parson's Prologue is unnecessary. The Prologue works better if left as it stands in the manuscript.

     

  100. Brown, Eric D. "Symbols of Transformation: A Specific Archetypal Examination of the Wife of Bath's Tale." 12 (1978): 202-17.
    A carefully detailed Jungian analysis of the Wife of Bath's Tale reveals that she tells a tale of a young knight's transformation while he searches for his mother or anima figure.

     

  101. Brown, Eric D. "Transformation and the Wife of Bath's Tale: A Jungian Discussion." 10 (1976): 303-15.
    The Wife of Bath's Tale follows a standard form in which a beloved ugly person becomes beautiful (or handsome). The transformation carries overtones of fertility myths. The figures of ugliness suggest the unconscious, while beautiful figures suggest the conscious.

     

  102. Brown, Peter. "The Containment of Symkyn: The Function of Space in the Reeve's Tale." 14 (1980): 225-36.
    Chaucer's source for the Reeve's Tale, the French fabliau Le Meunier et les II Clercs, treats space far more generally than Chaucer, who presents a three-dimensional locale to his readers. Establishing distance and placement of the beds in the tale creates a stage for the later farcical actions. As the speed of the action increases in the course of the tale, Chaucer shifts senses so that the characters do not see the room, but feel it, further delineating the space. Symkyn's discourse after his trickery also employs terms of space. By getting all of their grain from the Miller, John and Alan reduce the space he controls at the end of the tale, and the spatial elements of the tale underscore this action.

     

  103. Brown, Peter. "The Prison of Theseus and the Castle of Jalousie." 26 (1991): 147-52.
    Chaucer symbolically redefines the tower in which Arcite and Palamon are imprisoned in the Knight's Tale. Chaucer creates the prison in terms which recall Froissart's Prison amoreuse and refer to the tradition of love-as-prison. The jealousy that consumes Palamon and Arcite once Arcite has been released is the opposite of Jalousie in Roman de la Rose. Chaucer uses these allusions to make the tower a symbol of the prison of jealousy.

     

  104. Burger, Douglas A. "Deluding Words in the Merchant's Tale." 12 (1977): 103-10.
    The Merchant builds his tale on the separation between words and reality. The most blatant examples of this distance are the scenes in which January's friends tell him about marriage and the pear-tree episode.

     

  105. Burlin, Robert B. "Middle English Romance: The Structure of Genre." 30 (1995): 1-14.
    Middle English romances did not exist solely for entertainment. Included with the delightful elements of the romance were social, spiritual, and class concerns. The paradigmatic axis of the romance is the chivalric and courtly codes, apparent in works like Havelok the Dane, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, Marie de France's Lanval, and Malory's Morte d'Arthur. Chaucer also makes use of this code in the Knight's Tale and in Troilus and Criseyde. On the syntagmatic axis are the quest and the test. The Knight's Tale, Malory's Morte, and Sir Orpheo use the chivalric and courtly codes together to create narrative tension. In Sir Orpheo, Troilus and Criseyde, and the Roman de la Rose, however, any attempt to put the narrative on the syntagmatic axis fails because such tales only work in the context of idleness. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight shows a different interpenetration of the two axes in that Gawain is both a courtly lover and a questing knight, but he can handle only one code at a time.

     

  106. Burrow, John. "'Worly under wede' in Sir Thopas." 3 (1969): 170-73.
    The rare form "worly" for "worthily" in Group VII, line 917 is a more accurate transcription of the word Chaucer chose, given its status as a native English word. Its use in that position would probably encourage the Host to stop the tale.

     

  107. Burton, T. L. "The Wife of Bath's Fourth and Fifth Husbands and Her Ideal Sixth." 13 (1978): 34-50.
    The Wife of Bath's singing, dancing, and drinking are responses to her fourth husband's infidelity, not the cause of it. The passages in which the Wife claims to have committed adultery are nothing more than boasts designed to attract a sixth husband. Her marriage to Jankyn shows that she wants to be both free to do as she pleases and treated like a woman where sex is concerned.

     

  108. Caie, Graham D. "An Iconographic Detail in the Roman de la Rose and the Middle English Romaunt." 8 (1974): 320-23.
    Medieval authorities depicted those who served sinful love as wearing tight clothing and tight sleeves, so when Amant bastes his sleeves at the beginning of the Roman de la Rose, he suggests that he will seek amour that day.

     

  109. Caie, Graham D. "The Significance of the Early Chaucer Manuscript Glosses (with Special Reference to the Wife of Bath's Prologue)." 10 (1976): 350-60.
    The glosses in the manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales are carefully written, and are of similar size as the text of the tales themselves. Quotes from Jerome constitute most of the glosses on the Wife of Bath's Prologue, suggesting that the scribe did not want the reader to be convinced by the Wife's logic. The glosses also highlight the Wife's misinterpretation of Old and New Testament passages.

     

  110. Calabrese, Michael A. "Meretricious Mixtures: Gold, Dung, and the Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale." 27 (1993): 277-92.
    Examination of the Canon's Yeoman's Tale in light of the Antiovidianus reveals an "exploration of the tension between art and morality that engaged [Chaucer] throughout his poetic career" (278). The primary point of attack for the writer of Antiovidianus is Ovid's ability to turn "dung" into golden poetry, a direct contradiction of the traditional way of reading pagan poetry. Thus Chaucer's portrayal of the Canon's work parallels the Antiovidianus writer's view of Ovid's works. The Yeoman also connects sexuality to the acquisition of such an art.

     

  111. Camargo, Martin. "The Consolation of Pandarus." 25 (1991): 214-28.
    Chaucer alters the character of Pandarus in Troilus and Criseyde to reflect the character of Philosophy in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. Chaucer also borrows Petrarch's sonnet "S'amor non è" for Troilus to sing instead of the song Boccaccio uses in Filostrato. This sonnet has clear Boethian overtones. Chaucer also changes Troilus's character to reflect Boethius's character in the Consolation more closely. This change is particularly visible in Troilus's response to Fortune. Chaucer's modification of Pandarus allows him to create irony by undercutting the readers' expectations.

     

  112. Campbell, Jackson J. "The Canon's Yeoman as Imperfect Paradigm." 17 (1982): 171-81.
    The Canon's Yeoman leaves the Canon because the Canon fails in his alchemical pursuits. The Yeoman cannot let go of alchemy no matter how much he hates it. Pilgrimage is fundamentally about change, and the change the Canon's Yeoman makes prefigures the penitential focus of the Parson's Tale.

     

  113. Campbell, Jackson J. "Polonius among the Pilgrims." 7 (1972): 140-46.
    The Manciple's Tale shows Chaucer's ability to use narrative as a characterization tool. The digressions tell readers a great deal about the Manciple. Instead of developing profound ideas, he focuses on the trivial. When Phebus tells the crow to beware of jealousy, he turns to address all people, just as the Manciple does. Even after the Manciple finishes his story, he continues expounding on the moral of his tale, referring to his mother as his authority. The Manciple's narrative characterizes him as eager to please, although he is verbose and focused on trivial matters.

     

  114. Campbell, Jennifer. "Figuring Criseyde's 'Entente': Authority, Narrative, and Chaucer's Use of History." 27 (1993): 342-58.
    Book IV of Troilus and Criseyde changes the audience's perception of Criseyde by introducing history into the narrative. Though the narrator does his best to present Criseyde's point of view, he occasionally reminds his audience that their knowledge of her is not complete. Any attempt to complete this portrait risks intruding on the tension between identification with and separation from a character, and thus, the authority of the narrator is closely connected to his presentation of Criseyde. The narrator often interrupts his narrative and includes disclaimers in an attempt to control his discourse. Book IV breaks into the narrative by forcing the audience to recognize the dangers an enigmatic woman poses to her historical framework. The destiny of Criseyde and Troilus's relationship is determined by history in part because Criseyde mistakenly believes that she can act to alter what will happen. Finally, readers realize that the only way for the narrator to control the narrative is to sever the relationship between a woman and language.

     

  115. Campbell, Josie P. "Farce as Function in the Wakefield Shepherds' Plays." 14 (1980): 336-43.
    The Wakefield Shepherd's plays use farce to emphasize both spiritual and secular elements. The cycle postpones the announcement of the Christ Child until the moment when the shepherds share their meat and bread. The overtones of communion in conjunction with the announcement of the Christ Child's birth eliminates class distinctions for the moment. In the Second Shepherd's Play, Mak's trickery accentuates the sacred aspect of the play, drawing attention to the timelessness of God's gift.

     

  116. Campbell, Josie P. "The Idea of Order in the Wakefield Noah." 10 (1975): 76-86.
    The Wakefield Noah is about love and mastery within the family unit. In discovering divine love, however, Noah also gains an understanding of obedience. Love produces friendship, and friendship, obedience. Noah must realize that love connects man to God in obedience and that the obedience this love produces will save the world. The commitment to care for his family and for the animals is an essential part of man's relationship to God. God's love sustains earthly life. Evidence in the play does not suggest that Noah ever gains mastery over Uxor, his wife. Uxor's idea of mastery is based on fear and contrasts with the ideas about love which Noah is learning. Finally, when Uxor and Noah fight to a draw, their sons suggest a new way of behaving in which Noah and Uxor will be equals. Ultimately, Noah asserts that love maintains order, not fear.

     

  117. Campbell, Thomas P. "Machaut and Chaucer: Ars Nova and the Art of Narrative." 24 (1990): 275-89.
    Chaucer's narratives borrow both from Machaut's poetry and his music. The dissonance of conflicting solutions to an enigma, the simultaneity of events, and the nested perspectives found in poems like the Parliament of Fowls and the Knight's, Nun's Priest's, Merchant's, and Reeve's Tales can all be traced to medieval music. Examination of Machaut's ballad "Je Puis Trop Bien" demonstrates corresponding qualities of medieval music, especially the ballad form. Cursory examination of this ballad shows that contrast between music and the poetry joined to it was the mode. Scrutiny of the Miller's Tale shows that it uses all the musical techniques found in Machaut's ballad to maintain its unity.

     

  118. Carr, John W. "A Borrowing from Tibullus in Chaucer's House of Fame." 8 (1974): 191-97.
    The first line of the House of Fame is probably borrowed from Tibullus, since none of the other authorities transmits that line. Furthermore, Chaucer maintains the purpose and diction of the original. What we know of Chaucer's diplomatic trips to Italy suggests that he may have visited Salutati's library, renowned for its collection of dream literature, and there discovered Tibullus.

     

  119. Carruthers, Mary J. "The Lady, the Swineherd, and Chaucer's Clerk." 17 (1983): 221-34.
    Chaucer alters his sources in the Clerk's Tale to emphasize gentillesse. Though lowly born, Griselda possesses aristocratic virtue which makes her appear as a Christ figure. The tale does more than simply contrast past with present. Chaucer includes judgments of Walter and descriptions of Griselda that make the story more realistic. At the end of his tale, the Clerk also makes fun of the clerkly stereotype, suggesting the reality of the tale he has just finished. Finally, Chaucer implies that integrity is an important part of gentillesse.

     

  120. Carson, M. Angela. "Easing of the 'Hert' in the Book of the Duchess." 1 (1967): 157-60.
    The story of Seys and Alcyone contrasts with the easing of heart which occurs in the dream section. The images of the hunt also anticipate the Knight's experience. The narrator provides the Knight a respite from his grief by having him tell of happier times.

     

  121. Chamberlain, David S. "The Music of the Spheres and the Parlement of Foules." 5 (1970): 32-56.
    In the Parliament of Fowls, Chaucer uses the four species of medieval music to draw attention to the eagles and suggests that the spheres create most of the music, including the "form . . . meter, stanza, and length," of the poem (33). The discussion of the spheres and Nature's way of joining disparate elements suggests musica mundana. Musica humana is less noticeable because Chaucer did not believe in open display. In discussing human music, Chaucer changes his source to emphasize that harmony in world music results from love. He also discusses the three aspects of human music though in different terms from Boethius. Chaucer also uses the three kinds of instrumental music in the roundel which the birds sing, the women's dancing in Venus's temple, and his poetry itself. Chaucer then refers to divina musica in his image of the wood. The spheres are the cause of both "sonorous" and "non-sonorous" music. In the poem, the form and rhyme of the stanzas, which reproduce the sonorous music of the spheres, suggest that the poem is missing a final line that would complete the complex stanzaic form and rhyme scheme. The wind in the wood demonstrates the sonorous music of the spheres as the seasons show non-sonorous music. Finally, readers can explicate the poem in terms of a pattern of three and seven which reinforces the musical patterning of the Parliament of Fowls.

     

  122. Chance, Jane. "Chaucerian Irony in the Boethian Short Poems: The Dramatic Tension between Classical and Christian." 20 (1986): 235-45.
    Chaucer uses Boethian imagery in the "Former Age," "Fortune," "Balades de Visage Sanz Peinture," "Lak of Stedfastnesse," "Gentillesse," and "Truth." In each of these poems, Boethian imagery illustrates the place of humankind in this world. Chaucer also uses this imagery to create irony in "Lak of Stedfastnesse," "Gentillesse," and "Truth."

     

  123. Charnes, Linda. "'This werk unresonable': Narrative Frustration and Generic Redistribution in Chaucer's Franklin's Tale." 23 (1989): 300-15.
    In the Franklin's Tale Chaucer twists narrative development, alters the speed of the story, and shifts from genre to genre in order to weaken "the viability of heroic and courtly romance themes" (300). Chaucer creates lacunae in both space and time, allowing violence to occur. The Franklin's treatment of Dorigen taxes her patience beyond all measure while valorizing patience. Dorigen's focus on the rocks is a manifestation of her desire to make Arveragus suffer the way she suffers. She then substitutes Aurelius for the rocks which have been filling Arveragus's place. Aurelius introduces a new genre and a new space in which Dorigen plays, though her play leads to his despair. Dorigen's revenge is to replace Aurelius's "quest" for her with Arveragus's quest for knightly fame. Finally, however, all characters participate in a quest that eventually results in truth. The Franklin's Tale forces readers to recognize the "distance between literary convention and psychological veracity" (314).

     

  124. Cherchi, Paolo. "The First German Essay on Chaucer." 13 (1978): 80-85.
    Between 1784 and 1787, Karl Friedrich Flögel wrote the Geschichte der komischen Literatur in which he includes a chapter evaluating Chaucer's work. The chapter and a translation are included.

     

  125. Cherniss, Michael D. "Chaucer's Anelida and Arcite: Some Conjectures." 5 (1970): 9-21.
    Based on the introductory material in Anelida and Arcite, readers expect more than a "framed complaint," and it seems difficult to believe that Chaucer would put so much effort into the early portions of Anelida merely to create a frame. A number of similarities between Anelida and Chaucer's dream poems suggest that Chaucer may have planned to finish the work as a dream vision. These likenesses include the style of the opening, the "complaint," the description of the temple, and the immutability of the lovers. In addition, Anelida's situation seems too complex for her, thus demanding a vision which will help her resolve her state. The difficulty of Anelida is intensified by its cloudy relationship to the Knight's Tale and Boccaccio's Teseida. Chaucer may have planned to include the tale of Palamon and Arcite, but his intentions remain unknown.

     

  126. Cherniss, Michael D. "Chaucer's Last Dream Vision: The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women." 20 (1986): 183-99.
    The Prologue to Legend of Good Women is itself a dream vision. The narrator meets Cupid and Alceste, who epitomize the faithful woman as opposed to the faithless women of Troilus and Criseyde and Roman de la Rose. The recognition of Alceste returns to the narrator's earlier worship of the daisy. When the narrator awakes, he is able to write about "good" women and faithless men in accordance with Cupid's command to him, and he moves forward to write a different kind of poetry.

     

  127. Cherniss, Michael D. "The Clerk's Tale and Envoy, the Wife of Bath's Purgatory, and the Merchant's Tale." 6 (1972): 235-54.
    The Clerk's Envoy presents a theme which continues through the Merchant's Tale. The Clerk's Tale presents both a secular and a spiritual moral to which even the Envoy does not resolve. The Envoy contains two ironies: one is the logical extreme that there are no Griseldas, and the other demands whether or not wives may trust their husbands. The double irony allows the Clerk to connect the marital (secular) sphere of his tale with a spiritual moral. An additional level of irony suggests that even shrewish wives perform a spiritual service for their husbands, helping them to develop the character of Job. The Clerk's idea of purgatory in marriage contrasts with January's idea of paradisical marriage, but aligns with the church's view of marriage. January, then, parodies Griselda's patience in the face of trials. Ironically, however, January never recognizes the purgatorial aspects of his marriage; he is too blind. The Host's response to these tales indicates that he believes marriage to be the purgatory the Wife and Merchant describe, not the paradise offered by the Clerk.

     

  128. Chickering, Howell. "Form and Interpretation in the Envoy to the Clerk's Tale." 29 (1995): 352-72.
    The instability of the Envoy to the Clerk's Tale solidifies the rest of the tale as ambiguous and filled with conflicting ironies. That the placement of the Envoy differs between the Ellesmere and the Hengwrt manuscripts adds further confusion to the issue. The Envoy is actually an ironic comment on the teller of the tale, Griselda, and the Wife of Bath. While the Envoy has "a highly specific poetic character" (358), it demands an entirely indeterminate interpretation. Like the French poems from which it comes, the Envoy operates on intense sound patterns, like those described by Deschamps in L'Art de dictier. The complexity of the rhyme scheme shows that Chaucer consciously fashioned this poem to "say something difficult with great ease and mastery" (361), a result Chaucer also achieves through poetic pacing. The combination of these elements makes the poem aesthetically pleasing, though ultimately ambiguous.

     

  129. Chickering, Howell. "Unpunctuating Chaucer." 25 (1990): 96-109.
    Chaucer's manuscripts were punctuated lightly, leaving room for grammatical ambiguity. Punctuating the manuscript forces readers to accept the editor's readings, which often creates difficulties even larger than the original ambiguities. Unpunctuated versions force students to construct their own text and to see the different levels of meaning in it.

     

  130. Christianson, Paul. "Chaucer's Literacy." 11 (1976): 112-27.
    As a reader himself, Chaucer requires that his readers notice the effort involved in reading and writing. References to reading in Chaucer's works demonstrate Chaucer's belief that words conceal in order to reveal. The use of occupatio reminds readers of the time they must expend in order to read or to write. Chaucer does, however, show a skeptical attitude towards the idea that language must not replicate the world, but tell the truth about it. For him, experience is not an appropriate test for language. Ultimately, Chaucer forces his reader to see the problem of thinking and knowing.

     

  131. Christmas, Peter. "Troilus and Criseyde: The Problems of Love and Necessity." 9 (1975): 285-96.
    In Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer examines a number of problems resulting from a conflict between love and the characters' perceptions of it and the reality of living in a changing world. In a realistic depiction of his characters, Chaucer shows that treachery and sincerity can be closely connected. Chaucer treats Pandarus traditionally as a hypocrite and voyeur, but allows Pandarus to behave virtuously in some instances. In addition, in the relationship between Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer creates complex characters in whom vice and virtue coexist. Through Troilus, Chaucer tests courtly love, attempting to link it to religion instead of presenting it as an adversary to religious beliefs. Troilus's silliness as a lover balances his serious appearance in the palinode. Criseyde is attracted to Troilus because her world lacks a male authority figure, but when she betrays him, she behaves in a cowardly manner. Troilus and Criseyde exist in a relativistic world and demonstrate that love is as much a part of the world as religion and morality. As a lover, Troilus pines for Criseyde both before he has her and after she is gone. In so doing, he demonstrates the reality of being human--life in the flux. Furthermore, like the first part of the poem, the palinode examines the question of free will and determinism.

     

  132. Cioffi, Caron. "The First Italian Essay on Chaucer." 22 (1987): 53-61.
    Critics in France and Germany recognized Chaucer's magnitude by the sixteenth century. In Italy, however, Chaucer was ignored until the nineteenth century. But in 1647, Gerolamo Ghilini, in Teatro d'huomini letterati presented an account of Chaucer's life and works. Because no Italians could read Middle English at that time, Ghilini borrowed heavily from John Pits's Relationem historicarum de rebus Anglicis. The passage is fully presented in Italian with an English translation.

