Chaucer's Canterbury Tales-Politically Corrected

Published: Thomas A. Prendergast and Barbara Kline, eds. Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority, and the Idea of the Authentic Text, 1400-1602 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999), pp. 13-44.

Description: Argues that Chaucer chose not to develop the characters of his Yeoman, Plowman, Guildsmen, and Cook because of political concerns. Richard II's reliance on Cheshire yeomen, increased concern about farm laborers and Lollardy, and reaction against the rising power of liveried guilds and their affiliations encouraged Chaucer not to write (or continue to write) tales for these pilgrims. Bowers surmises why later tradition provides a tale for the Plowman and that Chaucer himself once intended to replace the Cook's fragment with Gamelyn. The introduction of the Canon's Yeoman indicates Chaucer's abandonment of these other pilgrim tellers.

Alternative Title: Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority, and the Idea of the Authentic Text, 1400-1602.

Chaucer Subjects: Canterbury Tales--General.; General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.; Cook and His Tale.; Chaucerian Apocrypha.