Blake, N. F.
Journal of the Early Book Society 1 (1997): 96-122.
Describes uncertainties related to the manuscripts of CT and surveys critical efforts to resolve them--uncertainties about the state of Chaucer's papers at the time of his death and the circulation of tales before his death, the order and…
Woodward, Daniel,and Martin Stevens, eds.
San Marino, Calif.:
A full-size monochromatic facsimile of the Ellesmere manuscript of CT, from the same transparencies used to produce the full-color version (SAC 19 [1997], no. 30).
Spencer, Matthew, Barbara Bordalejo, Li-San Wang, Adrian C. Barbrook, Linne R. Mooney, Peter Robinson, Tandy Warnow, and Christopher J. Howe
Computers and the Humanities 37 (2003): 97-109.
Construction of a stemma for CT based on gene-order analysis supports the idea that there was no established order when the first manuscripts were written. The resulting stemma shows relationships predicted by earlier scholars, reveals new…
Robinson, Peter
Vincent P. McCarren and Douglas Moffat, eds. A Guide to Editing Middle English (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), pp. 249-61.
Argues that computer technology is changing "what scholars do as they edit," drawing examples from the activities of the "Canterbury Tales" Project to describe the new quesions raised about visual reproduction of manuscripts, representation of…
Mowat, Barbara A.
R. B. Parker and S. P. Sitner, eds. Elizabethan Theater: Essays in Honor of S. Schoenbaum (Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1996), pp. 93-110.
Assesses how the sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer by Thynne and Speght helped to create and monumentalize a view of the writer. Renaissance notions of authors, evident in Speght's Chaucer, Holland's Livy, and Harrington's Ariosto, are not the…
McCarren, Vincent P.,and Douglas Moffat, eds.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998.
Nineteen essays by various authors that together seek to "raise the standard of scholarly editing for Middle English texts," describing theories and problems of editing and offering practical recommendations on how to edit. The contributors explore…
Kuskin, William.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59 (1998): 164A.
Explores how Caxton's technical and mechanical modifications of CT, Bo, Malory's "Morte Darthur," and the "Boke of Eneydos" claim authority for these texts and help to shape their audience.
Kinney, Clare Regan.
Theresa M. Krier, ed. Refiguring Chaucer in the Renaissance (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998), pp. 66-84.
Examines the identification of proverbs and sententiae in Speght's 1602 edition of Chaucer's works, focusing on TC. The introduction of maniples (pointing hands) enabled Speght to, in effect, pre-select nuggets of Chaucerian wisdom for a Renaissance…
Graver, Bruce E., ed.
Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Scholarly edition of Wordsworth's modernization of selections from Chaucer (PrT, ManT and part of ManP, a portion of TC, and the apocryphal "Cuckoo and the Nightingale") and portions of Virgil's "Aeneid" and "Georgics," including full apparatus and…
Translations of Chaucer's works, especially CT, into modern English reflect individual translators' valuations of Chaucer's poetic virtues, whether "freshness," modernity, humor, irony, or something else.
Forni, Kathleen.
Studia Neophilologica 70 (1998): 173-80.
The black-letter editions of Chaucer from 1532 to 1721 are "valuable books with worthless texts." However, their financial value may give some indication of their readers and their readers' socioeconomic status.
Cooper, Helen.
Vincent P. McCarren and Douglas Moffat, eds. A Guide to Editing Middle English (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), pp. 79-93.
Describes the problems of editing Chaucer's works (especially CT), observing that modern editions tend to ignore them.
Suggests that Henry Bradshaw looked at CT as an early book in terms of quire structure, which he tried to reconstruct, rather than a topologically real pilgrimage.
Referring to "The Wife of Bath's Prologue on CD-ROM" (Studies In the Age Of Chaucer 20 [1998], no.11), Blake concludes that Hengwrt should be used as the base text for the "Canterbury Tales" Project. He proposes three areas in which Hengwrt might be…
Baker, Peter S.
Vincent P. McCarren and Douglas Moffat, eds. A Guide to Editing Middle English (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), pp. 263-83.
Suggests that "hypertextuality" is the only major advantage of electronic texts over books and indicates an ideal system for a critical edition in electronic format by examining a "working model" of such editions of "Beowulf" and "Battle of…
Andrew, Malcolm, and A. C. Cawley, eds.
London: J. M. Dent, 1997.
Revised edition of Cawley's Everyman text of GP, MilT, RvT, CkT, ShT, and NPT, with a brief descriptive introduction, glosses, and comments on pronunciation, grammar, and versification.
Surveys scholarship pertaining to Chaucer's 1366 visit to Spain and Gaunt's 1386-87 campaign in Spain, commenting on historical events and Chaucer's involvement with them.
Quinn, William A.
Chaucer Yearbook 5 (1998): 1-18.
Briefly discusses some of the critical responses to Chaucer's alleged raptus of Cecilia Champaigne (Cecily Champain) and how this incident may have influenced certain works, particularly TC, PF, and HF.
Kennedy, Ruth.
Warwick Gould and Thomas F. Staley, eds. Writing the Lives of Writers (Houndsmill, Basingstoke, and London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press; in association with the Centre for English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 1998), pp. 54-67.
Like other biographies, those of Chaucer have been constructed in light of the biographers' assumptions and images. Surveys biographies and biographical comments on Chaucer and suggests that modern commentary neglects the transcendent in his works.
Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20 (1998): 101-65.
Examinies civil and criminal documentary evidence of the meanings of the term "rape," reconsidering their applicability to Cecily Champain's 1380 claim against Chaucer. The "inherent ambiguity" of the term and its "very wide range" of legal and…
Chapter 1 (pp. 15-31) describes Chaucer's 1373 visit to Florence, a great industrial and financial center declining into political factionalism. Italian meters influenced Chaucer's rhyme royal. Boccaccio taught him the potential of romance; Dante…