     

  133. Clark, John W. "Does the Franklin Interrupt the Squire?" 7 (1972): 160-61.
    Internal evidence suggests that Chaucer probably did intend to finish the Squire's Tale.

     

  134. Clark, John W. "'This litel tretys' Again." 6 (1971): 152-56.
    The differences to which the narrator refers in Melibee are those between the previous versions of the tale and not the differences between this tale and the ones that precede it in the order of the Canterbury Tales. The phrase "this litel tretys" does not refer to the Canterbury Tales as a whole.

     

  135. Clark, Roy Peter. "Doubting Thomas in Chaucer's Summoner's Tale." 11 (1976): 164-78.
    In the Summoner's Tale, Thomas and Friar John together imitate St. Thomas. The elderly, sick Thomas is a kind of "doubting Thomas." John is a perverted type of Thomas, the builder of churches. In the fart scene, the two Thomas-types merge in a parody of St. Thomas probing Christ's wounds. Chaucer underscores the parallel by using language similar to that used in accounts describing Thomas groping Christ's wounds. That Friar John receives a fart indicates the corrupt nature of his search for material, not spiritual, wealth.

     

  136. Clark, S. L., and Julian N. Wasserman. "The Heart in Troilus and Criseyde: The Eye of the Breast, the Mirror of the Mind, the Jewel in Its Setting." 18 (1984): 316-28.
    Chaucer's treatment of a character's heart gives him room to comment on that character. In Troilus and Criseyde, Pandarus seems to have no heart at all. Diomede seems to equate the heart with the mind or, when wooing Criseyde, with tokens and not true love. Troilus treats his heart differently from the way Criseyde treats hers, and this difference reveals two separate views of love.

     

  137. Clasby, Eugene. "Chaucer's Constance: Womanly Virtue and the Heroic Life." 13 (1979): 221-33.
    Instead of making the upper classes comfortable, the Man of Law's Tale reminds them that they are also subject to Fortune. Constance does not suffer for no reason; her suffering pictures human suffering as it relates to God and to virtue. In the Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius addresses a similar fall from power which questions God's power and Boethius's virtue. In the course of their sufferings, Boethius and Constance discover that Providence, not Fortune, rules their lives. Chaucer's treatment of Constance, however, raises additional issues. Constance's responses to her sufferings throughout the tale show her spiritual growth. While Constance submits to physical authority, she never accepts that authority over her spiritual well-being. Constance's identity as a woman symbolizes the life-giving abilities of all humans, and is not a sign of weakness. Chaucer presents Constance from a temporal and an eternal perspective, allowing him to raise questions about evil rulers and Providence.

     

  138. Clopper, Lawrence M. "Langland's Franciscanism." 25 (1990): 54-75.
    Though Piers Plowman is admitedly anticlerical, it also participates in the Franciscan debate about the definition of poverty and the propriety of learning for Franciscans. The differences between the two treatments of the clergy revolve around begging. Mendicants begged for a living because they were poor. Unfortunately, because of Langland's portrayal of friars, readers tend to look at all of the Dreamer's meetings with friars as negative, though the friars whom the Wanderer meets on his way to Dowel tell him the truth, and the friars at the beginning of the Vita try to convince Wanderer to lead a moral life. The confrontation between the Wanderer and the friars is designed to show the contrast between his condition and the poverty he applauds as Rechelessness attempts to do. In the end, Will must answer whether he took charity for his needs or merely to become richer. Though Nede's second appearance creates a problem, the moment can be viewed as an allegory of the relationship between the Franciscan order and the church. Ultimately, Langland presents a challenge to the Franciscans to abide by their rule and so to "usher the Church into its last age" (70).

     

  139. Clopper, Lawrence M. "The Principle of Selection of the Chester Old Testament Plays." 13 (1979): 272-83.
    Chester plays were chosen on principles of covenant, that a redeemer will come, and of sacrifice, that humans may achieve salvation. Tensions between old and new law form a part of the conflict. Post-Christ Jews are the focus of anti-Semitism, but pre-Christ Israelites foreshadow Christians.

     

  140. Cohen, Edward S. "The Sequence of the Canterbury Tales." 9 (1974): 190-94.
    Manuscript ordering may be clarified by examining place references in the fragments. Since the pilgrims must reach Sittingbourne on the penultimate day of travel, Fragment C cannot follow Fragment F. To accommodate references to specific places, Fragment C must follow Fragment B1. This ordering suggests solutions to other difficulties related to time and indicates that Chaucer must have been working around a group of untold tales.

     

  141. Coletti, Theresa. "The Mulier Fortis and Chaucer's Shipman's Tale." 15 (1981): 236-49.
    In the Shipman's Tale Chaucer parodies a passage in Proverbs, a favorite passage of medieval commentators, describing the ideal wife. From the beginning, the tale shifts to cruder emphasis than the Proverbs passage. The echoes of the proverbial good wife suggest that this tale was originally intended for the Wife of Bath.

     

  142. Collette, Carolyn P. "A Closer Look at Seinte Cecile's Special Vision." 10 (1976): 337-49.
    Chaucer constructs the Second Nun's Tale on the polarity of sight and blindness, merely seeing as opposed to understanding. This dichotomy involves "wisdom and the relation of the body to the spirit" (338). Timaeus, De doctrina christiana, and Psychomachia also examine this theme, and study of these three works elucidates the Second Nun's Tale. The Prologue establishes the limits of the flesh but also indicates its victories. The action of the tale shows how men should subdue their fleshly desires, seek spiritual vision, and ultimately gain wisdom.

     

  143. Collette, Carolyn P. "Heeding the Counsel of Prudence: A Context for the Melibee." 29 (1995): 416-33.
    Prudence is most often associated with males, particularly rulers, as a study of texts by John of Salisbury and Christine de Pisan shows. In Christine's works, however, Prudence begins to acquire feminine characteristics. She is associated with avoiding violence, both on the political level, and between husband and wife. Chaucer's Prudence in the Tale of Melibee is a noble wife, conducting herself in accordance with the behavior patterns outlined in the French models. Even the Host associates Prudence with the traditional advice given to wives about patience. Thus the Tale of Melibee engages traditional materials directed towards women.

     

  144. Collette, Carolyn. "Seeing and Believing in the Franklin's Tale." 26 (1992): 395-410.
    Readers can examine the Franklin's Tale in terms of medieval theories of sight, vision, and will. Chaucer's focus on sight and the illusions of appearance is an original addtion to the source material in the Filostrato, and Historia regnum Britanniae. Dorigen's complaint revolves around her perception of the rocks. Her agreement with Aurelius uses the different perceptions among people and also engages the appearance and reality debate, as does the episode with the Clerk of Orleans. For those living in the Middle Ages, "sight was the chief of the physical senses" (401). By Chaucer's time, people valued mystical insight in a neo-Platonic way. The neo-Platonic tradition conflicted with Aristotelian views in which sight corresponded to reality, and created new opinions regarding how sight and experience became knowledge. In the fourteenth century people became fascinated by optical science and how the ability to see physically interacts with mental acuity of perception. The ability to see was also related to the will and a person's ability to perceive truth, as Augustine shows in De trinitate. Dorigen's obsession with the sight of the rocks creates a situation in which the marriage vow is questioned, thereby engaging this debate. Chaucer also examines sight and perception in the Second Nun's Tale and the Canon's Yeoman's Tale.

     

  145. Collette, Carolyn P. "Sense and Sensibility in the Prioress's Tale." 15 (1980): 138-50.
    The fourteenth century focused on God's love as a vital force in the universe which was expressed in some ways by a tender description of The Virgin Mary. The Prioress depicts the fourteenth century idea of God's particular love by kindness to mice and dogs. That the little boy learns Alma Redemptoris Mater by memory without understanding it symbolizes innocent faith. The Prioress's Tale reflects the fourteenth-century focus on the particular and the emotion that it arouses.

     

  146. Collette, Carolyn P. "'Ubi peccaverant, ibi punirentur': The Oak Tree and the Pardoner's Tale." 19 (1984): 39-45.
    Throughout the Old Testament, the oak tree is associated with death and with choice. When the three rioters find the gold, they must choose between God and money, life and death.

     

  147. Collette, Carolyn P. "Umberto Eco, Semiotics, and the Merchant's Tale." 24 (1989): 132-38.
    Medieval semiotics asserted that meaning came from God and from latent knowledge. Modern semioticians believe that signs are attached to specific things and ideas. Reading tales like the Merchant's Tale semiotically adds to our appreciation of the tale.

     

  148. Condren, Edward I. "Of Deaths and Duchesses and Scholars Coughing in Ink." 10 (1975): 87-95.
    The opening lines of the Book of the Duchess express the poet's search for his text as well as his desire for the lady. The poem will fulfill both longings, resulting in sleep, dreams, and poetry. Readers should be cautious as only puns and a title connote Blanche. In fact, the Queen's death may have occasioned most of the poem. The man in black is probably a love poet, suggesting that he represents Chaucer. The king, then, becomes the Earl of Richmond. Gaunt cannot be an inconstant lover because he did not love Constance of Castille, though he kept Katherine Swynford as a mistress. Thus Gaunt could not claim insult because he appears in the poem only briefly.

     

  149. Condren, Edward I. "The Historical Context of the Book of the Duchess: A New Hypothesis." 5 (1971): 195-212.
    Readers will never know with certainty the context of this poem, though we recognize that Blanche of Lancaster is the subject of this elegy. External evidence suggests that Chaucer wrote it between 1369 and 1387, but internal evidence points to a more specific date. The narrator's "phisicien" and the man in black's lady are one and the same. Also, the knight and the narrator provide two different reactions to Blanche's death. Further, the man riding toward Richmond cannot be the man in black because he is on foot and not associated with the hunt, and the riding man is not given a social rank. The knight has dedicated his service to Love, not to Blanche, so he cannot be her husband. The knight might be identified as Chaucer, particularly since the knight is a budding poet, and poets in Chaucer's other works often turn out to be Chaucer himself. In their two responses to death, the knight and the narrator seem to be two different figurations of the same person. The way in which the work progresses, then, depends on the process of Chaucer's patronage after the death of Blanche under Edward III, John of Gaunt, and Henry IV.

     

  150. Condren, Edward I. "The Prioress: A Legend of Spirit, A Life of Flesh." 23 (1989): 192-218.
    Criticism of the Prioress remains divided between those who believe she is austere and those who belive she is compassionate. Primarily critics question whether the Prioress understands her behaviors and her tale. Her portrait, prologue, and tale reveal conflicting impulses: she is a woman and a nun. Her prologue asserts three things, that the ability to honor God and the Virgin Mary comes from spiritual energy, that she needs that energy to complete her tale, and that faith will accomplish salvation. The prologue and tale parallel each other. The Prioress never understands her story or its repugnant qualities. Her prologue and tale are not about the Prioress's duality, but picture the metaphysical union of flesh and spirit. The grain on the boy's tongue represents the carnal fleshly nature, the product of male "seed," so when it is removed, the boy is purely spirit and is released from earth to go to paradise.

     

  151. Conlee, John W. "The Meaning of Troilus' Ascension to the Eighth Sphere." 7 (1972): 27-36.
    The stanzas which describe Troilus in the spheres are connected to the classical and medieval motif of a celestial journey. Chaucer integrates Greek, Roman, and Christian ideas of immortality into Troilus and Criseyde by varied use of the number eight and its numerological connotations in medieval thought. Troilus ascends to the eighth sphere, and the number eight indicates "completion of a cycle . . . purification; and immortality, eternity, and eternal salvation" (34). Thus Chaucer can, by introducing numerology, prepare the way for the section on Christian love that ends the poem.

     

  152. Connolly, Margaret. "Chaucer and Chess." 29 (1994): 40-44.
    Chaucer's use of the chess metaphor in the Book of the Duchess is confused, even from a medieval perspective on the game. Chaucer's misunderstanding can be attributed to the fact that no English translation of Liber de ludo scaccorum existed at the time Chaucer wrote, though two French translations can be dated in the mid-fourteenth century. Chaucer's knowledge of chess came via the Roman de la Rose.

     

  153. Cook, Daniel. "The Revision of Chaucer's Troilus: The Beta Text." 9 (1974): 51-62.
    Of the three available texts of Troilus and Criseyde, scholars have always accepted the gamma text as the most accurate version. This decision, however, is open to debate. The readings given by the beta text differ significantly from both the alpha and gamma versions, and since most changes improve the quality of the text by adding detail, they cannot be considered merely scribal. Thus, the beta text must be accepted as the most authoritative.

     

  154. Cook, James W. "'That she was out of all charitee': Point-Counterpoint in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale." 13 (1978): 51-65.
    St. Augustine and St. Ambrose teach that marriage is a sacrement which confers a particular kind of grace on its participants unless the adult does not intend to do what the church does or has mortally sinned. The Wife's arguments for serial remarriage are theologically sound, but her accounts of her marriages also indicate an unwillingness to submit to divine will, resulting in "sin, gracelessness, and loss of charity" (54). She also refuses to unite her will with any one of her spouses, focusing instead on benefitting herself. Such self-focus signifies a sinner, and her persistence in this sin makes her progressively less likey to receive grace in the sacrament of marriage. In the Wife of Bath's Tale, the moment when the young knight agrees to let the old hag choose her form herself is the moment when the sacrament of their marriage gives grace to the knight. When the hag then chooses to submit to the knight, she makes the marriage mutual, thereby achieving charity. The Wife, however, will never achieve such charity or the accompanying correction of her ways because she will never submit to a husband in accordance with the sacrament.

     

  155. Cook, Robert. "The Canon's Yeoman and His Tale." 22 (1987): 28-40.
    In the Canon's Yeoman's Tale the teller is most important. Like the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner, the Canon's Yeoman is self-revealing. Unlike the Pardoner and the Wife, the Canon's Yeoman is slowly changing his life, repudiating alchemy. He shows a desire to avoid becoming a false alchemist and to warn others of the evils of alchemy. These concerns affect the way he tells his tale.

     

  156. Cooper, Helen. "Chaucer and Joyce." 21 (1986): 142-54.
    Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and James Joyce's Ulysses share a focus on naturalism, a recognition on the author's part that language is highly metaphorical, and the use of revered past works. Both works are structured in naturalistic terms and attempt to show the spectrum of their societies. Joyce and Chaucer use a wide variety of styles, demonstrating authorial virtuosity. Each author also includes a section in which he parodies accepted forms. Chaucer does not expect his readers to know his narrative sources, as Joyce expects readers to know Ulysses. Both authors do expect their readers to recognize their allusions.

     

  157. Correale, Robert M. "Chaucer's Manuscript of Nicholas Trevet's Les Cronicles." 25 (1991): 238-65.
    Scrutiny of the two families of texts of Trevet's Cronicles can indicate which text Chaucer used for the Man of Law's Tale and can show what changes he made to his source. The passages borrowed directly from the source reveal that Chaucer used a text belonging to Family A. Other elements seem to have come from the B texts. But, once all the references and changes are collected, the text Chaucer used seems to be most similar to the Paris text, produced for a noble family.

