Eclecticism and Its Discontents.

Author / Editor
Farrell, Thomas J.

Title
Eclecticism and Its Discontents.

Published
Textual Cultures 9.2 (2015): 27-45.

Description
Cautions editors against eclectic emendation, assessing George Kane's method and observing how its rigor is undercut by subjectivity, particularly notions of authorial "genius." Uses WBP 3.838 (the Summoner jeering at the Friar) as a case study to show that this indisputably Chaucerian line is regularly emended by eclectic editors, despite scribal consistency.

Chaucer Subjects
Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Wife of Bath and Her Tale