Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury Tales — John Shaqi
Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury TalesChaucer, Geoffrey
General
Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury Tales
Chaucer, Geoffrey
Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400. Canterbury tales -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
§ 5. When Tyrwhitt came to examine the later editions, the only other
pieces that seemed to him sufficiently good for the purpose of being quoted
in his Glossary were the six following, viz. Chaucer's A.B.C. (in ed.
1602); The Court of Love (in ed. 1561); Chaucer's Dreme (in ed. 1598); The
Flower and the Leaf (in ed. 1598); Proverbes by Chaucer (in ed. 1561); and
Chaucer's Words to his Scrivener Adam (in ed. 1561). Of these, we may
accept the first and the two last; but there is no external evidence in
favour of the other three. He also added that the Virelai (no. 50, in ed.
1561) may 'perhaps' be Chaucer's.
§ 6. In 1810 we find an edition of Chaucer's Works, by A. Chalmers, F.S.A.,
in the first volume of the 'English Poets,' collected in twenty-one
volumes. In this edition, some sort of attempt was made, for the first
time, to separate the spurious from the genuine poems. But this separation
was made with such reckless carelessness that we actually find no less than
six poems (nos. 36, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, in vol. i. 32, 33, above) printed
twice over, once as being genuine, and once as being spurious[5]. It is
obvious that we cannot accept a canon of Chaucer's Works of such a
character as this.
§ 7. In 1845 appeared the edition in which modern critics, till quite
recently, put all their trust; and no student will ever understand what is
really meant by 'the canon of Chaucer's Works' until he examines this
edition with something like common care. It bears this remarkable
title:--'The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. With an Essay on his
Language and Versification, and an [xiii] Introductory Discourse; together
with Notes and a Glossary. By Thomas Tyrwhitt. London: Edward Moxon, Dover
Street, 1855[6].'
In this title, which must be most carefully scanned, there is one very
slight unintentional misprint, which alters its whole character. The stop
after the word 'Glossary' should have been a comma only. The difference in
sense is something startling. The title-page was meant to convey that the
volume contains, (1) The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (comprising
Tyrwhitt's text of the Canterbury Tales, _the remaining poems being
anonymously re-edited_); and that it _also_ contains, (2) an Essay, a
Discourse, Notes, and a Glossary, all by Thomas Tyrwhitt. Such are the
facts; and such would have been the (possible) sense of the title-page, if
the comma after 'Glossary' had not been misprinted as a full stop. But as
the title actually appears, even serious students have fallen into the
error of supposing that Tyrwhitt edited these Poetical Works; an error of
the first magnitude, which has produced disastrous results. A moment's
reflection will shew that, as Tyrwhitt edited the Canterbury Tales only,
and died in 1786, he could not have edited the Poetical Works in 1845,
fifty-nine years after his death. It would have been better if a short
explanation, to this effect, had been inserted in the volume; but there is
nothing of the kind.
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