Representative British poetry (lyrics and selections from narrative verse), ranging from Middle English lyrics to poetry written in the 1990s. Arranged chronologically, with no introduction or notes, but with indexes of poets, first lines, and…
Questions why Shakespeare--rather than Chaucer or others--is the "favorite son" of Anglo-American textual theory, arguing that the "unilinear transmission" of Shakespeare's plays makes it easier to pursue the illusion of authorial intent. Based on…
Matthews, David.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22: 93-114, 2000.
Surveys translations and bowdlerizations of The Canterbury Tales from ca. 1870 to the present, identifying variations on the tendency to present the work as morally regulatory or innocent. Focuses on adaptations by Mary (Mrs. H. R.) Haweis, Charles…
A "reader-friendly" edition of The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, The Miller and His Tale, The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, and The Nun's Priest's Tale, i.e., in modernized spelling, with glosses and…
Ransom, Daniel J.
David Raybin and Linda Tarte Holley, eds. Closure in The Canterbury Tales: The Role of The Parson's Tale (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000), pp. 77-93.
Preliminary collations of The Parson's Tale lines 10.75-551 indicate that de Worde's 1498 edition of the Tale derived from a high-quality manuscript rather than from William Caxton's second edition. Such editorial effort reflects high regard for The…
Robinson, Peter.
Joe Bray, Miriam Handley, and Anne C. Henry, eds. Ma(r)king the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page ( Aldershot, Hants; and Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 309-28.
Summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) encoding for electronic texts in the humanities, advocating a middle ground between "realist" and "anti-realist" theories of what can and should be represented. Expresses…
Roche Ruiz de Garibay, Idoia.
Ana Mara Hornero and Mara Pilar Navarro, eds. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of S.E.L.I.M. (Zaragoza: Institucion Fernando el Catolico (CSIC), 2000), pp. 183-92.
Follows Sperber and Wilson's cognitive theory of communication, assessing three Spanish translations of lines from GP. The translator is both an addressee (of the source text) and an addresser (of his own audience).
Solopova, Elizabeth,with contributions from N. F. Blake, Daniel W. Mosser, and Peter Robinson. , eds.
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Includes complete and interlinked digital images, transcriptions, collations, and descriptions of fifty-three fifteenth-century manuscripts and printed editions of GP. Spelling databases (original and regularized) enable examination of all variants.
Blake, N. F.
Derek Pearsall, ed. New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies: Essays from the 1998 Harvard Conference (York; and Rochester, N.Y.: York Medieval Press, in association with Boydell and Brewer, 2000), pp. 29-40.
Summarizes the aims and methods of the Canterbury Tales Project, describes recent improvements in the analytic programs affiliated with the Project's data (SplitsTree rather than PAUP), and suggests ways the data may help to clarify manuscript…
Blake, N. F.
Loren C. Gruber, ed. Essays on Old, Middle, Modern English and Old Icelandic in Honor of Raymond P. Tripp, Jr. (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen Press, 2000), pp. 361-86.
Concludes that either the virgule replicates Chaucer's own mark, or its rather uniform placement signals a scribal practice not yet fully understood.
Blake, Norman.
Susan Powell and Jeremy J. Smith, eds. New Perspectives on Middle English Texts: A Festschrift for R. A. Waldron (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 107-18.
Like individual tales, the links of The Canterbury Tales exist in several authorial versions, indicating that Chaucer prepared several versions of the whole during his lifetime. Thus, the notion of a single manuscript stemma is impossible or…
Crane, Susan.
Robert Boenig and Kathleen Davis, eds. Manuscript, Narrative, Lexicon: Essays on Literary and Cultural Transmission in Honor of Whitney F. Bolton (Lewisburg, Penn: Bucknell University Press; and London: Associated University Presses, 2000), pp. 17-44.
Argues that scribe John Duxworth, rather than his patron Jean d'Angoulême, was the guiding intelligence behind the execution of the Paris manuscript of CT (Ps) and that his revisions and errors are consistent with the habits of other scribes who…
Driver, Martha [W.]
Derek Pearsall, ed. New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies: Essays from the 1998 Harvard Conference (York; and Rochester, N.Y.: York Medieval Press, in association with Boydell and Brewer, 2000), pp. 53-64.
Assesses the Internet and CD-ROMs as tools in the study and teaching of manuscript research, summarizing the potential and limitations of each. Comments on the impact of a number of projects, products, and Web sites, focusing on the Canterbury Tales…
Edwards, A. S. G.
A. S. G. Edwards, Vincent Gillespie, and Ralph Hanna, eds. The English Medieval Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths (London: British Library, 2000), 101-12.
Evidence from late-medieval English verse collections indicates that the conception of an individual author's corpus was slow developing, not crystalizing until the 1532 printing of Chaucer's Works. Earlier manuscript collections of Chaucer (and…
Edwards, A. S. G.
Derek Pearsall, ed. New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies: Essays from the 1998 Harvard Conference (York; and Rochester, N.Y.: York Medieval Press, in association with Boydell and Brewer, 2000), pp. 65-79.
Edwards surveys attempts to "historicize" the representation of Middle English texts, from black letter type to computer transcription, focusing on the nineteenth-century efforts of Frederic Madden. Includes recurrent references representing the…
Fredell, Joel.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22: 213-80, 2000.
Documents the features of ordinatio in the ten "landmark" manuscripts of CT, grouping the patterns as "dense" (Hengwrt/Ellesmere and related manuscripts) and "sparse" (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 198, and related manuscripts), focusing on the…
Allen, Mark, and Bege K. Bowers.
SAC 22: 557-656, 2000.
Continuation of SAC annual annotated bibliography (since 1975); based on contributions from an international bibliographic team, independent research, and MLA Bibliography listings. 337 items, plus listing of reviews for 77 books. Includes an author…
Lindahl, Carl, John McNamara, and John Lindow, eds.
Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, 2000.
Individual entries on topics from "Accused Queen" to "Zither" include brief descriptions and, when appropriate, bibliography. One entry on Chaucer (1.167-73); multiple references to motifs in his works, especially in CT.
Raybin, David.
David Raybin and Linda Tarte Holley, eds. Closure in The Canterbury Tales: The Role of The Parson's Tale (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000), pp. 209-52.
A "full" bibliography of scholarly work on The Parson's Tale; includes 175 annotated entries, each with a bibliographic citation and a description.
Sutton, Marilyn, ed.
Toronto, Buffalo, and London : University of Toronto Press, 2000.
A comprehensive annotated bibliography of scholarly and critical discussion of The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, subdivided into the following categories: editions (126 items); bibliographies, indexes, and textual studies (56 items); sources,…
Sylvester, Louise, and Jane Roberts.
Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2000.
An annotated bibliography of studies that pertain to Middle English words and word groups, especially studies that go beyond information available in the Middle English Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary. Includes studies of lexicon, word…
Cannon, Christopher.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22: 67-92, 2000.
We remain uncertain about the meaning of Cecily Chaumpaigne's release of Chaucer from a charge of rape, but the topic of rape (and forced marriage) in Chaucer's poetry reflects his sensitivity to the complex "definitional problems" of raptus. Chaucer…
