Chaucer's Monk's Tale and Nun's Priest's Tale: An Annotated Bibliography 9781442687608

Citation preview

Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 1900 TO 2000 Peter Goodall Of all of the stories that make up The Canterbury Tales, certain ones have attracted more attention than others in terms of literary scholarship and canonization. The Monk’s Tale, for instance, was popular in the decades after Chaucer’s death, but has since suffered critical neglect, particularly in the twentieth century. The opposite has occured with The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, which has long been one of the most popular and widely discussed of the tales, cited by some critics as the most ‘Chaucerian’ of them all. This annotated bibliography is a record of all editions, translations, and scholarship written on The Monk’s Tale and The Nun’s Priest’s Tale in the twentieth century with a view to revisiting the former and creating a comprehensive scholarly view of the latter. A detailed introduction summarizes all extant writings on the two tales and their relationship to each other, giving a sense of the complexity of Chaucer’s seminal work and the unique function of its component stories. By dealing with these two tales in particular, this bibliography suggests the complicated critical reception and history of The Canterbury Tales. PETER GOODALL is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Southern Queensland.

The Chaucer Bibliographies

GENERAL EDITOR Thomas Hahn University of Rochester

ADVISORY BOARD

Derek Brewer Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emerson Brown, Jr Vanderbilt University John Hurt Fischer 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 Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

An Annotated Bibliography 1900 to 2000 edited by Peter Goodall Annotations by Geoffrey Cooper, Peter Goodall, John Gray, Bruce Moore, Diane Speed, Jennifer Strauss, J.A. Stephens, Ruth Waterhouse, Christopher Wortham Editorial Assistants: Rosemary Greentree and Christopher Bright

Published in association with the University of Rochester by UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

©University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2009 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-0-8020-9320-2

Printed on acid-free paper _____________________________________________________ Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Chaucer’s Monk’s tale and Nun’s Priest’s tale : an annotated bibliography, 1900-2000 / edited by Peter Goodall. (The Chaucer bibliographies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9320-2 1. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400. Monk’s tale--Bibliography. 2. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400. Nun’s priest’s tale--Bibliography. I. Goodall, Peter, 1949- III. Series. Z8164.C43 2009 016.821’1 C2007-905821-3 _____________________________________________________ University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

b

Contents

General Editor’s Preface vii Preface xii Abbreviations and Works Cited xv Introduction xix Editions, Translations, Modernizations, and Retellings 3 Bibliographies, Handbooks, and Indexes 52 Manuscript and Textual Studies 63 Prosody, Linguistic, and Lexical Studies 82 Sources, Analogues, & Allusions 101 The Narrators of the Tales Considered as Characters 149 The Tales Considered Together 166 The Monk’s Tale 202 The Nun’s Priest’s Tale 225 Index 304

This page intentionally left blank

b

General Editor’s Preface

The Chaucer Bibliographies will encompass, in a series of some eighteen volumes, a complete listing and assessment of scholarship and criticism on the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400), and on his life, times, and historical context. Seven volumes - on Chaucer’s short poems and Anelida and Arcite, on the translations, scientific works, and apocrypha, on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, on the Knight’s Tale, on the Tales of the Miller, Reeve, and Cook, on the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, and on the Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale - have already appeared. The present volume, on the Tales of the Monk and the Nun’s Priest, extends the coverage of the Canterbury Tales in taking up two of the most closely related poems in one of the longest sections of that work (Group B2, Fragment VII). Additional volumes addressing other groupings of tales (the Tales of the Physician, Squire, and Franklin; the Tales of the Friar and the Summoner; the Tales of the Clerk and of the Merchant; the Tale of Melibee; and the Tales of the Second Nun, Canon’s Yeoman, Manciple, and Parson, with the Retractions) are in preparation, and should follow the present volume in a timely fashion. Each volume in the series will continue to center on a particular work, or a connected group of works; most contain material on backgrounds or related writings, and several will be wholly topical in their coverage (taking up music, the visual arts, rhetoric, the life of Chaucer, and other relevant subjects). Although the series perforce places unswerving emphasis on accuracy and comprehensiveness, the distinctive feature of the Chaucer Bibliographies is the fullness and particularity of the annotations provided for each entry. Annotations have averaged more than one-third of a page in the first seven volumes; these thick descriptions of intellectual and critical activity (as opposed to simple itemizations or arbitrarily telegraphic summaries) have thus constituted more than four-fifths of each volume’s content. 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 take in virtually every Chaucerian publication worthy of notice, and give complete coverage to materials from the twentieth, and now the twentyfirst, centuries, they go far beyond the usual bibliographic compilation, companion, or guide to research. Though the Bibliographies necessarily begin from a database, each volume makes extensive use of the intellectual engage-

viii / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

ment, learning, and insight of scholars actively at work on Chaucer. The series therefore offers not simply a listing of all relevant titles on a subject, but serves as both an introduction and an advanced guide to the reading and study of Chaucer’s poetry. In this, the Chaucer Bibliographies provides innovative and penetrating access to what Chaucer means, and has meant, to his readers in the present, and for the last century and more. The project unfolds the full richness and detail of Chaucer’s thought and world for a much wider audience than they have, even after one hundred years of energetic scholarship, ever before reached. Before all else, then, the series provides a means of making practical headway in the study of earlier literature in English and in appreciating its broad cultural contexts. These volumes help make the writing of Chaucer the earliest figure in the canon of great writers in the English language - more immediate and more directly accessible to readers, whatever their background or level of interest. Although Chaucer has elicited praise for six centuries as a moving, superb, complex writer, even teachers of his writing sometimes feel at a loss when faced with the linguistic, historical, and critical complexities packed into every line. Consequently, despite his canonical stature, Chaucer has often remained unread, or read only in translation or paraphrase. The goal of this project, at its first level, is to increase the numbers of those who read him with genuine understanding and pleasure by increasing the kinds of things that can be readily known about Chaucer. In offering such broad access to specialized knowledge, the Chaucer Bibliographies aspires to expand and enhance how Chaucer gets read, at what levels, and by whom. As tools for both students and teachers, the Chaucer Bibliographies seeks to intensify the comprehension and enjoyment of beginning readers in university, college, and high school classrooms. The series will move undergraduates more quickly from the generalizations and observations of textbooks and instructors to a direct access to the richness and variety of Chaucer’s writing, and to its connections with medieval realities and modern understandings. For graduate students, the books will constitute a crucial resource for course work, exam preparation, and research. For non-specialist teachers of Chaucer in survey, masterpiece, and special topic courses, the series provides the means to a broader base of knowledge and to a more intense and shapely preparation than instructors, given the constraints of their work time, are sometimes able to manage. By clarifying and connecting both recent and long-available materials, and by making them readily accessible, the Chaucer Bibliographies refreshes the teaching and reading of Chaucer, and enables the development of alternative approaches to understanding his writing. The series holds yet additional resources for specialist readers. The fullness and detail of the annotations in each volume will serve, in the first

General Editor’s Preface / ix

instance, as a check against duplication and redundancy in academic publication; individual scholars, and editors or readers at presses and journals, will be able to chart the place of new or proposed work quickly. Likewise, Chaucerians engaged with a topic or set of issues will be able to advance or situate their work more readily by reference to the materials in the appropriate volumes within the series. In consolidating the massive work that has been done in the last century or so in medieval studies, and particularly on Chaucer, the Bibliographies provide the ground on which new work in Chaucer can build. Their presence in the field will encourage more efficient research on restricted as well as expansive topics, and will likewise facilitate work on the ways in which institutions have fostered and used the reading and study of his writing. In addition to Chaucerians, the series potentially benefits other specialists in medieval literature in offering ready access to publications on Chaucer that touch on a variety of materials relevant to other fields. Whatever use the materials gathered in these volumes may have for particular queries or problems, they also address interests of a range of scholars whose expertise extends to Chaucer, but whose intellectual concerns may seem stymied by the daunting mass of Chaucer scholarship. The Chaucer Bibliographies places interdisciplinary research before scholars in History, Art History, Philosophy, French and Italian, Cultural Studies, and other related areas, and so makes multidisciplinary, collaborative work more possible and even more likely. In short, the project’s collective effort to bring knowledge about Chaucer together strives to open up, rather than to close off, further innovative work on pre-modern culture. The present volume, on the Tales of the Monk and Nun’s Priest, presents the sweeping and meticulous coverage that marks earlier volumes in the series, which have averaged more than twelve hundred items each. Their purview takes in editions of Chaucer’s writing, studies of language, manuscripts, and audiences, his sources and their contexts and intellectual connections, directly relevant background materials (eg, estates satire, medieval science, chivalry, the tradition of Boethius), and all publications (in whatever language) bearing directly on Chaucer’s poetry. The earlier volumes have succeeded in sorting out and making accessible materials that are confused or obscure, including early philological publications in German and Scandinavian languages, privately printed or scarce volumes, and recent work in Australia, Europe, Japan, and Korea. But even more strikingly, in bringing together all the materials on specific poems and subjects, these volumes have given new definition to the boundaries of Chaucer studies. Rather than working as a mopping-up operation, telling scholars what they already knew, or students what they might well forget, these volumes attempt to contribute to a new flourishing of Chaucer research and criticism, assisting the creation

x / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

of fresh and solidly grounded interrogations of the poetry. They stand not simply as the summation of a great tradition, but as an impetus for more intense and expanded understandings of Chaucer. The sweeping vision of late medieval writing offered in each volume represents a reconfiguration of knowledge that justifies and fosters informed work by an expanded community of scholars, of whom Chaucerians form merely the core. In producing volumes that record all relevant titles and that specify the content and interconnections of Chaucerian criticism, the Chaucer Bibliographies defines a new space for itself as a reference tool in its own field, and potentially within affiliated fields as well. The volumes, published and projected, differ markedly in purpose and use from other introductory bibliographies and cumulative listings. Standard bibliographies - unmarked or minimally annotated compilations - furnish helpful listings of publications, but offer limited help to the specialist, and still less orientation or access to the uninitiated. Volumes in the Chaucer Bibliographies project take these publications as a base of information (and make reference to them), but the aim of each volume is to offer in-depth coverage of the work(s) at hand. Contributors initially review annual and collected listings, but acquired learning, developed instincts, and the concentrated reading demanded for the preparation of each volume turn up leads and titles that supplement and complete the search for all relevant materials. The series through its individual volumes seeks to stand as a definitive companion to the study of Chaucer, a starting point from which present work may be assessed, and future work may proceed. It addresses itself to an audience beyond the community of professional Chaucerians, inviting non-Chaucerian scholars and non-specialist teachers and students to take part in the continuous process of understanding Chaucer. The exhaustiveness of the project offers assurance and, we hope, some surprises to both the expert and the novice. The series achieves this inclusiveness through its inventory of all known publications, its full and strategic commentary, its attention to backgrounds and corollary issues, and its demarcation of interrelationships and connected themes; annotations, cross-referencing, generous indices, and the report of significant reviews help insure this high level of comprehensiveness. Contributors essay to encounter every relevant published item, in all foreign languages, though these scholars rely on their own expertise and discretion in determining the choice and extent of annotations. Information on a ‘ghost’ or an inaccessible but pointless item may prove as valuable to users of these volumes as careful assessments of well known books in the field; it is therefore crucial for contributors not to pass over inadvertently or deliberately omit any ‘trivial’ writings. The specification of items in these volumes should

General Editor’s Preface / xi

obviate the need for many vain entanglements in the trammels of scholarship as readers of Chaucer pursue their special interests. The Chaucer Bibliographies is produced through the work of a diverse and distinguished array of experts. Its format - in which the individual efforts of autonomous scholars take their place within a single project’s well articulated, coherent framework - accommodates in a peculiarly appropriate way its broad base and potentially wide appeal. The authors of individual volumes include both distinguished and younger Chaucerians. The comprehensive work for each volume has been carried out over a period of years by an individual scholar or a team in close collaboration, conceiving each volume as a unified intellectual project. Having a collective of more than two dozen Chaucerians actively engaged in the same project has already led to a more thorough cross-checking, a richer array of suggestions and shared information, and a larger number of surprising finds - some obscure, some obvious than any individual or more limited collaborative effort could have produced. Since materials for the entire series have been electronically processed and stored, it will be possible for the University of Toronto Press to provide online access to published volumes, to issue supplements and revisions, and eventually to produce a general index to all volumes. Ultimately the complete series and its component parts may be accessible to a wide range of general users and scholars in a variety of formats. The work of the Chaucer Bibliographies was sustained from 1989 to 1995 by a series of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (USA), through its Division of Research Programs; without NEH support, it would have been impossible for the collective efforts of the project to continue, or for the work of individual scholars to issue in published form. Library staff at the University of Rochester - in particular, Interlibrary Loan, and the Rossell Hope Robbins Library and its Curator, Dr. Alan Lupack - have provided invaluable and unstinting bibliographic and research aid. Pivotal phases of the research and editing that produced our final copy were resourcefully and meticulously carried out at Rochester by Dana Symons, John Chandler, and Leah Haught.

b

Preface

This bibliography offers a comprehensive survey of scholarly and critical work on the Monk’s Prologue (MkP), the Monk’s Tale (MkT), the link that falls within the Nun’s Priest’s Prologue (NPP), the Nun’s Priest’s Tale (NPT), and the endlink (or epilogue as it is often called) of the NPT, for the period 1900–2000. In a few cases, items written before 1900 have also been annotated: for example, significant editions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as the work of Furnivall for the Chaucer Society and the editions of Skeat and Pollard; Dryden’s translation of NPT, the earliest and the best of translations, which has generated its own critical literature; and the important monograph on the sources of NPT published by Kate Oelzner Petersen in 1898. The ‘Translations, Modernizations, and Retellings,’ unlike the other sections, annotates major contributions but otherwise gives only a sampling of the works produced. MkT and NPT, like much of the CT, have been extensively translated not only into modern English but also into foreign languages, and translations which at the same time modified the text considerably have been produced for children. Unpublished dissertations have been annotated only if they have subsequently entered critical discourse. MkP and the link in NPP are obviously integrated with MkT itself, and a number of the works annotated discuss these parts of Fragment VII of CT. Discussions of NPP will for the most part, however, be found in the bibliography for the NPT. The Monk’s portrait in the General Prologue, though often brought to bear on discussions of MkP-MkT-NPP and consequently mentioned from time to time in annotations in this volume, is primarily an integral part of GP and has been treated in the Bibliography for that part of CT, by Caroline D. Eckhardt, pp 273–86. The significant number of studies that see the tales themselves as part of a character drama amongst the pilgrims developed across the CT are dealt with in a separate section, ‘The Narrators of the Tales Considered as Characters.’ The arrangement of entries in all sections is chronological. The bibliographies of MkT and NPT were originally produced by separate teams organized by Tom Burton. In 1994, Peter Goodall assumed responsibility for the integration of this work into a single volume, and Tom Burton

Preface / xiii

continued with the volume on the Miller’s, Reeve’s and Cook’s tales, which came out in 1997. Annotations in this volume were written by Geoffrey Cooper (GC), Peter Goodall (PG), John Gray (JG), Bruce Moore (BM), Diane Speed (DS), Jennifer Strauss (JS), J.A. Stephens (JAS), Ruth Waterhouse (RW), and Christopher Wortham (CW). Areas of principal responsibility were as follows: Preface: Abbreviations: Introduction:

DS, PG PG, JAS PG

Monk’s Tale Annotations to 1919: DS Annotations 1920–39: RW Annotations 1940–64: PG Annotations 1965–79: JAS Annotations 1980–3: RW Annotations 1984–8: DS Annotations 1989–2000: PG

Nun’s Priest’s Tale Annotations to 1909: CW Annotations 1910–18: JS Annotations 1919–26: BM Annotations 1927–59: JG Annotations 1970–4: GC Annotations 1975–9: CW Annotations 1980–4: BM Annotations 1985–2000: PG General Index: PG, RW We have consulted materials available in a number of libraries, but we would particularly like to record our gratitude to staff in the libraries of Macquarie University and other Australian universities for their effort in obtaining inter-library loans. Ilse Lith kindly gave assistance with some German-language materials, and Carmel Davis produced a first draft of the

xiv / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

index. We would also like to express our thanks to Tom Hahn for his advice and support along the way.

Peter Goodall Geoffrey Cooper John Gray Bruce Moore Diane Speed John Stephens Jennifer Strauss Ruth Waterhouse Christopher Wortham

b Abbreviations and Works Cited CHAUCER’S WORKS CITED ABC An ABC Anel Anelida and Arcite BD The Book of the Duchess CkP The Cook’s Prologue ClT The Clerk’s Tale CT The Canterbury Tales CYT The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale FrT The Franklin’s Tale GP The General Prologue HF The House of Fame KnT The Knight’s Tale Lady A Complaint to his Lady LGW The Legend of Good Women Mel The Tale of Melibee MercB Merciles Beaute MerP, MerT The Merchant’s Prologue, The Merchant’s Tale MilP, MilT The Miller’s Prologue, The Miller’s Tale MkP, MkT The Monk’s Prologue, The Monk’s Tale MLT The Man of Law’s Tale NPP, NPT The Nun’s Priest’s Prologue, The Nun’s Priest’s Tale PardT The Pardoner’s Tale ParsT The Parson’s Tale PhT The Physician’s Tale PrT The Prioress’s Tale Pity The Complaint unto Pity PrT The Prioress’s Tale Ret Chaucer’s Retraction Ros To Rosemounde Rom The Romaunt of the Rose RR Le Roman de la Rose RvT The Reeve’s Tale Sht The Shipman’s Tale SNT The Second Nun’s Tale SqT The Squire’s Tale TC Troilus and Criseyde

xvi / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Th WBP, WBT WomUnc

The Tale of Sir Thopas The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, The Wife of Bath’s Tale Against Women Unconstant

JOURNALS AND LITERARY WORKS CITED AEB Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography Anglia Anglia: Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie AnM Annuale Medievale AN&Q American Notes and Queries Archiv Archiv für das Studium der Neuren Sprachen und Literature AUMLA Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association CE College English CEA Critic CEA Critic: An Official Journal of the College English Association ChauN Chaucer Newsletter ChauR Chaucer Review CLAJ College Language Association Journal CM Classica et Medievalia: revue danoise de philologie et d’histoire Crit Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts DA Dissertations Abstracts DQR Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo-American Letters E&S Essays and Studies EIC Essays in Criticism: A Quarterly Journal of Literary Criticism EJ English Journal ELH Journal of English Literary History ELN English Language Notes ES English Studies: A Journal of English Language and Literature ESA English Studies in Africa: A Journal of the Humanities ESt Englische Studien Expl Explicator FCS Fifteenth-Century Studies (Detroit) Fmod Filologia Moderna GRM Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift HSELL Hiroshima Studies in English Language and Literature HumLov Humanistica Lovaniensia ISSQ Indiana Social Studies Quarterly

Abbreviations / xvii

JEGP JMH JMRS JWCI KN LangQ LeedsSE Lore&L LTh MA MÆ Maledicta MiltonQ MLN MLQ MLR MP MS N&Q Names NLH NM NMS Parergon PBA PLL PMLA PQ RES RLC RomP RUO SAC SB SFQ Sicon

Journal of English and Germanic Philology Journal of Medieval History Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies Journal, Warburg and Courtauld Institute Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny Language Quarterly (University of South Florida, Tampa FL) Leeds Studies in English Lore and Language Journal of Literature and Theology Le Moyen Age: Revue Historique Medium Ævum Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression Milton Quarterly Modern Language Notes Modern Language Quarterly Modern Language Review Modern Philology Medieval Studies Notes and Queries Names: Journal of the American Name Society New Literary History Neuphilologische Mitteilungen Nottingham Medieval Studies Parergon: Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Proceedings of the British Academy Papers on Language and Literature Publications of the Modern Language Association of America Philological Quarterly Review of English Studies Revue de littérature comparée Romance Philology Revue de l’Universite d’Ottawa / University of Ottawa Quarterly Studies in the Age of Chaucer Studies in Bibliography Southern Folklore Quarterly Studies in Iconography

xviii / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

SN SP Spec SSF TLS TSL TSLL TUSE UTQ VJ WHR YWES

Studia Neophilologica Studies in Philology Speculum Studies in Short Fiction Times Literary Supplement Tennessee Studies in Literature Texas Studies in Language and Literature Texas University Studies in English University of Toronto Quarterly Vassar Journal of Undergraduate Series Western Humanities Review The Year’s Work in English Studies

GENERAL ABBREVIATIONS ch chapter dir director ed editor, edited by eds editors, edited by edn edition El Ellesmere [manuscript] et al and others f folio fasc fascicle Hg Hengwrt [manuscript] introd introduction, introduced by MLA Modern Language Association of America MS manuscript MSS manuscripts nd no date [of publication] no number ns new series p page pp pages pbk paperback rev revised ref reference rpt reprinted supp supplement trans translator, translated by v verso vol volume

b

Introduction

The tales told by the Monk and the Nun’s Priest are the ‘odd couple’ of the CT collection. Although they are clearly linked in the prologue to the NPP, both textually and as part of the developing pilgrimage narrative, one of the most persistent motifs in criticism of the two tales has been the difference, indeed the incompatibility, between the tales. This can be seen in several different ways. NPT is one of the most scintillating of Chaucer’s comic tales, and its first commentator, the Host among the pilgrims, heaps praise upon both the tale and its teller. In contrast, the Host is so bored by the tale of the Monk that he interrupts it rudely (as does the Knight in some manuscripts) and brings it to an abrupt end. Most readers during the last two hundred years have concurred with the Host’s valuation of the two tales, although it is worth mentioning that MkT is one of the few tales to be found on its own, detached from the pilgrimage frame, in manuscripts of the fifteenth century. Despite the textual links between the tales, they were clearly written at different times and for different purposes. NPT is usually accepted as one of the works of the mature Chaucer at work in the 1390s; MkT bears all the signs of having been written early, before the framing plan of CT evolved, and was then revised in the mid 1380s after the death of Bernabò Visconti, the subject of one of the so-called ‘modern instances,’ in 1385. On the other hand, the Monk narrator is one of the most vividly realized of all the pilgrims portrayed in GP, although this creates problems of compatibility with the tedious and seemingly formless collection of tales that he tells. The Nun’s Priest, however, appears only as an afterthought in the collection of portraits in GP, one of the ‘preestes thre’ that make up part of the retinue of the much more socially important Prioress. Many readers have felt that NPT is quintessentially Chaucerian, as if, as Muscatine (857) argues famously, the tale sets a seal on Chaucer’s oeuvre. MkT, on the other hand, has seemed so dull and anonymous that many critics have explained its incompleteness as the product of Chaucer’s early writing or been reduced to defending its structural weakness as part of a deliberate plan on Chaucer’s part to demonstrate the Monk’s poor compositional skills or weak grasp of philosophical issues. The history of scholarship and criticism on the two tales is also very different. NPT has raised profound questions of reading and interpretation:

xx / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

to the Host and to early readers, the tale epitomised the pleasures of reading a comic text about a lustful and proud barnyard animal; to many critics of the twentieth century the tale could be read as deeply as an allegory of the Fall of Adam and Eve from Paradise. On the other hand, MkT has been approached in terms of genre, of the tragic mode, of an understanding of the operations of fortune in history. It is one of the most complex of the tales in terms of its text, existing in significantly different forms in different manuscripts, and textual criticism has been an important part of its scholarly history.

Editions of the Complete CT Until the late eighteenth century, CT was read in poor quality texts derived from the original printed edition of Caxton. The first attempt in modern times to restore the text of CT from the MSS was made by Tyrwhitt (2). He consulted twenty-five MSS, in what seems now an unsystematic way, and collated them with the early black-letter edition that he used as his copy text. Tyrwhitt’s notes are especially good, and he printed the fable by Marie de France, one of the analogues of NPT, for the first time. Wright (4) established the preference of earlier nineteenth-century editors for MS Harley 7334, used also by Morris (5) in the ‘Aldine Edition.’ It was Furnivall who first stressed the importance of the Ellesmere MS in his Six-Text Edition (7), not an edition in the usual sense of the term, but a transcription of the six most important MSS of CT. The practicability and usefulness of this is typical of Furnivall’s best contributions to the study of Chaucer, and it became the basis of most modern editions before Manly-Rickert (97). (Neither Skeat nor Robinson, for example, worked directly from the MSS.) Furnivall divided CT into nine groups for the first time and adopted the ‘Bradshaw Shift,’ whereby Fragment VII (which contains MkT and NPT) was moved to a position after Fragment II, thus creating Group B (with Fragment II as Group B1, Fragment VII as Group B2). The ‘Modern Instances’ in MkT were printed after Zenobia, not at the end of the tale where they occur in Ellesmere and some other MSS. Other important editions based on the Six-Text Edition are the Oxford Chaucer (15), edited by Skeat; the Globe Chaucer (19), edited by Pollard et al.; and the College Chaucer (49), edited by MacCracken. A second period of editing the whole of CT culminated in the editions of Robinson (85 and 116) and Manly and Rickert (97). The Oxford order of the tales was rejected and the Ellesmere order restored, although the Modern Instances were still placed after Zenobia. The second edition of Robinson (116), as far as MkT and NPT are concerned, is much the same as the first, despite Robinson’s comment in the preface to the second edition about the

Introduction / xxi

importance of the Manly-Rickert edition (97). The new Everyman edition by Cawley (118) was based on the second edition of Robinson. Pratt’s edition (146) was also based on Ellesmere, although he adapted what he called the ‘1400 order,’ based on arguments he advanced in (266). The third period of editing, perhaps beginning with Manly-Rickert (97), who first suggested that the Ellesmere MS was overrated, and put into more practical effect by Donaldson (121), was marked by an interest in MSS other than Ellesmere. Donaldson’s selection used Hengwrt as his base, and this trend culminated in Blake’s edition of the whole work from the Hengwrt MS (175) and the decision of the Variorum editors, including the editor of the Variorum NPT (180), to use Hengwrt as their base text. Although Blake emphasizes the fragmentary nature of CT and believes that there is no definitive order of the fragments, he believes that Hengwrt is the best MS and the earliest. Not all editors have followed this trend, however. Fisher (172) used Ellesmere as his base, as did the Riverside edition (184), under the general editorship of Benson. One of the most recent selected editions by Kolve and Olson (187) takes the interesting step of using Skeat’s Oxford Chaucer (15) as its base, although taking many specific readings from Hengwrt and from other twentieth-century editions. The staying power of Ellesmere is attested by the publication of the new facsimile (190) in 1995.

Editions of Single Tales or Selections Unlike NPT, there have been no single editions of MkT and it has not been a favoured text for selections or anthologies. Skeat edited MkT with PrT, ClT and SqT (8), using Ellesmere as his base text. MkT also forms part of a trio of tales edited for students by Wyatt and Drennan (86). The same editors produced (106), in which MkT is linked with Th. When MkT has been anthologized, it has usually been for the tale of Ugolino (see Logie Robertson 27, Herford 30, Kaluza 55, and Halverson 162), or for its prologue (see Ferguson 59, Wyatt 84, Dunn 111, Wallis 117, Pratt 147, and Howard 155). In contrast, NPT has been one of the most commonly anthologized of the tales and has been the subject of important single editions. It was first edited with GP and KnT by Morris (6) in 1867 from MS Harley 7334, and the second edition was collated with the MSS printed in the Six Text Edition 7. When Skeat revised this edition in 1889 (13), he used Ellesmere as his base. The first single edition of NPT is Bamburgh’s fine edition in blackletter type on hand-made paper (23) in 1902. Subsequent single editions were made by Pollard (36) in 1907, Winstanley (51) in 1914, Patterson (56) in 1920, Sisam (69) in 1927, Coghill and Tolkien (123) in 1959, Hussey (143) in 1965, and

xxii / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Pearsall for the Variorum Chaucer (180) in 1984. Although many of these editions were intended for use in school or university - and bowdlerized accordingly by omitting VII.3964–75 where Chauntecleer ‘feathers’ and ‘treads’ Pertelote - the eminence of some of their editors is a testimony to their importance: in his introduction to (180), Pearsall says of Sisam’s edition (69) that ‘it is without doubt the best edition of any part of Chaucer’s works that I have ever come across.’ Because of its popularity as a teaching text in schools and universities, NPT has frequently formed one of an edition of selected CT. There are too many to mention individually, but some of the more important ones are by Liddell (22) in 1901 (which presents itself as ‘the first really critical text for any part of the Canterbury Tales’), Wyatt (29) in 1902 and (73) in 1928 and (77) in 1929, French (102) in 1948, Cook (129) in 1961, Barber (126) in 1961, Kee (145) in 1967, Howard (155) in 1969, and Kolve and Olson (187) in 1989. The commonest pairings for editorial purposes have been with GP and KnT.

Fine Art Editions and Facsimiles There have been many fine editions of CT, beginning in modern times with William Morris’s Kelmscott Chaucer (18) in 1896, based on Skeat’s Oxford Chaucer (15), with illustrations by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Facsimiles of the Kelmscott Chaucer can be found in (122 and 167). The Medici Society fine art edition (48), illustrated by W. Russell Flint, is based on the Oxford Chaucer (15) as well, as is the Golden Cockerel Press edition (75), illustrated by Eric Gill, and the limited folio size edition by William Van Wyck (83), with illustrations by Rockwell Kent, in 1930. The Folio Society edition of 1986 (182), uses the text of the second edition of Robinson (116) with a facing-page verse translation by David Wright. As mentioned above, Furnivall’s parallel transcription of six of the most important MSS of CT (7) was fundamental to editions of the poem for nearly a century. Subsequent transcriptions of MS Harley 7334 (9) and MS Cambridge Dd 4.24 (24) gave rise to the expression ‘Eight-Text Edition.’ A reproduction of Thynne’s edition of 1532, with an introduction by Skeat (34), was published in 1905. (For another facsimile of Thynne’s edition, together with supplementary material from the editions of 1542, 1561, 1598 and 1602, see 154.) A facsimile of the Ellesmere edition (40), with a preface by Alix Egerton, was published by Manchester University Press in 1911. The Variorum Chaucer was inaugurated with a facsimile and transcription of the Hengwrt MS, edited by Paul Ruggiers (174). There is a facsimile of Cambridge University MS GG.4.27 (173), with an introduction by M.B. Parkes and Richard Beadle. The

Introduction / xxiii

Manchester University Press facsimile of the Ellesmere MS (40) was itself reproduced in reduced format, with an introduction by Ralph Hanna III, in (186), but this was designed essentially as a ‘working copy,’ biding the publication of The New Ellesmere Chaucer Facsimile (190), which for Chaucerians must surely be one of the publishing events of our time.

Translations, Modernizations and Retellings The boundaries between translating, modernizing and retelling Chaucer’s tales in English can often be hard to draw. One of the most important translations of NPT, by Dryden (1), has generated a critical literature of its own, concerning not just qualitative and interpretive differences between poet and translator, but wider questions of poetics and, because Chaucer’s tales are frequently studied in translation, with or without the teacher’s approval, of pedagogical practice. A famous criticism of Dryden’s translation can be found in Housman (816). An overview of Dryden’s practice as translator can be found in Frost (852). Trigg (1060) examines several points of comparison between Dryden’s and Chaucer’s versions of the story. Hinnant (912) believes that Dryden exaggerated his Chauntecleer’s sexual proclivities as part of a satirical portrait of Louis XIV of France. Miner (904) analyses Dryden’s changes to Chaucer in the context of classical theories of narrative. Rowland (1004) examines the changes Dryden makes to the herbs in the barnyard. Trigg (1060) raises a number of important differences between the two versions of the story.

Modernizations and Retellings in English Other eighteenth-century retellings and modernizings of CT can be found gathered in Bowden (188). Cowden Clarke’s prose Tales from Chaucer (3), containing a version of NPT, was very influential and frequently reprinted, as was Seymour’s Chaucer’s Stories (88). The heyday of retellings of CT, whether in prose or verse, is the earlier part of the twentieth century. NPT is usually represented in these, whereas MkT tends to be omitted or summarized. Many are aimed at a readership of children or young people. Interesting examples include Harvey Darton (32), McSpadden (35), Tappan (38), Macaulay (42), Stead (43), Underdown (47), Sturt (50), Martin (76), Farjeon (80), and Hitchens (100). Free adaptations from the latter half of the twentieth century include Wood’s choral version (101), and the playscripts by Woods (176) and Pickering (185). The relationship between NPT and Masefield’s poems ‘Rey-

xxiv / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

nard’ and ‘The Widow in Rye Street’ is discussed by Berkelman (804). Translations and modernizations, as distinct from retellings and often the work of scholars, are much more a feature of the twentieth century. Sinclair (620) reviews various translations from the perspective of the College teacher. Skeat himself published a bowdlerized translation of NPT into verse couplets in 1904 (33). Burrell’s Everyman edition (37) is partially and inconsistently modernized, but Tatlock and Kaye (46) claims to be the first modern translation of Chaucer’s poetry. A limited edition in folio size by William Van Wyck, with illustrations by Rockwell Kent, with verse translations on facing pages of Skeat’s Oxford Chaucer (15) was published in 1930 (830). The first verse translations of CT to be widely available were made by Hill in the 1930s (88, 91), frequently illustrated and used for deluxe editions. The introduction to MkT, the story of Ugolino, NPT and most of the other CT were translated into prose by Lumiansky (104), and he included a Middle English text of NPT, minus NPP and endlink, as well. Morrison (107) translated most of CT into verse couplets, in a highly condensed form of the original, with MkT mostly summarized in prose, for the Viking Portable Authors series. NPT was translated into verse by Coghill (109) for a fine art publication, subsequently incorporated into his translation of the whole of CT (110), with the exception of Mel and ParsT, reprinted many times and often used as the base text of deluxe editions. The Hieatts’ facing-page edition and translation of seven tales including NPT (139) has been widely used as a teaching text in schools and universities. Wright translated all of the tales into prose (141) and into verse (181). Although NPT on its own has been retold and translated on several occasions, the only translation of MkT on its own is by Donohue (130).

Translations into Languages Other than English The translation of CT into languages other than English has almost as venerable a history as English modernizings or retellings. Again, the work has frequently been performed by eminent medievalists, for example Barnouw (53 and 79) and Legouis (62). There are translations of one or both of these tales into many languages, with multiple translations into some, for example French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Reference Materials There are a number of general bibliographies of English literature that

Introduction / xxv

contain material on both tales, for example the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, edited by Bateson (212), with supplement by Watson in 1957, and new edition by Watson (235). The Year’s Work in English Studies 196 has for some years had a separate chapter on Chaucer, and for twentyfive years Dorothy Everett edited the Middle English section, publishing many authoritative and influential reviews of Chaucerian scholarship and criticism. The MLA Bibliography (197) has been published annually since 1922. An important medieval bibliography is Wells’s Manual of Writings in Middle English and its supplements (194, 195, 199, 202, 205, 206, 209, 211, 213) and Brown (215). The first major items specifically on Chaucer are Hammond’s Bibliographical Manual (191) and Corson’s Index of Proper Names (192). Hammond’s work is still valuable for its detail and for the incisiveness of its judgements. Thereafter, work seems to have begun in the 1920s. Spurgeon’s Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion (404) was reprinted in three volumes in 1925. (Supplements and revisions of it can be found in Bond 425, Bond et al. 429, Boys 439, Whiting 445, Alderson 451, Johnson 527 and 545, and Boswell 546.) Tatlock and Kennedy’s concordance to Chaucer’s works (204), based on earlier work by Flügel, was published in 1927 and was an essential part of the study of Chaucer until superceded by the KWIC (keyword in context) concordance edited by Oizumi (249). Whiting’s study of Chaucer’s use of proverbs can be found in (207), and it was incorporated into a broader study of proverbs from English writings before 1500 (229). Bryan and Dempster’s Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (441) was published in 1941: the chapter on MkT is by Root, and on NPT by Hulbert. See also Morris’s guide to Chaucer source and analogue criticism (531). Magoun’s work on Chaucer’s geographical references culminates in his Chaucer Gazeteer (222). The major bibliographies of scholarship and literary criticism of Chaucer are by Griffith for 1908-24 (201) and 1908-53 (218), and by Crawford 1954–63 (227). L. Baird’s bibliographies for 1964–73 (236) and 1974–85 (with Hildegard Schnuttgen, 245), are indispensable. Koch (200) is an exhaustive review, in German, of Chaucer scholarship to date. French’s Handbook (203), published in 1927, also summarizes previous work. Other bibliographies of Chaucer include Baugh (228). Annual reports and indexes of importance include ‘Chaucer Research Report’ in Chaucer Review (210, 1937), International Guide to Medieval Studies (221,1961), and ‘Chaucer Research in Progress’ in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen (230,1969). Specialized bibliographies on the relationship between Chaucer and one particular subject have been a feature of the 1970s and 1980s: for example, Chaucer’s Bawdy by Ross (232); the Chaucer Glossary by Davis et al. (238);

xxvi / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Chaucer and the Italian trecento by Giaccherini (240); Chaucer and the Bible by Besserman (246); and the Chaucer Name Dictionary by De Weever (247). A more discursive guide to CT can be found in Cooper (248).

Manuscript and Textual Studies The textual history of CT is unusually complicated, and MkT and NPT, with their prologues and endlinks, have contributed a significant part to it. In the view of Cooper (248), MkT raises more substantial textual problems than any other of CT. There are a number of problems: in light of the varying order of the tales in the MSS, the decision of late nineteenth-century editors to make the ‘Bradshaw Shift,’ moving Fragment VII, which contains MkT and NPT, to follow Fragment II, thus creating Furnivall’s Group B; the omission of the Adam stanza in the Hengwrt MS of MkT; the positioning of the ‘Modern Instances’(the tales of Peter of Spain, Peter of Cyprus, Bernabo Visconti, and Ugolino of Pisa) in MkT at the end of the tale in some of the best MSS, including both Ellesmere and Hengwrt; the lack of an endlink to NPT, again in some of the best MSS, including Ellesmere and Hengwrt. The relative merits of Ellesmere and Hengwrt have been the subject of intense study and debate since Manly and Rickert’s edition (97), but especially in the last twenty-five years. The complex history of manuscript affiliation and interrelationship can be followed in several places: McCormick’s description of the contents of MSS of CT (262); Manly and Rickert’s edition (97); Blake’s Textual Tradition of the Canterbury Tales (295); and Owen’s Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales (303). A handy summary can be found in Hanna’s introduction to the textual notes of the Riverside edition (184). Volume 2 of Seymour (305a) describes all the MSS of CT. The correspondence between Bradshaw and Furnivall that led to Furnivall’s acceptance of the ‘Bradshaw Shift’ is studied by Baker (278). In another article (271), Baker points out that not one of the MSS contains this seemingly logical order, and that there are insufficient literary and thematic grounds to accept the shift or the possible extension of the ‘marriage group.’ Skeat later recanted his acceptance of the shift (253 and 255), but Tatlock (263) continued to argue that the Oxford Chaucer order was the best practical solution to a chaotic state of affairs. Pratt’s proposed compromise (266) accepted the movement of Fragment VII to follow MLT, but rejected Furnivall’s further move of Fragment VI (Group C) to follow NPT. Pratt’s order has the ingenious effect of following the NPT endlink with the Wife of Bath’s Prologue, although Pearsall (180) points out that this goes clean against the MS evidence. Gardner (274) also argues against the Bradshaw Shift. Benson

Introduction / xxvii

(279) argues that most MSS of CT can be divided into type a and non-type a orders of the tales, with Hengwrt itself considerably removed from the ancestor of all non-type a orders. In (277) Blake argues that the Hengwrt order should be given more serious attention, although there is no evidence that it reflects Chaucer’s intentions (281). Jones (296) develops an argument along numerological grounds for interchanging Fragments V-VI and IX-X and moving Fragment II back to Fragment VII. The rise in estimation of the Hengwrt MS is one of the key aspects of textual criticism of CT in recent years. Its revaluation began in the Manly and Rickert edition (97). It has been used as the base text of the Variorum Chaucer, a decision endorsed by Pearsall in his edition of NPT (180) for the series, (although see Hanna 305b for criticism of this), and for Blake’s edition of CT (175). Its idiosyncratic order of the tales and its less regular spelling and metre than Ellesmere have come to be seen in our time as markers of its authority and authenticity rather than the opposite. Pearsall (291) illustrates the superiority of Hengwrt to Ellesmere with two examples from NPT. In Blake’s view (284), Hengwrt is the earliest MS of CT, put together by an editorial committee that had access to only one exemplar, probably Chaucer’s working copy. Passages that are not in Hengwrt, for example the Adam stanza in MkT, the ‘long’ version of NPP, or the endlink to NPT, must be rejected as later additions to the poem and hence not by Chaucer (295). Owen (303) disputes that there was a single copytext of CT available to scribes and editors in the years immediately following Chaucer’s death. Part of the fascination of the struggle between the two MSS for preeminence is that scholarly opinion is mostly of the opinion that they were written by the same scribe (see Owen 303 and M.L. Samuels, ‘The Scribe of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere Manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales,’ SAC 5 [1983], 49–65), although Ramsey (286) offers a differing view. There has been much discussion of the placement of the Modern Instances in MkT. Although they come last in both the Ellesmere and the Hengwrt MSS, almost all editors (including Skeat 15, Pollard 19, Robinson 85 and 116 and Manly-Rickert 97) have placed them medially after Zenobia. Brusendorff (260) argues, however, that they should come at the end of the tale, but Braddy (727) and Tatlock (263) argue that they should come in the middle. Fry (742), though believing that Chaucer originally placed them medially, thinks that the placement at the end does represent Chaucer’s own final revision. Both the prologue and the endlink to NPT have textual problems. In a study of the ‘infamous’ b group MSS of CT, Boyd (302) points out that Hengwrt and thirteen other MSS, including all of the b group MSS, use a shorter version of NPP, in which the Knight’s interruption of the Monk is not

xxviii / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

followed by the Host’s criticisms. Editorial treatment of the shorter prologue is surveyed by McCormick (262) and by Blake (288). The endlink is found in only nine MSS, those of group a, and is not present in either Ellesmere or Hengwrt. Sisam’s edition (69) firmly rejected it, although the opinion of most scholars seems to be that it is genuine, but represents a cancelled passage, with its material reworked in MkP. For discussion of this see Skeat (253), Brusendorff (260), Kase (261), Gibbons (267), Owen (303), and Mosser (300).

Prosody and Language Studies From the time of the metrical studies of Ten Brink in the nineteenth century, the eight-line stanza of MkT attracted a small amount of attention: Egerton Smith (320) thought it might have been the basis of the Spenserian stanza, although this was disputed by Pope (321) and Maynard (329). Philmus (389a) explores the connections between the stanza of MkT, the Scots sonnet and the Spenserian sonnet, stressing that the ‘Spenserian’ sonnet does not belong to Spenser alone. Maynard believed that the source of Chaucer’s stanza was not the Italian ottava rima but the French ballade octave. Fisher (374) sees the pentameter and stanzaic forms of MkT derived from French models. Vockrodt (311) attempts to establish the chronology of Chaucer’s works by a statistical analysis of certain types of rhyme. Joerden’s study (312), also in German, stresses the importance of cadence in Chaucerian rhythm and uses examples from NPT. Halle (352) applies transformational linguistic methods to the study of Chaucerian prosody. Mustanoja 357 is a survey of scholarship on Chaucer’s prosody, discussing final -e in particular. Robinson’s controversial study of Chaucer’s prosody (361) includes a reference to the chase scene in NPT as an example of the use of the half-line. Crépin (368) argues that NPT is constructed throughout in blocks of verse of approximately twelve lines. Pearsall (388) points up the difference between Chaucer’s metrical practice, as attested by MSS, and his editors ancient and modern. Tolkien’s letter to the poet John Masefield (332,1938, published in 1981) is cautious about ‘supposed’ fourteenth-century pronunciation in readings and advocates instead a modified modern pronunciation, restoring rhymes but otherwise avoiding archaisms. Burnley’s wide-ranging book on Chaucer’s language (378), Kerkhof’s traditional language study (353), Roscow’s book on syntax (375), and Sandved’s Introduction to Chaucerian English (383) make many references to MkT and NPT. Blake’s study of the English language in medieval literature (367) draws on NPT but not on MkT. Peters’s book on Chaucer’s Language

Introduction / xxix

(370), designed as a brief introduction for students, contains a phonetic transcription of MkT VII.2423–30. Mersand’s study of Chaucer’s use of words derived from French 331 finds that there is a slightly higher percentage of Romance words in MkT than NPT, concluding that Chaucer’s use of Romance words was at its height in his middle years and trailed off after 1386. Benson’s (347), Bauer’s (354) and Ness’s (377) studies of the historical present include examples from NPT. Tieken-Boom van Ostade’s study of periphrastic do (387) sees the examples in MkT (‘Fader, why do ye wepe?’ and ‘Is ther no morsel breed that ye do kepe?’) as the only examples of its use in Chaucer. Baum (343) and (344) examine Chaucer’s use of puns, with examples from NPT. De Weever’s study of personal names (369) refers to both tales, but Eliason (363) draws only on NPT. Kolinsky (355) analyses the use of thou and ye between the Monk and the Nun’s Priest. There are many studies of particular words and phrases in both tales. Studies of MkT include ‘corpus madrian,’ Norris (328), Frost (334), Byers (351), Haskell (356); ‘Goodelief,’ Rickert (322 and 324), Richardson (323), Seaton (337); ‘vitremyte,’ Hart (308), Tatlock (307), Jenkins (325), Young (366), Di Marco (358). Studies of NPT include Baird (372) on the etymology and variant meanings of ‘cock’; ‘cold,’ Salmon (345); ‘colour,’ Daniels (349); ‘gladly,’ Bloomfield (348), Hinckley (316); ‘harrow,’ Henshaw (338); ‘lawriol,’ Robbins (358); ‘our’ [dogge], Tatlock (317); ‘seynd,’ Dickens (330); ‘worthy,’ Camden (327).

Critical and Scholarly Studies of Both Tales Items that refer to both tales fall into two broad categories: those that draw comparisons between the tales, usually as part of a general survey or the study of a particular theme, and those that do not. In the latter category can be found many general studies of Chaucer’s work produced over the years, from Pollard (600) in 1893 to Phillips (722i) in 2000. In this same broad category there are also many studies of a more specialized nature. There are, for example, the general source studies of Root (393), Looten (430) and Miller (496). Studies of the influence of particular authors or literary traditions include Shannon (427) and Minnis (515) on pagan antiquity, Fyler (501) on Ovid, Fansler (402) on the Roman de la Rose, and Schless (530) on Dante. A reverse source study is Miskimin (657) on the reception of Chaucer in the Renaissance, which makes the point the MkT was read in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, not as a part of the characterization of the monk-narrator, but as ‘Chaucer’s’ kind of tragedy. Other specialized studies of Chaucer’s influence by or use of various literary genres or

xxx / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

bodies of ideas, which refer to both tales independently without comparison between them, include Benson (666) on gesture, Minnis (511) on academic prologues, Lindahl (702) on folklore and festival, North (709) on astrology, and Ganim (713) on parody and theatricality. A distinct sub-branch of this category contains studies of the relationship between Chaucer and the social world. Manly’s (551) attempt to locate real life originals for Chaucer’s characters has few modern imitators, but there are several studies that put Chaucer’s work in its socio-historical context: for example, Brewer (665), Knight (695), and Olson (591). Perhaps the largest group of items that refer to both tales without drawing extensive comparisons between them are the various kinds of narratological study of Chaucer. Kittredge (604) was the first to draw attention to the significant relationship between narrator and tale, work extended in a similar vein by Lumiansky (561) amongst many others, but subjected to increasing criticism in recent years, for example by Lawton (589), who finds the narratorial voice of MkT indistinguishable from that of the legends in LGW or Davenport (722c), who argues that the narrator of NPT has no character beyond ‘this sweete preest.’ The pervasive concern with irony in Chaucer has its beginnings in the 1930s, in the work of Dempster (612) and Birney (613 and 614) in particular. Major studies of the narrative art of Chaucer, (a significant number of them written by authors whose first language is not English), include the two books by Schaar (621 and 622), Bishop (699), Burrow (649), Mehl (696), Boitani (675), and Koff (708). Most of the studies of the two tales that have a comparative element have sought either to discover a common theme that both tales address or to locate both tales within a wider grouping in CT. The relationship between the Monk and the Nun’s Priest as characters and narrators, and by extension between their respective tales, was a significant part of the dramatic reading of CT from its early days. An early study of the Monk and Nun’s Priest is Hemingway (605), which sees Chauntecleer as a comic portrayal of the Monk, but the topic continues to be of interest, for example Delasanta (570), Fox (584), and Hussey (705). Dramatic readings of CT that include detailed comparison between both tales include Watson (634), which sees NPT as designed to remedy the sense of hopelessness in MkT. Owen (644) and Lawton (589) are unconvinced that the text itself sustains this kind of interpersonal drama between the narrators, although Owen finds evidence of ‘design’ in CT in the literary interests of the narrators. Comparative discussion of both tales can often be found in studies of rhetoric. The seminal studies are by Manly (607) and Naunin (611). Naunin disputes Manly’s view that Chaucer began as a conscious exploiter of formal rhetoric and gradually moved to a more imaginative use of devices, and stresses the influence of the rhetori-

Introduction / xxxi

cians at all stages of Chaucer’s career. More specialized aspects include Barney’s (674) study of lists and Woods’s (719) study of sententiae. Burrow (677) and Scanlon (720) compare the exemplary mode of both tales. Two of the most important points of comparison between the tales are the themes of fortune and tragedy. Discussion of the treatment of fortune in the two tales began early, in Patch’s study of the goddess Fortuna (610), and in the work done on Chaucer’s use of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy: Jefferson (407), Koch (415), and Patch (437). The relationship between the theme of fortune and both tales is also examined in Watson (634), Ruggiers (637), Strange (569), and Kean (651). Ellis (693) argues that although the Nun’s Priest is unwilling to relate God directly to the events of the story, the Monk sees God as the heavenly auctor of every earthly tragedy. Chaucerian tragedy, the literary manifestation of this general interest in questions of destiny in both tales, is represented by several important studies beginning in the 1960s, many of them influenced by Robertson’s article (737): Mahoney (628), Hussey et al. (635), Hatton (640), Ruggiers (653), Simms (655), Reed (710), and Rigby (722). Perhaps the most important field of comparison between the two tales has been part of the attempt to understand the wider grouping of CT to which they belong. This project seemed to increase in importance once the movement of the tales of Fragment VII to create group B2 (the ‘Bradshaw-Shift’) was no longer generally accepted. Allen and Moritz (670) propose a new thematic grouping, based on Ovidian concepts of change, in which both tales form part of a ‘moral’ group. Generally speaking the tales of Fragment VII, including the two under immediate consideration here, seem to be linked by common literary and methodological approaches rather than common themes, although NPT has often been conscripted as part of an extended ‘marriage’ group, for example Owen (641). Baum (624) sees both tales as part of a ‘surprise’ group. Howard (659 and 701) interprets the whole fragment as a study of private conduct. Brown (711) reads the tales in terms of the mental climate of the fourteenth century. Gaylord (639) and Cooper (682) see the tales as part of a debate about the nature of literature in Fragment VII. Although this is a widely-accepted view, Condren (722f) makes the point that no two critics seems to agree what these literary perceptions might be. David (658) sees the Monk and the Nun’s Priest as espousers of two different views of fiction. Owen (662) stresses the self-contained nature of Fragment VII. Fichte (667) examines the tales as part of the process by which poetry makes order out of the chaotic nature of existence. Hill (715) makes the point that the tales of Fragment VII tend to be companion rather than ‘quitting’ tales. Sklute (687) points to the element of inconclusiveness in Chaucer’s work. Gruenler (722g) offers a ‘Girardian’ reading of the theme of violence in

xxxii / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

the fragment. Pearsall 684 believes that the integration of Fragment VII was undertaken only in the mature phase of Chaucer’s writing life. Other themes that have afforded a basis for comparison between the two tales include men and women (Kenyon 606); the social ‘contest’ (Knapp 714); the ‘one and the many’ (Lawler 669); the world upside down (Klene 668); joy (Dean 656); and the use of mirrors in the light of the Derridean concept of mise en abyme (D’Agata D’Ottavi 712). Leitch (679) and Benson (691) examine the treatment of the themes of ‘sentence’ and ‘solaas’; Haas (694) and Richmond (473) discuss the laments for the dead in both tales; and Jager (706) gives a detailed comparison of the treatment of the story of Croesus in both tales.

Critical and Scholarly Studies of the Monk’s Tale The bulk of commentary on MkT has involved contextualizing in some form - historical, cultural, philosophical, or literary. For a work that includes references to contemporary history, relatively little purely historical research has been done on the tale - as distinct from historical research on the Monknarrator and monks in general. There has been renewed interest in the 1980s in the historical context of Chaucer’s Monk and in Chaucer’s view of monasticism, but whereas work in the 1930s and 1940s focussed on possible real-life models for the Monk, more recent work has tended to see both portrait and tale as engaging with wider and more general questions. Both Aers (690) and Knight (695) see a battle between traditional ideologies and ‘the newe world.’ Olson (590) stresses the ambivalence of the Monk’s position, caught between a life of contemplation and temporal power, and links this with the town of Rochester mentioned in MkP. The only other area of major historical study is the handful of articles on the two Peters in the tale, including the long article by Savage (733). More recently, the murder of Peter of Cyprus has been discussed by Edbury (751), by Jones (753) in his discussion of chivalry and Chaucer’s Knight, by Taggie (762) and by Howard (701). On the other hand, the hunting for sources, combined with an examination of the cultural and philosophical traditions of the tale, has always been a fruitful area of study. The first articles in the early twentieth century discuss the word ‘Trophee’ (VII.2117) and the Pillars of Hercules, with views for and against the source of the tale in Guido delle Colonne’s Historia (see Hamilton 391, Kittredge 309, Emerson 309, Tupper 313 and, for a later treatment, Pratt 346).

Introduction / xxxiii

When the writing of scholarly articles on the tale began in earnest in the 1920s, one of the commonest topics was the relationship of the tale to the tradition of thought about fortune, tragedy and Boethius. Koch’s long article in German (415) traces all Chaucer’s borrowings from Boethius. More recently, Minnis (510 and 515) has examined the contribution of medieval commentaries on Boethius, especially Trevet’s, to Chaucer’s understanding. The series of writings by Patch, based upon his Harvard doctoral dissertation of 1915, examines the tradition of fortune from Roman times. Patch sees MkT as a reversion to the pagan idea of fickle fortune. His book (610), although it does not discuss MkT at any length, remains a seminal study of the goddess Fortune in medieval literature. Farnham (728) is not greatly interested by the tale, believing that Chaucer has added nothing of significance to Boccaccio’s conception of tragedy. Later work has tended to stress the problems and contradictions of the Monk’s view of fortune. Socola (735) argues that the tale presents successively three different views of fortune. For Ruggiers (653), the tale is an exception to Chaucer’s general practice, which is to soften or ironize the presentation of the bleaker aspects of experience. McAlpine (748) sees the tale as ironic: the Monk misconceives the true nature of fortune and experience, especially in his undervaluation of human choice and power. In the view of North (709), the Monk does not distinguish between sin, original sin, and adversity brought about by no personal fault. Olsson (582) sees the Monk as having a purely secular view of tragedy, from which spiritual values have been excluded. Lepley (747) argues, however, that the tale is a sound Boethian one. Haas (694) discusses the tragic ‘laments’ in the tale that echo the traditional idea of tragedy as luctus carmen, but in (765 and 769) she stresses the similarities between Chaucer and other early Humanist tragic writers such as Boccaccio and Petrarch, all influenced by the revival of interest in Seneca. On a different track, Pace (738) deals with the theological tradition, both learned and popular, of the notion of Adam in Hell. The form this takes in MkT reflects a popular rather than a learned view, going back to the early Middle Ages. The literary context of the tale has been the subject of considerable study from the beginning. Although MkT is mentioned briefly in general narratological and stylistic studies like Schaar (621 and 622), the establishment of this literary context has more often proceeded through the identification of sources and analogues, this work culminating, although by no means ending, in Bryan and Dempster’s book (441). Because of the central position of Boccaccio’s De Casibus as a source, this study has frequently been linked to the question of Chaucer’s knowledge of Italy and Italian influence in general upon his work. The relationship between Chaucer and the writers of the Trecento has been the subject of study from the beginning - see Snell (608),

xxxiv / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Toynbee (397), and Edmunds (603) and is examined in a collection of essays edited by Boitani (680). Pratt (730) believes that the visits of 1373 and 1378 can be differentiated in literary significance. Whereas most of CT showing Italian influence date from the period after 1378, MkT belongs to the period 1373–8. Chaucer visited Genoa and Florence in 1373, where the Divina Commedia was extremely popular. Larner (759) suggests what Chaucer may have seen in Italy and provides an overview of changes in Italian culture which are relevant to a reading of Chaucer. The question of Chaucer’s relative dependence on Boccaccio has been contentious from the beginning: whereas for Tatlock (406) MkT is ‘wholly the creation of Boccaccio,’ one of the first studies, Schirmer (422) thinks it doubtful that Chaucer knew Boccaccio’s work and sees the similarity to De Casibus as mostly accidental. This approach is strongly opposed by Wallace (778c), who argues that MkT exemplifies Chaucer’s identification with Boccaccio’s humanist project. Neuse (778m) suggests that the worldly monk of the GP is an ironic double of Boccaccio himself. Root’s view (441) is that Boccaccio’s work provides the general idea of a series of exemplary tragedies, but contributes little of substance to MkT. A detailed comparison of the Zenobia episode in Boccaccio and Chaucer is made by Godman (522). Babcock (428) stresses the breadth of the tradition of stories dealing with fortune. Boitani (494) compares the tale with the work of both Boccaccio and Dante. Because of the widely admired Ugolino story, comparison with Dante has been a regular theme in commentary on the tale (see Kellett 413, Looten 423 and 430, and Boitani 494 and 507). Chaucer has usually fared the worse in the comparison, although Neuse (717) argues for MkT, seeing CT as a whole modelled on the Divina Commedia. Praz (424) believes that Chaucer was unaffected by the sublimer sides of Dante’s genius, and imitates Dante’s style better in the story of Peter the Cruel. A comparison of the treatment of the Ugolino story in (446) allows us to understand the essential differences between the writers. Spencer (435), MacCallum (431), Schless (530), Boitani (494), and Wallace (534) see Chaucer replacing the terror of Dante’s Ugolino with a story of pathos: Botterill (537) sees Ugolino more like the imprisoned Lancelot in Le Chevalier de la Charette than Dante’s silent figure. Stugrin (754) examines the pathos of the Canterbury Tales in the context of Ricardian poetics. Pinti (548f) argues that it is important to appreciate and understand the influence of contemporary commentators on Dante. There is also a long tradition of comparison between Chaucer’s work and classical authors, particularly Ovid. Shannon (401) details Chaucer’s debts to Ovid and Virgil, and suggests that Chaucer’s confusion of the episodes of Busiris and Diomedes could have resulted from a misunderstanding of Heroides ix, 67–70. This question is examined by Hoffman (465), and again in

Introduction / xxxv

his larger-scale work, Ovid and the Canterbury Tales (470). Lock (492) sees the Monk’s classical knowledge as wide rather than deep, the literary allusions thus undercutting the Monk’s literary pretensions. Waller (499), DiMarco (544), and Taylor (548) discuss the details of Nero’s nets and Caesar’s father as examples of the transformations of Roman history in medieval tradition. For the biblical stories, Wimsatt (438) and Aiken (443) suggest Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum Historiale as an important source. Johnson (448) argues that the Bible Historiale of Guyart Desmoulins, rather than the Vulgate, was the principal source of the biblical passages in the tale. According to Jones (729), the usual elements of the medieval sermon as described by Owst (in Preaching in Medieval England for example) are present in MkT, but in a different order. The relationship of the Monk to his tale has produced a steady flow of research papers. Before about 1940, this work was mainly historical, trying to decide how typical or untypical of medieval monasticism Chaucer’s Monknarrator is or whether Chaucer had a particular monk in mind as a model. Tatlock (554) argues that Chaucer produces ‘types,’ and does not accept that the Monk is based on a particular individual. Later work has emphasized the differences between the Monk of the Prologue and the Monk of the Tale (Malone 559), although many writers, particularly New Critics, have seen this contrast as deliberate irony on Chaucer’s part. Several explain the contrast by pointing to the philosophical and theological weaknesses of the Tale, so that the tragedies ironically reveal the intellectual limitations of the narrator (Oruch 739, Strange 569, Delasanta 570, Knight 652, Sequeira 576, Howard 659, and Burlin 660). It is striking how often this view was expressed in the 1960s and 1970s, although in its basic assumptions it goes back to Kittredge. Not all writers, however, have agreed with this conflict of narrator and tale: Brown (565) sees many echoes of GP in the Tale, especially in the tragic heroes who are hunters. Taylor (741) rejects the assumption that the purpose of the tale is to characterize the narrator and believes that the relationship between the Monk and the narrative is logically appropriate. Berndt (575) suggests the monastic vice of ‘acedia’ as the link between the narrator and the tale; Marzec (597) sees the link between narrator and tale in the reference to St Edward, whose love of hunting is frequently mentioned. Knight (778m) suggests that the theme of ‘lordship’ is common to both teller and tale. In recent years, Lawton (589) and Benson (691) have attacked the New Critical concern with the ironic relationship of tale to teller: the tragedies are suitable for a typical monk, but are not designed for the particular Monk of GP. Another aspect of the tendency during the last forty years to read the tale ironically can be seen in the number of articles that have sought to

xxxvi / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

interpret MkT in terms of its relationship with other tales or with other narrators. The most obvious relationships are with the Host, who introduces the tale, the Knight, who interrupts it, and NPT, which follows it. Leitch (679) and Hussey (705) examine the function of host(s) in CT. Godman (522) believes that MkT is a deliberate, subtle and successful response to the Host’s provocative introduction. Malone (559) sees the Knight’s interruption as deliberately and dramatically rude, and his views as representative of the ‘general unsophisticated public to literary art.’ Other writers have elaborated upon the conflict between the Knight and the Monk: Kaske (562) sees a conflict of ideals and archetypes and an intellectual battle between two types of Boethianism. This view is echoed by Ebner (743). Fry (742) suggests a further possibility of conflict if there is an identification between Peter of Cyprus and the Knight; Jones (753) similarly sees the Knight as foreclosing a tale which has become damagingly personal. The relationship between MkT and NPT has been the subject of many studies. Hemingway (605) sees Chauntecleer as a comic portrayal of the Monk’s personal characteristics. Watson’s article (634) is a detailed treatment of the relationship between MkT and NPT: although both tales bear characteristics of the sermon, the basic contrast between them is between tragedy and comedy. Delasanta (570) proposes that the mainspring of NPT is personal antagonism towards the Monk. Hatton (640) compares the Monk and Chauntecleer as ‘false knights.’ Jager (706) compares the tales through the connections between Croesus and Chauntecleer. New theoretical apporaches in the last twenty years have provided different ways of understanding the relationship between the tales. D’Agata D’Ottavi (712) interprets the tales in a post-structuralist way, providing mirror images of each other. Ganim (713) uses Bakhtin to explore the parodic relationship between the tales. Manly’s idea that the Monk was the original narrator of MerT is defended and elaborated by Garbáty (572) and Cooper (586), and Rudat (758) draws further comparisons with MerT in a study of Chaucer’s parodic treatment of Christian attitudes towards sex. MkT has frequently been discussed as a member of a group: Gaylord (639) discusses Fragment VII as the ‘literature group’; Owen (662) sees the tales of Group B2 as unusually selfcontained and marked by a tendency not to develop relationships with GP portraits; for Brown (711) Fragment VII is marked by the low intrinsic quality of the tales (with the notable exception of NPT) and the unsurpassed quality of the links that join them; for Hill (715), the tales of the fragment are ‘companion’ rather than ‘quitting’ tales. Baron (750), Owen (757), and Mann (760) discuss Chaucer’s view of children and posit a group of ‘children’s tales’ within CT all concerned with violence towards children, with the story of Ugolino as a paradigm for the whole group. Ellis (693) discusses MkT as

Introduction / xxxvii

one of a group of religious narratives. Elliott (763) distinguishes between the stanzaic and the non-stanzaic clerical tales, the solemn, pathetic nature of the former contrasting with the fable form of the latter. Before the 1980s, there was relatively little stylistic criticism on MkT. The publication in 2000 of papers presented at a colloquium on the tale in 1998 (778g–778l, 778n) shows how much things have changed. The eight-line stanza attracted some attention in the 1920s. The 1920s also saw the first investigations of medieval rhetoric. Manly’s 1926 monograph (607) is seminal, arguing that Chaucer gradually freed himself from the constraints of formal rhetoric and moved towards a style based upon the observation of life. MkT, appropriately for a series of tragedies, is one hundred per cent rhetoric and its high style is parodied by NPT, which follows it. Manly’s views are disputed by Naunin (611), who believes that formal rhetoric can be observed at all stages of Chaucer’s career. Ramanzani (775) and Woods (719) see MkT parodying the rhetoric of abbreviatio in contrast to the more familiar parody of amplification in NPT. With the growth of interest in all aspects of literary theory since the late 1960s, including the literary theory of the past, these questions have been given a new lease of life. Minnis (511) looks at the influence of the academic prologue on literature of the Middle Ages. Scanlon (720) analyses the tale’s relationship with various strands of the medieval exemplum tradition. The possibilities for irony in the tale are discussed by Dempster (612), who sees the Monk as missing a series of wonderful chances for developing the irony of fate, and Birney (614), who sees this early tale as exhibiting many of the ironies previously thought typical only of the later Chaucer. In the last twenty years, there has been a significant increase in the number of narratological studies of CT (see Boitani 675, Mehl 690, Bishop 699 and Koff 708). Barney (674) analyses Chaucer’s ‘lists,’ drawing an analogy between MkT and CT as a whole, in that separate stories exemplify a single theme and become elements in a list. Reiss (673) looks at those details or ‘particulars’ which, while standing apart from the narrative, frequently have thematic significance. Frese (594) traces the struggle in MkT between the textual and the oral traditions of medieval writing. Gittes (773) looks at MkT in connection with the framed collection generally. To this generation of critics, contrast and incompleteness in MkT have been noticed and praised rather than unity and coherence (see Sklute 687 and Benson 691). Boenig (778) questions whether MkT is actually a fragment at all. With the exception of the Ugolino episode, however, few critics have thought highly of the literary qualities of the tale. The major exception is Taylor (741), although Kelly (778k) emphasizes that the ‘minibiographies’ were not just Chaucer’s first attempt at writing tragedy but the first attempt by any author in a European vernacular. Burrow (649) discusses the tale’s ‘pointing’ and comments

xxxviii / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

that the modern preference for large-scale narrative has resulted in the undervaluation of small-scale narrative, and Knight (652) contrasts the later stories, which show more flair, with the dull early ones. Godman (522) thinks that past critics of the tale have read Boccaccio rather than Chaucer and sees the Monk as using Boccaccio subtly to thwart the Host.

Critical and Scholarly Studies of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale Sources and Analogues As long ago as 1932, G.K. Chesterton (813) pointed out how much Chaucer enjoyed referring his readers to other books by other writers. Source studies are perhaps the earliest form of literary criticism of NPT, and the earliest form of this study is the relationship of the tale to other animal stories and fables. The entry on NPT in Bryan and Dempster’s Sources and Analogues (441), written by J.R. Hulbert, provides a comprehensive collection of source texts. In his 1775 edition of CT, Tyrwhitt identified Marie de France’s poem Del cok e del gupil as a source of NPT and printed it from the MS for the first time. The same French fable was translated into English verse by Skeat as part of the notes for his edition (15) in 1894. A few years later in 1898, Kate Oelzner Petersen published her monograph on the sources of NPT (390). She locates NPT within the genre of animal epic, and argues that its closest parallels are branch ii of the Roman de Renart and the opening episode of Reinhart Fuchs, although the tale is not specifically derived from either. She sees the primary substance of the story as a trick and a counter-trick, rather than the pursuit by the dogs identified by earlier scholars. Lecompte (408) criticizes Petersen’s work, seeing such similarities as exist between branch ii of the Roman de Renart and Reinhart Fuchs as the result of two men of letters working independently with the same material. Detailed comparisons between Chaucer’s tale and the French beast story analogues is provided also by Pratt (485) and by Thomas in his dissertation (518). Henderson (514) counsels against the easy assumption that we can transfer the meanings of any prior text to a new text. Terry (524) provides an English translation of various branches of the Roman de Renart, including branch ii. There are many studies of the fabular and beast epic traditions from which NPT emerges: Narkiss (1072) stresses the differences between the ‘fabular tale’ of NPT and the authoritarian form of classical fable; Robin (815) surveys animal lore in English literature; Rowland, in a variety of publica-

Introduction / xxxix

tions, especially (945), discusses Chaucer’s animal world; Dargan (392) provides a genealogy of the cock and fox fable from an analysis of motifs in fifteen versions; McKnight (396) contains much information about medieval beast fables of European and non-European provenance; Fish (456) sees the keynote of Chaucer’s version in its union of mock-heroic style and the talking-beast fable. The Reynard tradition in particular is surveyed in many publications. Torrance (498) discusses the Reynardian figure in society as part of a study of the comic hero. Best (520) provides an introduction to the major Reynard poems with summary and commentary. Boussat (454) and Flinn (459) survey the Reynard tradition from a French perspective. The iconographical aspects of the tradition are dealt with in Varty (461). Literary comparisons between NPT and Henryson’s Taill of Schir Chantecleir can be found in Ker (808), Fox (468), McDonald (474 and 484), Kratzmann (506), and Mehl (529). There are also many studies of other sources for NPT. Thompson (458) believes that Chaucer’s familiarity with the Bible was largely second hand, from French rather than Latin sources. Crider (458) argues that Chauntecleer’s allusion to Daniel and dreams is to Daniel 4, rather than Daniel 7 as most editors suggest. Peck (512) and Thomas (533) discuss the allusion to Romans 15: 4 in NPT VII.3440–3. Boenig (548e) observes that saints are mentioned constantly in CT, and many of the details of the life of St. Kenelm not mentioned directly by Chaucer inform the tale and provide an analogue to PrT as well. The relationship of the tale to various classical texts has also been a rich source of study. Almost all of these sources are Latin, but Andreas (1028) deals with the Aristotelian legacy in Chaucerian comedy. Haas (505) and (694) studies the lament for the dead in classical and medieval times and Chaucer’s use of the tradition. (The work on Geoffrey de Vinsauf is listed in a separate section below.) McCall (991) discusses NPT as part of a study of Chaucer’s use of classical mythology. Minnis (515) examines Chaucer’s knowledge of pagan antiquity. Koch (415), Shannon (427), Harbert (489), and Hoffman (470), are general surveys of Chaucer’s use of classical authors and texts. Of the influence of the major Latin writers, Nitchie (409) discusses Virgil, Fyler (501) and Minnis (502) discusses Ovid, and Cowling (609) attributes the story of the murdered man in the dungheap to Cicero’s De Divinatione. Particular attention has been paid to the Disticha Catonis and the work of Boethius. Brusendorff (426) and Thomas (539) examine the references to Cato in the argument between Chauntecleer and Pertelote. The study of Chaucer’s use of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy has a long scholarly history, in the work of Jefferson (407), Koch (415), and Patch (437). The reference to Boethius’s theory of music is the subject of a number of articles: Chamberlain (483) points out that Boethius rates reason higher

xl / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

than the senses in the performance of music; for Dieckmann (440), Olson (442), and Dronke (467) the reference to Boethius’s ‘feelynge’ in music is ironic. The classical sources of Chaucer’s dream theory are examined in several books and articles. Hieatt (901) concluded that Chaucer was being deliberately confusing in a subject that he found fascinating but unresolved; the various publications of Curry - (792, 794 and 801) - warn against exaggerating the influence of Macrobius on Chaucer; Pratt (497) sees Robert Holcot’s Super Sapientiam Salomonis as the treatise followed most closely by Chaucer in NPT. There is also a considerable body of work on the influence of various medieval Latin texts: Kordecki (1057) on the Glossa Ordinaria; Minnis (511) on academic prologues; Pizzorno (1058) on the Latin etymological tradition; Grennen (460) on Roger Bacon’s De Retardatione Accidentium Senectutis; Aiken (436) on Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum Naturale and Speculum Doctrinale; Hale (541) on Nicholas of Lyra’s Postilla Litteralis; Pratt (472) on the Communiloquium of John of Wales; Brown (411) and Steadman (466) on the Altercatio Hadriani; and Mann (493) and Thomas (517 ) on the Speculum Stultorum. Yates (525) examines the Latin beast fables of the Middle Ages that Chaucer may have used in NPT. The influence of medieval vernacular works has also been the subject of much study. The most important texts are the Divine Comedy and the Roman de la Rose. Kellett (413) balances Chaucer’s use of Dante against Dante’s insensibility to incongruity and humour. Schless (530) is a general study of the relationship between Chaucer and Dante; Guerin (486) sees the reference to Launcelot de Lake at NPT VII.3210–13 as deriving from Inferno 5, although Brewer (487) thinks it may be a dig at the expense of Marie de Champagne. Fansler’s 1914 study (402) of Chaucer’s use of the Roman de la Rose stresses the importance of Jean de Meun’s philosophical passages for NPT; Clark (464) discusses Chaucer’s use of the figures of Mirth and Gladness as part of the characterization of Chauntecleer. Kelly (543) suggests that the description of the phoenix in Mandeville’s Travels could have provided Chaucer with many of the details of Chauntecleer’s portrait. Thomson (1068) discusses some of the ways in which the tale and its characters recall aspects of medieval drama and performance. There is less work on the opposite side of this process, the influence of NPT on later works, but Miskimin (657) makes some references to NPT in her study of Chaucer in the Renaissance. Walker (1067) believes that NPT influenced parts of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. O’Neill (516) suggests that Milton’s daybreak scene in ‘L’Allegro’ 49-52 is adapted from NPT VII.31917. Fulwiler (547) speculates that the film Babe is a twentieth-century version of NPT. Olmert (538) points to an analogue of NPT in the eskimo story of the

Introduction / xli

raven and the marmot.

Interpretation More than any other of CT, NPT has raised issues of interpretation, not just in terms of particular ideas, but in terms of the practice of reading and understanding medieval works in general. Indeed, many critics have seen ‘interpretation’ as the tale’s main theme. For Koff (708), Chauntecleer is Chaucer’s ‘most profound and blatant hermeneutist.’ Aers (690) sees in the debate over the meaning of Chauntecleer’s dream a contrast between the materialist reading of Pertelote and Chauntecleer’s appeal to the authority of ‘olde bookes.’ Justman (998) sees the tale as part of the late medieval attack on the symbolic or anagogical way of perceiving reality. As part of a study of metaphor, Travis (1073) explores the connections between the tale and ‘marguerite’ poetry that developed in France from the 1360s. Allen and Moritz (670) put NPT at the centre of an ‘interpretation group’ within CT, warning against certain modes of reading, inviting an allegorical interpretation and then showing its perverse reductionism. The relationship between fiction and reality is discussed by Josipovici (943); and for Brody (989) the tale’s main theme is the seriousness and truth of fiction. David (658) sees NPT concerned with all the questions of authorship and containing many traps for the unwary critic. A whole generation of critics has celebrated the ‘ambivalence’ of NPT. One of the most influential statements of this view is by Muscatine (857). For him the one constancy in the tale is its shifting of focus and multiplicity of perspective: NPT is ‘supremely Chaucerian in its poise before an overwhelming question, “What is this world?”.’ Rodax (642) places the tale at the intersection of the real and the ideal. Lawler (669) uses NPT as an example of the complementary relationship in the tales between unity and diversity, oneness and multiplicity. Sklute (687) stresses the purposeful inconclusiveness of CT as a whole, with the tales of Fragment VII as the most striking example. Many commentators have drawn attention to the tale’s hybridity of form, including Lenaghan (564) and Mehl (696). Elbow (970) uses NPT as part of larger argument about the nature of dialectic, in which Chaucer transcends oppositions that seem to be irreconcilable. This instability of form, genre, and meaning has made the tale especially attractive in the last twenty years to literary theorists, for example Galván-Reula (1032) and the Bakhtinian reading of Ganim (713). For most critics the tale’s literary worth is closely bound to its generation of multiple patterns of interpretation. Brewer (988) sees the rich diversity of opinion as to what NPT is ‘about’ as a sign of its greatness

xlii / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

as literature. This modern and postmodern tolerance of uncertainty and ambivalence found its strongest opposition in the many attempts in the 1950s and afterwards to read NPT as allegory rather than irony, with a revealed meaning in full communion with the traditions of the patristic interpretation of scripture. Miller (915), Rogers (1003), Rollinson (1013), and Rigby (722) offer surveys of these kinds of approaches. Donovan (843) interprets Chauntecleer as a fallen soul, subsequently saved when proved alert. Williams (846) and Dahlberg (452) argue that the tale reflects thirteenth and fourteenth-century controversies between the friars and the secular clergy: the fox is a symbol of the heretic, and the cock, on the other hand, is a symbol of the priest. The heyday of allegorical readings, not just of Chaucer, is the 1960s, especially in the work of Robertson and Huppé. Robertson (871) urges an ‘historical’ reading of medieval texts, in which the love of God (caritas) is recommended as supremely important, and in which action and representation are governed not by reference to physical reality, but to the intelligible world of concepts defined by the Church Fathers. Huppé and Robertson (876) borrow the words ‘fruyt’ and ‘chaf’ from NPT for the title of their book, although there is no direct discussion of the tale. There are many partial allegorical readings of NPT as well, some in combination with an ironic and dramatic perspective. Allen and Moritz (670) is a good example of this kind of approach, seeing the real presence of exegetical material as part of the tale’s comedy. Scanlon (1052) stresses that deconstructive accounts of allegory frequently point out the interconnectedness of allegory and irony. Many of these kinds of interpretation turn on the significance of Chauntecleer. Holbrook (848) and Adams and Levy (889 and 903) read him as a figure of Adam, and his encounter with the fox as an allegory of the Fall. Baird (1006 and 1022) extends this in her discussion of the gallus-deus, the cock as Christ. Ellis’s major study of the religious tales (693) examines the emblematic structure of NPT, in which Chauntecleer’s and the widow’s lives are opposed. Chauntecleer’s story should function like a rake’s progress, although there is no precedent in religious literature for the sinner to save himself. There are many figurative readings of a moral and political, as distinct from a religious, nature. Speirs (831) sees the tale as a profound commentary on human nature, warning especially against the vanity that goes before a fall. In his study of the relationship between Chaucer’s work and the medieval exemplum tradition, Scanlon (720) sees the crucial opposition in the tale as between the exemplary and the fabulous rather than the allegorical and ironic. Many critics have read the exemplary side of the tale in ironic terms, for example Shallers (973) and Spearing (1044). Kittredge (604) makes the nice point that the exemplum almost swallows up

Introduction / xliii

the sermon. Readings of NPT as political allegory are much less common, although Hotson’s article (795) has been often reprinted. His contention that the tale alludes to the conspiracy to murder the Duke of Gloucester in 1397 has not met with wide acceptance. The opposition to patristic readings of medieval texts, especially of the more universalising kind, was led by E. Talbot Donaldson. As early as 1960 (866), he argued that the influence of patristic exegesis on Middle English poetry was slight, and that it was doubtful whether the Church Fathers had wanted to devise rules for poets. For Donaldson (866 and 947), the ‘point,’ in some senses the moral point, of the tale lies in its absurd rhetorical elaboration. The injunction in the final lines of the tale to separate its fruit from its chaff could only be taken ironically: to all intents and purposes the fruit of the tale, especially in literary terms, is its chaff. This view has been echoed by a great many commentators: Scheps (936); Eliason (650); Kolve (967); Rogers (1003); Blamires (700); Boitani (1063). Manning (868) differentiates narrator from poet in the question of the tale’s meaning. The narrator takes seriously the search for meaning in the fable, but his provision of so many possible morals shows that he too is part of the burlesque. Style and Rhetoric This ironic mode of reading, the conviction that the tale’s importance lies in its form and literary expression, the very things that the narrator appears to encourage us to reject as chaff, has been helped in great part by the growing understanding of the importance of rhetoric. A seminal study is Manly’s 1926 article (607), which has often been reprinted. Murphy (462) challenges the view that Chaucer was familiar with classical and medieval rhetorical texts. Payne (877 and 917) and Jordan (997) also discuss Chaucer’s general relationship to medieval rhetoric. Travis (1040) examines Chaucer’s references to the study of grammar as well as rhetoric. Bishop (699 and 986) analyses the tale in terms of the seven liberal arts. Camargo (598) uses NPT to illustrate Chaucer’s revivification of the Platonic-Aristotelian concept of rhetorical ‘ethos,’ the way in which the real character of the poet or orator comes through the text. Although, for Manly, NPT satirizes the whole apparatus of medieval rhetoric, he sees the development of Chaucer’s career not as a rejection of rhetoric as a whole, but in a more discriminating and dramatically appropriate use of it. Naunin (611) countered that the influence of the rhetoricians is apparent at all stages of his career, sometimes more in the later works than the earlier. Brewer (847) emphasizes Chaucer’s firm grasp of literary traditions. The standard view of Chaucer’s satire, Everett (851) or Burlin (660) for example, is that it is directed at the misapplication of rhetoric in the

xliv / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

farmyard rather than at rhetoric per se. A more sophisticated aspect of the same argument can be found in Gallick (971). A particular focus of commentary is the series of laments for the dead at the narrative climax of NPT. There is a survey of the genre in Richmond (473). Tyrwhitt (2) identified ‘Gaufred, deere maister soverayn’ (NPT VII.3347) as Geoffrey de Vinsauf. Faral (420) made a number of medieval rhetorical texts, including Geoffrey’s Poetria Nova, readily available. Baldwin (803, 806, and 812) emphasized Chaucer’s parody of the prolixity and mechanical use of ‘colours’ recommended in Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s work. In particular, comparisons between NPT and the apostrophe on the death of King Richard in Poetria Nova, the fifth of six examples, are frequently made, but Hamilton (432) and Young (444) compare Chaucer and Geoffrey de Vinsauf also on the theme of ‘worldly joye is soon ago’ (NPT VII.3206), the sixth of Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s examples. Comparisons between the two Geoffreys almost always redound to Chaucer’s benefit, eg, Beck (872), but Kökeritz (340) doubts that Chaucer’s references to rhetoric are as ironical as they are often supposed, and Kelly (481) offers a defence of Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s work. NPT has figured prominently in studies of Chaucer’s narrative technique and style, for example Schaar (621 and 622), or in Schauber and Spolsky’s ‘generative poetics’ (1014). According to Taylor (1019), CT offers various points of view about language, without clearly supporting either the realist or the nominalist view. The tale is often cited in support of general claims about Chaucer’s abilities as a writer of narrative, especially shorter narrative, for example Bronson (826) and Long (830). Most studies of the style of NPT have stressed its ‘mixed’ nature, for example Brindley (879). For Muscatine (896), Chaucer’s style is both protean and constant. The mock-heroic aspect of the style of the tale has been extensively discussed: Jack (790), Elliott (359 and 364), Hussey (942), and Knight (362 and 1010). Irony has likewise been a major focus of stylistic studies of the tale from the 1930s. Examples from NPT can be found in the pioneering studies of Dempster (612), Birney (613 and 614). Other substantial treatments are by Owen (845), Ramsey (918), and Knapp (1025) amongst many other passing references. The whole trend, an ‘epidemic’ of ironic readings, is given a hostile review in Pearsall (1035). NPT is cited frequently in Ewald’s 1911 study (779) of humour in CT. Other studies of particular aspects of the style of the tale include oral delivery and the use of popular phrases by Crosby (824); preaching by Friedman (954), Gallick (971), and Wenzel (979); imagery by Rowland (920); the exemplum by Coghill (893) and Scanlon (720); aphorisms by Chapin (1064); proverbs and sententiae by Perry (805), MacDonald (894), Pazdziora (1001), and Woods (719); oaths by Elliott (359); and lists by Barney (674). The use of seemingly irrelevant or superfluous phrases for thematic purposes, ‘thematic particu-

Introduction / xlv

lars,’ is examined by Reiss (673). There are many studies of particular words and phrases in the tale. Some of the examples that have drawn the attention of more than one commentator are ‘confusio’ (NPT VII.3164) by Eliason (953), Kealy (966), and Dane (389); ‘owls and apes’ (NPT VII.3092) by Shaver (335), Rowland (350), and Regan (380). One of the most venerable matters of narrative technique is the relationship between the Nun’s Priest as narrator and his tale. The so-called ‘dramatic’ reading of CT has its origins in the work of Kittredge (604). Studies in this tradition, which accept the appropriateness of the narrator to the tale and read it in terms of the Nun’s Priest relationship with the Monk or Prioress, include Hulbert (557); Malone (559); Lumiansky (560, 561, and 568); Broes (563); Hatton (640), Delasanta (570), and Watkins (573). More skeptical notes were struck from the 1960s: by Harrington (566), Lawlor (914), and especially by Lawton (589). Watkins (573) sees the Nun’s Priest as an unreliable narrator; Oerlemans (595) disputes the prevailing view that the Nun’s Priest is a supremely gifted narrator; for Pearsall (689), the tale is misread if spoken by any voice other than the ‘maturest and wittiest voice of the poet himself.’ The status of the endlink, which offers most of the physical portraiture of the Nun’s Priest, is particularly important, and is discussed in Pearcy (571) and Pearsall (180 and 689).

The Relationship of NPT to Other Tales and Its Place in CT as a Whole The three most significant areas of study of the relationship between NPT and other tales are its relationship to MkT, its place in the wider grouping of Fragment VII, and its function as part of a putative ‘marriage’ group. Studies of the first kind of relationship originate in the vogue for dramatic readings of CT, for example Hemingway (605). Watson (634) offers a comprehensive study of the relationship between MkT and NPT. Jager (706) looks particularly at the figure of Croesus in the two tales; Reed (710) compares Chauntecleer to Nebuchadnezzar; D’Agata D’Ottavi (712) interprets the relationship between the tales in terms of specularità; for Hill (715), both tales continue the exploration of the theme of prudence begun in Melibee, an idea also discussed in Burlin (660). The dramatic reading of CT strongly affected the view of NPT as an extension of the marriage group. This emerges very early in Kittredge (549 and 604), Tupper (782), Lawrence (839), and Kenyon (606). Later discussions can be found in Dempster (842) and Kaske (956). In recent years, attention has shifted to the place of NPT in Fragment VII. Baum argues in (624) that Fragment VII is a ‘surprise’ group. For Gaylord (639) and Cooper (682), Fragment VII is the ‘literature’ group, and is held

xlvi / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

together by the theme of story-telling. In Howard’s view (659), the tales of Fragment VII constitute a section on the theme of ‘private conduct,’ and all, with the exception of NPT, reflect and enhance the portraits of the narrators in GP, although Owen (662) argues that the tales are unusually self-contained and do not generally develop relationships with the GP portraits. Howard’s argument in (701) is that NPT gives the tales of the fragment unity in retrospect. Brown (711) points out the contrast between the low intrinsic quality of most of the tales of the fragment and the ‘unsurpassed’ quality of the links that join them and NPT. Other groupings proposed for NPT include a ‘moral’ group by Allen and Moritz (670) and tales about ‘love’ by Markman (895). Whatever the grouping, most commentators seem to feel that the concerns of NPT are close to Chaucer’s own and are a kind of final statement: for Muscatine (857) NPT ‘epitomises’ CT; Traversi (683) sees NPT at the heart of CT; for Pearsall (689) NPT is the best and most inimitably Chaucerian of all the tales; Williams (704) sees the tale reflecting back on all the others; Knapp (714) sees the tale in dialogue with all the other tales. Only Baldwin (850), in a book about the unity of the Canterbury Tales, argues that the work is not a whole but a ‘congeries’ of tales.

NPT in Its Intellectual, Theological, and Social Context The commonest intellectual and theological contexts for NPT have been found in such areas as dream theory, astrology and astronomy, medicine, anti-feminism, determinism, and in social histories of the lives of the poor in the Middle Ages and in the Peasants’ Revolt. Many of these studies were established in the earliest days of criticism of the tale. The dream lore of NPT formed part of Curry’s (801) comprehensive study of the medieval sciences and of substantial articles (792 and 794). Further discussions can be found in Sharma (887), in Hieatt (901, 911, and 1048), and Kohl (958). Stahl (450) and Peden (532) discuss Chaucer’s knowledge of Macrobius in particular; Weidhorn (907) discusses medieval dream theory as part of a wide-ranging study of the ‘anxiety dream’ in literature; and Flavin (1024) compares the dreams in NPT to those in Paradise Lost, canvassing the possibility that Milton was influenced by Chaucer. Studies of astrology and astronomy have likewise played a large part in the interpretation of NPT. Grimm’s 1919 study (788) of astronomical lore in Chaucer makes several references to NPT, as do the major astrological studies of Wood (924 and 939), Manzalaoui (968), Eade (1031), and North (709). The connection between the tale and the Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn is discussed by Eisner (495). Particular dates have often produced interpretative cruces in

Introduction / xlvii

the text: for example ‘syn March bigan’ (VII.3190), discussed by Peters (1049); and the significance of May 3rd, discussed by McCall (870), Williams (638), and Kellogg (950). Wilson (898) sets Chaucer’s use of dates in the context of the ‘symmetrical’ dating found in other medieval texts. Other scientific contexts for the tale have been found in medicine, particularly in Pertelote’s knowledge, by Emerson (787), Paffard (855) and Gallacher (975); arithmetic by Brewer (1023); and in many studies of natural history. A series of articles and books by Rowland has explored Chaucer’s knowledge of animal lore, for example (878, 921, 945, and 960). Apart from the studies of the symbolism of the cock, Lawrence (796), Harrison (854), and Glowka (379) comment on Chaucer’s knowledge of and love for birds. Pearcy (386) comments on the reputation of foxes for hedge-breaking. The two most significant areas of ideological context for the tale are the anti-feminist tradition and the debate about fortune and predestination. Many critics from Tupper (782) onwards have commented on the querelle des femmes in the tale. This takes various forms in the tale: the consequences for the tales of the Nun’s Priest’s relationship with the Prioress; the old wives’ herbal lore that Pertelote dispenses; the two chickens as courtly lovers. Broes (563) argues that ‘every element in the story bears some relation to the Priest’s implicit aim ... to discredit the Prioress and establish his own intellectual and moral superiority.’ Aspects of the relationship between the two tales are also explored in Hawkins (881), Ridley (567), McGinnis (578), Fox (584), Olson (591), and Cox (599). The representation of courtly love in parodic form in Chauntecleer and Pertelote is discussed by Dodd (780), Steadman (922), and Dor (1046). In recent years, the relationship between the sexes in the tale has been discussed from a feminist perspective as well. For Delany (526) Chaucer’s changes to his sources represent a move away from a popular story, in which a feminist viewpoint clearly opposes the clerical antifeminist tradition, towards a more orthodox view in which Chauntecleer is ultimately proved right and Pertelote wrong. Mann (1056), on the other hand, sees the relationship between Chauntecleer and Pertelote as the most original and witty dramatization in CT of traditional gender roles within the context of marriage. The debate about free will and predestination that the Nun’s Priest raises himself has been the subject of a great deal of criticism. The various writings by Patch (610, 615, and 725) make frequent reference to NPT as part of a history of the classical goddess Fortuna in a Christian context. This is also explored by Strange (569) in a study comparing NPT with MkT. Mogan (482) refers to the tale as part of his study of the theme of mutability in CT. There are many studies of the theology ofpredestination that bear upon the tale. For Pantin (853), in his study of the English church in the fourteenth century,

xlviii / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

NPT shows how much the debates about free will and predestination affected lay people. Leff (856) illuminates some of the tricky terminology of necessity in his study of Bradwardine. Reiss (673) sees the tale asserting the providential order that MkT had denied. Ames (1026) stresses Chaucer’s Christian humanism and the parodic spirit of the tale, seeing the Nun’s Priest as only a moderate determinist and Chauntecleer more at the mercy of flattery than destiny. The atiric spirit in which these weighty matters are discussed is also empahsized by Corsa (631), Cottle (647), and Payne (978). For Dean (656), NPT is a tale about the joys of this world rather than the next. Wentersdorf (371) reviews the various interpretations of ‘by heigh ymaginacioun fomcast’ (NPTVII.3217), linking them to the fox’s actions and offering the interpretation ‘by dire and premeditated treachery.’ The other major area of discussion about the religious dimension of the tale is the extent to which it seriously offers a moral to be followed. Manning (1047) discusses NPT in the context of medieval attitudes to fables. Hieatt (931), Myers (956), and Boulger (962) suggest in various ways that the moralising of the tale not be dismissed too lightly. Pearsall (1002) and Shaw (1027) emphasize the dangers in moral readings of the tale. For Shaw, Chaucer is a contrast to Gower, whose trust in wisdom and books of the past as moral correctives contrasts with Chaucer’s doubts about the moral values of edifying tales. In the early part of the twentieth century there were some notable attempts to find real life parallels to the characters and events of NPT. The example of Manly (551) was not extensively followed, although there are later studies in a similar vein by Sherbo (558) and Williams (638). NPT has more often been cited in studies, historical or literary, that allude to fourteenth-century social life more generally, especially the life of the poor, although often with the caveat that the information provided is sketchy and the depiction of the widow’s life tinged with the picturesque: Coulton (798); Bennett (807); Whitmore (823); McKisack (862); Brewer (873); Cottle (647); Kirkpatrick (523); Uhlig (961); and Kinght (695). There are also several specific studies of the reference to the Peasants’ Revolt, although Astell (1059) is one of the few comparative studies of NPT and Gower’s Vox clamantis. Eberhard’s (785) reference to NPT is part of a comprehensive study of the literary treatment of the Revolt from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century and Pettit (1036) contextualizes the tale in a study of the language of festival in incidents of social revolt. Simms (655) also discusses Jakke Straw as a folk figure. Fehrenbacher (1062) explains the scant attention paid to the mention of Jakke Straw in NPTVII.3794-6 as due to the ahistorical bent of much modern Chaucer criticism. But the ‘specter of Jack Straw and his meynee muscling their way into the text demonstrates how such attempts fail.’

Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

This page intentionally left blank

b Editions, Translations, Modernizations, and Retellings The great majority of entries are from the twentieth century, but there are some important earlier items, of intrinsic value and necessary to establish context. Tyrwhitt 2 made the first attempt in modern times to restore the text of CT from the MSS. His notes are especially good, and he printed the fable by Marie de France, one of the analogues of NPT, for the first time. Furnivall’s Six-Text Edition 7 of 1868, a transcription of six of the most important MSS, stressed the importance of the Ellesmere MS, at that time still in private hands. Furnivall’s transcription became the basis of such important editions as Skeat 15, Pollard et al. 19, and Robinson 85 and 116. An important period of editing, perhaps beginning with Manly-Rickert 97, who first suggested that the Ellesmere MS was overrated, was marked by an interest in MSS other than Ellesmere. Donaldson’s selection used Hengwrt MS as his base, and this trend culminated in Blake’s edition of the whole work from the Hengwrt MS 175 and the decision of the Variorum editors, including the editor of the Variorum NPT 180, to use Hengwrt as their base text. Not all editors have followed this trend, however. Fisher 172 used Ellesmere as his base, as did the Riverside edition 184, under the general editorship of Benson. There have been no single editions of MkT, and it has not been a favoured text for selections or anthologies. In contrast, NPT has been one of the most frequently anthologized of the tales and has been the subject of important single editions, for example Sisam 69. One of the earliest, and arguably the finest, translations of NPT, by Dryden 1, has generated a critical literature of its own. Cowden Clarke’s prose Tales from Chaucer 3, containing a version of NPT, was very influential and frequently reprinted, and there were many retellings of CT, in prose or verse, in the early twentieth century. The first English verse translations of CT to be widely available were made by Hill in the 1930s. Coghill’s translation of the whole of CT 110 has been reprinted many times and often used as the base text of deluxe editions. The Hieatts’ facing-page edition and translation of seven tales including NPT 139 has been extensively used as a teaching text in schools and universities. Wright translated all of the tales into prose 141 and into verse 181. The translation of CT into languages other than English has almost as venerable a history as English modernizings or retellings.

4 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

1 Dryden, John. ‘The Cock and the Fox: or, the Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer.’ In The Poems of John Dryden, ed. James Kinsley. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958. Vol IV, pp 1605–26. (First published in Fables Ancient and Modern, 1700.) Dryden’s elegant version, although changing the emphasis in one or two places and elaborating the detail in others, is not an unfaithful translation of NPT. One of the main differences between the versions is, as Trigg 1060 points out, that Dryden extracts the tale from its framework of the Canterbury pilgrimage. Occasionally, Dryden develops topical satire, as in the allusion to Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in the lines about Chauntecleer’s incestuous relationships or the characterization of the fox as a Puritan. Dryden’s translation has spawned a critical literature of its own. Housman 816 vilified it as the epitome of sham poetry, but other critics have been kinder. See also Spector 855, Frost 852, Miner 904, Hinnant 912, and Rowland 1004. [PG] 2

3

The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, To which are added an Essay on his Language and Versification and an Introductory Discourse, together with Notes and a Glossary. Ed Thomas Tyrwhitt. 5 Vols. London: T. Payne, 1775– 8. Rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1972. Although Skeat criticized Tyrwhitt’s use of an early black-letter edition (Speght, 1602) as his base text, this is the first serious attempt to restore the text of CT. Tyrwhitt rejected many works falsely ascribed to Chaucer. He collated or consulted twenty-five MSS, although in what would seem to later editors an unsystematic way, using MS Harley 7335 most extensively. He revised the order of the tales, based upon authoritative MSS, in what would later be called the ‘Ellesmere order,’ although Tyrwhitt did not consult the Ellesmere MS itself. MkP is in Vol 3, pp 1–5; MkT (with Modern Instances at the end) pp 5–37, ; NPP pp 37–9; NPT pp 40–64; and the endlink p 64. The notes and glossary are very good and were praised by nineteenth-century editors, especially by Skeat. For example, the fable by Marie de France, an analogue of NPT, was printed from the MS for the first time in Vol 4, pp 177– 8. See Windeatt 294 and the study by Burns 270. Tyrwhitt’s text was used in many later editions: for example, Bell’s Poets of Great Britain, 1782, although without his ‘consent, approbation, or knowledge’ (see Hammond 191 p 134); Moxon’s Poetical Works of Chaucer, 1843, a quite fraudulent use of Tyrwhitt according to Skeat; and in Pickering’s first Aldine edition, Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 6 Vols, 1845. [PG] Clarke, Charles Cowden. Tales from Chaucer, In Prose. Designed chiefly for the use of young persons. Illustrated with fourteen wood engravings. London: Effingham Wilson, 1833. 2nd edn London: Lockwood, 1870. Reissued in Everyman’s Library, ed. Ernest Rhys, London: Dent; New York: Dutton, n.d. [1911]. Several other rpts.

Editions and Translations / 5

4

5

6

Free, though not inaccurate, prose retellings of some of CT. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale: the Cock and the Fox. A Fable’ is on pp 256–74, without prologue or endlink. There is an ‘Address to My Young Readers’ and a substantial ‘Memorial of Geoffrey Chaucer,’ covering Chaucer’s life and times. [PG] The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. A New Text with Illustrative Notes. Ed. Thomas Wright. 3 Vols. London: Percy Society, 1847–51. Although Wright’s edition was poorly received on its publication, it is significant in establishing the ‘best text’ method of editing CT, followed by most editors since. MkP is in vol 3, pp 1–5; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 6–37; NPP pp 37–9; NPT pp 39–63; there is no endlink. An introduction outlines Wright’s editorial methods and largely repeats the biography of Chaucer by Sir Harris Nicolas. Wright criticized Tyrwhitt’s reliance on printed editions and his eclectic use of MSS. He based his own edition on MS Harley 7334, known to Tyrwhitt but not used by him as extensively as MS Harley 7335. Wright says that he makes few departures from the MS, but corrects from MS Lansdowne 851 where necessary. Notes are at the foot of the page. There is no glossary. Wright’s text was used in Bell’s edition (1854–6), reissued with a preliminary essay by Skeat (London: George Bell) in 1878. According to Hammond 191 p 206, it was also used for the revised Aldine edition 5 by Morris in 1866. See also the chapter on Wright by Thomas W. Ross in 293, pp 145–56. [PG] The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed Richard Morris. 6 vols. London: Bell & Daldy, 1866. Rev. edn. rpt with appendices 1870, nd [1872], 1875, 1880, 1891, 1893. [Aldine Edition] A revision of the first Aldine edition by Pickering, 1845. Tyrwhitt’s text, the basis for most previous editions in the nineteenth century, including the first Aldine edition, is replaced by one based on the MSS, especially MS Harley 7334. Morris comments that there is ‘no better manuscript of the Canterbury Tales . . . which is far more uniform and accurate than any other I have examined’ (I, p v). It is collated line for line with MS Lansdowne 851. MkP is in Vol 3, pp 198–201; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 201–26; NPP pp 227–8; NPT pp 229–52; there is no endlink. There is a Glossary in vol 1, pp 255–365. The editions after 1870 contain some few alterations in text and glossary, and some additional matter in the form of appendices: appendix A, ‘Pronunciation of English in the Time of Chaucer’ by A.J. Ellis; and appendix C, ‘Scheme of the Order of the Canterbury Tales, and the Halting and Sleeping Places of the Pilgrims on their Journey to Canterbury with Chaucer,’ by F.J. Furnivall, reprinted from his ‘Temporary Preface’ to the Six-Text Edition 7. This edn was the standard until the appearance of Skeat’s Oxford Chaucer 15. [PG] Chaucer. The Prologue, the Knightes Tale, The Nonne Preestes Tale from the

6 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Canterbury Tales. Ed Richard Morris. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1867. Later edns 1869, 1872, 1874, 1875, 1877, 1881, 1883, 1886. For the revised edn of Skeat (1889), see 13. An edition based on MS Harley 7334, collated for the second edition with the MSS printed in the Six-Text Edition 7. The text of NPT, bowdlerized in the usual way, is printed without prologue or endlink on pp 97–116. There is a substantial introduction, covering Chaucer’s life; Chaucer’s English, including extensive discussion of grammar and metre. Notes and glossary are at the end of the book. Differences between editions after the first tend to be mainly in the introduction and notes. [PG] 7 A Six-Text Print of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Parallel Columns. Ed. Frederick J. Furnivall. 9 pts. Chaucer Society. First Series 1, 14, 15, 25, 30, 31, 37, 49, 72. London: Trübner, 1868, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1877, 1884, [1911: see 19]. Rpt New York: Johnson Reprint, 1967. [Six-Text Edition] Not an edition as such, but a transcription, printed in parallel columns, of six of the most important MSS of CT, (including three at that time in private ownership): Ellesmere, Hengwrt, Cambridge Gg 4.27, Corpus, Petworth, and Lansdowne MSS. Pollard comments in his preface to the Globe Chaucer 19 p xxix that the discovery of the importance of the Ellesmere MS was the greatest achievement of the Chaucer Society workers who produced the SixText Edition. ‘Trial Tables,’ showing the order of the tales in thirty-six different MSS and five early printed editions, are printed at the beginning of pt I. The tales are for the first time divided into nine Groups, labelled A to I. The ‘Bradshaw shift’ (see Baker 278) is adopted, so that Fragment VII follows Fragment II, thus constituting Group B, and is then followed by Fragment VI. Furnivall comments: ‘Through not paying proper attention to the geography of the Tales, I was led into the mistake of taking the order of the most careful MS. and editor of the Tales - the Ellesmere and Tyrwhitt - as the right order’ (part I, p xxi). MkP-MkT-NPP-NPT is printed in pt 4, i.e., 25 (1872). MkP, (here called ‘Melibeus’ End-Link’ is on pp 253-5; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 256-80; NPP (here called ‘Monk’s End-Link’) pp 281-2; NPT pp 283-300. The endlink of NPT, which is missing in the MSS collated, is printed on p 301 from Cambridge MS Dd.4.24, British Library MS addit. 5140, MS Reg. 17 D.xv, and Christ Church College, Oxford MS 152. Baker’s judgement 287 is that Furnivall’s work was much more accurate than is often recognized and that ‘he made all modern editions possible’ (p 169). [DS, PG] 8 Chaucer. The Prioresses Tale, Sire Thopas, The Monkes Tale, The Clerkes Tale, The Squieres [sic] Tale, from The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Walter W. Skeat. Oxford: Clarendon, 1874. Other edns 1877, 1880, 1888, 1891, 1893, 1897, 1901, 1906. MkP is on pp 29-31; MkT pp 32-55; NPP pp 56-8. The text is abbreviated, with

Editions and Translations / 7

9

the following lines omitted: VII.1943–64 (MkP), VII.2263–2303 (Zenobia), VII.2479–94 (Nero), VII.2575–2630 (Oloferno), VII.2711–18 (Julius Caesar). The differences between editions are mainly in the notes and in the pagesetting. The text is based on the MSS printed in the Six-Text Edition 7 and MS Harleian 7334, adopting Furnivall’s scheme of Groups and line numbers. Ellesmere is the base MS, but Fragment VII is placed after Fragment II and the Modern Instances after Zenobia. Footnotes indicate other points where Skeat’s text departs from Ellesmere. The Introduction discusses the sequence and dates of composition of the tragedies, and Chaucer’s language and prosody. In Skeat’s view nearly all the tales in stanzas were composed early and nearly all those in couplets late. The tragedies of MkT were written at different times, on the model of Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium; they were originally to have been in chronological order, but the seventeen appear rather as specimens of the type, with chronology not a necessary factor. The Modern Instances were added during revision - Bernabò died only in 1385. As additions, the Modern Instances come at the end of MkT, where they appear in the Ellesmere, Hengwrt, and Cambridge Gg 4.27 MSS, but Chaucer chose to insert them after Zenobia, where they appear in the Harleian, Corpus, Petworth, and Lansdowne MSS; the account of Croesus must come last, in view of its connection with NPP. The eight-line stanza was derived from a French metre, as used by Deschamps. Backnotes to MkT are on pp 166-89. They bring together the work of previous scholarship and extend it particularly in the areas of interpretation and linguistic form. Substantial information is set out concerning the background to each story in MkT. The Glossarial Index is etymological. [DS] The Harleian MS 7334 of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Ed. Frederick J. Furnivall. Chaucer Society. First Series 73. London: Trübner, 1885. Rpt New York: Johnson Reprint, 1967. MkP is on pp 530-2; MkT pp 533-57; NPP pp 558-9; NPT pp 560-77; there is no endlink in this MS. NPT is followed by the Manciple’s Tale and then the Parson’s Tale. The Foreword explains the need for this print to supplement materials made available in the Six-Text Edition 7. (The printing of this MS and Cambridge MS Dd 4.24 24 as additions to the Six-Text Edition of Furnivall gave rise to the expression Eight-Text Edition. See Skeat, The Eight-Text Edition 255.) With regard to Fragment VII, it is observed that this MS ‘has, at the end of the First Fragment of Group B - the Man of Law’s Tale - the proper Man-of-Law-Shipman Link, which should hook it on to the Second Fragment that the Shipman’s Tale heads,’ although the rest of the ‘second fragment’ does not follow here (p vi). [DS]

8 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Ed. Alfred W. Pollard. 2 vols. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, 1886–7. Rpt in the Dryden Series 1905. Selections include MkP in vol 2, pp 19–22; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 23–50; NPP pp 53–5; NPT pp 56–79; there is no endlink. The text is based on the MSS printed in the Six-Text Edition 7 and MS Harley 7334, with the spellings easiest for the modern reader adopted: eg in MkT VII.1991 this edition has ‘wil,’ ‘bewayle,’ and ‘maner,’ where the Globe Chaucer 19 has ‘wol,’ ‘biwaille,’ and ‘manere.’ Texts have individual line numbers. A Glossary is provided. The introduction in vol 1 contains an unbroken narrative summary of CT, and calls MkT a ‘fall of princes,’ largely from a date before CT, with some stanzas added later, as Skeat 8 says (p xi). The introduction to vol 2 gives the sources for the older stories as the Bible, Boccaccio, and Chaucer’s Rom, and for those of the modern stories as Chaucer’s own memory (see Globe Chaucer 19). These last stanzas ‘show a striking advance in strength compared with the early work with which they are surrounded, and those which tell of the fate of Count Ugolino and his children are the most pathetic in all the Canterbury Tales’ (pp xviii–xix). The ‘groundwork’ of NPT is Roman de Renart ll 1268–1720, in itself an elaboration of the fable by Marie de France. [PG, DS] 11 Chaucer. Selected and edited Frederick Noël Paton. The Canterbury Poets. London and Newcastle-on-Tyne: Walter Scott Publishing, nd [1888?]. An abbreviated and bowdlerized text of NPT is on pp 238–50. The basis of the text is not specified and has been regularized and modernized. There is an introduction, mainly about Chaucer’s life, and a short glossary. [PG] 12 Seymour, Mary. Chaucer’s Stories. Simply Told. Illustrated by E.M. Scannell. London: Nelson, 1888. Selected CT are paraphrased in prose. MkT is on pp 152–7; NPT on pp 158– 66. Lines VII.3438–43, from the conclusion of NPT, are printed in Middle English also. [PG] 13 Chaucer. The Prologue, the Knightes Tale, the Nonne Prestes Tale, from the Canterbury Tales. (Ed. Richard Morris, 1867.) New edn. With collations and additional notes Walter W. Skeat. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889. Rpt through 1942. (For Morris’s first edn, see 6.) Morris’s introduction is reprinted with a postscript by Skeat stating that the text has been prepared anew from the Ellesmere MS rather than MS Harley 7334, a MS ‘by no means free from clerical errors’ (p l). All variations of any significance from Ellesmere are recorded in footnotes. NPT, in bowdlerized form, is printed on pp 106–26, without prologue or endlink. Morris’s original introduction is substantially retained, although there are some changes. The notes are expanded by about one-third, according to Skeat; there are changes to the Glossary and an added list of Proper Names. [PG, CW] 10

Editions and Translations / 9

14

15

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Ed. Alfred W. Pollard. 2 vols. Eversley Series. London and New York: Macmillan, 1894. MkP is in vol 1, pp 362–6; MkT pp 366–99; NPP pp 399–401; NPT pp 402–25; the endlink p 426. According to the introduction, Pollard worked from the MSS printed in the Six-Text Edition 7, with Furnivall’s scheme of Groups, plus MS Harley 7334. Ellesmere is the base MS, but Fragment VII is placed after Fragment II and the Modern Instances after Zenobia. Superscript marks indicate syllabic final -e and metrically displaced stress. Some variant readings, together with explanatory notes and glosses, are given in footnotes. [DS] The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Walter W. Skeat. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1894. Supplementary vol. 1897. Second edn 1899–1900, rpt 1958–63. [Oxford Chaucer.] CT is in vol 4, with MkP pp 241–3; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 244–68; NPP pp 269–70; NPT pp 271–88; the endlink (here called the ‘Epilogue’) on p 289 is supplied from Cambridge MS Dd.4.24. In the introduction to this vol., Skeat explains that he worked from the MSS printed in the Six-Text Edition 7, with Furnivall’s scheme of Groups, plus MS Harley 7334. Ellesmere is the base MS, but Fragment VII is placed after Fragment II and the Modern Instances after Zenobia. Ellesmere is chosen because it ‘not only gives good lines and good sense, but is also (usually) grammatically accurate and thoroughly well spelt’ (p xvii); it ‘has also the merit of being complete, requiring no supplement from any other source, except in the few cases where a line or two has been missed’ (p xviii). Some adjustments are made in cases of variable spelling; notably, scansion has been the determining factor where syllabic final -e is concerned (p xix). Variants in the other six MSS consulted are set out in footnotes, complete except as indicated on p xx. The discussion of Chaucer’s Life and Works in vol 1 dates most of MkT (except for VII.2375–2462) between 1369 and 1372. An ‘Account of the Sources of the Canterbury Tales’ in vol 3 includes a section on MkT (pp 427–31). Chaucer began with Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium and the Vulgate, proceeded to adapt material from Boethius, RR, and the Book of Maccabees, broke off, and then added the Modern Instances, whose position is discussed as in 8. In the Introduction to TC in vol 2, Skeat argues that ‘Trophee’ (MkT VII.2117) is actually Guido delle Colonne, although at the time of writing Chaucer may have confused him with the historian Pompeius Trogus, whose second name may have given rise to ‘Trophee.’ NPT is discussed pp 431–3: it is the ‘best specimen of our author’s humour’ (p 431). The fable of the cock and the fox by Marie de France is translated into verse by Skeat himself on pp 432–3. Notes to CT are in vol 5. Those to MkP-MkT-NPP (pp 224–48) repeat the notes of 8 with occasional revision and addition;

10 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

16

17

18

19

those to NPT likewise largely repeat 13. The discussion of language and prosody in vol 6 notes that the eight-line stanza of MkT, a naturalization of a French metre known to Machaut and Deschamps, is also used in some of Chaucer’s short poems; was afterwards taken up by Hoccleve, Lydgate and Douglas; and, with the addition of an Alexandrine at the end, was used by Spenser for The Faerie Queene. See also Edwards 289. [PG, DS] The Student’s Chaucer. Ed. Walter W. Skeat. Oxford: Clarendon, 1895. Rpt 1897, 1901. Reissued 1912 as The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer 45. Rpt several times through 1973. The text of CT is reissued from the Oxford Chaucer 15 and made the essentials of Skeat’s six-volume edition available in one. MkP is on pp 530–1; MkT pp 531–41; NPP p 542; NPT pp 543–51; endlink (here called ‘Epilogue’) p 551. The Introduction has abbreviated discussions of Chaucer’s life and works, language and prosody. The general introduction sees Chaucer as genial, ‘full of freshness and humour, a keen observer of men,’ an ‘untiring student of books’ (p xvi), and ‘our first great metrist’ (p xxi). Pp 719–32 provide notes on ‘Variations and Emendations of the Text’ and there is a substantial glossarial index. [PG, DS, JS] Selections from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Ed Hiram Corson. New York and London: Macmillan, 1896. A selection prepared as an introduction to Chaucer as poet rather than as writer of fourteenth-century English. The text is based on the Ellesmere MS with a few variant readings. Pollard’s methods of indicating the pronunciation of syllabic final -e and unusual stress are followed. MkP is on pp 88–9; the tale of Caesar from MkT is on pp 90–1; selections from NPT are on pp 92– 106. There are notes and a glossary; an introduction covering Chaucer’s life, some features of his poetry, pronunciation, versification, and a synopsis of grammatical forms. [PG] Geoffrey Chaucer. The Works, Now Newly Imprinted. Ed. F.S. Ellis. Ornamented by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Engraved by W.H. Hooper. Printed by William Morris. Hammersmith, Middlesex: Kelmscott, 1896. [Kelmscott Chaucer] (For facsimiles, see 122 and 167.) A fine art edition. MkP is on p 82; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 83–90; NPP p 90; NPT pp 91–6; the endlink p 96. The text is based on the Ellesmere MS, corrected from the Oxford Chaucer 15, with Fragment VII following Fragment II. [DS] The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Alfred W. Pollard, H. Frank Heath, Mark H. Liddell, W.S. McCormick. London and New York: Macmillan, 1898. Rpt with corrections 1899; twelve rpts/ rev 1928. (Rpts thereafter include Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries, 1972.) [Globe Chaucer.] Although the introduction promises a ‘critical’ edition, not all MSS were

Editions and Translations / 11

consulted, as Hammond 191 pointed out. MkP is on pp 118–20; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 120–31; NPP pp 131–2; NPT pp 132–40; the endlink p 140. CT, its introduction and the glossary are the work of Pollard. Fragment VII is moved to follow Fragment II. The text and notes are taken over from 14; there are slightly fewer glosses, but the main glossary is added. In the postscript of 1928, Pollard notes that some of the errors corrected at the time derived from the Six-Text Edition 7. The Introduction to CT observes that the ‘wearisome tragedies’ of MkT fall into two groups, twelve ‘stories of old time’ with sources in the Bible, Boccaccio, and RR and five [sic] Modern Instances. The modern story of Ugolino ‘is partly from Dante, and is strikingly better than all the rest’ (p xxvi). Chaucer was ‘clearly not interested’ in the older stories; he probably began a ‘Fall of Princes’ at a date in the late 1370s and abandoned it before using material from it for the Monk (p xxvi). [PG, DS] 20 The Prologue, the Knight’s Tale, and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale: From Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Ed. Frank Jewett Mather Jr. Riverside Literature Series. London: Harrap, nd [1899]. A student’s text with NPT, without prologue or endlink, bowdlerized in the usual way, is on pp 113–35. The text is based on the seven MSS published by the Chaucer Society 7 and 9, with the Ellesmere MS as the basis, and many of Skeat’s emendations accepted. Variations from Oxford Chaucer 15 are noted. A long introduction deals with Chaucer’s life, literary development, the plan of CT, Chaucer’s genius, pronunciation and metre. The introductory notes specific to NPT discuss sources. There are explanatory footnotes to the text and a glossary. [PG] 21 The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Introduction by Thomas R. Lounsbury. 2 vols. New York: Crowell, 1900. Single vol in Astor Series and Gladstone Series. Rpt 1903. MkP is in vol 2, pp 582–3; MkT (with Modern Instances following Zenobia) pp 584–95; NPP pp 595–6; NPT pp 596–604; the endlink (here called ‘Epilogue’) p 605. The edited text is not accounted for, but it relies on the Oxford Chaucer 15. Ellesmere is the base MS, but Fragment VII follows Fragment II. The introduction in vol 1 observes that both LGW and MkT are incomplete because Chaucer realized that a work dealing solely with individual sorrows ‘was as untrue to art as it was to life’; MkT is a ‘doleful recital’ (p xiii). There is a substantial glossary. [DS] 22 Chaucer. The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. The Knightes Tale. The Nonnes Preestes Tale. Ed. Mark H. Liddell. New York and London: Macmillan, 1901. Liddell, one of the associate editors of the Globe Chaucer 19, presents this edition as ‘the first really critical text for any part of the Canterbury Tales’ (p

12 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

23

24

25

26

27

ccxi). NPP is on pp 111–13; NPT (in bowdlerized form) pp 113–35; there is no endlink. The basis of the text is the Ellesmere MS, and footnotes record all essential variants. There is a substantial introduction covering mainly matters of pronunciation, grammar and versification; extensive explanatory notes and a glossary. Whereas the Globe text marks the pronunciation of syllabic final -e with a dot superscript, this edn adopts the opposite procedure, marking unpronounced final -e with a dot subscript. [PG] The Nonnes Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen by Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. William Cushing Bamburgh. New York: Grafton Press, 1902. A fine edition in blackletter type on handmade paper. The text is based on the Ellesmere MS. NPP is on pp 20–2; NPT (bowdlerized in the usual way) pp 26– 55; the endlink p 60. There is a glossary at the beginning of the book, together with a dedicatory poem ‘To Chaucer,’ and a brief introduction. A note at the end of the book prints Skeat’s verse translation of Marie de France’s fable. [PG] The Cambridge MS. Dd 4.24 of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Completed by the Egerton MS. 2726 (the Haistwell MS). Ed. Frederick J. Furnivall. 2 pts. Chaucer Society. First Series 95, 96. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1902. Rpt New York: Johnson Reprint, 1967. MkP (called ‘Melibeus’s End-Link’ in header) is in part 2, pp 474–6; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 477–501; NPP (here called ‘Monk’s End-Link’ and with VII.2810–20 supplied from the Egerton MS) pp 502–3; NPT pp 504–21; the endlink p 522. NPT VII.2821–89, lacking in Dd, are supplied from the Egerton MS. In Cambridge MS Dd 4.24, Fragment VII follows Fragment VI. (The printing of this MS and MS Harley 7334 9 as additions to the Six-Text Edition 7 gave rise to the expression Eight-Text Edition.) [DS] Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Prologue to the Book of the Tales of Canterbury, The Knight’s Tale, The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Ed. Andrew Ingraham. New York and London: Macmillan, 1902. Rpt through 1938. NPP is on pp 127–9; NPT (in bowdlerized form) pp 130–55; there is no endlink. There is an introduction covering such topics as ‘Reading Aloud,’ ‘The Text,’ ‘The Language,’ ‘The Man,’ ‘The Poet’; a list of Chaucer’s works; a list of the order of CT; a list of Books for Reference; Notes; a list of Proper Names; and a glossary. [PG] Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Ed. Alfred W. Pollard. London and New York: Macmillan, 1902. The text and footnotes are reprinted from the Globe Chaucer 19 without introduction. MkP is on pp 118–20; MkT pp 120–31; NPP pp 131–2; NPT pp 132–40; the endlink p 140. [DS] The Select Chaucer. Ed. J. Logie Robertson. 2 pts. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1902. The text is based on the Ellesmere and Harley MSS, collated with other read-

Editions and Translations / 13

28

29

30

31

32

ings given in the Six-Text Edition 7 and in the Oxford Chaucer 15. MkT is represented by the story of Ugolino (part 1, pp 128–31). NPT is presented in long extracts, minus prologue and endlink, and with the ‘Mordre wol out’ sequence transferred to the end, in part 1, pp 132–45. Part 1 contains an introduction, covering such items as Chaucer’s life and times, Chaucer’s English, Versification and Pronunciation. Part 2 contains a glossary. [PG] Sinsheimer, Estelle, trans. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: Prologue and Tale of the nun’s priest, modernized from middle English. 1902. Not seen. [PG] Chaucer: Canterbury Tales. The Prologue and Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Ed A.J. Wyatt. University Tutorial Series. London: W.B. Clive, University Tutorial Press, nd [1902]. A student’s text, with final syllabic -e marked in GP but not in NPT. There is an abbreviated NPP on p 8; NPT pp 8–31; there is no endlink. Notes and glossary follow each tale separately. There is an introduction discussing Chaucer’s life and works; CT; the two tales, especially the sources of NPT; language and metre. [PG] English Tales in Verse. Ed. C.H. Herford. Warwick Library. London: Blackie, 1903. Selections from Chaucer, reproduced ‘with slight occasional differences’ from the Globe Chaucer 19, include NPT, minus prologue and endlink, pp 44–62, and ‘The Monk’s Tale of Ugolino,’ pp 62–4. The text is preceded by a note that the Monk’s tragedies ‘have no definite sequence, and nothing in common but the “unhappy ending”’ (p xxix). Chaucer’s own preference for humor over pathos is reflected in the Host’s protest against the tragedies. [DS] The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. From the text of Professor Skeat [15]. 3 vols. World’s Classics 42, 56, 76. London: Vols 1 and 2 Richards, vol 3 Oxford University Press, 1903–6. All rpt Oxford University Press, nd. Vol 3, The Canterbury Tales, rpt 1910 through 1930. MkP is in vol. 3, pp 222–4; MkT pp 225–46, with the Modern Instances after Zenobia; NPP pp 247–8; NPT pp 248–64; the endlink p 264. Vol 3 reprints contain a ‘Note on Language and Metre’ and Glossary. [DS] Darton, F.J. Harvey, trans. Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims Retold from Chaucer and Others. With Introduction by F.J. Furnivall and Illustrations by Hugh Thomson. London: Wells, Gardner, Darton, 1904. Rpt 1908, 1920, 1931. Prose re-tellings of CT, in Bradshaw-shift order, together with some nonChaucerian pieces, including an encounter at Canterbury with John Lydgate. MkP, MkT and NPP in abbreviated form are on pp 109–14. NPT and the endlink, in abbreviated and bowdlerized form, are on pp 115–23. The introduction by Furnivall is in his characteristic style and covers mainly Chaucer’s life and times. [PG]

14 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

33 Skeat, W.W., trans. The Man of Law’s Tale, the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, the Squire’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer, Done into Modern English. The King’s Classics. London: Alexander Morning, the de la More Press, 1904. A bowdlerized translation of NPT into verse couplets, without prologue or endlink, is on pp 53–78. There is a brief introduction, mainly discussing sources and analogues, notes at the end of the book, and an index of names. [PG] 34 The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer and Others. Being a reproduction in facsimile of the first edition 1532 from the copy in the British Museum. Introduction by Walter W. Skeat. London: De la More, Frowde, Oxford University Press, nd [1905]. The 1532 edition is by William Thynne. MkP is on f 96–96v; MkT f96v–101; NPP f101; NPT f101v–104v; endlink f104v followed without interruption by the Manciples’s Prologue. In a survey of early printed editions, the introduction points out that Thynne’s was the first collected edition of Chaucer’s work and its text of CT remained the standard one until Tyrwhitt’s 2. Unfortunately, the text of CT is the least satisfactory part, based on Caxton’s first, inferior, edition. Skeat also draws attention to the fact that the account of Zenobia in MkT is followed by that of Nero, the Modern Instances coming last (p xxvii). For another facsimile of Thynne’s edition, see 154. [PG, DS, CW] 35 McSpadden, J. Walker, trans. Stories from Chaucer: Retold from the Canterbury Tales. Introduction by Dorothy Margaret Stuart. ‘Told Through the Ages’ series. London: Harrap, 1907. New and rev edn. London: Harrap, 1932. A prose translation with illustrations of several tales, including NPT, and also the tale of Gamelyn. NPP is on p 113; NPT pp 115–23, with VII.3438–53 left in Middle English verse; there is no endlink. The translation omits most of the philosophical material and rhetorical parody. The introduction on pp 9–24 is written for a general readership and mainly alludes to Chaucer’s life and times. [PG] 36 Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Ed. Alfred W. Pollard. London: Macmillan, 1907. The text is based on the Ellesmere MS, from which Pollard cites 19 departures. There is a substantial introduction (pp ix–xxiv) and explicatory notes (pp 25– 46). Appendix A is a commentary on medical lore by J.F. Payne, entitled ‘Chantecleer’s Dream and Pertelote’s Comments’ (pp 47–52); Appendix B, ‘The Sources of Chaucer’s Dream-Stories’ (pp 53–4), cites Cicero’s De Divinatione i.27 and Valerius Maximus’s Facta et dicta memorabilia 1.8.3. There are ‘Examples of Chaucer’s Grammar’ (pp 55–8) and a glossary (pp 59–67). The introduction discusses Chaucer’s probable sources. For the episode of Chauntecleer’s capture by the fox and his escape, Pollard quotes in full Marie de France’s rendition of Aesop, together with Furnivall’s ‘side-notes’ or mar-

Editions and Translations / 15

37

38

39

40

41

42

ginal gloss. He also summarizes Roman de Renart, with its principal characters of Chantecleer, Pinte, and Reynard, and suggests links with its German derivative, Reinecke Fuchs. The dream stories are seen to be derived from Cicero, via Valerius Maximus and the fourteenth-century Dominican, Robert Holkot, whom Pollard thinks Chaucer’s probable immediate source. [CW] Burrell, Arthur. Prep and ed. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Everyman’s Library, 307. London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1908/ rev 1912. Rpt several times through 1950. The text is partially and inconsistently modernized rather than translated. MkP is on pp 191–2; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 192– 212; NPP pp 213–4; NPT pp 214–29; there is no endlink. The basis for the text is unexplained; it follows the Ellesmere MS, but with Fragment VII following Fragment II. [DS] Tappan, Eva March, trans. The Chaucer Story Book. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1908. Twelve of CT are retold in modern English. NPT, without prologue or endlink, is on pp 88–100, and is solicited by the Host as a response to PrT rather than MkT. [PG] Bates, Katherine Lee, trans. The Story of Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims. 1909. Not seen. [PG] The Ellesmere Chaucer Reproduced in Facsimile. Preface by Alix Egerton. 2 vols. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1911. MkP-MkT-NPP-NPT are in vol 2 (no foliation or pagination is provided). (The endlink to NPT is not present in the Ellesmere MS.) [DS] Poems of Chaucer: Selections from his Earlier and his Later Works. Ed. Oliver Farrar Emerson. London & New York: Macmillan, 1911. An introduction to Chaucer’s poetry by means of selections from both early and late works. The tales of Samson, Hercules and Caesar are presented from MkT (pp 11–18); NPT, without prologue or endlink, is presented in bowdlerized form (pp 111–32). The text is based on the MSS printed in the Six-Text Edition 7 and ‘in general . . . the poems are printed as they appear in the best manuscripts, only the slightest regularizing of the spelling or other emendation being occasionally attempted’ (p vi). Some diacritical signs are used to aid pronunciation. There is an introduction covering such topics as biography, Chaucer’s England, language and versification. There are notes, indebted to Skeat’s Oxford Chaucer 15, and a glossary. Note Koch’s hostile review 783. [PG, JS] Macaulay, Margaret, trans. Stories from Chaucer: Re-told from The Canterbury Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911. Prose retellings of some of CT, arranged in Bradshaw-shift order. MkT is

16 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

43

44

45

46

47

summarized on pp 104–7, with the story of Ugolino translated in full. NPT, in abbreviated and bowdlerized form, is on pp 108–18. [PG] Stead, W.T., trans. Stories from Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Illustrated by Edith Ewen. Boston: Palmer, 1911. The tales are ‘simply retold for children’ (p 3) in prose. A bowdlerized and abbreviated form of ‘The Priest’s Tale,’ without prologue or endlink, is on pp 57–61. [PG] Selections from Chaucer including His Earlier and His Later Verse and an Example of His Prose. Ed. Clarence Griffin Child. Boston, New York, Chicago: Heath, 1912. A student edition, designed as an introduction to Chaucer’s works as literature rather than as examples of Middle English. No details are given of the text used. NPT, without NPP or endlink, in slightly abbreviated and bowdlerized form, is on pp 98–110. There is an introduction, covering Chaucer’s life, CT and other writings, Chaucer’s English, pronunciation versification; notes; and a glossary. [JS, PG] The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer: Edited from Numerous Manuscripts. Ed. Walter W. Skeat. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912; Numerous rpts. This edition is identical to and replaced Skeat’s Student’s Chaucer 16. [JS] Tatlock, J.S.P., and Percy Mackaye. Complete Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Illustrations by Warwick Goble. New York: Macmillan, 1912. Reissued as The Modern Reader’s Chaucer, 1914. Rev 1936. Rpt several times without illustrations through 1969; rpt pbk 1961. (See also Ziegler 61.) A ‘modernization’ that contains all the poetry except Rom, but only specimens of Mel and PardT. MkP is on pp 114–16; MkT pp 116–29; NPP pp 129– 30; NPT pp 130–40; the endlink p 140. It is based on the Oxford Chaucer 15 to which the reader is referred for detailed commentary. Although this claims to be the first translation of Chaucer into modern English (p vii), its prose lies somewhere between fluent-modern and stiff-archaic (e.g., ‘ensamples’ at MkT VII.1998 is retained). There is a minimal glossary and notes on pp 597–607. •Review by C.S. Northup, ‘Chaucer in Prose.’ Dial 53 (1912), 436–9. Argues for prose translations of Chaucerian texts, commending the translation in question for trying to be as faithful as possible to the original. [JS] Underdown, Emily, trans. The Gateway to Chaucer. Stories Told by Emily Underdown, from the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. Illustrated by Anne Anderson. London, Edinburgh, Dublin, New York: Thomas Nelson, nd [1912]. Prose retellings of several tales including NPT. NPT, without prologue or endlink, here entitled ‘The Priest’s Tale of the Cock and the Fox,’ is on pp 136– 52 in a bowdlerized and abbreviated form. The classical lamentations, except for Troy, vanish, but the perch re-enters via the illustrator. [PG]

Editions and Translations / 17

48

49

50

51

52

The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. Illustrated after Drawings by W. Russell Flint. 3 vols. Medici Society. London: Warner. Ricciardi Press Books. Illustrated Quartos, 1913. For one volume edition, see 70. A fine art edition. The text is the Oxford Chaucer 15. MkP is in vol 2, pp 1–4; MkT (with Modern Instances following Zenobia) pp 4–28; NPP pp 29–30; pp NPT 30–48; the endlink (here called ‘Epilogue’) p 48–9. [DS] The College Chaucer. Ed. Henry Noble MacCracken. New Haven, CT: Yale UP; London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford UP, 1913. Rpt several times through 1929. MkP is on pp 158–61; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 162– 86; NPP pp 187–8; NPT pp 189–206; there is no endlink. The text of CT is based on the Ellesmere MS, but Fragment VII is moved to follow Fragment II. The endlink repeats MkP and must be either spurious or a rejected trial-link. The appendix provides succinct accounts of Chaucer’s language, life and works, together with an unbroken narrative summary of the ‘Human Comedy’ of CT. The glossary, compiled in collaboration with Thomas Goddard Wright, is etymological. [PG, DS] Sturt, Mary, and Ellen G. Oakden, trans. Canterbury Pilgrims, Being Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Retold for Children. London: Dutton, 1913. A modern English prose version. [JS] The Nonne Prestes Tale. Ed. Lilian Winstanley. Pitt Press Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914; London: Putnam, 1915. Rpt 1960. A student’s edition, bowdlerized and without the endlink. There is no discussion of MSS but the text is based on the Globe Chaucer 19, except that its minor orthographical changes have been rejected. The introduction covers Chaucer and his times, with chronological tables of his life and works; grammar and metre; sources and analogues in Reinhart Fuchs and Roman de Renart. A literary analysis emphasizes Chaucer’s progressive realism. NPT is a satire upon pedantry and a burlesque of the romances. This satire is linked to the influence, first noticed by Winstanley, of Renard le Contrefait. See also Pratt 485. [JS] Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Nach dem Ellesmere Manuscript mit Lesarten, Anmerkungen und einem Glossar. Ed. John Koch. Englische Textbibliothek 16. Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1915. MkP is on pp 293–5; MkT (with Modern Instances at the end of the tale) pp 295–309; NPP pp 309–10; NPT pp 310–21; the endlink p 321. The text is based upon the MSS printed in the Six-Text Edition 7, together with ten others, as explained in the introduction (p 2). Ellesmere is the base MS, and the Ellesmere order is retained in respect of both Fragments and tragedies. The text has individual line numbers, but basic line references are to Tyrwhitt 2, with a running indication of correspondence to Furnivall’s Group and line numbers.

