Horobin, Simon, and Linne R. Mooney.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 26 : 65-112, 2004
Attributes Trinity College, Cambridge, MS B.15.17 (which includes the B-text of "Piers Plowman," Richard Rolle's "Form of Living," and a devotional poem) to the Hengwrt/Ellesmere scribe (Scribe B), summarizing and illustrating the graphetic features…
Gardham, Julie, comp., and David Weston, introd.
Glasgow: Glasgow University Library, 2004.
Brief discussion of six Chaucerian books and twenty-five related works, with a highly selective bibliography. For an expanded version, see http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/chaucer/index.html (May 19, 2005).
Pepys MS 2006 contains a unique grouping of Mel, ParsT, Truth, and Scog. Written by two scribes, it displays the names of John Kyriell (gentry) and William Fettyplace (London mercer). The two social classes of Kyriell and Fettyplace indicate either a…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Takami Matsuda, Richard A. Linenthal, and John Scahill, eds. The Medieval Book and a Modern Collector: Essays in Honour of Toshiyuki Takamiya (Cambridge: Brewer; Tokyo: Yushodo, 2004), pp. 81-86.
Edwards comments on several features of Takamiya MS 32, which "provides the only significant narrative conjunction of the works of Chaucer and Gower": quire numbering and arrangement of materials indicate that the Gower material was "selected by the…
Bowers, John M.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 26: 113-46, 2004
Bowers describes the habits and activities of the two scribes, assessing what such factors can tell us about the scribes' careers and early fifteenth-century book production. Scribe D reflects "commercial opportunism" in producing works by prestige…
Aita, Shuichi.
Studies in Medieval Language and Literature 19: 37-49, 2004
Aita compares textual variants of ParsT in the Selden MS with British Library MS Lansdowne 851, showing how scribes attempted to clarify meaning by altering vocabulary and syntax.
An edition of TC, with on-page glosses, explanatory notes at the end of the text, a glossary, and a selected bibliography. Includes a table of correspondences between TC and Boccaccio's "Filostrato," plus a chronology of Chaucer's life and writings.…
Wheeler, Bonnie.
Takami Matsuda, Richard A. Linenthal, and John Scahill, eds. The Medieval Book and a Modern Collector: Essays in Honour of Toshiyuki Takamiya (Cambridge: Brewer; Tokyo: Yushodo, 2004), pp. 461-66.
Wheeler reproduces and describes two versions of a sketch by Edward Burne-Jones, representing Chaucer embracing Burne-Jones and William Morris (the producers of the Kelmscott Chaucer). Includes an 1890 photograph of the Kelmscott duo and related…
Comments on the critical reception of Manly and Rickert's "The Text of the Canterbury Tales" (1940), exploring underlying assumptions about textual theory and gender politics. Uses Tom Stoppard's play "The Invention of Love" (1997) to reveal…
Robinson, Peter, ed., with Barbara Bordalejo and Orietta Da Rold, and contributions by Lorna Stevenson, Elizabeth Solopova, and Daniel W. Mosser.
Leicester: Scholarly Digital Editions, 2004.
Includes interlinked images and transcriptions of all fifty-eight pre-1500 versions of MilPT, with complete collations (linked to variant maps), commentaries on family relationships of the versions, and stemmatic commentary on key readings.
Pearsall, Derek.
Ian Gadd and Alexandra Gillespie, eds. John Stow (1525-1605) and the Making of the English Past: Studies in Early Modern Culture and the History of the Book (London: British Library, 2004), pp. 119-25.
Despite his expertise, Stow was not associated directly with Speght's 1598 edition. Speght "was able to ornament the edition with the names of his eminent friends," while Stow, lacking class, continued behind the scenes, providing "barrowloads of…
Needham, Paul.
Takami Matsuda, Richard A. Linenthal, and John Scahill, eds. The Medieval Book and a Modern Collector: Essays in Honour of Toshiyuki Takamiya (Cambridge: Brewer; Tokyo: Yushodo, 2004), pp. 313-56.
