How to Find the
Best Article- and Chapter-Length Sources for Annotated Bibliographies on Chaucer
Nobody should be surprised that the best source for scholarship on Chaucer
is The Chaucer Review ("ChR" to insiders). Our online access to
ChR is somewhat limited due to the date restrictions. This is the online
link page from OLLI:
Project Muse is obviously your best bet, but ChR
is not a huge journal. Most issues contain only five or six articles on all
topics, some on poets other than Chaucer. I think this first round has
exhausted all their online articles on KT with one exception, which is
really about a more modern version of the plot. If you are an online
addict, remember that the library also has electronic subscriptions to these
journals that cover medieval litearture: JEGP (Journal of English
and Germanic Philology, online only and don't let the title put you
off--they published Jeff on Pardoner's Prologue, see below), Medium Aevum
(AKA, "the Middle Ages," ditto above and below), Review of English
Studies (AKA RES, see below), Studies in Philology (online
only since 1975, but in paper in the stacks since 1915)
Remember we have the paper copies of
ChR in the stacks (820.5
C496r ), and they go all the way back to
the journal's founding in 1966, when young Arnie was graduating from Avon
Lake (OH) High School (some undistinguished number out of 97 in the senior
class, as I recall). It's a lovely old tradition to nest down there on the
library's ground floor with a pile of journals you've found using the MLA
Bibliography to spot titles. But keep your eyes open as you browse. Out of
curiosity, I tried MLA to spot Scott's terrific catch, Sememza on "Wrastlyng"
in Miller's Tale," and for some reason it was telling me it didn't exist. I
believe you, Scott--it's just a sign that these digital searches aren't
necessarily as thorough as they are advertised to be. In olden days,
scholars just set aside a half hour or hour a week just to leaf through
table of contents pages in the most productive journals. For us, in the
library's collection, those journals in paper would be ChR, ELH
(formerly "English Literary History," see below), Modern Philology
(also online, but it's so cool to have an early 1900s issue of a
still-publishing journal in your hands!), Speculum (ditto and
ditto!), as well as occasional great work in PMLA and other
non-specialized journals.
Though I recommend using articles for these notes,
don't forget the book-length studies, from which you could do a chapter on a
topic relevant to CT, Chaucer's style, etc. Look especially for the essay
collections, which naturally will give you self-contained article-like
chapter units with no need to worry about a book's overall thesis.
These are the results of an OLLI
search on the Library of Congress Subject heading "Chaucer, Geoffrey D1400
Criticism and Interpretation"--a current search will, of course, yield more and
more recent work: