Canon Formation.

Author / Editor
Prendergast, Thomas A.

Title
Canon Formation.

Published
Marion Turner, ed. A Handbook of Middle English Studies (Chichester: Wiley, 2013), pp. 239-51.

Description
Summarizes traditional historical arguments for the centrality of Chaucer in the formation of the canon of Middle English literature, identifying "identical aesthetic qualities between Chaucer and the modern" as fundamental to this perspective, and offering a complementary argument (focusing on "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight") that explains canonicity in terms of the "wonder" that texts generate and refuse to demystify.

Alternative Title
A Handbook of Middle English Studies

Chaucer Subjects
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion