The Order of 'The Canterbury Tales'
- Author / Editor
- Benson, Larry D.
The Order of 'The Canterbury Tales'
- Published
- Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 77-120.
- Description
- By analysis of manuscript traditions Benson argues that there were at most two early orderings of CT. All later orderings in manuscripts are scribal rearrangements or distortions of these two. Both orders, one of which is the Ellesmere order, probably originated with Chaucer and differ only in the placement of the G fragment. But the Ellesmere represents Chaucer's "own final arrangement."
- Reprinted in "Contradictions: From Beowulf to Chaucer: Selected Studies of Larry D. Benson," ed. Theodore M. Andersson and Stephen A. Barney (Aldershot, Hants: Scolar; Brookfield VT: Ashgate, 1995).
- Chaucer Subjects
- Canterbury Tales--General.
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies.