Goucher College Chaucer Seminars

Annotated Bibliography of Chaucer Criticism: 1994, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2003

Note: The student authors retain all rights to their work, and should be cited when their ideas are borrowed for fair scholarly use.   Readers are cautioned that the student authors are scholar-apprentices in medieval studies, and many were not writing with the intention of posting their work to the Internet.  Consider these like ongoing classroom conversations which may contain errors of fact or judgment.  Because this large set of annotations is not topic-organized, the most convenient way to use it is to activate your browser's "Find" (Ctl+F) command to search for relevant text strings like "Reeve" or "trouthe" or "horse."  You also can search by the last name of the articles' authors, or, if you come to admire a student author's scholarship, you can search by her/his last name, as well.

To cite the next entry in MLA style:

Dill, Amy.  Annotation of Lois Roney, "The Knight."  Goucher College Chaucer Seminars Annotated Bibliography          of Chaucer Criticism: 1994, 1996, 1999, 2001.   2/12/99.  Online at http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng330/chaucerbib.htm           12/25/01.

Roney, Lois. "The Knight." Chaucer's Knight's Tale and Theories of ScholasticPsychology. Tampa: U of South Florida P,          1990. 232-245

    Roney strongly believes that in the issue of tale/teller match, that the "Knight's Tale" is particularly suitable for its narrator, the Knight. Theseus and the Knight share many of the same characteristics and also share similar experiences, which implies that the Knight may be speaking through Theseus. She says that the Knight insists on finding an essential goodness in things, no matter how bad they may seem.

    The Knight's optimism of human nature keeps him from indulging in negative judgements, for example at the end of his tale he could have commented on Palamon's marriage to Emelye in a negative way because of what had happened for it to occur. He instead chooses to see the good in Palamon and not comment in a negative manner, which shows the Knight's very high standards of being and his behavior towards others. He has a great ability to value opposing points of view and praise what is good in each of them.

    In her comparison of the Knight to Theseus, Roney points out that Theseus learns lessons that the Knight would have learned while on the crusades. For example, he would have learned quickly, like Theseus, that once violence is started, it is difficult to stop. The Knight "would have come to value highly, as does Theseus, the kind of practical wisdom one gains from living actively in the world, from having to make hard decisions and then live with their outcomes." And the last thing he would have learned is that in the real world there is happiness and comfort as well as sorrow and distress.

    I agree with everything that Roney has to say about the Knight, for I too see him to be a man of high standards and being negative and mean just isn't something he would do. I see him as being a noble man not just in the General Prologue, but in his tale also. Theseus is the character that he speaks through and I like the fact that the Knight doesn't make him a "perfect" man with no flaws whatsoever. This characterizes the Knight as a "real person," he knows that everyone makes mistakes and he believes that most people do intend well, regardless of how things work out. --Amy Dill, 2/12/99

Hardwick, Paul. "Chaucer: the Poet as Ploughman." The Chaucer Review. 33:2 (1998) 146-156.

    The main point of this article is that the character of the Ploughman, who occurs only in the General Prologue and therefore is not highly developed, is instead symbolic, a metaphor for the poet Chaucer himself. This comparison, which Hardwick says is originally found in Boccaccio, is that a ploughman digs furrows across the field just as a poet writes lines across a page. Along with this, Hardwick argues that, as the Ploughman is traveling with and is the brother of a Parson, living in "parfit charitee," following the example of this noble representative of the Church, so must Chaucer, in his writings, be working for the common good of his audience, in brotherhood with the Church that he supports.

    Hardwick, in fact, works very hard to play down the anti-clerical vein that runs though the Canterbury Tales. He proposes that, instead of merely destructively criticizing the flaws of the institutional Church, Chaucer is trying to reform them by portraying the Parson, an ideal clerical figure. Accordingly, Hardwick presents the sermons of the Parson as proof of Chaucer's orthodox beliefs. In addition, the author tells us in a particularly vague paragraph that Chaucer aligned himself with the Italian Renaissance idea of the "exalted status" of a "modern" poet whose job it was to work for the benefit of the audience.

    If one manages to read this article carefully enough to catch the author's train of logic, then some issues of interpretation become apparent. For example, Hardwick assumes that because Chaucer creates a character (the Parson) which believes certain things, and also places that character's tale in the important position of next-to-last, then Chaucer himself must agree with his character. Therefore, because the Parson sermonizes in his tale about the necessity of penance to an ordained priest, Chaucer's position must be orthodox (Hardwick uses this conclusion to disprove the possibility that Chaucer identified with an anti-Church, lay movement, which would destroy the author's point that the poet/ploughman works in brotherhood with the Church). However, this assumption, that "this is what his characters believe, so this is what the author believes," is suspect because it totally underestimates a writer's ability to create independent characters. If a writer needs to prove a point about an author's ideologies, though, this method is very tempting and convenient, so it bears looking out for in other places. The article also brings up the problem of the delicate line between the voice of the narrator-poet and the voice of Chaucer the poet. The question is whether it is ever possible to treat these two interchangeably.

    In the process of making his point, the author asks an interesting and potentially useful question: Can religious elements and secular elements be neatly separated "within the overall unity of the Canterbury Tales"? Now aside from the point that the CT may or may not exhibit overall unity, the relationship between the religious and secular could prove a fruitful path of investigation. An inquiring reader would probably turn up more than one relationship, which might even support non-overall unity. Basically, while this author makes a few assumptions and connections that may not completely hold water, the article is useful for the issues it draws attention to, and also for readers who are interested in the character of the Parson, or how the Parson would read the Canterbury Tales. (I'll add to this, if necessary, when we get to this tale). --Corinna Yost, 2/16/99

Woods, William F. "My Sweete Foo: Emelye's Role in The Knight's Tale." Studies-in-Philology. 88:3 (1991) 276-306.

    Woods’ main point in this article is how all the character's in the "Knight's Tale" were needed to create this tale. Some of the characters have more complex personalities and roles, yet Emelye's is not. The author goes on to describe her as a simple woman who is caught in between the obsessive love of two men, Arcite and Palamon. This article shows a very close relationship between Emelye and the goddesses such as Diana and Venus. When we are first introduced to Emelye she is being compared to the beautiful goddess of Venus as "an irresistible, faceless face of love." Yet according to Woods, as the tale begins to unravel we are presented with Emelye following more in the footsteps of Diana, goddess of fertility, hunting (harvest) and death (change).

    In Part III, Emelye prays to Diana, yet her prayer isn't answered until Part IV, but it's answered by Saturn, who is "a higher order of change or the summation of all changes." Woods points out that Emelye's role shows us that she embodies both the powers of love and change. Therefore she has the role of "huntress" which stems from Diana and then the eros which she acquired from Venus. Knowing this allows us to understand better as to why Venus appears in the end of Part III, "where her tears move the will of Saturn, arranging the death of Arcite."

    Woods has an interesting point when he states that there are certain forces which represent the motive forces that create the conflict over Emelye. Yet there is a certain equilibrium to them. Venus and Mar's sign are white and red, yet Diana's is a little bit of both: "alabastre white" and "reed coral" (1910). This allows us to conclude that in a way Diana is related to both goddesses.

    Woods believes that the description of Diana is more ambiguous than that of Venus and Saturn because since she is the goddess of moon, the hunt and underworld, she represents nature worldwide, instead of concentrating on just love or the actual earth. As well as representing nature, she also has stellar influences. Venus represents one's identity with another, Mars, the ability to enhance oneself and then Diana, the desire to become one with "nature's innocent harmony." Yet these intentions create certain limitations such as: Palamon worshipping Emelye for so many years while he was inprisoned, Arcite wastes time not accomplishing much, and Emelye "would rather go hunting-go through the motions of life in this surrogate for the pursuits of love and arms." Consequently all this conflicts with Emelye's beauty and her desire to retreat into nature, yet her ability to accept love from Venus and change from Diana is what makes her a central character between Arcite and Palamon and allows her to engage in the troubles that come along with having two men in love with her: marriage with one and death of the other. --Maria Elena Perez, 2/17/99

Dugas, Don-John. "The Legitimization of Royal Power in Chaucer's Man ofLaw’s Tale." Modern Philology. 95 Aug (1997)          27-43.

    Don-John Dugas argues in his essay "The Legitimization of Royal Power in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale" that Chaucer, through the Man of Law, argues for the legitimacy and authority of monarchical rule. By doing so, Dugas argues, Chaucer sides with Richard II in the ongoing struggle between that king and Parliament. I will return to the obvious flaw in this argument later.

    According to Dugas, Chaucer (I make no distinction between Chaucer and the Man of Law here because, in Dugas eyes, their intentions are the same) employs an age-old method of lending legitimacy to royal claims of power in the "Man of Law's Tale." In the tradition of Virgil, and many other lesser history-makers, Chaucer bases a monarch's authority to rule on a supposed divine and legendary ancestor. Virgil had legitimized Augustus's claims to power by creating the myth of Aeneas's founding of Rome, of whom he made Augustus a direct descendent. Through Virgil's poem, Augustus could claim descent from a deity, Venus (Aeneas's mother), and a legendary figure, Aeneas, whose fate it was to found an empire that was destined to control the world. In similar fashion Chaucer bases the legitimacy of the English monarchy (at least of the institution if not of the individual) on descent from the Roman emperors, a saint (Custance), and even Aeneas himself, through Brutus. Though only a Roman emperor, and not an English king, comes out of the bargain, Dugas's argument is (to the best of my ability to decipher it) that it is through an Anglo-Saxon king that Christianity is again brought to England. As evidence of Alla's divinely ordained status, God sends the combination Roman emperor's daughter/saint to him that he might marry her and be the force for the dissemination of Christianity in England. And, thrown into the bargain is the fact that Alla has an unlikely "Britoun book, written with Evaungiles" that somehow, though he is neither a Christian nor a Briton, ties him not only to Christianity but to Brutus himself.

    I do not mean to argue with Dugas's premise as to the possible didactic purpose of the tale, though I believe his reasoning is convoluted and unsound. I think he is definitely on to something. That the tale would be the conscious creation of a myth, a refashioning of the past, toward some practical purpose, is perfectly suited to the teller, whose job it is to reinterpret the past in order to further the interests of the individual he serves. However, rather than arguing for the preeminence of one secular power over another, I think it more likely that, by attributing the reintroduction of Christianity to a secular ruler rather than a purely religious figure (St. Augustine), and by making his "saint" a combination-secular aristocrat of the highest order and ideal Christian-the Man of Law might be arguing for the preeminence of secular over religious authority, with the ultimate irony (which we know Chaucer to be capable of) of undercutting the very figure whose shrine the pilgrims are going to visit!

    What I do wish to argue with is the assumption that the Man of Law's intentions and Chaucer's are the same. Chaucer takes great pains to remind us that the teller, as well as the tale, is a fictional construct when he causes the Man of Law to recite Chaucer's own works. And he also undercuts both the teller, and therefore the tale he tells, by his less than flattering description of him in the General Prologue, and by the "hymn to wealth" he attributes to him in his own prologue. After all, the essence of the Man of Law is "seeming." In his life (his "bisynesse") and in his work, he passes the fictional off as the real. A tale which willfully reconstructs the past for its own purposes, and whose meaning is continually interpreted for the audience along the way, is quintessentially a lawyer's.--Damon Hauser, 3/5/99

Woods, William F. "A Professional Thyng: the Wife as Merchant's Apprentice in the Shipman's Tale." The Chaucer Review.          24:2 (1989) 139-149.

    Woods' article provides a useful discussion of the "Shipman's Tale" that explains how the tale may be seen through the idiom of commerce. He concentrates on the wife's efforts to gain greater power in the marriage and says that she does so by entering into a financial exchange herself, thereby becoming another merchant. The whole tale itself, Woods says, revolves around a series of acts of exchange, thus creating a world in which there is little other purpose besides the mercantile lust after profit. This means, though, that winning the commodity (money, control, sexual favors) is not as important as the endless cycle of wheeling and dealing, without which the characters of this tale would have nothing to live for.

    One of Woods' initial main points is that the merchant's and the monk's professional roles are made out to be slightly ridiculous. The merchant is being one-upped by his wife, who cuts a successful deal with the monk before her husband ever leaves for the marketplace. And the monk's behavior is clearly not consistent with his holy vocation. Woods claims that since these two characters are thus mildly mocked, the wife and her endeavors consequently come to be the main focus of this tale. It is the wife who welcomes the monk, as a substitute master of the house, into her bedroom, and it is she who later welcomes her husband back, "reinstates" him, and denies the monk.

    Woods’ final point is that the wife gains strength first by descending to the point of selling her body, then by yielding to her husband's chastising, and by the end of the tale she possesses "independence in her role as merchant's wife" (148). However, even though Woods emphasizes how much control the wife is able to gain over the men in the tale through use of her body, I don't think she ends up with much authority. I just think she has figured out how to be satisfied sexually within her marriage. Her final position is the one of a debtor, which still carries its disadvantages, even if she is getting what she wants in bed. But, as we're thinking in terms of commerce, I see money as the primary reason why she propositions the monk in the first place. Her husband may be rich, but her appetite must be voracious not only in the arena of the bedroom, but in the wardrobe as well. After all, the tale begins with the narrator commenting upon the fashion needs of a fair wife.

    So what is she really left with? Contrary to what Woods implies, the wife does not have any increased financial control in the marriage. The 100 francs she had borrowed are spent. And there is no reason for the reader to think that the wife will no longer want to spend more money than her husband is willing to give her, just because she is paying off the present debt with sex.

    Despite the fact that I disagree with Wood's position on the wife's final level of independence, I find this article to be useful because it explores and illuminates the exchanges going on in the "Shipman's Tale." The author successfully uses the metaphor of trade to tie everything together and the sense of humor that comes through in the author's language, as he bends over backwards to extend the conceit, is mostly appreciated. Therefore, if a student is trying to do a reading of a tale through the theme of money, trade, or profit, this article provides such an example. Also, for a student interested in folk motifs in Chaucer, this article also touches on how a few of them surface in the "Shipman's Tale."--Corinna Yost 3-11-99

Feinstein, Sandy. "The Reeve's Tale: About That Horse." The Chaucer Review. 26:1 (1991) 99-106.
    Sandy Feinstein's article examines the horse in the "Reeve's Tale," arguing that, "there is a problem in privileging the allegorical reading: it makes assumptions about the culture that few in the agrarian Middle Ages would have made," (99). One of these assumptions that Feinstein is referring to is the sexuality of the horse. She says that two writers, Ruggiers and Richardson identify the horse as a stallion and their only evidence for this is the fact that the horse runs away after the wild mares.

    Feinstein's argument regarding the sex of the horse is very convincing and if anything, challenges Ruggiers and Richardson. She used much of the article backing up her point with a vast amount of sources and research. However, I understand she was trying prove her thesis, but I personally felt that she used up a vast amount of her article with other peoples findings, rather than exploring her own.

    One piece of research that was very necessary to her article, was looking in early, medieval manuals regarding horses. She says that the horse is more likely a gelding and not a stallion. She made the point that stallions, then and now are kept for the purpose of serving mares. A stallion would need to be trained and only those who had the money and/or the time to train such an animal would be able to handle the steed. An abundance of money and time does not fit into the lifestyle of the two clerks and therefore the horse they had could not possibly be a stallion.

    She also backs this point up by using information from the works of Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, a writer from the first-century, who says that stallions require a special kind of management that is different from the care of all other types of horses. "This sort of management required would not lend itself to turning stallions into packhorses; not would clerks or millers be the likely managers of such animals," (101). Feinstein then quotes several passages from Columella's work about stallions, which I feel was unnecessary to continue using this source at the length that she chose to. Another interesting part of Feinstein's research on stallions said that if Bayard would have been a stallion, chasing the mares in the field, the two clerks would have ended their chase not only tired and dirty, but physically wounded as well. During mating season, stallions can go mad with desire and it would be quite dangerous to approach the mares and the stallion. She says that the clerks would have been bitten and kicked.

    At the end of her article, Feinstein briefly touches on the sexuality of the horse and that it is really female and not male, like most critics assume. She also brings up an interesting point that if the horse is a gelding it would refer "not to the clerks, but to another character," (104). She sees the gelding may represent the Reeve himself and that the horse "might provide a sympathetic exemplum of frustrated impotence rather then of satisfied lust," (104).

    She continues exploring this idea in only one more paragraph, which turns out to be the final one of her article. I really wished she would have spent more time exploring the Reeve being compared to the horse, instead of going at such an excessive length to persuade her readers that the horse cannot be a stallion. Though I found this insight to be interesting, I was much more intrigued with Feinstein's idea about the Reeve and the horse. --Amy Dill, 3/16/99 (Rev. 3/28)

Crane, Susan. "Alison of Bath Accused of Murder: Case Dismissed." English Language Notes. 25:3 (1988) 10-15.

    This article is a response to Vernon Hall's "Sherlock Holmes and the Wife of Bath," which first raised the question of murder, and the proliferation of papers by other authors that supported the charge of murder. Crane steps into the role of defense attorney to exonerate Alison of any wrongdoing.

    Crane begins by stating that it would be easy to acquit Alison on the grounds that the prosecution's evidence is circumstantial and inconsequential. She provides alternate plausible explanations for several of her opponents' main lines of evidence. For example, during their walks Alison flirts with Jankyn not to secure an accomplice but to increase her future marital options. She is not attempting to replace husband number four but is tentatively placing Jankyn in line behind him. It is also entirely probable that Alison becomes enraged only after listening to tales of captious and lecherous wives (not murderous ones), offenses of which she is guilty.

    The crux of the first part of Crane's case is that the lack of concrete evidence (no DNA, no bloody knife) should result in Alison's acquittal and all charges being dropped. However, she realizes that this is not enough to satisfy the accusers who build their case arguing that what is absent is crucial. In doing so, the accusers make what Crane calls two false "apprehensions." The first is wrongly believing that the WoB is essentially a real person (instead of a literary figure) and assuming it is appropriate to conjecture about her childhood and state of mind. Second, these critics believe the WoB exemplifies the "wikked wyves" instead of challenging the antifeminist tradition. Although the Wife is constructed from the very tradition she opposes and must make her defense of women from the cases levied against them, she is not merely another "wikked wyfe." She has reflective awareness of the tradition and speaks from that perspective.

    Crane seeks only to counter her opponents' "lack of evidence" argument. She does not discuss how logistically difficult the actual murder and escaping detection would be, as some authors have tried to do. This is not necessary because Crane is not trying to prove the Wife's innocence. She is instead arguing for acquittal on the grounds that the prosecution's case leaves too much reasonable doubt and has employed inappropriate methods and reasoning.

    Crane makes the very valid point that the WoB is a literary figure and not a real person. She exists only within the text so we cannot speculate about her past (before she "existed" as a character) outside of the text. Even if the conjecture is based on some textual information, the reader's imagination may provide too much detail filling in the gaps and Crane cautions that readers are not the poet. Other critics (Leicester, Benson) also encourage respecting the limits of the character's representation. Many of the accusers have invented "extra-textual history and psychopathology" and, based on these speculations, labeled the Wife a psychopath or nymphomaniac. Crane argues that attempting to create a "real" woman out of Alison endangers the purpose and meaning she has as a literary character.

    Although Crane says we must use the text as the basis for interpretation and reproaches those who have invented "childhoods" for the Wife, she is not clear where she draws the line between what is acceptable and unacceptable. Literal interpretation of the text also raises the question of the Wife's reliability as a speaker (are we to believe that a twelve year-old had complete mastery over a much older husband?). Are we expected to take all of the Wife's words as truth? I think Chaucer provides a rich and complex portrait of the Wife's persona that allows readers to formulate interpretations based on the text which can then be extrapolated to other situations. Because of this, we can read other tales through "the Wife's eyes" or "the Devil's eyes" as long as we remember that we are making educated suppositions.

    I enjoyed this article. Crane does an excellent job playing the part of the defense attorney and even wishes to call Dr. Watson and Geoffrey Chaucer as witnesses for her case. This is a "must read" for anyone wishing to examine the question of murder in the tale. While it is interesting to examine the cases others have made, there is still no circumventing the lack of hard evidence. This article provides a nice counter-point to the accusers and attempts to ensure that readers are not too persuaded by textually unsubstantiated conjecture about the Wife.

    The issues the article raises should be kept in mind when reading the "Clerk's Tale" and "Merchant's Tale" and examining their views of the Wife. One may want to keep an eye out for further evidence of Alison's innocence or guilt (although neither the Merchant, the Clerk, nor the "Envoy to Bukton" ever suspect that Alison committed murder). As far as the seminar goes, we should be careful when attempting to read another tale through the "Wife's eyes" that we do not make outrageous claims when extrapolating her persona. --Meghan Milburn, 3/18/99

Koff, Leonard Michael. "Who Speaks for the Wife of Bath?" Chaucer and the Art of Storytelling. Los Angeles: U of California          P, 1988. 105-155.

    In this chapter Koff grapples with the idea of how it would be to be able to read Canterbury Tales having been performed by someone pretending to be Chaucer pretending to be someone else, and comments on what a shame it was that there is no knowledge of any of these tales being presented without Chaucer himself being the performer. The problem which many of us have in reading these tales is remembering that there are double story tellers in which even though a story is being told about the Wife of Bath or the Miller, it doesn't mean that the pilgrim who is telling it has any resemblance to the character in the tale. We as readers tend to see similarities, but we change our views and formulate our own opinions through what the storytellers are telling us during their pilgrimmage.

    John Speirs, a critic, views the Wife of Bath as "compellingly life-affirming." He finds her to be rebellious and has a very "individual mind" says Betrand Bronson, another critic. But Speirs and Bronson share some different opinions on the Wife of Bath. Bronson finds that when you read the "Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," it gives us a small glimpse at a larger picture of Chaucer's "continous or discontinous presence in or behind his narratives," whereas Speirs finds that the Wife of Bath shows her female self which invites his own "imaginative penetration." Speirs sees her as the "best example of Chaucer maturest art, unfettered by the constraints of a psychologically naive medieval aesthetic" and that her "tale" about her story and the identity of her self allows him to better understand himself and his position in "our cultural history".

    This chapter begins to describe these two critic's opinions towards the Wife of Bath, but the question worth noting is how would Chaucer have performed the "Wife of Bath's Prologue" or anyone else’s during his time. Had a storyteller read us these tales, modern listeners would have catergorized the tales as being "dramatic," and we would value the text that we were hearing. But Bronson and Kittredge, another critic, argue that we as readers like what we understand. We enjoy the parts "that come to life" and bring us moral value into our own lives. Yet the crucial understanding lies in how we read Chaucer or how Chaucer is read to us because it may be possible to generate different ideas all due to the way the literature is presented. It is important to remember that when we read Chaucer or simply pretend to be someone else when reading, we must pay close attention to the narrative voices. In acknowledging this concept we are able to acquire that this tale is "dramatic" and from it we take values and a better understanding of the text. We can sympathize with the Wife of Bath or the Knight and and "still hear a voice or voices in each." But these tales are both stories that "bring to life."

