Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales An Annotated Bibliography 1900 - 1982 The General Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is one of the most enduring works of English literature. Beloved by scholars, teachers, students, and general readers, it has been given a great many different interpretations. This annotated, international bibliography of twentieth-century criticism on the Prologue is an essential reference guide. It includes books, journal articles, and dissertations, and a descriptive list of twentieth-century editions; it is the most complete inventory of modern criticism on the Prologue. The extensive annotations provide uniquely convenient access to many publications that are otherwise difficult to obtain. In her introduction, Caroline Eckhardt provides a careful and comprehensive overview of modern trends in criticism, trends which can be traced through the bibliography. At the beginning of the century, for example, Chaucer's Prologue was often described as a 'portrait gallery' and praised for its realism — social, psychological, and dramatic. Later in the century came emphases on irony, rhetoric, Freudian interpretations, elaborate allegories, and stylistic complexities. At present, the Prologue is often interpreted as a system of signs and symbols in which realism, if it exists at all, serves purposes beyond itself. The smiling and serene poet of the earlier period has been replaced by a self-conscious ironist, sometimes with a split personality. The portrait gallery of the beginning of the century is still there, though the spectator who walks along it tends to see something less fixed textually (the Prologue is now commonly discussed as work-in-progress) and more complicated structurally, generically, and thematically. It is the spectator, of course, who has changed. CAROLINE D. ECKHARDT is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University. The Chaucer Bibliographies GENERAL EDITOR Thomas Hahn University of Rochester ADVISORY BOARD Derek Brewer Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emerson Brown, jr Vanderbilt University John Hurt Fisher University of Tennessee David C. Fowler University of Washington John Leyerle University of Toronto James J. Murphy University of California, Davis Russell A. Peck University of Rochester Florence H.Ridley University of California, Los Angeles Paul Ruggiers University of Oklahoma Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 1900 to 1982 Caroline D. Eckhardt Published in association with the University of Rochester by UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com ©University of Toronto Press 1990 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-2592-7 Printed on acid-free paper Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Eckhardt, Caroline D., 1942- Chaucer's General prologue to the Canterbury tales (The Chaucer bibliographies; 3) ISBN 0-8020-2592-7 Includes index. 1. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400. Canterbury tales. Prologue—Bibliography. I. Title. II. Series. Z8164.E34 1990 016.821'! C89-090531-2 For R.B.E. This page intentionally left blank ^ Contents General Editor's Preface ix Preface xv Abbreviations and Master List of Periodicals xix Introduction xxvii 1 Editions 1 2 Bibliographies, Indexes, and Other Research Tools 25 3 General Criticism and Cultural Background 35 4 Language, Metrics, and Studies of the Manuscripts or Early Editions 169 5 The Springtime Setting, the Narrator, and the Gathering at the Tabard (lines 1-42) 187 6 The Knight (lines 43-78) 211 7 The Squire (lines 79-100) 227 8 The Yeoman (lines 101-17) 235 9 The Prioress and her Companions (lines 118-64) 241 10 The Monk (lines 165-207) 273 11 The Friar (lines 208-69) 287 \\\\/Contents 12 The Merchant (lines 270-84) 299 13 The Clerk (lines 285-308) 305 14 The Serjeant of the Law (lines 309-30) 313 15 The Franklin (lines 331-60) 323 16 The Guildsmen (lines 361-78) 333 17 The Cook (lines 379-87) 339 18 The Shipman (lines 388-410) 343 19 The Physician (lines 411-44) 347 20 The Wife of Bath (lines 445-76) 355 21 The Parson (lines 477-528) 367 22 The Plowman (lines 529-41) 373 23 The Transition and the Miller (lines 542-66) 377 24 The Manciple (lines 567-86) 385 25 The Reeve (lines 587-622) 389 26 The Summoner (lines 623-68 and 673) 395 27 The Pardoner (lines 669-714) 407 28 The Narrator's Comments and Apology for His Style (lines 715-46) 423 29 The Host and the Establishment of the Storytelling Contest (lines 747-858) 427 Index 437 General Editor's Preface The Chaucer Bibliographies will encompass, in a series of sixteen volumes, a complete listing and assessment of scholarship and criticism on the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, and on his life, times, and historical context. Two volumes — on Chaucer's lyrics and Anelida and Arctic, and on the trans- lations, scientific works, and apocrypha — have already appeared. The present volume, on the General Prologue, initiates work on the Canterbury Tales. It will be followed by the Volume on the Knight's Tale, and by other volumes on the Tales, though publication of volumes on Chaucer's other poetry will appear in the next years as well. Each volume will center on a particular work, or a connected group of works; most contain material on backgrounds or related writings, and several will be topical in their cover- age (music, visual arts, rhetoric, the life of Chaucer, and so on). Like all bibliographical projects, the series places unswerving emphasis on accuracy and comprehensiveness; yet the distinctive feature of the Chaucer Bibli- ographies, as this and the earlier volumes make clear, is the fullness and particularity of the annotations provided for each entry. The individual volumes in the Chaucer Bibliographies series do not therefore constitute a reference work in the ordinary sense of that term. While they will enumerate virtually every publication on Chaucer worthy of notice, and give complete coverage to materials from the twentieth century, they go far beyond the usual compilation, bibliographic manual, or guide to research. The bibliographies are not mechanical or machine-produced lists. Each volume makes use of the intellectual engagement, learning, and discretion of a scholar actively at work on Chaucer. The series therefore serves not simply as the collection of all relevant titles on a subject, but as a companion and reliable guide to the reading and study of Chaucer's poetry. In this, the Chaucer Bibliographies represent an innovative and penetrating access to what Chaucer means, and has meant, to his readers. The project offers the full richness and detail of Chaucer's thought and world to a much wider audience than these have, even after one hundred years of energetic scholarship, ever before reached.
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