     

  158. Correale, Robert M. "Chaucer's Parody of Compline in the Reeve's Tale." 1 (1967): 161-66.
    The clerks distort the prayers of the Compline service in their curse of the miller and his family, and also in their "swyving" of the miller's wife and daughter. Chaucer then parodies the secular aube (morning song). The action of the tale parodies one of the most solemn Compline prayers.

     

  159. Cotton, Michael E. "The Artistic Integrity of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde." 7 (1972): 37-43.
    Chaucer associates Criseyde with the moon, thus indicating Criseyde's changeableness. The other planets also function as foreshadowing elements, moving human actions to a different, sometimes ironic, place where Chaucer can connect these events to universal patterns. This link allows Chaucer to make divine and hellish allusions. The imagery of planets and pagan gods develops the theme of Fortuna and instability.

     

  160. Covella, Sister Frances Dolores. "Audience as Determinant of Meaning in the Troilus." 2 (1968): 235-45.
    An author's tone and attitude significantly affect what the author says; in Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer's tone and attitude toward his audience create a number of verbal ironies. Chaucer's narrator makes every effort to defend Criseyde's actions, and when they become indefensible, he begins to distance himself from her behavior, constantly referring to his sources. In the epilogue, the change in tone can be attributed to Chaucer's perceived change in audience from a listening group of ladies and gentlemen conversant with the code of courtly love to a reading audience which might not have such familiarity with that code. The irony in Troilus and Criseyde seems to grow out of the relationship between Chaucer and his audience, creating more humor than corrective satire.

     

  161. Covella, Sister Frances Dolores. "The Speaker of the Wife of Bath Stanza and Envoy." 4 (1970): 267-83.
    Given the Clerk's characterization in the General Prologue and in his tale, readers must find it difficult to believe that he is the speaker of the whole Envoy which appears at the end of his tale, particularly since it includes the "Wife of Bath" stanza which disputes the moral of his tale. Manuscript evidence does not clearly indicate whether the Clerk mockingly imitates the Wife or whether he indeed speaks the entirety of the Envoy or if the Pardoner, the Host, or the Wife may have interrupted the Clerk at this point. Of the four possible speakers, the Wife of Bath seems most probable, but there is not conclusive evidence to support this assertion.

     

  162. Cox, Lee Sheridan. "A Question of Order in the Canterbury Tales." 1 (1967): 228-52.
    The critical debate regarding the identity of the interrupter in the Man of Law's endlink has been endless. The candidates have been the Wife of Bath, the Shipman, the Squire, and the Summoner. The argument for the Shipman rests on the assumption that his tale was first assigned to the Wife, but later transferred to the Shipman when she was given another tale. Differences in manuscripts complicate the problem, but one can show that the Man of Law-Shipman theory rests on the best and generally most authoritative manuscripts.

     

  163. Crampton, Georgia Ronan. "'Blow, Northerne Wynd' and the Heart's Health." 15 (1981): 183-203.
    Careful examination of the text reveals tensions and ambiguities which give "Blow, Northerne Wynd" a cohesive structure. The allegory of "Blow, Northerne Wynd" may be read as dream, making the poem a dream vision.

     

  164. Crane, Susan. "The Franklin as Dorigen." 24 (1990): 236-52.
    The Franklin's insecurity about his rank draws the attention of readers to concerns about class. As a woman, Dorigen holds a marginal position similar to the Franklin's social position. Chaucer thus associates class and gender in order to examine "the ways in which romance imagines the possibilities and the constraints of self-defintion" (237). The Franklin and Dorigen also have similar relationships to clerical writings: both refuse the authority of clerkly writings. Dorigen resists suicide in the same way the Franklin resists romance conventions.

     

  165. Crawford, William R. "The House of Chaucer's Fame." 3 (1969): 191-203.
    Crawford presents a critical review of Chaucer studies appearing in 1967.

     

  166. Dahlberg, Charles. "The Narrator's Frame for Troilus." 15 (1980): 85-100.
    Reading with an eye for dissimilarity may illuminate the first sentence of Troilus and Criseyde. Chaucer alters the classical form of the opening sentence to reflect more clearly the minstrel tradition. The invocation to the Muse shows the principle of contrast as does the end, which carefully alternates between Chaucer's and Boccaccio's ideas. The style follows an equally contrasting pattern, alternating between high and low styles.

     

  167. Daileader, Celia R. "The Thopas-Melibee Sequence and the Defeat of Antifeminism." 29 (1994): 26-39.
    The Wife of Bath problematizes the abuse of women, both physically and verbally, in her rebellion and misconstruction of authority. Chaucer responds to the Wife in the Tale of Melibee, reasserting his authority through Prudence. The rapes at the beginning of the Wife of Bath's Tale and the Tale of Melibee parallel each other in several significant ways. These violations also raise the question of how women may speak about the violation of texts and their bodies. In the Tale of Melibee, Prudence must convince Melibee to listen to her, and she does so by direct quotation from a number of texts. The Wife asserts herself by misquotin