The Wife of Bath's insatiability "awakens masculine appetite, over which she has negotiating power," and if we try to imagine a man impersonating the WoB, it warps our understanding of her strong character. We would have mixed and sexist feelings towards her femininity had she be portrayed by a man. Her stubbornness and need to dominate parodies that of the characteristics of a man in the world and both sexes would find amusement, but it's her "gutsiness," her strong will, the fact that she has no children that "awakens" what a majority of men both fear and desire.

    It is thought that through the "Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," her voice becomes one of a amusing, yet not liberating woman, "precisely because she does as a woman what men have always done-justifies herself and strikes bargains." The repression that women felt oppressed during the medieval times is released when relating to the Wife of Bath. For a man, or even just for those who are masculine men and women relate to the Wife of Bath because of her will for power and trading in the world. Yet for a woman, or for men and women who are feminine, the Wife of Bath's qualities which appealed to them would be her description of trade as "play and allurement-as both purely sexual and life-sustaining." Yet the one thing that the Wife of Bath never does "consciously and willfully" is become a mother and perhaps because of this we can better understand why both men and women could relate to her and in a sense "know her." The Wife of Bath seems to have androgynous qualities which appeals to both men and women and "engages [them in the] constellation of sexual and social signatures we distinguish as feminine and masculine.

    This chapter continues to describe the Wife of Bath and her sexuality, as well as her desire for men to be both submissive and becomes a master of her men and how outliving her husbands gives her a "continuous awakening of sexual renewal into old age." Koff also describes her need for power and how she dismisses her husband’s misogyny. The Wife of Bath can be considered one of the greatest characters that Chaucer created and even though her tale ends, she continues speaking, not only for herself, but also for others. --Maria Elena Perez, 4/29/99

Daileader, Celia R. "The Thopas-Melibee Sequence and the Defeat of Antifeminism." Chaucer Review. 29:1 (1994) 26-39.

        Celia Daileader begins her article comparing Dame Prudence in the "Tale of Melibee" to the Wife of Bath. She points out that although the two women seem to differ by their physical appearance, with Dame Alice in her red stockings and extravagant hats while Prudence is much more subdued; they share many of the same feminist concerns. Both display a vast knowledge of the biblical and patristic authors (in particular, Solomon), and both cite these to show their own views, although in a much different manner. The author says that Chaucer uses Sir Thopas as means to clear a path for Dame Prudence's "rhetorical tour de force" (27). That is, he was not comfortable with his own paternity over his feminist creations and uses his persona within the text to undermine his own "auctoritee." "In this way the Thopas-Melibee sequence, operating on the echos of the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, allows Chaucer not merely to challenge the antifeminist patristic tradition... but actually to uproot the very concept of a unified patriarchal authority," (27).

    Daileader goes on to compare the two tales; both begin with a rape, one being physical and the other being allegorical. Women in both tales are subjected to violence; Sophie being wounded in the five areas pertaining to the senses. Alice was hit in the ribs and ear by Jankyn and there was also the rape of the maiden in her tale. The Wife of Bath gives great emphasis in both Prologue and Tale on the male violence which might mark a woman's body. In Melibee, Prudence must speak for her daughter and implicates the father in the violence against Sophie, condemning him as a representation of the entire male power structure. Both women have spoken out against the act of male violence, the violation of the female body. The author also makes a good point that Alice and Prudence "demonstrate the awareness that, in a culture which seeks to define them, self-definition is crucial," (35).

    "The Tale of Meilbee," just like the "Wife of Bath's Tale," ends with the change of a misguided male character through the clairvoyance of a woman. Both tales begin with male ignorance and fierce male greed, and end with forgiveness, enlightenment, and truce. This article was very intriguing and gave great insight into the mind of Prudence. Daileader did much more than compare two women, she also took a step by step look at Melibee and how the characters actions revolved around the Dame and her feminist views. The author also considers Prudence to be one of Chaucer's heroines, something that I had never considered until reading this article, which has given me an idea for my paper topic. I highly recommend this article, if not to just read it to see another side to this tale. --Amy Dill, 4/29/99

Cooper, Helen. "Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: Reviewing the Work." Studies in the Age of Chaucer.          19 (1997) 183-210.

    This article gives an interesting look into the sources and analogues of some of Chaucer's Tales. It also gives insight into medieval history, which I found to be quite enjoyable. According to the author, Helen Cooper, this work "has been a staple resource of Chaucerian scholars for over half a century," (183). However, she says that it had been showing its age and few of the chapters represent the "current state of scholarship," (183) particularly the first chapter which focuses on the literary framework of the Tales. At the time of this issue of Studies in the Age of Chaucer, "Sources..." was being revised. Apparently, Studies was lucky enough to give us a sneak preview of the first chapter.

    Chapter one attempts to cover four areas having to do with sources and analogues: story collections and how they organize their constituent tales, debate, poetic contests and storytelling pilgrims-to give some idea of the origins of the large structures of the whole work. Although Chaucer did use other texts to base many of his tales on, it is also just as important that he took right from medieval culture, the courts, the schools, Parliament, etc. The introduction points out Chaucer's primary model for CT as being the Decameron, which is something that we have already learned through many of our class presentations.

    Poetic contests and the storytelling pilgrims are what I found to be the most interesting. The introduction gives a great deal of historical information regarding poetic contests. It discusses several poetic rivalries and one in particular caught my eye that is very relevant to the Tales. The London Puy was a group of late thirteenth century merchants that held an annual assembly, which consisted of a competition for best song with both music and words being judged. Those members who came provided with a song received their free dinner, at the expense of the rest of the "compaignie" which the intro points out, is the same word for the society that Chaucer uses for his association of pilgrims (206). A prince was appointed each year to sort out the quarrels between Puy members. He and his successor, along with selected assessors, would judge the songs, hang a copy of the best one on the wall of the hall below the prince's blazon and crown its winning composer. At the end of the feast, the winning poet, having just enjoyed his free meal, rode through the city amongst outgoing and incoming princes to the latter's house, where all the members would dance, drink once, and then return home on foot. One thing that differs from Chaucer's group of pilgrims to the London Puy is that women were allowed to participate, although it is noted that the Puy group were reminded that they were bound to honor all ladies at all times.

    Although this particular article may not be very helpful in writing a paper, it still offers a great look into the many possible sources for the Tales and also gives wonderful insight into medieval practices. --Amy Dill, 4/29/99

Burlin, Robert W. "Middle English Romance: The Structure of Genre." TheChaucer Review. 30 (1995) 1-14.

    In order to better understand the "Knight's Tale" in the context of other works of whose genre and culture it is a part, I have chosen Burlin's study of the structure of the medieval romantic genre itself.

    Burlin has created a structuralist schematic by which, he argues, all medieval romances can be described. According to him, the narrative and ideological structure of medieval romance can be diagrammed on two intersecting axes. But, all confusing Euclidean mathematical approaches to literature aside, Burlin's basic assumption is that the ideology implicit in all romances can be broken down into two types: the chivalric, and the courtly. And similarly, all narrative forms can be divided into the quest, and the test. All medieval romances, according to Burlin, lie somewhere along these ideological and narrative axes.

    Burlin's division of ideology into chivalric and courtly coincides, respectively, with the political and social spheres of medieval society. The chivalric code or ideology deals with the relations between the different stratums of power within the ruling class, such as between king and knight; while the courtly deals with the complex code of behavior that determines the relations between the sexes. On the narrative axis, the quest involves the search or journey of a knight toward the attainment of a goal, while the test involves the overcoming of an obstacle that may indicate character or reveal a maxim, but does not result in the attainment of any tangible goal. Any specific work will lie somewhere along either axis. According to Burlin, those works that have received greatest critical acclaim and status within the canon are those that lie not at one extreme or the other of either axis, but rather somewhere in the middle, thereby juxtaposing the two opposing ideologies or narrative types and thus serving to illuminate them or subject them to greater scrutiny.

    Firstly, as far as I understand it, I find Burlin's schemata far too reductionary, as the author himself admits. And I am especially disturbed by the utter neglect of any religious ideology within his system (which I imagine would impossibly complicate it). Though he makes not even a passing reference to religion anywhere in the article, I suppose he attempts to justify this neglect with his remark that romance was merely a recreation for the nobility that shunned didacticism and served only to indoctrinate its readers or listeners into their culture. In a culture in which religion was such a basic and inextricable part of every aspect of life, this would seem foolishly simplistic.

    Burlin also seems to ignore the fact that the ideologies of a culture are inextricably intertwined; overlapping and even supporting each other with no clear boundary between them. For example, courtly love is not (it seems to me) a separate ideology opposed to the chivalric code of feudal power, but in many ways is actually based upon it, with its metaphors of lovers as vassals to each other and the "God of Love," and even including bonds of fealty like those of a knight to his lord.

    If any opposition does exist in ideologies, it is between that of the secular aristocracy (chivalric and courtly), with its codes derived primarily from its warlike Germanic ancestors, and the Church; an opposition that Burlin makes no mention of. It also ignores the fact that the "quest" and the "test" are merely manifestations of the same phenomenon. I, for one, have never read of a quest in which an obstacle (even space is an obstacle) did not have to be overcome. And even tests that do not result in a bride or booty (am I being redundant?) serve to enhance the reputation of the successful protagonist, which was indeed perceived as a tangible object by the medieval knight. In his eventual synthesis of the separate ideologies and narrative structures in the "greatest works" of the canon he does seem to come close to this point of view (without saying so), but he has had to artificially separate them in order to do so.

    However, Burlin's article is not without its usefulness, even if only insofar as pointing out the different ideological and narrative strains (at least those he touches on) likely to be found in a work of medieval romance. In Chaucer's "Knight's Tale," for example, it is interesting that most of the material Chaucer has omitted from the "Teseida" deals with Theseus's military conquests, thus moving the work away from the "chivalric," and toward the "courtly." Chaucer may thus be trying to focus our attentions toward the amorous aspects of the romance, and the way in which Palamon and Arcite deal with their love for Emelye. And if the brothers and their story do represent more "courtly" than "chivalric" concerns, it can more easily be seen how out of place "chivalric" ideologies of warfare are in the context of love, when they are intruded by Theseus and the brothers themselves. A relationship ideally based on the voluntary decision of two parties has become an involuntary relationship based on "might makes right." Here, rules of combat govern all aspects of life. The man with the greatest military prowess wins the prize, and those without power, such as Emelye, have no say whatsoever. It never occurs to the brothers to decide their dispute in any other way than combat, and no one ever even thinks to ask Emelye.

    I have not spent as much time as I should have on the "Knight's Tale" itself, but as I am only half way through it, and am utterly exhausted from trying to decipher Burlin's meandering article, I will now desist. --Damon Hauser, 2/7/99

Barnett, Pamela E. "'And shortly for to seyn they were aton': Chaucer's Deflection of Rape in the Reeve's and Franklin's Tales."          Women'sStudies. 22.2 (1993) 145- 62.

    Barnett is a feminist critic who analyzes what she perceives as the silence of women in the text by examining those factors that are suppressed in the text-the voices of women, the violence of rape, and the actual occurrence of rape in the "Reeve's Tale" and the "Franklin's Tale." She argues that Chaucer alters or deflects the acts of rape and depicts the physical violation of women as humorous or consensual by omitting the woman's protest, replacing women's voices with male views of female sexuality, and diminishing the violence of the act itself.

    Barnett argues for the literal occurrence of rape in both tales. She sites several pieces of evidence from the "RT" that support her theory of deflected rape scenarios. These include: the absence of Maleyne's invitations to Aleyn's advances, her inability to give her consent (she was asleep), the wife's stated aversion to getting into the wrong bed, and the harmful intent of the rapists (although there is what Barnett considers a confused sense of who is harmed). She concludes that rape has indeed occurred but the action is not portrayed as such and is trivialized and made humorous by the author. Although the act of rape does not occur in the "FT," Barnett argues that omitting the violent act does not in any way decrease the violence of the attempted encounter. She sees the absence of a discussion of rape as evidence of the successful deflection of the rape scenario.

Barnett provides good critical analysis of some of the more ambiguous elements in the tales. She points out the irony of the husband making his wife available to another man (he simultaneously asserts and surrenders his rights to his wife). She concludes that the very absence of critical discussion of the rapes in these tales is evidence of the success of what she terms the deflection of the rape scenario.

    One problem that I see with Barnett's argument is that she takes issue with Chaucer the author, instead of perhaps the more appropriate Reeve and Franklin (yes, I know it's 'Chaucer the author' writing 'Chaucer the pilgrim' recording the 'Reeve's' and 'Franklin's' tales…this, as our many discussions on the topic will attest, is a grey area and tricky subject). Chaucer even reminds us that the Reeve is a cherl and takes no responsibility for anything he (or the Miller) may say. The very inclusion of the "Wife of Bath's Tale" leads me to believe that if Chaucer is not entirely in support of "women's rights," he is at least sympathetic to their plight. But much of Barnett's argument is still relevant, no matter who authored the tale.

    The author (like many of today's readers) finds it particularly disturbing that the rapes are portrayed as acts of revenge against the husband's property and not violations of the women's integrity. However, I'm not sure if Barnett has adequately taken into account the prevailing views of the medieval society and, instead of targeting the story told to an audience of medieval pilgrims, targeted the society itself.

    Barnett's feminist viewpoint would certainly be helpful to anyone wishing to take a similar look at the text. This article would be useful to those interested in investigating the portrayal of women in the Canterbury Tales, specifically their roles as sexual objects or as property of their husbands. It also provides insight into the changing characterization of women (for example, the First Fragment progresses from Emilye, a woman praying for chastity, to the wife and Maleyne, objects upon which the clerks extract their revenge on the miller). This article is especially pertinent to the examination of the silence of women, either their absence from or lack of speech within a tale. The feminist point of view may be worthwhile to keep in mind for comparison later on with the WoB.--Meghan Milburn, 2/22/99

Helterman, Jeffrey. "The Dehumanizing Metamorphoses of the Knights Tale." ELH, 1971, 38, 493-511.

    The article explains Chaucer's reason for using the metaphors that he does in "The Knights Tale." Many of the metaphors chosen turn Arcite and Palamon into animals. This is symbolic of man deliberately begining to "violate his own nature" and as a result alter his balance with Nature. This article goes further into the analyses to state that Arcite and Palamon view Emily as " Natures potential rival. " Chaucer describes this beatiful lady as fresher and fairer than May.

    This image, combined with the description of these two men as animals in the fight scene, makes their characters less than human. They become lower than the lowest as they have betrayed each other and their own species for that of a woman they assume to be better than mother nature herself. These metaphors are Chaucers way of saying that beneath the human" facade of civilized order" are these bestial tendencies.

    Helterman's view of the metaphors chosen by Chaucer are presented in this article with a complete, in-depth, explantion. This article includes many quotes and many comparison with different works and authors. His argument is concluded in the end with his opinion that Chaucers The Knights Tale is in part making his readers realize how human we really are here on earth. This sets up a huge contrast when the gods come into the story.

    In my opinion this article was extremely helpful in my understanding of the metaphors Chaucer uses. Emily was used as something that is more beautiful than mother nature, therefore she is almost out of this world.Arcite and Palamon are less than human as proven by their beastial tendencies and their ability to want to kill one another for blind love. This article shed a lot of light on what is a pretty difficult tale to grasp as there are so many perspectives introduced by Chaucer. Patricia Lydon, 9/22/96

Van, Thomas A. "False Texts and Disappearing Women in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale." The Chaucer Review. 29:2          (1994).

        Thomas Van explains that the Wife of Bath has been preparing all her life for the performance that she gives in the "Prologue." He discusses how the "Prologue" and the "Tale" complement one another. The "Prologue" concentrates on Alice's subjective reality while the "Tale" takes us behind the eyes of one stranger, by way of

    showing him and us why he raped. Thomas presents his argument that "if the Prologue is a portrait in the first person singular of Alice as the object of desire, the story is an expose of the desiring self, epitomized by a candidate for knighthood(179)." The pairing of the "Prologue" and the "Tale" both close with hints about the need for an accomadation in human love.

    Van interprets Alice's performance as being a challenge to a patriarchal society. In the "Prologue" and "Tale," Alice deliberately is parodying the charges against her and her sex. Her first target as mentioned by

    Van is not what has been said but the nature of the evidence and the mentality behind those which have watched women. Van poses the notion that "if Alice's point in the Prologue is that she has been looked at imperfectly, her story explores a similar premise, but in the rare field world of romance, where a dominant feminine presence has no need of parody or ironic subterfuge(184)."

Van brings about the fact that the Wife of Bath challenges man by behaving so freely/sexually in a time were it is not acceptable by society. The knight, on the other hand is challenged because his behavior is questioned. He, then has to seek the right answer to what women women really want. As Van states, in the "Prologue" the story's thematic centers around "development hinges on enlightened contradiction and anomaly (192)." Mirna Quinteros, 9-20-96

Gaylord, Alan T. "The Role of Saturn in the Knight’s Tale." Chaucer Review . 8 (1974) 171-187.

    Alan T. Gaylord’s article "The Role of Saturn in the Knight’s Tale" is an attempt to understand Chaucer’s concepts of fate, freewill, and the role of Saturn. Gaylord sets out to contest the theories of earlier scholars who maintain that Saturn is "a resistless terror and a force of destiny."(172) He finds faults in the suppositions that Chaucer believed man was controlled by fate and fortune, rather, he argues, man is in full control of his destiny and that Saturn is a psychological construct which man invents to excuse his poor decision making. We, in a sense, lock ourselves into and limit our fate (as Arcite and Palamoun did) by choosing erroneously.

    Gaylord argues that Arcite and Palamoun, and not Saturn, are able to control their lives by pointing to a number of clues within the text. For example, he recalls Saturn’s speech in which he claims he is a destroyer of towns and towers, and that he is responsible for hanging, and drowning, and poisoning, yet Arcite is killed by a fall from his horse. Furthermore, the fall has occurred by way of Pluto’s control, a "hellish interference" rather than a "planetary influence." (76) Also in Boccaccio’s version it is Venus who calls upon the Fury in the end, thus Gaylord conjectures that Chaucer merely left the Fury’s appearance in to add to the violence and terror which has characterized Arcite and Palamoun’s relationship.

    Gaylord then goes on to refute the argument that Arcite and Palamoun are fated to die because they are "doomed by their blood." (178) He points out that Chaucer eliminated many parts from the original poem where the Theban curse could easily have been entered into the tale. Gaylord also points out that Chaucer’s Arcite and Palamoun lack the "mood of exhausted despair" and do not see their destruction as inevitable as in the original. (178)

    What this all comes down too, is that Arcite and Palamoun by relying on their passion and love to guide them rather than reason, are trapped in their self-created fates. They blame all around them for their misfortunes, and in doing so reduce their chances to make positive decisions -- "they fall into it, they become vulnerable to the mechanical workings of Destiny, who is indifferent to their private desires."(179) Those men who deny their reason, Gaylord argues, follow the stars, the gods, passion or whatever else they can think of, and when things go sour they blame these external constructs for their misfortune. Thus we see Saturn as "the dark destiny" of men who lose control of their reason. (186) Fortune and Fate arise only when we sacrifice our chance to make a choice.

    Theseus, he finally points out, is analogous to Jupiter, the benevolent god. He is an example of free will rather than of noble aspirations crumbling to dust. After all he is the one who pieces things together at the catastrophic ending, giving a logical and reasonable speech. He, unlike Arcite and Palamoun, does not succumb to the overpowering forces of passion, instead he rises above them to control and shape his own destiny and the destiny of others to weak to do it for themselves. Tom Zorc. 9/22/96

McAlindon, T. "Cosmology, Contrariety, and the Knight's Tale." Medium Aevum 55 (1986): 41-55.

    McAlindon's rather dense article attempts to resolve the problem of endlessly conflicting views on Chaucer's Knight's Tale by demonstrating that its dualistic design was a familiar part of medieval literature, and argues that the end result is "an astonishingly inclusive vision of life" (55) that can accommodate anyone. Essentially, he is trying to answer the question of whether the tale is optimistic or pessimistic--something critics have been arguing about for ages.

    He starts by defining the endless examples of opposites in the tale as elements of concordia discors, the concept of using love's power (in this case, marriage) to bind contraries together harmoniously. McAlindon goes on to show, however, that the same philosophy echoed in the Knight's Tale depicts love as a force which, succumbing to passion and irrational behavior, leads to chaos and incessant change. He develops this further by describing the nature of cosmology during Chaucer's time--a system of beliefs which divided the universe into "a tense system of interdependent opposites [suggesting] that every pattern of harmonious order is impermanent" (44). Chaos, therefore, is a necessary part of the functioning of the universe.

    McAlindon then goes on to use this definition of the universal "order" to demonstrate that chivalry, especially as it is embodied in the figure of Theseus, is "a system of bound opposites" (45). This marriage of opposites inevitably leads to a state of ambiguity and change, he claims, so that chivalry becomes no more than a "temporary, almost illusory, imposition of pattern on process, stability on flux" (45). He shows how this state of flux is demonstrated in the changes wrought in Theseus' character throughout the story--which is interesting to note, since Theseus is the only real force of order in the story. McAlindon's conclusion is that the strength of this tale is how it embraces these contradictions and thus is inclusive of all the contrary aspects of life. He refers to it as the artistic creation of "a natural order which seems fully self-contained and self-explanatory" (53) and, therefore, is both optimistic and pessimistic.

    This article may prove useful in not only explaining the Knight's Tale, but also in understanding the medieval literary mentality which inspires other contradictions found throughout the tales. It also provides a good overview of the philosophical works used by Chaucer. At the same time, though it represents a good attempt at reconciling what has been a sore point of critical analysis, it seems too tidy in its dismissal of these fundamental critical problems; he is quite eager just to sit on the fence. McAlindon is also a little too hasty to dismiss the questions of "a rational Providence" (53) raised by Theseus' last speech, saying that it is more of a peripheral concern. Taking this into consideration, the article still provides a useful alternative to the strictly optimistic or pessimistic views given by other critics. --Kirkley Greenwell. 9/22/96

Winnick, R. H. "Luke 12 and Chaucer's Shipman's Tale." The Chaucer Review 30.2 (1995): 164-190.

    I chose to review this article simply because it was the most recent article in the Chaucer Review that deals with the Shipman's Tale, one of the tales I will be presenting to the class. Since I had used a relatively random way of choosing it, I didn't know if the article would prove useful at all, but I was quite pleased to see that it did. The article begins with a brief overview of the history of criticism of the Shipman's Tale, and addresses some problems with the text that have plagued scholars for many years. Winnick also goes into detail on the many theories about the tale's origins. Most helpful are the detailed endnotes, in which he cites tons of scholarship on the tale, ranging from the modern to the not-so modern. I couldn't have found a better jumping off point in which to begin my research into the tale.

    Winnick's basic thesis in this article is that among other influences, Luke 12 most likely was a source of plot and philosophy for the Shipman's Tale. The author recognizes other possibilities which have been previously suggested, such as the Decameron and an unnamed French fabliau, but believes that the text more closely follows Luke 12, especially the Parable of the Rich Man. He believes that if Luke 12 was the source (he even suggests that Chaucer may have had the text in front of him as he wrote the Shipman's Tale), it solves a problem that has troubled scholars: why, in this tale alone among all of Chaucer's fabliaux, sin appears to go unchastised and unpunished, with characters who commit adultery, violate priestly vows,...and otherwise violate the laws of God, seeming to get off scot-free. (165)

    Winnick quotes both texts extensively to emphasize his points, so complete familiarity with the texts is not a prerequisite for reading this article. His writing is lucid and he does not attempt to sound "academic" by using fancy language. Instead, he clearly states his comparisons, quotes the texts--in large fragments, which is quite helpful--and discusses the similarities in detail. At the same time, he avoids a practice which I find a bit pompous: writing as if his interpretation is the only correct one. As i mentioned before, he mentions other suggested sources, but he refrains from completely dismissing them. He admits that "the evidence is necessarily circumstantial" (184), thereby acknowedging the fact that since so little direct information is available about Chaucer's sources and intentions in writing the tale, speculation is all that is possible.--Jessica F. Kem, 19 September, 1996

Harrison, Joseph. "'Tears for Passing Things': The Temple of Diana in the Knight's Tale." Philological Quarterly 63:1 (Winter          1984) 108-116.

    This article is centered on the significance of Chaucer's description of the temple of Diana, especially when it is compared to the temples of Venus and Mars. One of the most important points brought up by Harrison is the fact that the elaborate description temple was Chaucer's own creation, whereas the temples of Venus and Mars were generally "borrowed" from Boccaccio. Harrison goes on to list the various sufferings and miseries depicted in the temples of Venus and Mars, while he points out that Diana's temple differs from theirs because her temple focuses on mutability and change. Examples of her mutability include the waxing and waning moon and the laboring woman. Her temple also depicts those who were changed into other forms because they loved incorrectly or erroneously. Harrison also talks about the differences between the prayers of the supplicants and the responses of the gods. Also discussed is how Diana's statue seems more dynamic and lifelike when compared to the other two, and the presence of the moon, the woman, etc. support this. Another interesting point is that (according to Harrison) Diana's temple represents present time, Venus could be seen as the past, and Mars as the future, because he foresees the murders of the Roman emperors. The article also discusses how she is the most vocal of the three gods, but at the same time, she is the most ineffective.

    I for the most part agree with what Harrison is saying here, and this is especially useful to me because I might choose to examine the similarities and differences between Chaucer's and Boccaccio's versions of the three temples. I agree with his observations that Diana's temple differs greatly with those of Venus and Mars, but I was a little disappointed that he didn't get into the specifics of why Chaucer added this substantial part to Boccaccio. One question I have which wasn't answered in the article; is that why did Emily, who wanted to remain a virgin, pray to Diana, the protector of childbirth? I know Diana is the goddess of chastity, so why does she also watch over pregnant woman? I suspect there is a reason for this but I'm not sure of it myself. One possible answer could be that it was decreed by fate that Emily must change and become a wife so it might make sense she would end up praying to Diana, the goddess of change. It was interesting to me that Diana was the only god to physically visit her supplicant, but she failed to grant Emily's request. Could Chaucer be suggesting prayer is futile? I believe that since Diana is so changeable, since she is also Luna and Proserpina, her powers are divided and less powerful than other "whole" gods like Venus or Mars. Edward Caruso, 9/24/96

Pearsall, Derek. The Canterbury Tales. London: George Allen & Unwin 1985. (115-138).

    This chapter deals with the Romances in the Canterbury Tales. Pearsall begins with an explanation of the differences and similarities between Chaucer's Knight's Tale, and the much longer Teseida by Boccaccio. Pearsall declares that those who think that the Knights Tale is a self-revealing look into Chaucer's negative view of war are wrong. He thinks that is an attempt to place modern opinion upon Chaucer. Rather, the Knights Tale is set with pagan and classical beliefs as opposed to Christian and modern. Pearsall writes that Chaucer turns to Boethius, a contemporary philosopher of his, to help him reshape Teseida. Their goal was to create a "more philosophical sense of man's predicament" (121).

    Perhaps too focused on Chaucer's greater attempt to create a tale that examined human nature, Pearsall continues his elaborate explanation of Chaucer's purpose. He sees the different approaches to the battle between Palamon and Arcite largely significant. Pearsall writes that Arcite is nearsighted and does not think about gaining personal glory, which by this point of the tale is at risk. It is Palamon who thinks in a grand manner. Pearsall also shows a difference in characterization between Chaucer and Boccaccio. Boccaccio takes a large amount of time to develop his characters so there are no spontaneous actions. Chaucer does not take that luxury. The actions of his characters are meant to be seen as spontaneous, and even a bit abrupt.

    This is the case with Chaucer's Emelye, because she is not as aware as she is in Boccaccio's version. In his version, Emelye is much more aware of her sexuality, and the fact that these two men have fallen in love with her. Chaucer presents Emelye ignorant of her admirers, and that her only want is to remain a virgin. This is expressed when she prays to Diana. Pearsall sees "not a woman with whom [they] fall in love, but the agent through which powerful forces are released and find their way to destruction or resolution"(132).

    This section of the book spends most of its time summarizing the Tale in regards to the changes Chaucer made from the Teseida. However, Pearsall does give some of his insights in regards to other critics, and in general proves to be a rather useful section, especially if there is confusion about the Knight's Tale.--Christa McLaughlin, 9/24/96

Benson, C. David. "The Canterbury Tales: Personal Drama or Experiments in Poetic Variety?" The Cambridge Chaucer                 Companion. Piero Boitani and Jill Mann, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.

    C. David Benson takes issue with the "dramatic theory" approach to The Canterbury Tales which is promoted by critic George Lyman Kittredge. Kittredge proposes that "individual Tales are not told in Chaucer's own voice, but that each is a dramatic expression of the personality of its own particular teller . . . and that the Canterbury pilgrims have complex believable personalities that intimately inform their individual tales" (94). Benson contends that while this approach has contributed much to our understanding of the Tales, it is a limiting approach that leads readers to neglect what is most remarkable about the Tales -- its amazing variety of stories and styles. It is his belief that we must look beyond the pilgrims supposed personalities to the poetic uniqueness of the Tales themselves. Benson finds The Canterbury Tales to be a collection of widely different knids of poetry, but says the "dramatic approach" of studying them has hampered literary comparisons between individual Tales and among groups of Tales.

    Benson expounds on the supposed personalities of the pilgrims. He states that the General Prologue describes types rather than specific individuals, and as the labels Knight, Miller, Prioress and Wife suggest, professions rather than believable personalities are portrayed. He observes that no single warrior could have ever fought in all the battles attributed to the Knight. Benson feels that Chaucer could create complex, convincing characters, as he did in Troilus and Criseyde, "but the frame of Canterbury Tales suggests that the poet did not concern himself overmuch with the psychological depth or consistency of his pilgrim narrators, though we must not forget that the work is unfinished" (97). Benson concedes that there are exceptions: the Canon's Yeoman, the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner. Yet even these three who possess "extraordinary narrative energy" do not have great depth of character.

    Benson finds that the most interesting relationships in the Tales are literary, not dramatic; "not between the Yeoman and his Tale, but, for instance, between the sterile work and hellish fire of the Canon's Yeoman's Tale and the fruitful work and divine fire of the preceding Second Nun's Tale" (100). Does acceptance of the literary reading necessarily deny veracity of a dramatic reading? Benson contends that the Tales are "a series of literary experiments rather than a drama of personalities" (105). Must the literary and the dramatic be mutually exclusive? Benson seems to desire that more notice be given to his theory, so he attempts to negate dramatic criticism. Riverside Chaucer's explanatory notes do seem to offer many essays concerning characterization, but there's probably room for both points of view.

    The Cambridge Chaucer Companion contains a collection of essays by various authors; along with The Canterbury Tales, other works by Chaucer are included. The bibliographies, often annotated, that follow each essay could be a good source for research papers.--Judy Cook, 9/24/96

Lancashire, Ian. "Sexual Innuendo In The Reeve's Tale." The Chaucer Review. Vol. 6, No. 3, Winter, 1972.

    Ian Lancashire states that double entendre can be found throughout the Canterbury Tales, particularly in the fabliaux. He says that none of the puns are incidental, nor are they trivial; "all show the hand of a master craftsman directing even the most minute details of his story to its prime interest: retributive 'poetic' justice against intolerable pride" (160). With a primary intent to denigrate Symkyn, Chaucer uses words whose less-obvious meanings serve to destroy Symkyn's pride.

    Lancashire's essay explains many of the puns, although he does not claim to have discovered all of them. Paull F. Baum is credited with detecting a pun in the lines, "Som esement has lawe yshapen us" (4179) and "Again my los, I will have esement" (4186). In a legal sense, "esement" gives one person the right to use the property or goods of another, and in a different sense it is the "physical relief following an evacuation of one sort or another--in Alayn's case, during the 'swyving' of Malyn" (160). It is not only with puns that Chaucer demeans Symkyn, Lancashire observes, but also in the narrative action: the idea of two college students intent on "grinding" their "flour" at Symkyn's "mill" is a "vein of sexual humor as old as the machinery of the mill . . ." (161). Lancaster states that the "three part sexual innuendo" was current in Chaucer's time.

    The poetic justice sought in this Tale requires that justice be given equally; the "flour" that Symkyn steals will be repaid by the "flower" of Malyn's virginity. Alayn gains the revenge he sought when he said "Ye, they sal have the flour of il endyng" (4174). "None of this 'multi-faceted' sexual innuendo exists in the French fabliau on which The Reeve's Tale was probably modelled" (169). And though it departs from the French tale, Lancashire finds the innuendo and bawdy puns become "the story itself" (170).

    This essay adds a scope to The Reeve's Tale that might otherwise be missed. Lancashire states that bawdy puns existing in a miller's technical vocabulary can be also seen in Shakespeare and John Heywood, and he gives a few examples, particularly in the fabliaux.--Judy Cook, 9/26/96

Woods, William F. "Private and Public Space in the Miller's Tale." The Chaucer Review 29 (1994): 166-178.

    Woods' argument in this article centers around a structure in the tale's setting that leads the reader to discover the ultimate significance of Alysoun in the Miller's Tale. This should be very illuminating subject matter, since one problem in reading the text is that the center of every main character's desire, Alysoun, is little more than a sexual object. It is not surprising, therefore, that readers--especially a female audience--would be interested in finding a more meaningful purpose for Alysoun.

    The critic seems to provide this purpose in his assertion that Alysoun represents a private place in the midst of a very communally-oriented society--a forbidden paradise bringing to light the hidden and often excessive desires of men. Woods emphasizes the domestic nature of the story's setting and also the small-town mentality of little Oxford. He asserts that it is the inevitably doomed attempt of every man to carve out a private space in the suffocating confines of village life, and by representing this attempt in the bodily form of Alysoun, Chaucer is able to bring the inward desires to light in a very humorous and ridiculously excessive fashion. The parallels to the structure of the Knight's Tale are helpful in clarifying the argument, for Woods shows how both tales consist of paired episodes of action: a private scene illustrating intention and a public spectacle demonstrating the results of acting on that intention, at which point the original idea becomes "a form of communal entertainment" (167). Woods describes the attempts of John, Nicholas, and Absalom to contain Alysoun and have exclusive ownership of her body as expressions of their desire to possess the private paradise she represents.

    Woods goes on to elaborate on the idea of Alysoun as a metaphor for this desirable domestic paradise. He gives a detailed analysis of Chaucer's description of Alysoun and concludes that the markers of her clothing and physical features repeatedly direct the reader's inner eye towards the woman's mid-section. This emphasis on her center not only draws one to her sexual desirability, but also returns to the idea of an inner paradise. Woods supports this idea of paradise by noting that, as in the case of the Knight's Emelye, Alysoun symbolizes a natural spring-like freshness that is irresistible to the men. However, each man's attempt to own Alysoun "violates the principle of plenitude, the ideal of abundance that offers everyone a share but never sole enjoyment" (176).

    For the reader who is seeking a different angle on the Miller's Tale, this article is certainly attractive, in that it offers well-supported structural analysis and uses it to illuminate the tale's meaning. It is useful in tying the tale to the Knight's yarn, for it once again prompts the audience to consider these tales as two pieces of a whole. The stories interact with one another in a way that adds meaning to both. As mentioned before, the article also makes a good attempt at finding more meaning in the character of Alysoun. I found Woods hard to follow at this point, however, because his representation of the young woman as a parallel to the house, and his corresponding portraits of each man as symbolizing different responses to a desire for privacy (portraying, for instance, Absalom as symbolic of the "hungry consumer" aspect of the townspeople) seemed far-fetched and overly complex. The analysis, therefore, is useful, but I think that the reader should use caution in what he or she takes from the article. --Kirkley Greenwell, 26 Sept. 1996

Woods, William F. "Private and Public Space in the Miller’s Tale." The Chaucer Review. 29 (1994) 166-78.

    In this article Woods discusses the private and public worlds of John, Nicholas, and Absolon, and how those worlds interact. Woods describes how each man places Alisoun at the center of that private world, and how that effects each man’s public world. The article also highlights some of the many similarities between the Miller’s Tale and the Knight’s Tale. Equivalent to the role of Emelye in the Knight’s Tale, Alisoun is the goal of three men in the Miller’s Tale. And also, much like Arcite and Palamon in the Knight’s Tale, John, Nicholas, and Absolon’s private excesses in their desire for a woman leads to their public downfall. Their private intention to have their heart’s desire leads to a public display. However, as opposed to the spiritual and emotional feelings of the Knight’s Tale, the Miller’s Tale is based on a physical reality.

    A highlight of Woods’ article is his description of what each character represents in the tale, and the roles that each character portrays in the Miller’s Tale. He explains how their personal desires effect what they represent and the role that they portray. Woods does draw connections between both the action and the characters in the Miller’s Tale and the Knight’s Tale, however, the comparison is not his main focus. Woods is primarily concerned about the interactions and workings of the characters in the Miller’s Tale. It is essential to realize that there are many comparisons and similarities that go beyond what is mentioned in the article, and that even those similarities that are noted in the article can be explored in greater detail. Nevertheless, this piece can be a helpful reference point for comparisons with the Knight’s Tale, and may lead the reader to establish other connections between the two tales.

    The article does not only discuss their public fall from grace, but their personal fall. Neither John, Nicholas or Absolon could see Alisoun for who she truly is. They placed her on a pedestal, and in doing so, lost perspective on the world. Each man desires a different type of paradise with Alisoun, Nicholas, who knows the secrets of love, wants to share them with Alisoun. While John wants to be the only one to possess her in his own private world, and Absolon wants to do her service. They lost sight of themselves, and in doing so they humbled themselves to Alisoun’s service, and made fools of themselves by trying to possess her because they thought that she was more than she was. By being so captivated with Alisoun, they lost not only their public standing, but their personal dignity.

    I believe that this piece is useful to the seminar, because it provides a highly insightful look into the characters and their motivations and actions. This article also brings together the descriptions of the characters with their roles in the tale. For example, the portrayal of Alisoun in the tale as "the newe perejonette tree" (3248) is used by Woods to explain Alisoun’s role as the representation of nature in the tale. This is important, because it causes the reader to make deeper connections within the context of the tale, besides just reading the written word of the text.--Ericka Olsen, 9/24/96

Jensen, Emily. "Male Competition as a Unifying Motif in Fragment A of the Canterbury Tales." The Chaucer Review 24                  (1990): 320-28.

    Emily Jensen regards male competition as "the means by which business is conducted" (321) in the tales and the linking dialogue of Fragment A. This competition intensifies with the progressive degeneration of the tales' genre, characters, plots and morals; meanwhile, the female characters become objects of the male characters' competition. Jensen notes that towards the end of the fragment, the women are allotted a bigger piece of the "action" (322). The interesting conclusion she draws from this is that the degeneration observed from tale to tale does not stress a descent into disorder, but instead a "displacement of authority" (327) into "the hands of the women" (ibid.).

    To track male competition and degeneration, Jensen discusses each tale in some detail, starting with the Knight's Tale. She points out that the chivalry of the "Knight's Tale" does not emphasize a suitor's noble behavior, but rather provides him a means by which "to win in the stryf" (ibid). Next, the competition of the "Miller's Tale" has no chivalric goal; hence, Nicholas's devious plans for a night with Alisoun are intended to make a fool of John, rather than "to procure privacy" (322) as John is often away at Osney. According to Jensen, the degeneration from the "Miller's Tale" to the "Reeve's Tale" explains the change in the nature of the competition, which in the latter, arises out of a desire for vengeance, as well as out of economic concerns.

    Finally, Jensen mentions signs of degeneration in the "Cook's Tale", but the only sign of male competition in the tale she notes is Perkyn's dice playing. Similarly, she does not explain how Perkyn's wife in the "Cook's Tale" plays a more active role than do the other females in their tales. True, that wife has some authority as she runs a brothel, but she is only mentioned in the final lines of the tale. One could speculate that the wife's profession is a total degeneration of male competition, for she is the one competing economically, rather than her husband. However, the "Cook's Tale" is just too short and undeveloped to know how it would fit in with the rest of the tales with regard to male competition.

    Jensen also discusses the male pilgrims themselves and the "quite [. . . ,] the primary mode of discourse" (323) between them. Furthermore, Harry Bailly seems to provoke the pilgrims with little judgmental comments, such as his to the Miller about " 'som bettre man' " (ibid). These little comments, perhaps provocative, are interesting coming from a person whose profession it is to serve people. As Jensen suggests, perhaps Harry is trying to "set the stage" (324) for the Miller to quite the Knight, or even for the plots of the tales. If the Ellesmere scribe added much of the linking narrative, perhaps he, and not the Host is responsible for this stage-laying. Or, perhaps the Ellesmere scribe merely interpolated the tone of the pilgrims' dialogue from the element of competition existing in the stories.

    The final section of Jensen's article is devoted to explaining frequently recurrent rhymed words in Fragment A: "lyf", "wyf" and "stryf". Chaucer might have used the meaning of these rhyming words to make a subtle statement about the nature of marriage and life. However, Jensen seems to spend undue time explaining how each recurrence of "lyf" and "wyf", even when not rhymed with "stryf", are used in situations of "stryf". Though this lengthy discussion reinforces her idea of an undercurrent of competition in the fragment, she perhaps making "ernest of game".

    This article might be useful to anyone studying unity between the tales of a fragment, for Jensen shows how the tales of Fragment A are quite thematically linked. Her discussion of the pilgrims' comments before each tale also could be used to support the idea that the tales of Fragment A do belong together. However, since Jensen also describes what happens to the women when the men of the story compete with each other, her article might be useful to anyone studying women's roles in other tales, such as the "Franklin's Tale". Joseph Parry holds that in that tale, Dorigen becomes an object between her husband, Arveragus, and the competing suitor, Aurelius (see Parry, Joseph D. "Dorigen, Narration and Coming Home in the Franklin's Tale." The Chaucer Review 30 (1996): 262-293).. Finally, Jensen pointed out Harry Bailly's manner of treating the tellers of the tales in this fragment. It might be interesting to compare Jensen's examples with instances in the prologues of other fragments in which Harry speaks to (and, or provokes) the pilgrims.--Mika Sam, 9/28/96

Morey, James H. "The ‘Cultour’ in the Miller’s Tale: Alison as Iseult." Chaucer Review Vol.29, pp.373-380, 1995.

        James Morey’s article "The ‘Cultour’ in the Miller’s Tale: Alison as Iseult" seeks to explain the relevance of the "cultour" in the Miller’s Tale. The cultour (an iron blade used as a plough share by medieval farmers) is the device Absolon uses to revenge Alison in the climactic scene of the story. Morey argues that the cultour is used as a very conscience decision by Chaucer, claiming that it represents one of the three Medieval trials by ordeal. More importantly the coulter scene reveals a striking comparison between the Miller’s Tale and the Tristan legend.

    The trials by ordeal were a way of assessing one’s guilt in an accused crime. God was called upon as the final judge in these ridiculous tests, if you failed you were punished, if you passed, God deemed you innocent and you were free to go. The ordeal of the ploughshare was a test to determine the innocence of women accused of adultery. The correlation to the Miller’s Tale is obvious, Absolon seeks out the aforementioned weapon to revenge the lecherous Alison. Morey also points out that Absolon, being a clerk, would have knowledge of legal matters like the trial by ordeal, and would have thus known to use the appropriate weapon. Furthermore, the Miller’s Tale being a fabliau called for the generic use of a spit or great iron. Chaucer’s audience would have known that, and would have understood his deviation from the norm.

    To look for a literary analogue to the trial by hot iron one must turn to the tale of Tristan and Iseult. Morey tells of a scene in which Iseult is forced to carry a burning iron under accusation of adultery. She passes the test much like Alison avoids being poked. Other comparisons drawn between Iseulte and Alison are, for example, that they both are in unsuitable marriages (Iseulte to Mark and Alison to John), they share similar morals (or lack thereof), and both escape from the iron based upon what they fail to do or say.

    According to Morey, and the evidence seems convincing to me as well, Alison shows a strong similarity to Iseulte. What this comparison tells us is that Chaucer, by giving her a literary pretext, seems to think more highly of her than the male characters. Alison is a combination of a fabliau and romance heroine, she is autonomous, clever, and out of control, much like the wife of Bath, who oddly (or not so oddly) shares the same name.

    Thus by examining one seemingly minor detail in the Miller’s Tale, the coulter, we have a much greater understanding of the story. We see the coulter as both an example of Medieval law and religion, and we see it in the context of another popular tale from the era. This comparison allows us to see the otherwise mysterious Alison in a new light, giving her character much greater depth and importance.--Tom Zorc, 9/27/96

Green, Richard Firth. "Chaucer's Shipman's Tale, Lines 138-41." The Chaucer Review 26 (1991): 95-98.

    This article deals with only a few lines in the story, as the title clearly states. The lines are part of the scene in which the monk and the merchant's wife are swearing vows of secrecy to each other:

"The same agayn to yow," quod she, "I seye.

By God and by this portehors I swere,

Though men me wolde al into pieces tere,

Ne shal I nevere, for to goon to helle,

Biwreye a word of thyng that ye me telle,

Thus been they sworn, and heerupon they kiste,

And ech of hem tolde oother what hem liste.  (129-42)

    I have italicized the lines Green wants to draw attention to. His thesis is that many scholars have ignored the syntax of the lines, and that they have been punctuated incorrectly.

    He cites sources such as Walter Skeat and George R. Keiser who read the line as in "this I do, not out of kinship, but out of true love." He does not accept this interpretation because that "elliptical 'this I do'" is not in the text, and neither Skeat nor Keiser justifies its existence. He then suggests that the original meaning would be better understood if the lines were punctuated to make lines 139 and 140 part of the Shipman's commentary, instead of part of the wife's vow. It would read as such:

"Ne shal I nevere, for to goon to helle,

Biwreye a word of thyng that ye me telle."

Nat for cosynage ne alliance,

But verily for love and affiance,

Thus been they sworn, and heerupon they kiste,

And ech of hem tolde oother what hem liste.

    Green uses examples from other texts to show that this type of sentence construction isn't unusual for Chaucer. He adds that his version of punctuating the lines "improves the parallelism between the oaths sworn by the monk and the wife and adds a nice touch of irony to the narrator's concluding remark."--Jessica F.Kem, 30 September 1996

Schweitzer, Edward C. "Fate and Freedom in the Knight’s Tale." Studies in the Age of Chaucer. (3) 1981. 13-45.

        In "Fate and Freedom in the Knight’s Tale," Schweitzer not only examines the complexity of astrological influences versus a human’s choice of his own fate, but Schweitzer also makes dramatic connections between Chaucer’s description of Arcite’s suffering of amor hereos in Part Two and arcite’s fall and eventual death in Part Four. Schweitzer then uses these links to support his overall thesis about how the roles of astrological influence and the capability for humans to make their own choices influence the meaning of "The Knight’s Tale." Another one of the main points in his thesis is that Arcite and Palamon are interchangeable. Schweitzer argues that both men are similar in their desire for Emelye, and that there are no obvious differences, in character, between the two of them. The interchangeability of Arcite and Palamon makes the debate about whether astrological influences or human choices dominate the events of the tale significant, because it would undermine the emphasis placed on fate in the tale. For who is to say why fate would pick one of the men as more worthy than the other to live at the end of the tale.

        In this article Schweitzer creates many interesting points, yet sometimes he pushes this thesis a bit too far. I do not agree with Schweitzer’s argument that Arcite and Palamon are interchangeable. First, it is difficult to make this statement accurately because Palamon’s character is not looked at as fully as is Arcite’s character. Furthermore, although their pursuit of Emelye is similar in nature, there are some differences in how they appear to view their pursuit and their love for Emelye. This is evident in their prayers before the tournament when Palamon prayed to Venus and Arcite prayed to Mars. Palamon asks Venus that he may have Emelye, yet he asks that if Arcite should win that Venus should take his life rather than let him suffer by not having Emelye. And while Palamon asks Venus for Emelye, Arcite asks Mars that he may win the battle. The simple fact that Palamon and Arcite chose to go to the gods they go to, and even the variation in the way they ask to attain Emelye shows the difference in their personalities, Palamon asks that his life be taken if Arcite wins, yet Arcite only concentrates on winning the battle.

        Schweitzer demonstrates a striking sense of foreshadowing in his discussion of Arcite’s amor heroes and Arcite’s fall from his horse. He mentions how Chaucer describes Arcite’s amor hereos in Part Two by saying that: "Arcite’s imagination overthrew his reason and ‘turned... al up so down/Bothe habit and eek disposicioun’" (24), as later in part four his horse will throw him upside down when frightened by the fury. He further supports this idea (that Chaucer’s discussion of amor heroes in Part Two foreshadows the fall from his horse and his eventual death in Part Four) by providing more examples that cumulate, in part, to his observation that the fury appears while Arcite is looking at Emelye, and she is looking at him. Yet, Schweitzer stretches his thesis once again by even suggesting that "Emelye’s ‘freendlich ye’ somehow ‘causes’ the fury that frightens Arcite’s horse..." (32). I believe that while Arcite may have been distracted by Emelye, the actual fury itself came from Saturn, and that to even suggest that Emelye somehow caused the fury is erroneous. It may be more plausible to suggest that she caused him to fall off his horse by distracting him with her gaze.

        I think that this piece is useful to the seminar, because it provides a basically well-written interpretation of the meaning of the Knight’s Tale. Schweitzer makes a strong case for the influence of both fate and human choice on the characters in the tale. In the article, Schweitzer brings up an essential question about the Knight’s Tale: Are the characters controlled by a fate that is out of their control, or do the characters in the Knight’s Tale choose their own fate? This question is an important question to ask when reading the Knight’s Tale, because the answer that the person reading the tale derives may change their perspective on the tale. Schweitzer also provides his reader with a highly descriptive definition of amor heroes, and looks at its influence on Arcite throughout the tale. Overall, Schweitzer’s article provides tremendous insight into the things that occur throughout the Knight’s Tale, and the theme of a higher purpose that pervades it. --Ericka Olsen, 9/12/96

Ramazani, Jahan. "Chaucer's Monk: The Poetics of Abbreviation, Aggression, and Tragedy." The Chaucer Review 27                  (1993): 260-75.

    Ramazani's illuminating look at the abundance of poetic devices used in The Monk's Tale offers insight into the Monk's role as a poet and gives the audience a good basis for understanding the remarkably quiet and contained Monk. By the end of the article, Ramazani has offered persuasive evidence that the Monk's still waters run deep.

    The first part of the argument analyzes the Monk's emphasis on closure and containment. Beginning with a look at "the Monk's circularity of mind" (262) as it is illustrated in his GP portrait, the critic goes on to cite the "claustrophobic" verse style and abundant repetition and rhetorical devices as reasons for the tale's static feeling. He also notes that the teller ruthlessly "flattens every tragedy into its ending" (265), so that the cycle of fortune is reduced to a bare-bones structure. This elimination of the reader's ability to identify with the individuals involved in each mini-tale thus creates a distant, universal, and timeless quality. Ramazani, evidently a proponent of psychological readings of the text, turns to Freud to explain the motivation behind the Monk's tale-telling strategy, saying that his relentlessly repetitious rendering of death in a sense traps it and "turns it into something within the control of his will" (265).

    This psychological perspective continues as Ramazani turns to examining the Monk's presence throughout CT as a whole. He notes that the Monk is curiously patient in enduring the insults of others and refuses to make a vocal appearance in the text until fairly late, well after the place in the order that his social rank should have dictated. The critic argues that the GP portrait of the Monk and the tale itself are filled with a sense of suppressed anger. The tale repeatedly builds up an image of worldly wealth and then delights in bringing each noble figure to his or her destruction. The stunning variety of the tales is like a mini-version of the whole of CT itself, but the Monk, in all his various ways, depicts the downfall of each figure one after the other until the pilgrims are forced to put an end to his aggression. Ramazani argues that the motivation behind this destructive desire is the Monk's envy of his superiors in wealth and status (271).

    The last part of the article deals briefly with the Monk's definition of tragedy, contrasting it with Chaucer's view. Ramazani finds that the Monk's "formalist definition" of tragedy has oversimplified it, so that the result of the tales is not in fact tragic. He justifies this by asserting that Chaucer's definition of tragedy rested on "a codified movement from one state of mind to another" and would lead to a rejection of the Monk's overly formulaic version of tragedy (274). This formulaic and very negative approach is nothing more than an imposed structure, which is even more evident in the end when the Knight must interrupt to remind the Monk that fortune has a positive side as well.

    This article is extremely useful in relating the Monk and his tale to many other aspects of CT and developing its meaning by relying on a combination of dramatistic and psychological readings. The psychological insights provide a welcome change from more standard critical approaches and relate well to the effect of the highly-artificial poetics of the tale. Because The Monk's Tale is so different from the rest of the tales, it is difficult to find a starting point for analyzing it, especially with the added complexity of many mini-tales contained within the tale itself. Ramazani helps with this problem and not only gives the reader a good education in poetics, patiently explaining Chaucer's liberal use of numerous rhetorical devices, but also effectively addresses the nature of the genre and its contextual significance. --Kirkley Greenwell, 3 Oct. 1996.

Mandel, Jerome. "Introduction." Geoffrey Chaucer: Building the Fragments of theCanterbury Tales. Rutherford: Associated              UP, 1992.

    In this introduction, Jerome Mandel explains his project for his book. While he mentions the current critical debate about the ordering and grouping of the tales (i.e. Ellesmere vs. Hengwrt vs. Chaucer Society), Mandel says that his main goal is not to argue for a certain order or interpretation of the tales. He notes that many critics have already come up with their own reading and sequence of the tales, and will continue to do so as long as Chaucer is read (20). Instead, Mandel explains that he intends to look at the unifying elements of theme, structure and character which unite the tales which are commonly grouped together. He says he will do this by first discussing the fragments of only two tales, and then the longer fragments, such as Fragment A, one chapter per fragment.

    Mandel holds that while much scholarship focuses on groups of tales, "some of the most valuable criticism of the Canterbury Tales derives from the individual tales treated in isolation" (17). Strangely, he has chosen the former approach to discussing the Tales. Furthermore, it seems that both approaches to Chaucer are equally valuable. On the one hand, it would be a shame to totally ignore the elements of intertextuality in the tales, especially when the pilgrims seem to address each other directly or indirectly in their prologues and tales. On the other hand, looking at a tale on its own may allow the critic achieve a more detailed analysis of the elements of the tale. This analytical depth may be lost when attempting to identify trends that unify a fragment. Indeed, Mandel will be doing exactly this sort of identification, so he might be setting himself up for problems with analytical depth.

    After a glimpse at the rest of Mandel's book, it seems that at least he may have failed to draw any conclusions about the significance of what he has found. Perhaps this is a result of his resistance to "interpret" (20) the tales. However, his introduction and text may still be useful resources. As noted above, his introduction points out various approaches to studying Chaucer. Mandel also explains some of the differences between the extant "first generation manuscripts" (13). Mandel notes that in each chapter, he will highlight thematic similarities cannot be found in any other fragment or tale. This may help to direct a reader with specific thematic questions toward or away from tales in other fragments. Mandel's book is also a valuable secondary resource because of his long list of works cited (pp. 225-243).

    Ultimately, since Mandel explains that he will not "interpret" the tales, it seems that his book promises to be a tool or resource for those who desire to make their own interpretations of the tales and fragments, or for those who argue for a certain ordering of the tales and fragments. -------Mika Sam, 4 Oct 96, Bib Entry #3.

Brewer, D.S. "The Fabliaux." Companion to Chaucer Studies. Ed. Beryl Rowland. New York: Oxford U P, 1979.                      296-317.

    In "The Fabliaux," Brewer emphasizes Chaucer’s use and transformation of fabliaux in The Canterbury Tales. The article points out that this fact should be impressive to Chaucer’s readers, because Chaucer’s utilization of this form of literature, that originated in France, demonstrates his impressive knowledge and understanding of the fabliaux genre. Brewer provides his readers with a definition of the fabliaux. This is important because Chaucer both follows and deviates from the traditional fabliaux form. This article looks at the fabliaux as both a courtly and bourgeois genre. Brewer traces the history of the study of the fabliaux, and provides a small selection of references for further study of the genre.

    Brewer claims that "it would be absurd to worry about too precise a grouping." (297) There may be some differences within a particular genre, however, every genre contains some basic traditional characteristics, and if it differs too far from the conventional form it is no longer a fabliaux. How far can you manipulate any one genre before it is no longer of that genre? Readers need to be careful, because they have to be alert to the conventions of the genres to that they can identify them correctly. The important thing to realize is that a person cannot be too lax in classifying any piece of literature to a particular genre. Readers should be aware of the differences between some of Chaucer’s fabliaux and the traditional form of fabliaux, why these differences are used, and why they are important.

    The article discusses the embarrassment of some critics due to the traditional indecency of the fabliaux tales. Nevertheless, those same critics praise Chaucer for his enrichment of the typical and simple form of the French fabliau. Chaucer not only learned from the tradition, but he added his own twist to the genre by using description and characterization. The article also touches on the interrelationships of the Tales, the dramatic appropriateness of the tale to the speaker, and Chaucer’s use of allegorical or symbolic dimension in the Tales.

    Brewer highlights the importance of realism in the fabliaux. In fact, Brewer suggests that the fabliaux represents the extreme of realism. The extreme of realism being naturalism. The article discusses Chaucer’s use of realism and its extreme, naturalism, to represent a variety of experience from the court to the lower estates. Brewer then underscores the different interpretations of the critics, and how they interpret the effect that the variety in experience has on the Tales individually, and as a whole unit. In the article a summary of some of the studies of Chaucer’s individual fabliaux poems are provided. The fabliaux tales include: The Miller’s Tale, Reeve’s Tale, Friar’s Tale, Summoner’s Tale, Shipman’s Tale, and The Merchant’s Tale.

