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Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 - 1400)

author of The Canterbury Tales

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Criticism about Geoffrey Chaucer

Alys's Formulation of Intent-or Her Killing Us Softly with Her Siren Song

http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/inpar001_purdon.pdf

Looks at the historical evidence surrounding Alys of Bath's possible involvement i the death of Chaucer, her husband.

Contains: Criticism

Author: Liam O. Purdon

From: In parentheses: Papers in Medieval Studies Volume I: May 1999, page 187

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Chaucer

http://www.yale.edu/engl125/text-only/lectures/lecture-1.html

"For the next forty minutes or so I will be discussing the economic, the social, and the political conditions of the last half of the fourteenth century in England, Chaucer's place in this world, and the relation of this to Chaucer's poetry. I will be offering, in other words, what is known in literary criticism as an historicist account. "

Contains: Commentary, Criticism

Author: Patterson, Lee

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Chaucer

http://www.bartleby.com/212/index.html#7

This lengthy analysis of the author's life and work includes sections on "ChaucerÕs Life", "Troilus and Criseyde", "The Canterbury Tales ", "ChaucerÕs Learning", "His Humour ", and "His Poetical Quality ."

Contains: Extensive Bio, Criticism, Bibliography

Author: George Saintsbury

From: The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Volume II: English, The End of the Middle Ages

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Dante, Chaucer, and the Currency of the Word: Money, Images, and Reference in Late Medieval Poetry

http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rashoaf/dccw.html

"This book begins to deal with the analogy by mapping Dante's reaction to money in the Commedia. My method is cross- disciplinary and from time to time uses history, economics, sociology, philology, and literary criticism. Dante's reaction to money, the map makes clear, leads to thestructure from which his poem comprehends imagery and the operation of poetic discourse. This map I next follow to Chaucer. Chaucer, I argue, is no mere quoter of virtuoso passages. Rather, he is a great interpreter of Dante. He is so, in part, because of his own efforts to come to grips through poetry with the power and the meaning of money."

Contains: Criticism, Commentary

From: R. A. Shoaf 1983 (Pilgrim Books): Postprint 1995

Keywords: Commedia, Troilus and Criseyde, Canterbury Tales

 

Essays and Articles on Chaucer

http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucessays.htm

This site links to many essays about Chaucer's works including The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Book of the Duchess.

Contains: Criticism, Commentary

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geoffreychaucer.org: an annotated guide to online resources

http://geoffreychaucer.org/

This excellent webliography brings together an annotated list of the best online sources of information on Chaucer's life and works. Includes background materials, biography, bibliography, commentary, images, and language, as well as general links. A particularly good starting point for any Internet research on the author.

Contains: Full Bio, Pictures, Commentary, Criticism, Webliography, Bibliography

Author: David Wilson-Okamura

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Literary Subjects

http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/litsubs.html

This site describes how literary conventions or styles apply to Geoffrey Chaucer's works.

Contains: Criticism, Commentary, Works List, Works Available, Bibliography

Keywords: Popular Drama, Breton Lay, English Romance, Love Visions, Lyric Poetry, Fabliaux, Rhetoric/Style

 

Reaping What Was Sown: Spenser, Chaucer, and the Plowman's Tale

http://www.uwm.edu/~dclark/thesis.pdf

"I will show the way a single, powerful aspect of the RenaissanceChaucer transformed the first book of one of the most canonical poems in English literature, The Faerie Queene. Demonstrating how The Plowman's Tale transformed Spenser's work in Book One is important for us because an understanding of the Tale's impact makes us re-examine our views of Edmund Spenser himself, showing him to be a poet concerned with the cultural construction of the English nation."

Contains: Commentary, Criticism

Author: Clark, David Paul

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Biographical sites about Geoffrey Chaucer

The Life of Chaucer

http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/varia/life_of_Ch/ch-life.html

"Geoffrey Chaucer led a busy official life, as an esquire of the royal court, as the comptroller of the customs for the port of London, as a participant in important diplomatic missions, and in a variety of other official duties."

Contains: Extensive Bio, Timeline, Pictures

Keywords: life, history, biography

 

 
Other sites about Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer's Contemporary Reputation

http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/varia/life_of_Ch/ch-reput.html

This site provides information about what Chaucer's contemporaries thought about him. Contemporaries includeEustache Deschamps, Thomas Usk, and John Gower.

Contains: Commentary, Sketch

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Deposition of Geoffrey Chaucer, Esquire (1386)

http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/lifemann/scropetrial/scrope6.html

This site is the transcript of the deposition that Geoffrey Chaucer gave during the Controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor in the Court of Chivalry (1385-1386).

Contains: Interview

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Other Authors

http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/authors.html

This site details the influences of other authors upon Chaucers works with links to text and print citations.

Contains: Sketch, Commentary, Bibliography, Works Available, Works List

Keywords: Ovid, Langland, Boccaccio, Lydgate, Cato, Petrarch, Gower, Virgil, (Vergil), Knight of Latour-Landry, Andreas Capellanus, Boethius