18 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

53

54

55

56

An attempt is made to indicate both syllabic final -e and elided vowels, the intention being to bring the verse closer to regular iambic pentameter. An appendix lists the longer Latin marginal glosses, and a glossary (Middle English-German) is provided. The introduction refers to the sources of MkT as Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium and De Claris Mulieribus, Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, and Dante’s Inferno (p 7). [DS, JS] Barnouw, A.J., trans. ‘De Vertelling van den Nonnenpriester.’ Onze Eeuw 16 (1916), 330–52. A Dutch translation of NPT into verse couplets by a scholar with a long career in Chaucer studies. There is a brief introduction dealing mainly with sources. [JS] Neilson, William A., and K.G.T. Webster. Chief British Poets of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916. A non-specialist anthology, which provides footnote glosses for all except the alliterative poems, which are translated. Along with other Chaucerian works, CT is represented by GP, KnT, PrT, Th, PardT, WBT, and NPT, from the Oxford Chaucer 15, unabridged on pp 136–43, but without prologue or endlink. [JS] Chaucer-Handbuch für Studierende. Ausgewählte Texte mit Einleitungen, einem Abriss von Chaucers Versbau und Sprache und einem Wörterverzeichnis. Ed. Max Kaluza. Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1919. 2nd edn 1927. A textbook for German students, which includes selections from CT. There are no noticeable differences between first and second editions affecting MkT or NPT. Selections from MkP-MkT-NPP are on pp 183–90: VII.1965–90 (MkP), VII.1991–2014 (Lucifer, Adam), VII.2143–2246 (Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar), VII.2407–62 (Ugolino), VII.2767–2820 (NPP). NPT is on pp 190–9: the Prologue is included but the debate between Pertelote and Chauntecleer over dreams (VII.2940–3156) and the rhetorical parody and anti-feminism of VII.3226–66 are omitted. Kaluza has worked from the MSS printed in the SixText Edition 7, plus MS Harley 7334 and Cambridge MS Dd 4.24, taking Ellesmere as the base MS and reproducing Furnivall’s Group designations and line numbers. Kaluza, however, prefers (p 112) to emulate Koch 52 in retaining the Ellesmere order of Fragments, with VII following VI, though his use of Furnivall’s line numbers perhaps implies agreement that the Modern Instances should come after Zenobia. A general introduction gives succinct information about Chaucer’s life, works and reading, plus an account of the MSS and previous editions; a further introductory statement precedes each text; and there is an explanation of prosody and language and a glossary. [DS, JS] The Nonne Prest His Tale. Ed. R.F. Patterson. London: Blackie, 1920. This edition follows R.J. Cunliffe’s text, in turn based largely on Richard Morris’s Aldine Edition 5. NPT, (without prologue or endlink) is on pp 59–78,

Editions and Translations / 19

57

58

59

60

61

62

followed by notes and glossary. Syllabic final -e is indicated by a dot superscript. The introduction discusses Chaucer’s life and works, NPT, Chaucer’s Language, the history of English before Chaucer, and metre. Patterson is an early exponent of the dramatic reading of CT: the Nun’s Priest was ‘young and well-developed . . . no mere cloistered ecclesiastic’ (p 22), and NPT ‘is in exact keeping with his character’ (p 22). [BM] Selections from Chaucer. Ed. William Allan Neilson and Howard Rollin Patch. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1921. An edition aimed at the student and the general reader. NPP VII.2806–20 and NPT (minus VII.2951–4 and VII.3177–8) are on pp 344–61. The text is based on the Oxford Chaucer 15, collated with MSS printed in the Six-Text Edition 7, and with some normalization of spelling. There is an introduction covering such topics as Chaucer’s life, times, and works, and some material on his language, and a glossary. [BM] Pérez y del Río-Cosa, Manuel, trans. Los Cuentos de Cantorbery, Versión Directa del Inglés Antiguo con una Introducción y Notas. 2 vols. Madrid: Reus, 1921. A Spanish prose translation of CT. MkP is in vol 1, 279–82; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 283–307; NPP pp 309–11; NPT pp 313– 31; the endlink p 333. There is a substantial introduction. NPT is ‘quizá el mejor y más perfecto de la colección’ (p lxxvii). [BM] Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims. Ed William Ferguson. London: Blackie, 1923. An edition of the links between the tales, with brief summaries of the tales themselves, intended as a secondary school text to be used after studying GP. It includes MkP (pp 19–22), NPP (pp 22–4), and a bowdlerized endlink lacking VII.3448–54 (p 24). [BM] Sturt, Mary, and Ellen G. Oakden, trans. The Canterbury Tales, being Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Retold for Children. The King’s Treasures of Literature. London: Dent; New York: Dutton, nd [1923]. The translations are condensed versions in a mixture of verse and prose. MkP, in prose translation, is on pp 61–2; the stories of Lucifer, Adam, Ugolino, Holofernes from MkT in verse (sometimes condensed stanzas, sometimes couplets) pp 63–6; NPP in prose p 66; NPT in prose pp 67–71; the endlink p 71. [BM] Ziegler, Carl W. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: Selections from ‘The Modern Reader’s Chaucer’ by John S.P. Tatlock and Percy MacKaye. New York: Macmillan, 1923. A selection of six tales, largely reprints of Tatlock 46, occasionally abridged and bowdlerized. NPT is on pp 66–81. [BM] Legouis, Émile, introd. Geoffroi Chaucer: Oeuvres choisies. Paris: La Renaissance du Livre, 1924. A French prose translation. The translation of NPT is by M. Cestre. NPP is on

20 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

63

64

65

66

67

pp 85–7; NPT pp 87–103; the endlink p 103. (See also Delattre, Cazamian et al. 98.) [BM] Koch, John, prep and introd. Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury–Erzählungen nach Wilhelm Hertzbergs Übersetzung, neu herausgegeben. Berlin: Herbert Stübenrauch, 1925. A re-issue, with revisions, of Hertzberg’s 1865 German translation of CT, arranged according to Koch 52, with a new introduction and major revisions to the notes in the light of developments in scholarship and criticism. MkP is on pp 389–91; MkT (with the Modern Instances at the end of the tale) pp 392– 413; NPP pp 414–5; NPT pp 416–32; there is no endlink. [BM] The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer . . . Volume iii The Canterbury Tales. World’s Classics. London: Oxford University Press, 1925. A reprint of vol 3 of 31, with the addition of a ‘Note on the Language and Metre’ and a glossary. [BM] Underdown, Emily, trans. The Approach to Chaucer: Prose Tales by Emily Underdown, Modern Verse Renderings by R.H. Horne, Leigh Hunt, and Thomas Powell. London & Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1925. Rpt 1928. Underdown’s prose versions of 47 are supplemented by some verse pieces. There is a minor re-ordering of the sequence of tales. Except for some very minor changes of wording, the prose translation of NPT, without NPP or endlink, here called ‘The Priest’s Tale’ (pp 97–106), is identical with the version in 47. Anne Anderson’s colour plates of 47 are missing, but most of her line drawings remain, although they are not acknowledged. [JG, BM] Boas, Guy. Chaucer and Spenser: Contrasted as Narrative Poets. London & Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1926. There are brief introductions to selected texts from Chaucer and Spenser, but little attempt to draw contrasts between the two. NPT is included (pp 114–31), from the Oxford Chaucer 15, without Prologue or endlink. The tale is praised for its narrative skill, and for its mingling of ‘the humorous with the frightful’ (p 17). Chaucer’s psychological insights are evident in the presentation of his protagonists: ‘Beneath the feathers of Chaunteclere and Pertelote beat the hearts of Macbeth and his Lady’ (p 18). [BM] Vallese, Tarquinio, trans. Le Novelle di Canterbury. 2 vols. Società Anonima Editrice Dante Alighieri. Milan, Genoa, Rome, Naples: Albrighi, Segati, 1926– 31. An Italian translation into unrhymed verse lines. There is no indication of the text followed. MkP is in Vol. 2, pp 70–3; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 73–97; NPP pp 97–9; NPT pp 99–116; the endlink p 116. There is an introduction, and brief notes, derived mainly from the Oxford Chaucer 15. [RW]

Editions and Translations / 21

68

69

70

71

Mathesius, Vílem, trans. Vybor z Canterburskych Povídek. Prague: Vydává Jan Laichter, 1927. A translation of GP and NPT into Czech, retaining verse lines. NPT, without prologue or endlink, is on pp 34–51. There is a brief introduction; some explanatory notes at the back of the book; and a guide to the pronunciation of some names in the two tales. [PG] Chaucer: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Ed. Kenneth Sisam. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927. Rpt through 1965. A bowdlerized edition intended for schools and colleges, but widely praised, for example by Pearsall in his preface to the Variorum edition 180: ‘it is without doubt the best edition of any part of Chaucer’s works that I have ever come across’ (p xv). NPP is included, but the endlink firmly omitted: ‘we need to know how it got into the inferior MSS, or how it got out of the majority of the best, and no firm theory has been put forward’ (p xliv). The apparatus includes the tragedy of Croesus from MkT, an essay on Chaucer’s English, a note on the metre, a glossary, and fourteen illustrations. The introduction is concerned primarily with sources and presents substantial extracts from them in translation. It is in four sections: the beast fable; Reynard the Fox, Chaucer’s treatment, the setting. •Review by G.H. Cowling, MLR 22 (1927), 448. It is ‘an excellent edition.’ The notes are full and unusually explanatory. [JG] The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. Illustrated After Drawings by W. Russell Flint. Boston: Hale, Cushman and Flint; London: Jonathan Cape and The Medici Society, 1928. For 3 vol edn, see 48. MkP is on pp 237–40; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 240– 64; NPP pp 265–6; NPT pp 266–84; the endlink pp 284–5. [PG] Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. John Matthews Manly. London: Harrap, 1928. There is a brief bowdlerized selection from MkP-MkT-NPP on pp 439–42, including MkP VII.1889–1944, the first two stanzas of the Tale, and the story of Croesus. NPP is on pp 443–4, NPT is on pp 444–60 in bowdlerized form, omitting VII.3177–8. There is no endlink. The wide-ranging introduction includes discussion of the order of the tales, dividing extant MSS into two main groupings, Classes I and II, and labelling the interspersed conversations ‘head-links’ and ‘end-links’ (pp 79–81). The edition is based on the Ellesmere MS and the tales are printed in the Ellesmere order - a significant departure from the practice of most of the best editors of the previous sixty years. Brief notes to MkP-MkT-NPP are on pp 635–66 and to NPT on pp 637–46. The Host’s oaths characterize him, whereas the conception of the Monk differs from that in GP. The Croesus stanzas are based on Boethius II, pr. 2, and RR 6489–6548. The MS evidence does not support Hammond’s view 191, pp 241 ff that the Host was the original interrupter. The notes to NPT

22 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

72

73

74

75

combine discursive commentary with detailed scholarship. There is a substantial etymological glossary. •Review by P.N.U. Harting, ES 14 (1932), 138–41. Manly’s fear that he has fallen between two stools is confirmed. ‘Lack of interest’ accounts for the omission of MkT for one, vulgarity for the omission of others. The least satisfactory section is the Glossary. •Review by Dorothy Everett, YWES 9 (1928), 83–5. The text suffers from Manly’s determination to produce an edition for senior high school and college students, but ‘much of the introductory matter and many of the notes will be indispensable to any student of Chaucer, however advanced’ (p 84). •Review by Kemp Malone, JEGP 28 (1929), 137–8. The edition is not so much a group of selections as ‘The Tales, with cuts’ (p 137). Although Manly preserves a large part of CT, his cutting of morally improper lines produces a text ‘too proper to be representative’ (p 137). [JG, PG, RW] The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. 8 vols. Ed. A.W. Pollard. Figures from Ellesmere MS by Hugh Chesterman. Shakespeare Head Edition. Oxford: Blackwell, Vols 1–4, 1928–9. Vols 5–8, 1930. A fine edition based on the text of the Globe Chaucer 19. MkP is in vol 2, pp 55–8; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 58–82; NPP pp 83– 4; NPT pp 85–105; the endlink p 105. [RW] Chaucer: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Ed. A.J. Wyatt. A Series of English Texts. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1928. A student’s edition, although unbowdlerized, with final syllabic -e marked with a diaeresis. NPT, without prologue or endlink, is on pp 48–73. The text is based on the eight printed MSS, with a preference for readings from the Ellesmere, Hengwrt, and Harley MSS. A brief introduction gives an outline of Chaucer’s pronunciation and scansion; Chaucer’s life; the Canterbury pilgrimage; and the two tales. Explanatory notes are placed at the bottom of the page. Two appendices comment on medieval astronomy and the theory of the humours. [PG] Book, Fredrik, Per Hallstrom and Martin Lamm. Varldslitteraturen: De Stora Masterverken. Stockholm: Bonnier, 1929. Vol 10, Part 2. ‘Chaucer, v.d. Vogelweide, Boccaccio.’ A Swedish translation; not seen. [JG] The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. With Wood Engravings by Eric Gill. 4 vols. Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire: Golden Cockerel Press, 1929– 31. A fine art edition: 485 copies on Batchelor’s Kelmscott hand-made paper and 15 on vellum. The lettering, headings and hand-coloured title page were designed by Jocelyne V. Gaskin. The headpieces, frontispieces and minia-

Editions and Translations / 23

76

77

78

79

80

81

tures in the other volumes are by Leyton H. Lamb ‘from old MSS or early printed books.’ The text is that of the Oxford Chaucer 15. MkP is in vol 1, pp 134–7; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 138–65; NPP pp 166– 8; NPT pp 168–89; the endlink p 189. [RW] Martin, Dorothy, trans. A First Book About Chaucer. London: Routledge, 1929. Four tales, including NPT, are translated, each tale prefaced by a narrative summarizing other tales and links. NPT is on pp 80–6. The tales are retold in a mixture of simple prose, interspersed with modernized snippets of Chaucer, marked to indicate stress, with some side-glosses. The book is illustrated with ink drawings closely based on the Ellesmere MS. There are two chapters on the life of Chaucer and chapters on ‘The Poet’ and CT. [JG] Chaucer. The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, the Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Ed. A.J. Wyatt. London: W.B. Clive, University Tutorial Press, nd [1929]. A student’s edition, although unbowdlerized, with final syllabic -e marked with a diaeresis in GP but not in NPT. No details of the text are given, but it is very similar, though not identical, to 73. There is an abbreviated NPP on p 113; NPT pp 113–31; there is no endlink. Separate explanatory notes and glossary follow each tale. A brief introduction provides a chronology of Chaucer’s life and works; discussion of the separate tales (focussing on sources and analogues mainly in the case of NPT); language, metre and criticism. [PG] Chaucer Complete Works, in Poetry and Prose; with Introduction, Aids to Chaucer’s Grammar, Versification and Pronunciation. Boston: Cornhill, 1930. Not seen. Ref Griffith, 218, p 41. [RW] Barnouw, A.J., trans. De Vertellingen van de Pelgrims naar Kantelberg. 3 vols. Haarlem: Willink and Zoon, 1930–3. A Dutch translation into verse couplets. MkP is in vol 3, 120–2; MkT pp 123– 48; NPP pp 149–50; NPT pp 151–69; there is no endlink. [JG, RW] Farjeon, Eleanor, trans. Tales from Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Done into Prose. Illustrated by W. Russell Flint. London: Medici Society, 1930. Retellings for children with some bowdlerizing of NPT. The Preface defends keeping only the most interesting histories of MkT. The order is that of Morris’s Aldine edition 5. MkP begins on p 210; the stories of Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, Zenobia, Ugolino, Nero, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Croesus from MkT pp 211–8; NPP p 219; an abbreviated version of NPT pp 220–6; there is no endlink. The illustrations are the same as Flint 48 although they are not reproduced in the same quality. [RW] Hill, Frank Ernest, trans. The Canterbury Tales. The Prologue and Four Tales with The Book of the Duchess and Six Lyrics. Illustrated by Hermann Rosse. London, New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1930.

24 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

82

83

84

85

A translation into verse couplets. According to Monica E. McAlpine, Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale: an Annotated Bibliography, 1900 to 1985, Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1991, #37, p 12, the first poetic edition to be widely available. NPT, without prologue and endlink, is translated on pp 125–46. •Review by Mabel Day, REST (1931), 112. If modernizations of Chaucer are required, this answers the purpose wel1. It is ‘really pleasant’ to read that the widow of NPT had ‘a sheep called Molly.’ [JG, PG] Thomson, Christine Campbell, trans. Stories from the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. London: Herbert Joseph, nd [1930?]. Prose re-tellings of selected tales, including NPT. NPT, without prologue or endlink, and in bowdlerized and highly abbreviated form, is on pp 39–43. [PG] The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer: Together with a Version in Modern English Verse. Ed. and trans. William Van Wyck. Illustrations by Rockwell Kent. 2 vols. New York: Covici-Friede, 1930. A limited edition in folio size. The Middle English text is unacknowledged but is the Oxford Chaucer 15, printed in parallel columns with a verse translation into stanzas or couplets as appropriate. MkP is in vol 1, pp 199–201; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 202–20; NPP pp 221–2; NPT pp 223–36; the endlink p 237. [PG] The Links of the Canterbury Tales and the Wife of Bath’s Prologue. Ed. A.J. Wyatt. Preface by G.G. Coulton. London, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1930. The Introduction tells the story of the links, with some translation of key comments. Group B, assigned the date April 18, is dealt with on pp 4–6. MkP (here called ‘The Melibeus-Monk Link’) is on pp 27–31; NPP (here called ‘The Monk-Nun’s Priest Link’) pp 32–4. The endlink of NPT is tacitly rejected. Footnote glosses explain references and grammar. [JG, RW] The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. F.N. Robinson. London: Oxford University Press; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1933. American rpts after 1945 entitled The Poetical Works of Chaucer. [For 2nd edn, 1957, see 116.] MkP is on pp 225–6; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 226–36; NPP p 237; NPT pp 238–45; the endlink p 246. The text is based on the Ellesmere MS, but other A type MSS (including Hengwrt, Cambridge Dd and Cambridge Gg) are consulted, and there are occasional readings from B type MSS (including Harley 7334, Corpus, Petworth, Lansdowne), such as Odenake (A Onedake) in MkT VII.2272; out of the yeerd (A into the yeerd) in NPT VII.3422. The endlink (missing in Ellesmere) is printed from Dd, collated with the other MSS in the Six Text Edition 7 and with Thynne’s edition. Except for the last couplet, it appears to be a genuine but rejected passage. Textual notes to both MkT and NPT are on pp 1012–3. The explanatory notes on pp 851–62 are a compendium of virtually all

Editions and Translations / 25

significant earlier scholarship on historical, textual, source, and other matters. The tragedies afterwards used in the MkT probably date from the period 1372–80 (see pp xxix, 13), with the Bernabò stanza a later interpolation. The position of the Modern Instances may be scribal. In MkP the Host presumes on the Monk’s character as a hunting cleric, advancing the argument against sacerdotal celibacy (a matter much discussed at the end of the fourteenth century, though rarely pursuing this line of argument). The identification of ‘Trophee’ (MkT VII.2117) remains uncertain, as does the hapax legomenon ‘vitremyte’ (MkT VII.2372). NPT was probably composed when the scheme of the Canterbury pilgrimage was well underway - the maturity of the writing supports this - with the Nun’s Priest narrator in mind, but it is less likely that it was intended from the outset to follow MkT. Robinson acknowledges his indebtedness to Sisam’s edition 69 for notes on NPT. Although the edition was generally lauded on its appearance, many reviewers took the view of Dorothy Everett that it was both indispensable and to be used with caution. One of the weaknesses most commonly pointed out is the Glossary. •Review by Dorothy Everett, MÆ 7 (1938), 204–13. No other book provides a comparable guide to the vast field of present-day Chaucerian scholarship. The commentary on various works is good. The deficiencies of the edition are on the ‘linguistic side’: the language section of the Introduction is too brief to be of use to anyone but the beginner. •Review by J.S.P. Tatlock, Spec 9 (1934), 459–64. The introductory matter to (among others) MkT is ‘particularly agreeable.’ The re-positioning and renumbering of Group B2 Tales is unsatisfactory. [JG, RW, PG] 86 Chaucer. Prioress’s Tale, Tale of Sir Thopas, Monk’s Tale. Ed. A.J. Wyatt and C.M. Drennan. London: University Tutorial Press, nd [1933]. A student’s edition. In the Preface, Wyatt identifies himself as the editor of MkT. Each tale is paginated separately. There is an abbreviated MkP on p 1; MkT, with Modern Instances after Zenobia, pp 2–25; an abbreviated NPP pp 26–7. Explanatory notes and glossary follow each tale separately. An introduction provides a chronology of Chaucer’s life and works; the debt of English literature to Chaucer; metre and grammar. [PG] 87 Prologue and Three Tales. Ed. George H. Cowling. London: Ginn, 1934. A school edition that includes texts of GP, PrT, NPT, PardT. NPP is on pp 82– 6; NPT pp 86–123; there is no endlink. The selections are ‘normalized without show of violence.’ There are explicatory footnotes and a glossary. [JG] 88 Hill, Frank Ernest, trans. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer rendered into modern English verse. 2 vols. Folio Society. London: Limited Editions Club, 1934. A fine edition in quarto size, limited to 1500 copies. The tales are grouped in

26 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

89

90

91

92

93

94

Bradshaw-shift order. MkP is in vol 1, pp 252–5, MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 255–79, NPP pp 280–1; NPT pp 281–300; the endlink (here called ‘Epilogue’) p 300. There is no indication of the text used for the translation. [RW] ––, trans. Geoffrey Chaucer’s Chanticleer and Pertelote. Golden Book Magazine 20 (November 1934), 556–9. An abbreviated and free prose translation of NPT, without prologue or endlink, interspersed with modernized verse couplets. [PG] Nicolson, J.U., trans. Geoffrey Chaucer. Canterbury Tales Rendered into Modern English. Illustrations by Rockwell Kent. Introduction by Gordon Hall Gerould. Covici: Friede, 1934. London: Harrap, 1935. Garden City, 1936, 1943, 1950. A verse translation retaining couplets or stanzas as appropriate. MkP is on pp 237–9; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 240–62; NPP pp 263–4; NPT pp 265–81; the endlink pp 281–2. There is no indication of which edition is the basis for the translation. There is an Apologia (dated 1931) addressing the question of why Chaucer should need modernizing. [RW] Hill, Frank Ernest, trans. The Canterbury Tales, By Geoffrey Chaucer. Translated into Modern English Verse. London, New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1935. The Canterbury Tales. A Rendering for Modern Readers. London: Allen and Unwin, 1936. A reissue with some changes of the selection of tales translated in 81 plus the remaining CT. There is no indication which text has been used for the translation. MkP is on pp 217–9, MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 219–41; NPP pp 242–3; NPT pp 243–59; the endlink p 259. [RW] The Prologue, The Knight’s Tale, and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale from the text of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales by F.N. Robinson. Ed. Max J. Herzberg. Riverside Literature Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1936. An edition for school students, stressing Chaucer’s literary value and modernity. There is a shortened form of NPP p 124; a bowdlerized NPT pp 124–42; there is no endlink. There are explanatory footnotes to GP and KnT, but not to NPT. The introduction discusses Chaucer’s life and times; his literary career; and his language and versification. Following the texts, there are some suggestions for study and a glossary. [PG] Canterbury Tales: Prologue, Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Squire’s Tale. Ed. anon. Masterpieces of English, ed. G.S. Dickson, vol 1. London: Nelson, 1938. A school edition with a brief introduction and explanatory notes at the foot of the page. NPP is on pp 48–50; NPT in bowdlerized form pp 50–69; there is no endlink. The basis of the text is not specified. [PG] The Prologue and Four Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Gordon Hall Gerould. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1938.

Editions and Translations / 27

The last thirteen lines of NPP are on pp 229–30; NPT pp 230–49; there is no endlink. There is a brief introduction, notes, and a glossary. [PG] 95 The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Edwin Johnston Howard and Gordon Donley Wilson. Oxford, OH: Anchor Press, 1938. Rev and corrected edn, 1942. An edition of selected tales. NPP is on pp 73–4; NPT pp 74–88; the endlink p 88. The basis of the text is not specified. Endnotes to NPT are on pp 182–7. The introduction mainly discusses Chaucer’s life and times, but there are brief sections on Chaucer’s works and language. The glossary also includes comment on proper names. MkP is included in the revised edition, pp 37–9, with the new page numbers: NPP pp 40–1; NPT pp 41–54; endlink p 54. Endnotes to MkP are on p 146 and to NPT on pp 147–52. [PG] 96 Whitmore, Frederic. Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer: A Selective Version. Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1939; Vantage [sic] 1949. An abbreviated version of NPT in verse couplets is on pp 68–78. [JG] 97 The Text of the Canterbury Tales. Ed. John M. Manly and Edith Rickert, with the aid of Mabel Dean, Helen McIntosh, and Others. With a Chapter on Illuminations by Margaret Rickert. 8 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940. Rpt Chicago [London] and Toronto; University of Chicago Press; University of Toronto Press, 1967. [Manly-Rickert Edition] An edition based on a collation of all known MSS. Vol 1 contains a description of the MSS; vol 2 a classification of the MSS, including a revolutionary re-estimation of the worth of the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS, and a discussion of the order of the tales; vols 3–4 a text and critical notes; vols 5–8 a list of all variant readings. MkP is in vol 4, pp 218–21; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 221–50; NPP pp 253–5; NPT pp 258–80; the endlink pp 280–1. This edition was the first to raise the possibility that the Ellesmere MS had been overrated: it contains twice as many unique variants as Hengwrt, many of which are demonstrable errors. The theory of an ‘intelligent editor’ at work in Ellesmere is advanced. Manly and Rickert’s text is established by the genealogical method. MSS of MkT can be placed in one or other of two composite groups, mainly on the basis of their treatment of the Modern Instances: group 1 places them after Zenobia; group 2 at the end of the tale. Although the two best MSS, Ellesmere and Hengwrt, are in Group 2, the editors argue that the arrangement in Group 1 is Chaucer’s original plan and print their text accordingly. The order of the tales follows the Ellesmere MS. The text is edited without modern punctuation. In 290, George Kane writes that ‘whatever other limitations their edition may be judged to have, Manly and Rickert’s troubles began with the proce-

28 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

dures for classification that they adopted’ (p 229). Dorothy Everett found in 1942 that ‘the establishment of a text by recension can only be carried out when all MSS are derived from a single archetype’ (p 97), which Manly’s theory of prior circulation of tales precluded. •Review by Carleton Brown, MLN 55 (1940) 606–21. It must be questioned why so many pages are devoted to the genealogical method, since this process can only establish an archetype where an archetype once existed, which was never the case with CT. The contradictions in the edition derive from proceeding as if all MSS were from the same archetype. •Review by Dorothy Everett, RES 18 (1942), 93–109. Because of the complicated relationships of the MSS and the incomplete state in which Chaucer left the work, the edition makes it ‘abundantly clear . . . that it is quite impossible to construct the perfect text of the CT’ (p 105). Although more authoritative, this edition has a ‘less assured air’ (p 105) than most editions. Many irregularities of versification and defects of sense or grammar have been smoothed away in more familiar eclectic editions. This is not an easy book to use, especially in its method of printing from photographically reproduced typewritten pages and in its organization of material. [JG, PG] 98 Delattre, Floris, and Louis Cazamian et al, trans. Les Contes de Canterbury. Paris: Montaigne, 1942. A selection of CT, translated into a kind of metrical prose printed in verse lines, with the English text (from Skeat’s Student’s Chaucer 16) on facing pages. NPP is on pp 267–70; NPT pp 270–301; the endlink pp 300–1. The translation of NPT is by Charles Cestre and is based on his prose translation for the collection ed. Émile Legouis 62. There is a substantial introduction by Floris Delattre. [PG] 99 Hill, Frank Ernest, trans. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer; done into modern English verse by Frank Ernest Hill and newly revised for this edition: with miniatures by Arthur Szyk. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1946. A revised translation of 91. A fine edition on rag paper with bindings partly of white leather and with colour illustrations. MkP is on pp 201–3; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 203–6; NPT pp 228–43; there is no endlink. [PG] 100 Hitchens, H.L., trans. Canterbury Tales: Chaucer for Present-day Readers. 1946. New enlarged edn, London: Murray, 1949. Illustrated by Laurie Taylor. A verse modernization, with woodcut illustrations, sparse side-glosses and some stress-marks, following three rules: never to alter the sense of a line; to use Chaucer’s words as far as possible; and to preserve the metre and the rhyme. NPT is on pp 57–72, with abbreviated prologue, but without endlink. Many of the tales, including MkT, are summarized in ‘descriptive notes’ only. [JG]

Editions and Translations / 29

101 Wood, Thomas. Chanticleer: A Tale for Singing. The words derived from ‘The NPT’ of Geoffrey Chaucer . . . by Nevill Coghill and set for voices alone. Foreword by Thomas Wood. London: Stainer and Bell, 1947. A piece for six soloists and mixed chorus in four parts. The text falls into eight sections: The Widow; Chanticleer; Dame Partlet; The Dream; Dan Russell; The Hunt; The Triumph; The Moral. In a note on ‘The Metre of Chaucer,’ Coghill states that ‘I have allowed the musical movement to take first place wherever my original text conflicted with the singableness and the natural shape of the tune, sacrificing rhyme and metre where necessary’ (p vi). [JG] 102 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Robert D[udley] French. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1948. A selection of tales, including NPT. NPP is on pp 100–1; NPT pp 101–17; there is no endlink. The text is based on the Ellesmere MS. There is a brief general introduction, notes and glossary. [PG] 103 Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (Selected): An Interlinear Translation. Ed. and trans. Vincent Hopper. Brooklyn: Barron, 1948. Rpt through 1962. The interlinear translation ‘follows the original, word for word, as closely as possible’ (p viii). NPP is on pp 217–20; NPT pp 221–60; the endlink pp 261– 2. The Middle English text used is not specified. There is a brief introduction and some notes. [PG] 104 Lumiansky, R.M., trans. The Canterbury Tales. Preface by Mark Van Doren. Illustrations by H. Lawrence Hoffman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948. A prose translation of CT, incomplete for some tales. MkP is on pp 255–6; the tale of Ugolino from MkT pp 257–8; NPP pp 259–60; NPT pp 260–71; the endlink p 271. There is a Middle English text of NPT as well, without NPP and endlink, on pp 331–45, based on Robinson first edn 85. [JG, PG] 105 Wood, Thomas. Chanticleer: A Tale for Singing. Program. Argument by Nevill Coghill. London: Ibbs and Tillett, 1948. Notes that the first performance was on 7 April 1948 in the Duke’s Hall of the Royal Academy of Music, with the Fleet Choir conducted by T.B. Lawrence. [JG] 106 Chaucer. Tale of Sir Thopas. Monk’s Tale. Ed. A.J. Wyatt and C.M. Drennan. University Tutorial Series. London: University Tutorial Press, 1948. A student’s text, with MkT re-numbered after Th. An abbreviated MkP is on p 1; MkT (with Modern Instances following Zenobia) pp 2–25; NPP pp 26–7. There is no indication of which text or MS has been used. The Introduction lists the tragedies and their sources: twelve were written early, and the Modern Instances (not so called here) and Croesus were written late. Explanatory notes follow each tale with a glossary. [RW] 107 Morrison, Theodore, trans. The Portable Chaucer. New York: Viking, 1949. Paperback edn 1956, rpt through 1975. Revised edn 1975.