    This piece is useful to the seminar, because it shows the value of the fabliaux to The Canterbury Tales. It provides readers with the opportunity to explore traditional fabliaux, and to apply this knowledge to Chaucer’s use of fabliaux. Included in this article is a bibliography that provides a few of the studies of European Fabliaux. With a better understanding of one of the genres that Chaucer uses, the reader can find a more meaning within the context of The Canterbury Tales.--Ericka Olsen, 10/3/96

Parry, Joseph D. "Dorigen, Narration and Coming Home in the Franklin's Tale." The Chaucer Review 30 (1996): 262-293.

    In this article, Parry addresses mobility and the act of narration in the "Franklin's Tale", and the way these behaviors are manifest in Dorigen, the central female figure of the tale. Parry defines social mobility as enabled by the characters' ability to do "honorable activities" (262). Furthermore, he sees the world described in the tale to be "structured in such a way that each of the males can find a means by which to become physically and socially mobile" (266), and notes that Dorigen is denied such mobility (271). Unlike the men in the story, she has no recourse to social mobility by acting honorably without causing her own death, and she stays at " 'hoom' " (262). This "hoom" is where Dorigen, like the Franklin, performs the act of narration, which Parry sees as an act of "re-vision" (282) and self-advancement (284).

    Though the article's thesis seems at times unwieldy or unclear, Parry probes many interesting questions along the way. For instance, he points out how the "Franklin's Tale" is a nested narrative: Chaucer narrates the Franklin who narrates Dorigen who narrates the stories of women who have killed themselves. This is an important observation, for it suggests that considerations of how the narrator shapes the tale should not be left behind in the "General Prologue". Indeed, Parry explains how Dorigen's long narrative debate about whether to kill herself indicates "the Franklin's interest in the structure of this logic" (277). At the same time, Dorigen's long narrative to herself is " 'useful' to the Franklin's "comic intentions for his tale" (277).

    While at no point does Parry mention "feminism", his focus on Dorigen and her position and actions relative to the males of the tale might interest anyone studying gender in the "Franklin's Tale" or in Chaucer. Parry also mentions the "Wife of Bath's Tale", because as in the "Franklin's Tale", Chaucer draws on the writings of Jerome. Parry also makes note of how the Wife of Bath (and Alisoun) confronts her "male audience" (274) with angry, bold actions.

    Parry also cites R.M. Lumiansky, who makes an interesting observation about Dorigen's significance in the action of the tale. Lumiansky reads the tale as a conflict between marriage and courtly love (272). Parry comments that such conflict ultimately makes an object out of Dorigen, one that is set between Aurelius and Dorigen's husband Arveragus (283). Earlier, Parry also quotes Susan Crane, who asserts that Dorigen is "initially 'elevated', " but is soon clearly subordinated to the stronger imperatives of heroic achievement" (271). Anyone interested in Marianism, or the cult of Mary may find an interesting similarity between Dorigen and the Virgin Mary. (See also Alone of All Her Kind by ? for more on Mary and women's roles as envisioned by the Bible.) Dorigen, like Mary, has a seemingly elevated position, but at the same time, derives some of her importance from her peripheral role in male action.

    Finally, after reading Parry's article one might make a comparison of the "Franklin's Tale", not only to the "Wife of Bath's Tale", but also to the "Knight's Tale". True, the "Knight's Tale" takes a much more tragic view of courtly love than does the Franklin's Tale. However, if one reads the latter as does Lumiansky, a triumph of marriage over courtly love, then perhaps both the Knight and the Franklin (and Chaucer?) are making commentary about that trope of social conduct. The mobility with which Parry discusses throughout his article also suggests the potential threat of too much mobility, a form of chaos. If a squire (Aurelius) and a clerk (the Philosopher) can act honorably, are these acts genuine, and if so, what are the implications for social intercourse? This threat of disorder is somewhat like that which Theseus tries to act against during the feud of Palamon and Arcite in the "Knight's Tale".

    In the "Franklin's Tale", as in the "Knight's Tale", it is most interesting that the characters actions are not framed with specific reference to Christian moral code. Parry makes no note of this, nor does he comment at great length on the Philosopher, though this character also acts to shape his own perception of the world, indeed narrating it. Of course, mentioning the Philosopher might have taken some of Parry's focus away from Dorigen. Perhaps Parry is leaving some of the answering for the reader, just as Chaucer via the Franklin does at the end of the "Franklin's Tale". Mika Sam - 19 Sept 96

Braswell, Mary Flowers. "Chaucer's Palimpsest: Judas Iscariot and the Pardoner's Tale." The Chaucer Review, Vol 29, pp.              301-310, 1995.

    Mary Flowers Braswell explores the idea that the "Pardoner's Tale" draws heavily upon the influence of Medieval Judas tales. She argues that Chaucer use this dark theme, prevalent in the plague-ridden Middle ages, to add depth not only to the rioters and the old man, but to the story's teller as well.

    Braswell maintains that the three rioter's lives are analogous to the avaricious life of Judas. They act with greed as their guiding ethos, even murdering their friend's to satisfy it. Like Judas, they do not care for the consequences their adoration of wealth may bring them. Money is their goal and focus, and not surprisingly, their downfall. Even their violent deaths by the oak tree is similar to the demise of Judas, who supposedly hung himself on a tree out of guilt. Another comparison (though Braswell, herself, considers this one somewhat shaky) is that the title "Iscariot" led some to regard Judas as a Zealot, a "group of dagger-wielding assassins," similar in character to the cutthroats in Chaucer's tale (Braswell, 304).

    A more compelling comparison is with the Old Man who cannot die. Though the Bible merely suggests Judas hung himself, Braswell points to a number of Medieval texts (e.g. Cursor Mundi) which claim otherwise (hanging being a far to merciful and unimaginative death for one so evil as Judas). These texts suppose that the fallen apostle was unable to die so as "to prevent Judas's arrival in Hell during the three days that Christ was there (and thus to prevent the fallen disciple from begging forgiveness and receiving it)" (Braswell, 305). Other tales tell of Judas being trapped in a state of limbo, with neither heaven or hell allowing him entrance. The Old Man's "Leve moder, Leet me in!" echo hauntingly with this in mind.

    Braswell also points to the similarities between the Old Man and the legend of the "Wandering Jew who was condemned to walk the earth until Christ returned" (Braswell, 305). This character, she suggests, was confused with Judas during the Middle Ages, thus Chaucer would have considered them one and the same. And the correspondence between the Old Man's physical appearance, and of those described in tale's of the Wandering Jew are more than striking. She also points to other legends which contain Jesus, gold, and an evil man, and which even claim that the "eternal wanderer" could "smell out treasure" (Braswell, 306). Finally, Braswell notes Chaucer's mention of "pestilence" and the plague. Judas, she explains, was in fact strongly associated with skin diseases in the Middle Ages, the plague itself being referred to as the "mal de Judas" (Braswell, 307).

    Her final and most engrossing comparison is with the Pardoner. The Pardoner, like Judas, is a solitary figure never accepted by his traveling companions. His differences and anti-social behavior disable his ability to communicate with the group successfully (as much as he probably wanted to), tending to irritate (as we see with the host) rather than placate. He, too, like Judas, is a total hypocrite, in that he recognizes his sin, knows how to overcome it, but nonetheless refuses to. He even goes so far as to make his livelihood by telling others how to repent of their sins. Finally, like Judas, greed is his defining characteristic. He sacrifices his chance at salvation for it, and his fate is as undoubtedly bleak as Judas' will be.

    According to Braswell the allusions to the life of Judas in the "Pardoner's Tale" are extremely important. They darken an already murky story, and allow the Pardoner, as well as the other characters, to be viewed with more clarity. As Braswell so rightly points out -- "It is fitting indeed that the Pardoner recast the tale of Judas, for it not only plumbs the depths of this pilgrim's sordid and sinister soul; it also reflects that portion of Chaucer's own fourteenth-century world that was plague-stricken, avaricious, and filled with shadows" (Braswell, 308). Finally, the references allows the reader to understand how important Judas was as a historical figure to Chaucer and his contemporaries. His life serves as a cautionary lesson on morality and greed, and those who refuse to heed it (like the Pardoner so defiantly does) are doomed to a life of eternal hell, ostracized by their companions, and tormented by their sins. --Tom Zorc, 10/8/96

Dawson, Robert B. "Custance in Context: Rethinking the Protagonist in the Man of Law's Tale." The Chaucer Review 26.3              (1992): 293-307.

    Robert Dawson's article is clearly divided between the traditional views surrounding Custance, and his interpretation of her character. He writes that other critics have thought of her as an unbelievable character who is too simplistic in her design to analyze. She is thought to be a pathetic victim, and we are supposed to feel pity for a "wooden" character. Dawson not only thinks that Custance is a dynamic character, but that she has control over most of her situations. He considers her to be manipulative and selfish. Her portrayal of herself as the "child", "victim", and "daughter" only strengthens her power and control over people throughout the tale. He does stop at one point to admit that she has been "sinned" against to some extent, but throughout the tale she maintains her self-centered nature. After attacking her character, he moves on to her faith. Dawson thinks that the only faith she has exists to manipulate God. In example, Dawson writes that Custance never thanks, asks forgiveness, or prays for others. He finds her speech to be aggressive, and that she is not a "suffering emblem of human patience and spirituality". He ends with the thought that the Man of Law and Custance both use ironic language, which when examined, creates a much more "sinister" Custance than traditionally understood and accepted.

         I think that this man must be insane, or at least has too much time on his hands. If you are looking for a confrontational view of Custance, than this is an excellent article. Dawson presents his argument clearly, and does back up what he says with quotes from the tale. However, I felt that in many sections of the article he was reaching too far. In his attempt to create a new reading of Chaucer he turned a promising idea of re-examining Custance, he allowed it to go wrong. Aside from the fact that I disagree with Dawson's argument, I do recommend this article. -- Christa McLaughlin, 10/15/96

Schneider, Paul Stephen. "'Taillynge Ynough': The Function of Money in the Shipman's Tale." Chaucer Review 11                      (1976-77): 201-209.

    Schneider's title is the best summary of his article; he examines the effects money has on the characters of the Shipman's Tale. He concludes that money functions as a vehicle for both good and evil. He begins with Harry Baily's reaction at the end of the tale: "Draweth no monkes moore unto youre in." Schneider assumes from his statement, "Not only will they violate your wife, his logic runs, they will inevitably cheat you out of your wealth." Schneider believes our host has clumsily stumbled upon the message of the story: look out for your money, it has some awesome powers.

    He discusses the merchant's role, and his apparent complicity in what befalls him; he neglected his wife, so he becomes a cuckold: "Locked securely in his counting house, he gives his wife not only the opportunity but the motive to meet Dan John in the garden: his business concerns also give her the opportunity to repay the monk later."

    He then comments on the servants' respect for the monk, how they revere him not for his duties with the church, but because he brings many gifts when he comes to visit. He compares the relationship of the monk and the merchant to the relationship between Palamon and Arcite of the Knight's Tale; he uses this comparison to show how warped by greed for money the first example of "brotherhood" really is.

    After giving these examples of the corrupting power of money, Schneider analyzes the instances in the tale in which money influences the characters in a positive way: the merchant returning from his profitable business trip and sharing his happiness with his wife in bed all night, and the fact that the wife's clothing debt and deal with the monk eventually result in a closer sexual relationship with her husband.

    Continuing hi