Needham documents the prominence of beads in nineteen of the twenty-three woodcuts in Caxton's second edition of CT. Suggests that the illustrations were influenced by the "expanding cult of rosary devotions" in Caxton's time and describes the…
Gadd, Ian, and Alexandra Gillespie, eds.
London: British Library, 2004.
Fifteen essays explore the life and legacy of John Stow, the sixteenth-century author of Survey of London (1598) and the editor of the 1561 edition of Chaucer. For four essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for John Stow (1525-1605) under…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Ian Gadd and Alexandra Gillespie, eds. John Stow (1525-1605) and the Making of the English Past: Studies in Early Modern Culture and the History of the Book (London: British Library), pp. 109-18.
Considers the texts Stow used in his career. His 1561 edition of Chaucer is marked less by its engagement with Chaucer than by the inclusion of Lydgate's "Siege of Thebes." The evidence of Stow's annotations suggests interest in Lydgate but a…
Driver, Martha.
Ian Gadd and Alexandra Gillespie, eds. John Stow (1525-1605) and the Making of the English Past: Studies in Early Modern Culture and the History of the Book (London: British Library), pp. 135-43.
Driver assesses "Stow's pervasive intellectual influence on two later antiquarian readers of Chaucer." To Browne and Le Neve, Stow's edition was "a highly regarded and trusted exemplar, used to supply omissions, correct errors, and add notes."
Dane, Joseph A.
Ian Gadd and Alexandra Gillespie, eds. John Stow (1525-1605) and the Making of the English Past: Studies in Early Modern Culture and the History of the Book (London: British Library), pp. 145-55.
Traces Stow's declining reputation among eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editors of Chaucer as well as a gradual revival of appreciation of Stow's edition, first among bibliophiles and later with modern Chaucerians. Dane examines the variants in…
Caie, Graham D.
Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 47: 59-71, 2003
Caie argues that modern editions of medieval texts ought to be accompanied by the glosses that accompany them in the manuscripts. He discusses Chaucer's glosses to CT, as well as his use of the humility topos. The glosses to CT may be Chaucer's own,…
Brewer, Charlotte.
Richard Firth Green and Linne R. Mooney, eds. Interstices: Studies in Middle English and Anglo-Latin Texts in Honour of A. G. Rigg (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 15-43.
Examines several key terms in textual/editorial theory, exploring their application to various editions of Chaucer--Skeat's edition, Pollard's Globe edition, and editions by Zupitza, Koch, Manly and Rickert, and Robinson. The terms are used…
Wallace, David.
Rosalynn Voaden, René Tixier, Teresa Sanchez Roura, and Jenny Rebecca Rytting, eds. The Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), pp. 179-88.
Wallace considers Eustace Deschamps's attitudes toward the English occupation of Calais and reads Deschamps's ballade 285 (which praises Chaucer) as a "spirited act of reverse or returned colonization." Identifies parallels in the careers of…
Lerer, Seth.
University of Toronto Quarterly 73: 906-15, 2004
Comments on Thomas and Lewis as Chaucer's sons and explores Astr as a didactic treatise, part of Chaucer's "Macrobean" development from "literary study to moral inquiry."
Hughes combines travelogue and appreciative criticism as he traces the lives and footsteps of Chaucer, Froissart, and Boccaccio, exploring what each author contributed to growth in popular literature. Focuses on Chaucer's life and CT.
Carlson, David R.
New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Chaucer's occupations--domestic servant, customs agent, justice of the peace, and clerk of the King's Works--shaped his literature, and his "servility" enabled him to become the "father" of English poetry. His biography and his works alike reveal…
Brook suggests that Sir Paon de Ruet may have been "a cadet of the family of the Lords of Roeulx" and part of the entourage of Philippa of Hainaut. He was probably born about 1309.
A biography of Chaucer that records his career as a courtier and diplomat and explores how it may have affected his personality and shaped his poetry. Designed for a general audience, with translations of quoted material, suggestions for further…
