Bibliography Search Results http://library.northwestu.edu/chaucer/all.php?listname=chaucer Abraham, David H. "Cosyn and Cosynage: Pun and Structure in the Shipman's Tale." 11 (1977): 319-27. The structure of the Shipman's Tale can be understood in terms of Chaucer's puns on "cosyn," referring to relationship (between the monk and the merchant, and, indirectly, between the monk and the merchant's wife), and "cosynage," referring to deception. Used no fewer than sixteen times, the two meanings of "cosyn" take on different emphases in the two parts of the tale. In the first part the "relationship" aspect of "cosyn" dominates, with the "deception" aspect submerged. In the second part, the deception aspect dominates. The structure of the tale depends, then, on the structure of the pun. Acker, Paul. "The Emergence of an Arithmetical Mentality in Middle English Literature." 28 (1994): 293-302. Arithmetical methods passed from Pythagoras to Boethius, who passed these ideas on to Cassiodorus and Isidore. Bartholomaeus Anglicus picks up these ideas in De proprietatibus rerum, translated by Trevisa into Middle English. In the twelfth century, algorism began to replace arithmetic. Gower refers to this new arithmetic in the Confessio amantis in a stanza borrowed from Brunetto Latini. The Court of Sapience also reveals a shift in mathematical models. The Art of Nombryng and Mum and the Sothsegger give evidence that even those writers not concerned with mathematics were becoming aware of it. Adams, Robert. "The Egregious Feasts of the Chester and Towneley Shepherds." 21 (1986): 96-107. The playwrights of the Chester and Towneley cycles include feasts at the beginning of each play in order to dramatize the difference between Christ, the coming Good Shepherd, and the poor shepherds who disregard the law by eating what is specifically forbidden in the Levitical codes and who are more interested in their own dinners than in feeding their sheep. Aers, David. "Criseyde: Woman in Medieval Society." 13 (1979): 177-200. Troilus and Criseyde examines the disparity between social reality and the courtly love tradition, especially for women. As a widow, Criseyde lacks a protective male figure, so she uses her sexuality (as best she can) to survive in a male-dominated society. Criseyde's response to Pandarus's reports of Troilus's love shows her awareness of her powerless social position. When she shifts to discussing love, Criseyde examines the inequality between her impotent social position outside of love and her powerful position with in the courtly love tradition. Criseyde's dream about the eagle reveals her well-grounded social and psychological fears. Pandarus uses Criseyde's subordinate social position to manipulate her into sleeping with Troilus. Emphasizing her powerlessness, Chaucer depicts Criseyde's relationship to Troilus in terms of hunter (male) and hunted (female). Later, she is equated with Antenor, a move by which Chaucer suggests that women are no better than prisoners. Troilus and Criseyde's love collapses because of the social status of women. Criseyde's refusal to elope with Troilus indicates her submission to antifeminist social norms. When Criseyde becomes Diomede's lover, her seeming betrayal of Troilus reveals her to be entirely socialized in a society which forces and condemns her betrayal. Finally, Troilus responds to Criseyde with compassion, while Pandarus's response to her demonstrates social convention. Aers, David. "The Parliament of Fowls: Authority, the Knower and the Known." 16 (1981): 1-17. Chaucer's poetic construction forces his readers to overlook problems inherent in the idea of "commune profyt." By choosing explicitly pagan material in considering questions posed by Augustine in the De civitate dei, Chaucer undermines the pagan text. By noticing the juxtaposition of the two texts, readers recognize the "human mediations involved in all human knowledge" (9). The conflict between the lower classes of birds and the eagles in the Parliament of Fowls indicates a social conflict. Ultimately, Chaucer subverts all dogmas 1 of 134 8/26/2015 4:00 PM Bibliography Search Results http://library.northwestu.edu/chaucer/all.php?listname=chaucer and all attempts to replace personal knowing with authoritative interpretation. Alford, John A. "The Wife of Bath Versus the Clerk of Oxford: What Their Rivalry Means." 21 (1986): 108-32. Chaucer sets up the Wife of Bath and the Clerk as opposites. They represent rhetoric and philosophy respectively, and seen as personifications of these concepts, their rivalry makes sense. The debate between philosophy and rhetoric rests on a moral issue: philosophy seeks truth where rhetoric does not. A number of classical and medieval writers emphasized the conflict between rhetoric and philosophy. Among them are Plato (Gorgias), Cicero (De oratore), Lucan (The Double Indictment), Augustine (De doctrina christiana), Martianus Capella (The Marriage of Philology and Mercury), John of Salisbury (Metalogicon), and Petrarch (De vita solitaria). Lucan and Capella personify the two points of view, and Capella's creations have a number of qualities paralleled in Chaucer's descriptions of the Clerk and the Wife of Bath, whose descriptions evoke the traditional associations with philosophy and rhetoric. Chaucer adds the detail that the Wife is deaf, perhaps as an additional commentary on the nature of rhetoricians. Each tale exhibits the characteristics of the personified discipline telling the story. The Wife of Bath's Tale focuses on experience and uses a number of rhetorical devices, particularly in the argument. The Clerk's Tale displays a number of characteristics associated with logic and philosophy. The jabs that the Wife and the Clerk take at one another show the Clerk to be superior, even at rhetoric, thus reasserting the traditional view that rhetoric is subservient to philosophy both in "discourse and life" (130). Alford, John A., V. A. Kolve, and R. A. Shoaf. "Judson Boyce Allen (March 15, 1932-July 23, 1985)." 21 (1986): 85-89. Judson Boyce Allen brought new approaches to medieval studies. For a listing of Allen's criticism, see "Publications of Judson Boyce Allen," pp. 90-92. Allen, Judson Boyce, and Patrick Gallacher. "Alisoun Through the Looking Glass: or Every Man His Own Midas." 4 (1969): 99-105. The Wife of Bath creates a trap for the reader out of multiple views of metamorphosis. In the Middle Ages, metamorphosis had moral implications, contributing to irony which readers perceived as "real discontinuities behind apparent correspondence" (99). By holding up an ideal, an author could not only show readers God, but also cause them to evaluate their own flaws. In the Wife of Bath's Tale there are four levels of irony, and three probe the theme of judgment. In modifying the tale of Midas, the Wife tells on herself, a fact that readers recognize at the end of her Prologue. Both she and Midas are more victims than victimizers. She wants to possess what is unobtainable and to be someone she is not. Chaucer creates irony through the contrast between the Wife as she is and as she wants to be. Allen, Peter L. "Reading Chaucer's Good Women." 21 (1987): 419-34. The women Chaucer portrays in the Legend of Good Women are both writers and readers. In the Prologue, however, Chaucer asserts that, where possible, experience is a better authority than books. The prologue to the Legend of Good Women also raises questions regarding Chaucer's earlier works. Because the legends force readers to dispute their judgment and their ability to read perceptively, the legends highlight the reading process. Chaucer undermines the authority forcing him to write the legends especially in his use of abbreviatio and occupatio (occultatio) and in the alteration of his sources to make difficult women into tractable ones. By compelling the reader to challenge the narrator and the authorities, Chaucer pushes readers to become confident in their own judgment. Ambrisco, Alan S., and Paul Strohm. "Succession and Sovereignty in Lydgate's Prologue to The Troy Book." 30 (1995): 40-57. In the prologue to the Troy Book Lydgate presents the problems of literary succession. Much like political 2 of 134 8/26/2015 4:00 PM Bibliography Search Results http://library.northwestu.edu/chaucer/all.php?listname=chaucer successions, literary succession is continually interrupted and resumed. First Lydgate admits his debt to preceding authors, attempting to fill in the fissure between his present and the literary past by referring to the Troy Book. Because it is merely imaginary, the text does not have a temporal element, thus escaping the problems of historicity plaguing Guido delle Colone's Historia destructionis Troiae and Lydgate's reworking of it. The Troy Book thus reappears through various lacunae in the text in interrupted lines of succession. Lydgate contrasts this text to more historical texts such as De excidio Troiae historia and Ephemeris belli Troiani. A conflict erupts in Lydgate's work between historical, linear authority and self-asserted authority in Guido's text which rests on the subjugation of Benoît's Roman de Troie. But Lydgate makes merit the most important qualification for legitimacy. In his prologue, Lydgate attempts to create a gap in the succession of literary authorities which he and Guido can fill. Politically Henry IV follows much the same process, affirming himself as king in the line of succession. In both cases, memory reworks both political and social history, providing links for succession where before none existed. Anderson, David. "Theban Genealogy in the Knight's Tale." 21 (1987): 311-20. Chaucer never specifically records the genealogy of Palamon and Arcite in the Knight's Tale, but he carefully refers to Statius's Thebiad. These references suggest that Palamon and Arcite are the survivors of Oedipus's house. Once this genealogy is established, readers also perceive that it illuminates the theme of fraternal opposition in the tale.