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.
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.
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.
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
A biography of John Shirley (d. 1456) that examines available life-records and assesses his scribal output and influence. Shirley was a scribe of several important manuscripts that include works by Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower; a collector and…
Greetham, David.
Vincent P. McCarren and Douglas Moffat, eds. A Guide to Editing Middle English (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), pp. 287-302
Comments on theories that underlie the practice of editing Middle English texts, using Chaucer's Summoner as an extended analogue for such a commentary.
Harris, Kate.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20 (1998): 167-99.
The compiler-editor-scribe of the prose history in Trinity College, Oxford MS D 29 used ParsT and Mel as a source in six passages. The same scribe included Mel and MkT in Huntington MS HM 144. Harris describes the scribal adjustments of Chaucer's…
Horobin, S. C. P.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 99 (1998): 411-17.
The similar scribal features of three manuscripts of CT (Devonshire; Trinity College, Cambridge R.3.3; and Bodleian Rawlinson Poetry 223) have sometimes been attributed to a group of scribes and supervisors. This attribution has been used to support…
Horobin, S. C. P.
English Studies 79 (1998): 415-24.
Chaucer's spelling habits are still uncertain. Reasons for disagreement among scholars lie in approaches to the problem. Analysis of the spelling "ayein"/"ayeyn" in Hengwrt and Ellesmere and related manuscripts suggests that studies based on the…
Olson, Mary Catherine.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1998): 4645A.
Seeks to explain how and in what ways illustrations affect reading, discussing the manuscripts of the Harley Psalter, the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, the Marvels of the East, and the Ellesmere manuscript of CT. Ellesmere raises questions…
Spreuwenberg-Stewart, Allison Dean.
Dissertation Abstracts International 58 (1998): 3542A.
Considers issues of gender, identity, and sexuality in depictions of clothing in poetry by Chaucer (Rom), Marlowe, Donne, Samuel Butler, and Milton. Through dress, Rom depicts the richness of desire and the roles of art and culture in both seduction…
Taylor, Andrew.
Paul Budra and Betty A. Schellenberg, eds. Part Two: Reflections on the Sequel. (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 34-52.
Reads the "Tale of Beryn" and Lydgate's "Seige of Thebes" as acts of resistance to Chaucer's dissolution of his fiction in the meditation that is ParsT. These continuations of CT seek to keep alive the drama of CT through visualization, a form of…
Prendergast, Thomas A.
William F. Gentrup, ed. Reinventing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Constructions of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods ([Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 63-76.
Surveys "legends" about Chaucer's prodigality, from Thomas Usk's "Testament of Love" to early editions of Purse and modern critical reception of the poem. Editions of Purse and critical responses seek to defend Chaucer "from charges of political…
Boffey, Julia,and A. S. G. Edwards.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20 (1998): 201-18.
Assesses John Shirley's role in the construction of the canon of Chaucer's shorter poems, using as test cases three poems attributed to Chaucer by Shirley but not by modern tradition: "The Chronicle [of Nine Women] Made by Chaucer" (Bodleian Library…
Costomiris, Robert.
The Library, 6th ser., 20 (1998): 99-117.
Uses correspondences between the Tanner texts of Clanvowe's poem and that printed in Thynne's 1532 edition of Chaucer to argue that Thynne's dependence on this manuscript was greater than scholars have avowed.
The word "directe" has been taken to mean "to dedicate," and critics have assumed that the poem was dedicated to Gower. But "ye loveres," Gower and Strode, are sent the poem for correction, especially in morals and philosophy. The word "directe"…
Wetherbee, Winthrop.
Thomas C. Stillinger, ed. Critical Essays on Geoffrey Chaucer (New York: G.K. Hall; London: Prentice Hall International, 1998), pp.243-66.
An analysis of the end of TC that reads Troilus's ascent (itself inherently meaningless) as a stage in the progress of the narrator's recognition of the relations between Christian poetry and classical tradition.
Silar, Theodore I.
Chaucer Review 32 (1998): 284-309.
The repetition of "fin" (the settlement of a fictitious suit) at the ending of TC has many legal overtones. It evokes "landholding," "harmonization of contrary positions," and "legal fiction," as in a legal suit for which there is, as in TC, a…
Partridge, Stephen.
Daniel Pinti, ed. Writing After Chaucer: Essential Reading in Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century (London and New York: Garland, 1998), pp. 2-26.
Focusing on manuscripts of Chaucer's works, Partridge assesses the habits of scribes and book owners in the fifteenth century, showing how variants among texts alter meaning and how fifteenth-century readers, aware of such variants, made…
McInerney, Maud Burnett.
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the 'Canterbury Tales' and 'Troilus and Criseyde' (Cambridge; and Rochester, N.Y.: D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 221-35.
Chaucer plays with Ovid's "Metamorphoses" in his characterization of Troilus in bk. 3, examining the nature of masculinity by depicting Troilus as a "man trapped between two literary modes of loving."
