(The) Editing (of) the Ellesmere Text

Published: Martin Stevens and Daniel Woodward, eds. The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library; Tokyo: Yushodo, 1995), pp. 225-43.

Description: Ellesmere was not edited in a modern sense; i.e., it was not revised or corrected for such matters as metrical regularity. Having compared approximately 6,000 lines of Ellesmere with parallel lines in six other manuscripts nearly contemporary with Ellesmere, Hanna concludes that "any editing that occurred is likely to have rendered the text more Chaucerian, not less.; El provides a more faithful version of the poem than is found in the scribe's primary archetypes."