30 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

A translation into verse couplets of most of CT and selections of other works. MkP is on pp 193–7; MkT, summarized in prose, with the exception of the last stanza, p 197; NPP pp 198–9; NPT pp 200–18; the endlink (here called ‘Epilogue’) p 218. There are some minor differences between the editions. The translations are frequently highly condensed versions of the original, a practice justified by Morrison in his introduction. Other parts of the introduction cover Chaucer’s life and times; his followers and critics; his learning; his obscenity; Chaucer and religious belief; Chaucer and poetry today. [JG, PG] 108 Auden, W.H. and Charles Holmes Pearson. Medieval and Renaissance Poets. Poets of the English Language. Vol 1: Langland to Spenser. With emendations of texts, and glosses, by E. Talbot Donaldson. New York: Viking, 1950. Rpt through 1978. NPT, without prologue or endlink, is on pp 203–24, with light foot-glosses. Donaldson’s modernization is different from the highly-regarded 121 and 166. The introduction includes a substantial section on prosody. Donaldson’s ‘Notes on the Middle English Selections’ includes a section on language. There is also a ‘Calendar of British and American Poetry’ and ‘Biographical Notes.’ [JG] 109 Coghill, Nevill, trans. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale of Chaucer. Newly Rendered into Modern English. Wood-engravings by Lynton Lamb. np: Allen and Richard Lane, 1950. A fine edition, limited to one thousand copies. The text of NPT, without prologue or endlink, is the same as that in Coghill’s complete version 110, published the following year. [PG] 110 ––, trans. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1951. Rpt through 1955. A verse translation, mainly in couplets, of all the tales except Mel and ParsT. MkP is on pp 210–13; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 213–36; NPP pp 237–8; NPT pp 238–55; the endlink p 255. The translation is based on the Oxford Chaucer 15 and the first edition of Robinson 85, although the order of tales follows Skeat rather than Robinson. In the introduction, Coghill states that he tried to follow Chaucer’s metrical forms and rhyme schemes exactly, avoiding rhymes which are no longer pleasing in English, and following the tone of voice of the original. The text has been widely used in deluxe editions. •Review by R.H. Llewellyn, Spec 27 (1952), 538–40. The translation has great merit and Coghill successfully captures the ‘tone of voice’ of the original in modern English. Examples from MkT and NPT are used to illustrate weaknesses of sense and expression, but Coghill’s ‘fundamental fidelity to the spirit’ (p 540) of CT is to be marvelled at. [JG, PG]

Editions and Translations / 31

111

112

113

114

115

A Chaucer Reader: Selections from The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Charles H. Dunn. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1952. The stories of Peter of Spain, Peter of Cyprus, Bernabò, and Ugolino, from MkT are on pp 61–5; NPT is on pp 68–85. The text is in Middle English with notes and marginal glosses, and the passages are linked by prose paraphrases and a brief commentary. The text is based on the Manly-Rickert Edition 97, but the tales are printed in the order suggested by Pratt 266. There is an introduction covering ‘Chaucer’s Career,’ literary development; language; a selected Bibliography; and an appendix on ‘The Pronunciation of Chaucer’s Language.’ [PG] The Canterbury Tales, (Selections), Together with Selections from the Shorter Poems, Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Robert Archibald Jelliffe. The Modern Student’s Library. New York: Scribner’s, n.d. [1952]. An edition aimed at the college student and the general reader. The text is based on the Ellesmere MS with some minor modification. NPP is on pp 154– 5; NPT pp 156–73; there is no endlink. An introduction covers Chaucer’s life and times. There are no footnotes or marginal glosses, but a substantial glossary at the end of the text includes an explanation of proper names. [PG] Chaucer and Shakespeare: the Dramatic Vision. Ed. Dorothy Bethurum and Randall Stewart. Living Masterpieces of English Literature. New York: Scott, Foresman, 1954. NPT is one of four CT printed with two Shakespeare plays. NPP is on pp 34– 5; NPT pp 35–50; endlink p 50. The text is the Oxford Chaucer 15 with a few emendations. There are glosses at the foot of the page. [PG] Lumiansky, R.M., trans. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Translated into Modern English Prose. New York: Holt, Rinehart, 1954. Rpt through 1966. The Middle English text of NPT was not retained in this edition, and an introduction and translations of PrT, Mel, MkT and ParsT were added. The remaining prose translations are lightly revised but include the addition of six lines from the endlink. MkP is on pp 169–71; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 171–86; NPP pp 187–8; NPT pp 188–9; the endlink pp 199–200. The order of tales is changed from Ellesmere to the order advocated by Pratt 266, in which Fragment VII follows MLT and immediately precedes WBT, and Fragment VI is placed between Franklin’s Tale and Sec- ond Nun’s Tale. The introduction expounds the ‘dramatic principle’ of organization and structure in CT. [JG, PG] Coghill, Nevill, trans. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Translated into Modern English. 2 vols with woodcuts by Edna Whyte. London: Folio Society, 1956–7. Reissued in one vol with same pagination, 1974, rpt 1975. An edition of Coghill’s 1951 translation 110. Full-page woodcuts are broken

32 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

116

117

into bordered compartments; smaller woodcuts are typically set above the rubrics of individual tales. MkP is in vol 1, pp 227–9; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 230–55; NPP pp 256–7; NPT pp 258–77; the endlink p 277. There is a brief introduction and notes. [JG, PG] The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. F.N. Robinson. Second edn. London: Oxford University Press; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957. [For 1st edn, 1933, see 85.] MkP is on pp 188–9; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 189–98; NPP pp 198–9; NPT pp 199–205; the endlink (here called ‘Epilogue’) p 206. In the preface, Robinson comments on the importance of the Manly-Rickert edition 97 and the extensive use he made of it, but his own textual introduction and notes are reprinted virtually unchanged from the first edition 85. Robinson also defends the decision of the first edition not to use the Bradshaw shift, despite the arguments of Pratt 266 and others. Some 200 readings overall were changed, listed on pp 883–5, but the text of both MkT and NPT is substantially the same as the first edition with the following changes: ‘lente’ for ‘sente’ (MkT VII.2210); ‘wikes’ for ‘dayes’ (VII.2289); ‘feeld’ for ‘feeldes’ (VII.2340); ‘al’ for ‘as’ (VII.2477); ‘sentence’ for ‘science’ (VII.2748); ‘that it was’ for ‘that I was’ (NPT VII.3248). None of these changes is explained in the textual notes on p 896, which are reprinted unchanged from the first edition. The Introduction to the second edition is substantially the same as the first edition. The most important changes are in the explanatory notes, to MkT on pp 745–50 and to NPT on pp 750–5, making use of the publication of Sources and Analogues 441 and other articles. Notes added or expanded include: opening words of the Host; ‘corpus Madrian’ (MkP VII.1892; general remarks on the sources of MkT; VII.2007; VII.2015; VII.2143; VII.2152; VII.2166; ‘vitremyte’ (VII.2372); Peter of Spain; VII.2378; VII.2391; VII.2463; VII.2565; VII.2727; the allegorical interpretations of NPT by Dahlberg 452, Donovan 843, and Speirs 831; ‘seynd bacoun’ (NPT VII.2845); Chauntecleer’s colours; Pertelote’s prescriptions; VII.3076; ‘woman is man’s ruin’ (VII.3164); ‘harrow’ (VII.3380); the genuineness of the endlink; ‘greyn of Portyngale’ (endlink VII.3459); 3461–2. •Review by Basil Cottle, JEGP 57 (1958), 531–3. ‘This beautiful “New Cambridge Edition” will be a joy to use’ (p 531). The edition still lacks an article on Chaucer’s syntax; the Glossary is still ‘thin and disappointing, and the worst feature of the book’ (p 531). The expanded Explanatory Notes are very welcome. [PG] Wallis, N. Hardy. Canterbury Colloquies: A New Arrangement of the Prologue and Endlinks of the Canterbury Tales to Show Their Dramatic Significance. London: Brodie, nd [1957?]

Editions and Translations / 33

A recasting in dramatic form of the GP and the dialogues between the pilgrims en route. The pilgrims are arranged in order of speaking, not as in GP. A slightly bowdlerized MkP is on pp 48–51; NPP pp 51–2; the endlink to NPT in bowdlerized form, with the omission of five lines (VII 3450–4), pp 52–3. The text is Skeat’s World’s Classics edition 31. Brief notes to MkT and NPT are on pp 91–2. [JG] 118 Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales. Ed. A.C. Cawley. Everyman’s Library 307. London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1958. Paperback issue with revisions 1975, and rpt several times through 1989. Reissued with further revisions 1990. Bibliography revised by Anne Rooney for rpt in 1992. The text is that of Robinson, second edition 116, but on occasion Cawley eclectically adopts Hengwrt MS readings. MkP is on pp 431–3; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 434–56; NPP pp 457–8; NPT pp 459–75; the endlink p 476. The introduction compares NPT to Mel as further developments of the theme of marital relations. Notes and marginal glosses are provided on the same page as the text. •Review by Ursula Brown, RES ns 11 (1960), 312–4. The edition presents Robinson’s 1957 text 116 in a neat and inexpensive form. Cawley ‘anticipates the ignorance of the common reader with much care and understanding’ (p 313) in notes and glosses. [PG] 119 Coghill, Nevill, trans. Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. Second edn. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958. The section in the introduction to the first edition 110 dealing with ‘The Present Translation’ has been removed. No details of the revision process are given in the introduction. [JG] 120 Cooney, Barbara, adaptor and illustrator. Chanticleer and the Fox, by Geoffrey Chaucer. New York: Crowell, 1958; London: Longman, 1960. A prose re-telling of NPT for children, adapted from Lumiansky’s translation of CT 000. [PG] 121 Chaucer’s Poetry. An Anthology for the Modern Reader. Ed. E.T. Donaldson. New York: Ronald, 1958. (For second edn see 166.) Contains selected works including GP, sixteen tales, several links and the Ret. Hengwrt is used as the base MS, but the Ellesmere order of the tales is adopted. The text is in a spelling that is consistently normalized but not modernized, offering ‘the greatest readability that is possible without sacrificing either the phonological values or the general appearance of Middle English orthography’ (p iii). MkP is on pp 360–3; the tragedies of Lucifer, Adam, Ugolino, and Croesus pp 364–7; NPP pp 367–9; NPT pp 369–89; the endlink (here called ‘Epilogue’) p 389. Words are glossed at the foot of each page; there is a substantial commentary, which does not explicate in note style, but which provides long critical essays; a glossary and a brief bibliog-

34 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

122

123

124

125

126

raphy. MkT is infected with a real pessimism and hatred of the world, ironic in a narrator who is himself so worldly. The Monk has an especial admiration for military heroes. Ugolino is of greatest interest, although Chaucer’s version suffers badly in comparison with Dante, and its pathos reveals some of the besetting sins of medieval tragedy. The humour of NPT lies mainly in ‘the extraordinary dilation of the telling’ (p 941). It is full of what seem backward references to the tales ‘so that it is sometimes taken as a parody-summary of all that has gone before’ (p 943), and NPT seems to have a more organic connection with MkT. The Nun’s Priest narrator has the kind of godlike detachment often attributed to Chaucer himself. [JG, PG] The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Facsimile of the William Morris Kelmscott Chaucer [See 18]. With the Original 87 Illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones. Together with an Introduction by John T. Winterich and a Glossary for the Modern Reader. Cleveland and New York: World Publishing, 1958. The facsimile page is slightly smaller than the Kelmscott edition. The text is based on the Oxford Chaucer 15 and the Glossary on Skeat’s annotations. For another facsimile edition see 167. [PG] Chaucer: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Ed Nevill Coghill and Christopher Tolkien. London: Harrap, 1959. A school edition, although unbowdlerized, based on the Ellesmere MS, except for the endlink, which is edited from Cambridge University MS Dd.4.24. There is a substantial introduction that discusses language and metre; rhetoric, detailing Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s categories; sources, printing translations of the Latin story of the Fox and the Partridge, Marie de France’s fable and the relevant portions of Le Roman de Renart; and dreams. Footnotes record all textual changes from the MS. Explanatory notes follow the text. A glossary (unpaginated) ‘contains all the words in the tale that are extinct or not in use, all that have shifted meaning.’ [JG] Farjeon, Eleanor, trans. Tales from Chaucer. Illustrated by Marjorie Walters. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. Rpt 1960, 1963, 1967. The same text as 80 but with a different illustrator in a very different style. MkP is on p 206–7; the stories of Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, Zenobia, Ugolino, Nero Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Croesus from MkT pp 207–14; NPP pp 215–16; a condensed and bowdlerized NPT pp 216–22; there is no endlink. [PG] Donohue, James J., trans. The Canterbury Pilgrims and Three Canterbury Tales. Dubuque, IA: Loras College Press, 1960. Not seen. Includes a verse translation of NPT pp 37–52. [JG] Selections from Chaucer. Ed. Marjorie Barber. London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin’s Press, 1961. A selection of CT for ‘younger students,’ containing, in addition to NPT, GP,

Editions and Translations / 35

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

PardT, and SqT. NPP is on pp 63–4; NPT (unbowdlerized) pp 64–81; there is no endlink. The text is the Globe Chaucer 19 with dot superscript to indicate syllabic final -e. There is an introduction, appendices on Chaucer’s Astronomy and Chaucer’s Language, and a list of books for further reading. Glossaries and notes follow each tale. [PG] Benjámin, László et al., trans. Canterbury Mesék. Budapest: Europa, 1961. A Hungarian translation of selected CT into verse. NPP is on pp 211–12; NPT pp 213–28; the endlink p 229. [PG] Chiarini, Cino and Cesare Foligno, trans. I Racconti di Canterbury. Firenze: Sansoni, 1961. An Italian prose translation. MkP is on pp 386–8; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 388–404; NPP 405–6; NPT 406–19; the endlink p 419. There is a substantial introduction dealing with Chaucer’s life and his position in the culture of medieval Europe. [PG] The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Selection Edited with Introduction and Notes. Ed. Daniel Cook. Anchor Books 265. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961. A selection of GP and five tales with their links, epilogues and prologues (MilT, WBT, PardT, PrT, NPT). An abbreviated NPP is on p 272; NPT pp 272– 316; the endlink pp 316–9. The text is based on the Six Text Edition 7 compared throughout with the editions of Robinson 116 and Manly and Rickert 97. The text-facing notes and glosses are an innovation intended to relieve the common condition of knowing Chaucer only in translation. The brief introduction to NPT stresses the transformation through wit of the original beast epic, often the basis for satire on human weaknesses, into a mock epic which throughout maintains a skilful balance between ‘this ridiculously inappropriate manner and matter’ (p 274). [JS] Donohue, James J., trans. The Monk’s Tale. Dubuque, IA: Loras College Press, 1961. A verse translation. The Modern Instances are printed after Zenobia. [PG] Esch, Arno, trans. Canterbury-Geschichten. Fischer Library of One Hundred Books, 33. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer–Bücherei, 1961. A German translation of selected CT into verse couplets. NPT is on pp 189– 203. [JS] Ly y, Toivo, trans. Geoffrey Chaucer. Canterburyn Tarinoita. Helsinki: Söderström, 1962. A translation of selected CT into Finnish, in verse. NPT is translated on pp 291–319. [PG] Morra, Silvana, trans. I racconti di Canterbury. 2 vols. Milan: Il Club del Libro, 1962. An Italian translation of CT. [JS]

36 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

134 Chaucer’s Major Poetry. Ed. Albert C. Baugh. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963. An edition of virtually all Chaucer’s poetry - omitting Anel, Rom, all prose including Mel and ParsT, and most of LGW - with footnote glossing and annotation. MkP is on pp 353–4; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 355–69; NPT pp 371–81; the endlink p 382. Baugh does not discuss his own text or specify the MS he is using as his base. The general introduction includes a substantial discussion of language, and a brief section on versification. The introduction to CT emphasizes the ‘unfolding drama of human personalities’ (p 235). He adopts the order of tales recommended by Pratt 266. B1 and B2 become a single group followed by Group D, thereby placing NPT immediately before WBT. [PG, JS] •Edmund Reiss, ‘Editions and Translations of Chaucer Now in Print.’ CE 26 (1965), 572–9, describes the general introduction as ‘a compendium of conservative Chaucerian scholarship’ (p 575) lacking the excitement of Donaldson 121. Both are preferable for undergraduates ‘in format and readability’ but unable to displace Robinson 116 as an edition for scholars. 135 Chaucer. Ed. Louis O. Coxe. Laurel Poetry Series. New York: Dell, 1963. A selection, comprising the short lyrics, part of TC, and GP with eight tales. NPT, without NPP or endlink, is on pp 216–32. The text is based on the editions of Skeat 15 and Robinson 116. There are brief notes and a glossary. [JS] 136 Grennen, Joseph E. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Monarch Review Notes and Study Guides. New York: Monarch Press, 1963. A complete prose redaction of CT, interspersed with introductions and explanatory and critical comments, intended for ‘the youthful reader.’ See also 629. [JS] 137 Collins Albatross Book of Longer Poems: English and American Poetry From the Fourteenth Century to the Present Day. Ed. Edwin Morgan. London and Glasgow: Collins, 1963. Includes Robinson’s text 116 of NPT, FranT, and PardT. NPT, without prologue or endlink, is on pp 15–32. There are footnote glosses and occasional notes, but no introduction on Chaucer or CT. [JS] 138 Dutescu, Dan, trans. Povestirile din Canterbury. Bucharest: Editura Pentru Literatura Universala, 1964. An illustrated Romanian translation of CT into verse: eight-line stanzas for MkT and couplets for NPT. MkP is on pp 309–11; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 313–40; NPP pp 343–4; NPT pp 345–66; the endlink p 367. [PG] 139 Canterbury Tales; Tales of Canterbury. Ed. A. Kent & Constance Hieatt. Bantam Dual-Language Book. New York: Bantam, 1964. A teaching text that offers facing-page translations, rather free, of GP and

Editions and Translations / 37

140

141

142

143

144

seven tales. NPT, without NPP or endlink, is on pp 384–413. The text is based on the Oxford Chaucer 15. There is an introduction, containing a section on Chaucer’s language and versification. Glossary and notes are combined and brief. [JS] Malcomson, A., trans. A Taste of Chaucer: Selections from the Canterbury Tales. Illustrated by Enrico Arno. London: Constable Young Books; New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1964. A translation into verse, stanzas or couplets as appropriate, of selected tales. Prologues and endlinks are mostly summarized. The tales of Samson, Nebuchadnezzar and Croesus from MkT are on pp 60–1, under the chapterheading of ‘The Fortunes of the Great.’ An abbreviated and bowdlerized version of NPT, under the chapter-heading of ‘Chanticleer and the Fox,’ is on pp 62–78. There is an introduction, dealing mainly with Chaucer’s life, and a brief glossary and notes. [PG] Wright, David, trans. The Canterbury Tales. London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1964. A prose translation of all the tales except Mel and ParsT, which are summarized. The text is based on Robinson 116, although the order of the tales is that of the Oxford Chaucer 15. MkP is on pp 113–4; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 115–26; NPP pp 127–8; NPT pp 129–37; the endlink p 138. [PG] Chang, Hsiu Ya, trans. Chin Sang Tzu Ho Hu Li [Chanticleer and the Fox]. Taipei: Kuo Yü Daily Press, 1965. An illustrated Chinese version of NPT. [JS] The Nun’s Priest’s Prologue and Tale. Ed. Maurice Hussey. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1965. The text, with prologue and endlink, is based on Robinson 116. No accentuation is provided: ‘it is not now thought that the later works of Chaucer were written in a ten-syllable line from which no variation was permissible’ (p 43). The introduction favours a dramatized reading based on the Priest’s relations with the Prioress and the Host. Hussey emphasizes NPT’s intellectual interests: ‘tragedy, rhetoric, scholarship, ecclesiastical authority, science, medicine, simple domesticity and courtly love all play their part in making it a universal poem in miniature’ (p 34). He does not support allegorical or moralized readings: the mock-heroic mode expresses ‘a subtle unconcern that suits the elvish Chaucer to perfection’ (p 40). He argues, like Fish 456, that source studies only serve to illuminate Chaucer’s originality in handling material from Roman de Renart. See also Hussey 902 and Hussey, Spearing, Winny 635. [JS] Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Notes, Translation and Text. [No editor named.] Coles Notes. London, Toronto: Coles, 1966, 1968.

38 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

A Middle English text (editor or edition unspecified) of NPP, NPT and endlink on pp 35–67, with a facing-page translation into verse couplets. For full reference, see 892. [PG] 145 Geoffrey Chaucer: a Selection of His Works. Ed. Kenneth Kee. College Classics in English. Toronto and London: Macmillan, 1966; New York: St Martin’s Press, 1967. Contains six lyrics, GP and Ret; WBT, MerT, FranT, PardT and NPT are chosen to ‘represent five different types of medieval narrative structures’ (p xxxii) and arranged in the Ellesmere order, since Kee believes that NPT VII.2914–17 refer back to WBT (p 186). A shortened version of NPP is on p 182; NPT pp 182–205; there is no endlink. Each tale has an introduction, individual line numbering, side-glosses and footnotes. The general introduction discusses Chaucer’s life, language, grammar and versification; Chaucerian conventions, especially courtly love; and the display of learning and rhetoric, using NPT to illustrate their comic deployment. NPT is a beast epic, borrowing from Roman de Renart, which, like other examples of the genre, moved easily into satire, allegory and moralizing. NPT is a ‘comedy of marriage’ and a ‘covertly sly’ expression of the Nun’s Priest’s ‘genial anti-feminism’ (p 179). In its reminder of the Fall, NPT can be seen as ‘a very serious morality indeed’ (p 181). [JS] 146 The Tales of Canterbury: Complete. Ed. Robert A. Pratt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966. Rpt 1974. MkP is on pp 208–11; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 211– 32; NPP pp 232–4; NPT pp 234–52; the endlink p 252. The text, with side glosses, footnotes and illustrations, is based on Robinson 116, although many readings of the Manly-Rickert Edition 97 are admitted. All significant variations from Robinson 116 are recorded on pp 562–79. The order of CT follows the ‘1400 order’ recommended by Pratt himself in 266, with ShT following MLT, and WBT following immediately after NPT. The text has line glosses and explanatory footnotes. There is a substantial introduction, drawing on Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olson’s Chaucer Life Records (1966) for details of Chaucer’s life, including a discussion of the tales themselves, the order of the tales and suggestions for further reading, and a ‘Basic Glossary.’ [PG] 147 Geoffrey Chaucer: Selections from The Tales of Canterbury and Short Poems. Ed. Robert A. Pratt. Riverside Editions B 41. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966. An abbreviated version of 146. MkP is on pp 170–2, but MkT is omitted; NPT pp 172–90; the endlink p 190. The introduction, note on the text, order of the tales, and glossary are shortened from 146. •The edition is praised by J.A. Burrow, N&Q 212 (1967), 264–5, for resting ‘unobtrusively on the best and up-to-date scholarship.’ [JS]

Editions and Translations / 39

148 Barisone, Ermanno, trans. I racconti di Canterbury. Turin: U.T.E.T. (Toso), 1967. Not seen. [JS] 149 Ferrer, Josefina, trans. Geoffrey Chaucer. Los Cuentos de Canterbury. Illustrated by Aguilar Moré. Barcelona: Edicione Marte, 1967. A translation into Spanish prose, based on the editions of Robinson 116 and the Oxford Chaucer 15, but with the tales in Bradshaw-shift order. MkP is on pp 117–18; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 118–30; NPP p. 131; NPT pp 131–8; endlink p 138. [PG] 150 Barnouw, A.J., trans. De vertellingen van de pelgrims naar Kantelberg: vertaald door A.J. Barnouw. 2 vols. Utrecht: Spectrum, 1968. An illustrated Dutch translation of CT. [JS] 151 Hallqvist, Britt G., trans. Tuppen och räven [Chanticleer and the Fox]. Stockholm: Illustrationsförl. Carlsen, 1968. An illustrated version in Swedish of NPT. [JS] 152 Hausmann, Wolf, and Alfred Könner, trans. Singehell und der Fuchs [Chanticleer and the Fox]. Reinbek: Carlsen, 1968. 153 Baldini, Attilio, trans. The Canterbury Tales: The Prologue, The Prioress’s Tale, The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, The Pardoner’s Tale. Milan: Dante Alighieri, 1969. An Italian translation of selected tales with an introduction and notes. [JS] 154 Geoffrey Chaucer: The Works, 1532; with Supplementary Material from the Editions of 1542, 1561, 1598 and 1602. Ed. D.S. Brewer. Menston, Yorks.: Scolar, 1969. Provides ‘a conspectus of the works of Chaucer as they appeared to readers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.’ It contains a facsimile of Thynne’s 1532 edition, the ‘first serious attempt to gather together all of Chaucer’s productions,’ supplemented by all material added through to Speght’s 1602 edition: this ‘makes available all that . . . was known as Chaucer’s to readers including Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden and Pope.’ The introduction discusses the contents of each edition and includes a comment on the last blackletter edition of 1687, which included no new material. MkP is on f 96–96v; MkT f96v–101; NPP f101; NPT f101v–104v; Endlink f104v followed without interruption by the Manciples’s Prologue. For another facsimile of Thynne’s 1532 edition, see 34. See also Hetherington 272. [JS] 155 Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. A Selection. Ed. Donald R. Howard. Signet Classic Poetry Series. New York: Signet, 1969. An edition of eleven tales, including MkP and NPT, in an ‘eclectic’ text based on Manly-Rickert Edition 97. Following Donaldson 121, spelling has been standardized and modernized. MkP is on pp 236–9; NPP 240–1; NPT 242–60; there is no endlink. There is some glossing and footnotes. Introductions to

40 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

156

157

158

159

160

161 162

the selected tales are built into the general introduction, which stresses Chaucer’s ‘writing, especially his narrative method, rather than his life or times. NPT interacts dramatically and thematically with the preceding PrT, Mel, and MkT, rather than with the marriage group; it is characteristically Chaucerian in its ironic disinterested view, and not particularly relevant to the Nun’s Priest. [JS] Selections from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Francis King and Bruce Steele. Melbourne, Australia: F.W. Cheshire, 1969. The text, based on Ellesmere MS but influenced by Manly-Rickert Edition 97, includes GP, Ret, and nine tales, including NPT. NPP is on pp 168–70; NPT pp 172–204; the endlink p 204. Notes and glosses face the text. The Nun’s Priest has a ‘sense of man’s absurdity that allows a forgiveness of behaviour which, in stricter and more solemn eyes, would be merely evil’ (p 382). [JS] Canterbury Tales: The Prologue and Three Tales. Ed. Francis King and Bruce Steele. Melbourne: F.W. Cheshire, 1969. Rpt London: John Murray, 1971. Text and apparatus are identical with 156. NPT is on pp 110–42; the endlink p 142. [JS] Oriol, Caridad, trans. Cuentos de Canterbury. Barcelona: Bruguera, 1969. A Spanish prose translation of CT. MkP is on pp 193–5, MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 196–213; NPP pp 214–15; NPT pp 216–28; the endlink p 229. There is an introduction covering such items as Chaucer’s life and times, CT, the school of Chaucer, and a short bibliography. [PG] Príbusová, Margita, trans. Canterburské poviedky. Bratislava: Mladé letá, 1969. An illustrated Czech translation of CT; not seen. [JS] von Düring, Adolf, trans. Die Canterbury Tales. Rev and Introd. Lambert Hoevel. Koln: Hegner, 1969. A revision of von Düring’s German verse translation of 1883–6. MkP is on pp 256–8; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) on pp 259–82; NPP pp 283–4; NPT pp 285–302; the endlink p 303. [JS, PG] Surbanov, Aleksandar, trans. Kentarbarijski razkazi. Sofia: Nar. kultura, 1970. A Bulgarian translation of CT; not seen. [JS] The Canterbury Tales. Ed. John Halverson. Indianapolis and New York: BobbsMerrill, 1971. A student’s edition, including full texts of some tales and summaries of others. MkP is on pp 376–9; MkT is summarized pp 379–85, but the tales of Ugolino and Holofernes are included in full; NPP pp 385–7; NPT pp 384–406; there is no endlink. The text is based on Robinson 116 with some variants from Manly-Rickert Edition 97; ‘the result is a trifle closer to Ellesmere than either’ (p xxi). There is an introduction, containing a section on Chaucer’s life

Editions and Translations / 41

163

164

165

166

and a guide to pronunciation; notes ‘minimally philological and antiquarian’; and a Glossary. [GC] Coghill, Nevill, introd. A Choice of Chaucer’s Verse. London: Faber and Faber, 1972. Parts of NPT (VII.2882–3062, VII.3122–76) are included. The text is based on the Oxford Chaucer 15. There is a facing-page verse paraphrase which mainly follows Coghill 110, though some sections have been re-worked. [GC] Medieval English Literature. Ed. J.B. Trapp. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Vol 1 of The Oxford Anthology of English Literature. Gen. Eds. Frank Kermode and John Hollander. There is a substantial section on Chaucer, pp 119–283. NPP is on pp 177–9; NPT pp 179–95; there is no endlink. The text is based on the Oxford Chaucer 15 with occasional readings from other sources. There are both marginal glosses and footnotes. Syllabic final -e is indicated with a dot superscript; a grave accent marks a stress different from modern English; an acute accent indicates an ‘e’ pronounced like modern French é. There are introductory remarks on Chaucer’s life and works, CT, and Chaucer’s English. Two other Cock and fox stories, from Physiologus and from Caxton’s Reynard the Fox, are included on pp 196–9. [PG] Foucher, Jean-Pierre, trans. Les Contes de Cantorbéry. Paris: Livre de Poche, 1974. A translation into French prose designed to permit easy access for French readers to a work which belongs to the trésor of European literature. The tales are in Bradshaw-shift order. MkP and the stories of Lucifer, Adam and Samson are on pp 223–30; NPP pp 231–3; NPT pp 233–51; the endlink p 252. There is an introduction dealing with Chaucer’s life and works; an essay by E.C. Julien on the pilgrimage to Canterbury; and brief notes on the sources of the individual tales. [PG] Chaucer’s Poetry. An Anthology for the Modern Reader. Ed. E.T. Donaldson. Second edn. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1975. (For 1st edn see 121.) Contains all CT in verse. Like the first edition, the text, based on the Hengwrt MS, is reproduced with consistent spelling, using forms closest to modern English, without sacrificing phonological values or the general appearance of Middle English orthography. It is fully glossed. MkP is on pp 461–4; MkT (with Modern Instances at the end of the tale) pp 464–92; NPP pp 492–4; NPT pp 494–514; the endlink p 514. Part II offers a commentary on Chaucer’s language, life, and a critical commentary on the poetry selected. For details of the commentary, see the entry for first edition 121. [PG]

42 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

167 The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer Now Newly Imprinted. Ed. Duncan Robinson. A Companion Volume to the Kelmscott Chaucer. London: Basilisk Press, 1975. A facsimile of the Kelmscott Chaucer 18, limited to 515 copies. For another facsimile see 122. [PG] 168 Brodie’s Notes on Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. London and Sydney: Pan, 1976. Aimed at students, but containing a complete unbowdlerized Middle English text, based on Robinson 116, with a prose summary on facing pages. For full entry see 974. [PG] 169 Notes on Chaucer’s The Nonne Preestes Tale. Methuen Notes. Study-aid Series. London: Methuen, 1976. Contains a bowdlerized and abbreviated prose translation. For full entry see 977. [PG] 170 Coghill, Nevill, trans. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. An illustrated selection rendered into modern English. London: Allen Lane, 1977. Rpt in paperback, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978. A selection of tales, interspersed with many illustrations of medieval life and culture, and with a commentary. MkP is on pp 151–2; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 153–78; NPP pp 179–80; NPT pp 181–96; there is no endlink. There is a brief introduction on Chaucer’s life and works. [PG] 171 De Caluwé-Dor, Juliette, trans. Les Contes de Cantorbéry. Vol 1, Gand, Belgium: Editions Scientifique E. Story-Scientia, 1977. Vol 2, Louvain, Paris: Peeters, 1986. (See also Dor 189.) De Caluwé-Dor’s stated aim in the introduction to vol 1 is to produce a complete translation of CT following Robinson’s order and text 116. Vol 1 departs from this plan to include NPT among its four tales, a decision justified by the advantages of presenting a spectrum of genres. The translation retains the verse lines of the original but is intentionally literal. NPP is on pp 109–10 of vol 1; NPT pp 111–28; the endlink p 128. The tales in vol 2 are translated from Fisher 172 and are presented with the English on facing pages. There is a short bibliography. [PG] 172 The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. John H. Fisher. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977. 2nd edn 1989. MkP is on pp 281–3; MkT (with Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 283–95; NPP pp 296–7; NPT pp 297–307; the endlink p 307. The text is based on the Ellesmere MS, because it offers ‘a text more regular in dialect and spelling than Hengwrt and more complete, with the tales in the order which many scholars today regard as nearest to Chaucer’s intention’ (p 967). A running commentary at the foot of the pages includes glosses, brief explanatory and historical notes, and a record of readings differing from Ellesmere (with ‘obvious’ errors silently corrected) and of ‘substantive variants’ from Hengwrt.

Editions and Translations / 43

There is a brief general introduction to CT and brief introductions to each ‘part.’ There is a discussion of ‘The Place of Chaucer’ on pp 951–5; ‘Chaucer in His Time’ pp 956–60; ‘Chaucer’s Language and Versification’ pp 961–5; ‘The Text of this Edition’ pp 966–72. There is a bibliography on pp 975–1018, with items on MkT p 1007 and NPT on pp 1007–8, and a Glossary on pp 1033– 40. The text and notes of the second edition are unchanged from the first. The headnotes have been rewritten to reflect scholarship and criticism to 1988 and the bibliography revised to include important books and articles to 1987. [JAS, PG] 173 Poetical Works, Geoffrey Chaucer. A Facsimile of Cambridge University MS GG.4.27. Introduction by M.B. Parkes and Richard Beadle. 3 vols. Cambridge: Brewer, 1979–80. The MS includes a ‘mutilated copy’ of CT (the A text). MkT occupies ff 331– 62v of vol 2. MkP and MkT begin (f 351) at VII.1919, the Modern Instances stand at the end, and it ends abruptly (f 362v) at VII.2424, with leaves missing. NPT is in vol 2, ff 365–71v, ‘beginning abruptly’ at VII.2859 and ‘ending abruptly’ at VII.3365. Vol 3 contains the commentary and the colour plates, including that of f 332. Scribe A has laid out thirty-nine lines per page, except for MkT where the eight-line stanzas are disposed on thirty-eight ruled lines, and the only surviving anomaly is MkP on f 351, which is laid out eighteen couplets to the page. [BM, RW] 174 The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer: A Facsimile and Transcription of the Hengwrt Manuscript, with Variants from the Ellesmere Manuscript. Ed. Paul G. Ruggiers. Introduction by Donald C. Baker, A. I. Doyle, and M.B. Parkes. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979; Folkestone, England: Dawson, 1979. A Variorum Edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 1. General Editors, Paul G. Ruggiers and Donald C. Baker. The Hengwrt MS will serve as the base-text for the Chaucer Variorum Edition of CT (in progress). The facsimile reproduction and transcription are printed on facing pages with an indication of variant readings from the Ellesmere MS. MkP is on pp 346–50; MkT pp 350–81; NPP p 390; NPT pp 393–422. The Hengwrt MS lacks the endlink. The ‘Palaeographical Introduction’ by Parkes and Doyle (pp xix–xlix) is especially significant. A change of ink at the end of MkT in the Hengwrt MS may indicate that NPP and NPT were not immediately available to the copyist. [PG] 175 The Canterbury Tales: Edited from the Hengwrt Manuscript. Ed. N.F. Blake. York Medieval Texts, 2nd Series. London: Edward Arnold, 1980. MkP is on pp 530–3; MkT (with Modern Instances at the end of the tale) pp 534–60; NPP (in shortened form) pp 560–1; NPT pp 561–80; there is no endlink in the Hengwrt MS. The Adam stanza, which is not present in Hengwrt, is printed on p 671. (See 282 and 295).

44 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

The introduction argues that the premises on which modern editions of CT are based are unsatisfactory, and this edition is edited from the best and earliest MS, the Hengwrt MS, retaining the MS spelling, with few emendations, and with new section numbering and lineation. Although this MS has the best text, it is not regarded by many editors as having the best tale-order. The state of the CT MSS cannot be explained by the theory of prior publication of tales or groups of tales. Nothing was published before Chaucer’s death (see also Blake 277), when CT existed in twelve ‘fragments’ or ‘sections’ which were arranged by the compiler of Hengwrt. MkT is situated within Section 10 (the separation of MkT and NPT is a simple case of misbinding). MkP shares some features with the end of ClT, and it seems to have been used to produce the later NPT endlink which is not in Hengwrt, and possibly the tale received considerable editorial attention at an early stage. It was so usual to begin a series of ‘tragedies’ with Adam that a later scribe may well have composed the stanza written in a different hand in the margin, and it is included in many modern editions after the Lucifer stanza. The first nineteen lines of NPP in Hengwrt make up the Knight’s speech. In Ellesmere, the Knight is given additional material, but part of his Hengwrt speech is transferred to what becomes the Host’s interruption of the Knight. In all, Ellesmere has an additional twenty lines. Blake also offers an explanation of how the NPT endlink came into existence. There is MS evidence to indicate that the scribe expected CYT to become available, i.e., that it was being written during the copying: CYT is therefore spurious. Later, when CYT was introduced to the corpus, it was linked to SNT by means of the CYT Prologue, and because of that Prologue’s mention of Broughton-under-Blean it was associated with the Blean forest of ManT Prologue. This meant that SNT was shifted to a position between NPT and CYT. Since NPT ended a section it had no endlink, and since SNT existed in a section by itself it had no Prologue. With the new ordering a spurious endlink for NPT was created, although this does not appear in Ellesmere. Appendices contain those sections of CT in Ellesmere which do not appear in Hengwrt and those which are regarded as spurious. The footnotes include glosses, and there is a general glossary of words ‘likely to cause a modern reader difficulty or to lead to misunderstanding’ (p 693). •Review by Donald C. Baker, ELN 22 (1985), 72–3. This edition is ‘a landmark in the welcome revival of the discussion of the text [of CT] after arid wastes of discussion of symbolism, irony and theme - those things which require opinion, not knowledge’ (p 73). Blake’s confidence (arising from his ‘reverence’ for Hengwrt) that certain passages, including the longer NPP, are spurious, should be questioned, however. •Review by Johan Kerling, ES 64 (1983), 91–2. Although this edition should

Editions and Translations / 45

176

177

178

179

180

be welcomed, the introductory comments about the MS tradition of CT depend too much on knowledge of Blake’s other publications, and while some aspects of the edition suggest it is aimed primarily at scholars, other aspects suggest an undergraduate audience. •Review by E.G. Stanley, N&Q 227 (1982), 428–9. ‘As far as the notes go, it is not always easy to see for whom they are intended’ (p 429). [BM] Woods, Phil. Canterbury Tales: Chaucer Made Modern. Culleroats: Iron Press, 1980. Second edition, 1981. A play, set in modern times, which takes the form of an annual ‘Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales-telling Competition’. NPT is on pp 16–19 in a very free and condensed adaptation, e.g., ‘But the special favourite that claimed his vote / Was a Rhode Island redhead, called Pertelote’ (p 17). [BM] Lehnert, Martin, trans. Geoffrey Chaucer: Die Canterbury-Erzählungen. Leipzig: Anton Kippenberg, 1981. A German translation of CT, based on Robinson 116, which includes a verse translation of NPT with Prologue and Epilogue (pp 435–53). Notes and commentary are on pp 654–61. [BM] Bergner, Heinz, trans. The Canterbury Tales. Die Canterbury-Erzählungen. Mittelenglisch / Deutsch. Selected and ed. Heinz Bergner. Transl. and commentary by Heinz Bergner, Waltraud Böttcher, Günter Hagel, and Hilmar Sperber. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam Jun, 1982. A parallel Middle English text, from Robinson 116, and German translation of selections from CT. The prose translation (by Hilmar Sperber) of NPT, without prologue or endlink, is on pp 393–429. There is a brief introduction and chronology of the fourteenth century, notes and a select bibliography. [BM, PG] McCaughrean, Geraldine, trans. The Canterbury Tales. Illustrations by Victor G. Ambrus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984; Sydney, Auckland, London, Toronto: Hodder & Stoughton, 1984. A prose retelling of some of CT for children. NPT, pp 28–35, is called ‘The Nightmare of the Firebrand Tail.’ Much liberty is taken with Chaucer’s text. [BM] The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Ed. Derek Pearsall. Variorum Edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer vol 2, pt 9. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984. [Variorum Edition] The text is based on the Hengwrt MS, collated with nine MSS and twenty printed editions selected by the general editors. This critical edition proves ‘little different from an edited transcript of the Hengwrt manuscript, with only twelve emendations introduced in the whole 660 lines’ (p xviii). There is a very substantial introduction. The first section summarizes some of Pearsall’s conclusions from his editing of NPT and contains a survey

46 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

of scholarship and criticism. The Hengwrt MS is of such quality that clearly ‘it must stand very close to the author’s original’ (p 4). The NPT endlink, appearing in the group a MSS, is the relic ‘of an imperfectly canceled author’s draft’ to which the scribe of the ancestor of a must have had access, but has ‘no special authority in the establishment of the text’ (p 5). Nevertheless, the endlink is printed from Cambridge University Library MS Dd.4.24. The expanded MkT–NPT Link in Ellesmere (NPP VII.2771–91) is of a different order, reflecting an authoritative revision of Hengwrt, and the Ellesmere lines are included. Attempts at precise dating are rejected, but NPT ‘was composed when Chaucer was at a mature stage in the development’ of CT (p 7). For sources, Chaucer drew on Marie de France’s fable, and a version as it appears in Roman de Renart; there is no clear evidence that he knew other continental versions. For non-narrative sources he drew especially on Holkot’s commentary on the Book of Wisdom, and on works of Vincent of Beauvais. Critical interpretation has benefited from knowledge of the two forms of the MkT–NPT Link: they reveal something of Chaucer’s developing intentions, showing that the contrast between MkT and NPT is part of the meaning of NPT. However, interpretations which emphasize the Nun’s Priest’s satirical intentions (directed at Monk, Prioress, or Host) too easily ignore the fact that NPT’s humour, ‘its raison d’être, resides in the “incompetent” mode of narration, in the superb display of irrelevant skills’ (p 8). ‘Dramatic’ readings often miss the source of the burlesque and mock heroic: e.g., the narrator’s discussion of predestination and free will is not confused; the comedy resides in its application to the cock and fox story. Moralistic interpretations often miss the point: the ‘embarrassing surfeit of “morals” we are offered ... hints at the inadequacy of easy moralizing’ (p 12). Exegetical interpretation has opened up some of the allusions, but has generally missed the point of a tale which itself ‘caricatures the absurdities of allegorized fable’ with ‘resounding finality’ (p 12). The second part of the introduction, ‘Critical Commentary,’ is a survey, arranged chronologically and sometimes thematically, of NPT scholarship and criticism. There are four main sections. The first deals with sources and analogues; the second surveys theories about the date of NPT. The third section is a Survey of Criticism, with topical sub-sections: Early Appreciation deals with allusions to NPT and criticism to ca 1900; ‘Appropriateness of the Tale to the Teller’ traces the twentieth-century development of the ‘dramatic’ reading; ‘Relations to Other Tales’; ‘Interpretative Studies’. The sub-section ‘Noninterpretative Evaluation’ brings together those who reflect what is to Pearsall the mainstream of NPT criticism, ‘whether it has had to do with the broad recognition of the mock-heroic features of the poem or has concentrated on more specific elucidation of the satire on rhetoric ... on learned

Editions and Translations / 47

pedantry, sermonizing, or any other kind of pretentious intellectual activity’ (p 65). In this category Muscatine 857 and Donaldson 121 have been most influential. This part of the introduction concludes with NPT’s influence on Spenser and Henryson. The third part of the introduction is ‘Textual Commentary.’ After brief discussion of the Hengwrt glosses (listed p 84) and Merthyr fragments, there is a more detailed survey of scholarly opinion on the MkT–NPT Link and the Endlink, which Pearsall accepts as genuine, although cancelled by Chaucer. Endlink VII.3461–62, however, are spurious. There is overwhelming MS authority for the sequence MkT-Link-NPT, and evidence that Chaucer had not finally decided which tale was to follow B2. There is a table of variants for each MS of the base-group (p 93), and a description of Hengwrt and the other nine collated MSS. The twelve emendations of Hengwrt are explained; Hengwrt readings considered suspect or inferior by previous editors are listed and discussed. The major printed editions are described. Finally, the editorial practice for the present edition is explained. •Review by M.C. Seymour, ES 67 (1986), 186–7, expresses concern that in a variorum edition Pearsall is so openly willing to evaluate other interpretations in the light of his own, that there is insufficient reporting of scribal procedures, and that ‘the Commentary is both too intrusive on simple matters and too reliant on Sisam 69 where deference often leads to defeat’ (p 187). •Review by N.F. Blake, SAC 7 (1985), 229–33. Insufficient attention is paid to the fifteenth-century MS tradition, and even with Dd.4.24 (one of the base MSS) there is no attempt to explain how this MS could include both the ‘imperfectly canceled’ Endlink (from a first version of NPT) and the additional lines of NPP (from a later revision). •Review by Ralph Hanna III, AEB 8 (1984), 184–97. Much of the work is ‘outstanding’ (p 194), especially the introduction; but there are some reservations about the editing principles of this volume and of the whole Variorum series. The pronouncements on editorial principles are unclear: the ‘plan sounds at some moments like a truly critical text, one which relies on the evidence of a variety of sources; at other times, the plan seems to be that of taking Hengwrt as a rather diplomatic approach to what Chaucer wrote’ (p 188). The MSS chosen by the editorial board for collation appear to have been selected to correspond to Manly and Rickert’s 97 genetic groups, implying that the result will be an eclectic text produced by genetic recension; but Pearsall’s editing of NPT, with his rigid adherence to Hengwrt, ‘incongruously reflects a “base text” or “copy-text” emphasis for which the genetic evidence of the nine additional manuscripts is unnecessary’ (p 190). [BM] 181 Wright, David, trans. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

48 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

A verse translation of all the tales except Mel and ParsT, which are summarized. MkP is on pp 175–8; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 178–200; NPP pp 201–2; NPT pp 202–18; the endlink p 218. The basis for the text is unexplained. The translation conveys the sense of the original in modern idiom, although word order is often controlled by the possibility of rhyme. Lines are basically decasyllabic, in free rhythm. Although rhyme is infrequent in rendering Chaucer’s couplets, the stanzas of MkT are distinguished by a rhyme, or near-rhyme, scheme which gives a fair approximation to Chaucer’s. The Introduction gives a summary account of Chaucer’s life, times, and works. There are brief explanatory notes on pp 470–3. •Review by Derek Pearsall.SAC 9 (1987), 199–203. The translation is ‘respectable’ (p 200), but metrical exigencies inevitably give rise to padding, misplaced emphasis, and banality. Whatever a translator’s skill, ‘translation of Chaucer is not only unnecessary but undesirable, since it does, in the end, a disservice to Chaucer’s poetry’ (p 203). [DS] 182 The Canterbury Tales. Ed. F.N. Robinson, with facing page translation by David Wright. London: Folio Society, 1986. 3 vols. The text is the second edition of Robinson 116 and the facing-page verse translation is Wright 181. MkP is in vol 3, pp 128–33; MkT pp 134–83; NPP pp 186–8; NPT pp 188–222; the endlink pp 222–5. There are introductions by both Wright and Robinson, the latter reprinted from the second edition 116. The text is illustrated by woodcuts by various artists and there is a glossary, based on a condensed version of Robinson 166. [PG] 183 MS Trinity R.3.19. The Facsimile Series of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer 5. Intro by Bradford Y. Fletcher. Norman, OK: Pilgrim, 1987. This MS contains MkT only; not seen. [DS] 184 The Riverside Chaucer. Gen. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Third edn. Based on The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, edited by F.N. Robinson [85 and 116]. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Rpt Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. MkP is on p 240; MkT (with the Modern Instances after Zenobia) pp 241–52; NPP pp 252–3; NPT pp 253–61; the endlink p 261. Textual Notes are on pp 1131–3, Explanatory Notes on pp 928–41. It is a moot point whether this is better regarded as a substantial revision of Robinson 116 or as a new production. The preface records a movement in the concept held by the team editing the works as a whole from ‘Robinson Three’ to ‘a completely new edition’ (p v), but CT is treated more conservatively than other texts. The textual notes to CT (pp 1118–22) review editorial opinion to date and reject Blake’s adoption of Hengwrt as the base MS (see 175, 277, 282, 295). The text of CT is thus essentially Robinson’s, based on Ellesmere with occasional readings from Hengwrt. The following differences from Robinson are recorded in the textual notes

Editions and Translations / 49

to MkP-MkT-NPP, the Riverside reading given first, Robinson’s second: ‘but’/ ‘save’ (MkT VII.2438); ‘ilke’/ ‘like’ (VII.2473); ‘greet’/ ‘ful greet’ (VII.2544); ‘dorst’/ ‘dar’ (VII.2564); ‘And’/ ‘And yet’ (VII.2662); ‘Valerius’/ ‘Valerie’ (VII.2720); ‘or daun Piers’/ ‘daun Piers’ (NPP VII.2792). No comment is offered on two spelling differences, ‘Therefore’/ ‘Therfore’ (MkT VII.2230) and ‘ek’/ ‘eek’ (2757), or on an apparent correction from ‘his’ to ‘hir’ with reference to Zenobia (2254). There are also a few minor variations in punctuation. Differences from Robinson in the text of NPT are as follows: ‘herkneth’ / om. (VII.3076); ‘and’ / ‘and eke’ (VII.3093); ‘venymes’ / ‘venymous’ (VII.3155); ‘was gon’ / ‘bigan’ (VII.3190); ‘I’ / om. (VII.3248); ‘I am’ / ‘am I’ (VII.3411). The explanatory notes to MkT and NPT, prepared by Susan H. Cavanaugh, include an overall review of scholarship and criticism and summaries of opinion with regard to particular matters. As well as offering occasional adjudications at contentious points, Cavanaugh records and endorses an unpublished note by Pratt on ‘vitremyte’ (MkT VII.2372), suggesting ‘a derivation of the first element from ME vitry (OF Vitré), meaning vitre canvas, a light durable canvas made at Vitré, Brittany; and the second element from OF mite (Lat. mitra), “headdress”’ (p 932). For a similar view of ‘-myte’ see DiMarco 385. NPT was composed with its narrator in mind, its material and method being particularly appropriate, although why Chaucer gave such a splendid tale to so sketchily characterized a narrator is not clear. The pairing of the tale with MkT is generally accepted and NPT may supply a retrospective unity to the whole of Fragment VII. Moralistic and allegorical readings of the tale are more ‘ingenious than convincing’ (p 936), although it is generally accepted that the tale is a parody of the excesses of rhetoric. Glosses are provided both as footnotes to the text and in a substantial back glossary with select line citations. In the introduction Benson dates some of the tragedies later used in MkT to the period 1372–80, and Norman Davis, discussing ‘Language and Versification,’ cites examples from VII.2532, 2544 and 2226, 2151, 2498, 2451, 1997, 2129 and 2053, and observes that Chaucer early in his writing career adopted the five-stress line, probably derived from both the French decasyllabic line and the Italian eleven-syllable line, for MkT. •Review by Leger Brosnahan, Spec 63 (1988), 641–5. ‘This new edition attempts strenuously and succeeds impressively in addressing all Chaucer audiences at once’ (p 645). •Review by Betsy Bowden, EC 38 (1988), 75–9. The book ‘aims at both scholars and students but collapses clumsily before reaching either audience’ (p 75). Inconsistencies are evident in format, glossing, cross-referencing, and editorial judgement of texts. •Review by Rosemarie Potz McGerr, JEGP 88 (1989), 221–3. The improve-

50 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

185

186

187

188

ments over Robinson are more practical than intellectual. There is some inconsistency between the editors of individual tales. The edition reflects the fact that no single edition of Chaucer can any longer be all things to all readers. •Review by N.F. Blake, SAC 12 (1990), 257–61. Although more information is provided than in Robinson, it is difficult to retrieve. Collaboration leads to some unevenness, particularly with regard to the actual editing process. [DS, PG] Pickering, Ken, trans. Some Canterbury Tales: Freely Adapted from Geoffrey Chaucer. With music by Derek Hyde. London: Samuel French, 1988. A play script. NPT is on pp 36–9, reduced to the bantering argument between Chauntecleer and Pertelote about Chauntecleer’s dream, the fox chase, and Chauntecleer’s escape. [PG] The Ellesmere Manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. A Working Facsimile. Introduction by Ralph Hanna III. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1989. A reduced (three-quarter size) facsimile of the 1911 facsimile produced in a limited edition for Manchester University Press 40, although lacking the colour reproductions of the original. The introduction covers briefly the provenance of the MS; the preparation, faults and strengths of the 1911 facsimile; some palaeographical detail. Whereas the original facsimile was produced at the height of the influence of Ellesmere, the appearance of this one seems designed to counter some of the influence of Hengwrt on Chaucer textual criticism of the 1980s. [PG] The Canterbury Tales: Nine Tales and the General Prologue. Ed. V.A. Kolve and Glending Olson. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1989. A glossed text intended for students ‘making their first acquaintance with Chaucer in his own language’ (p xi). The text is ‘conservative’ (p xi), using the Oxford Chaucer 15 as a base but consulting facsimiles of the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS and twentieth-century editions for many specific readings. NPP is on pp 214–16; NPT pp 216–31; the endlink p 231. There is a guide to pronunciation; a selection of sources and background material, including extracts from Caxton’s Aesop’s Fables, Le Roman de Renart, Macrobius on dreams, Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s lament on the death of Richard I from Poetria Nova, and the characterization of the cock in Bartholomaeus Anglicus’s De Proprietatibus Rerum, translated by John Trevisa. There is a selection of criticism, generally classic studies, and a brief chronology of Chaucer’s life. [PG] Bowden, Betsy, ed. Eighteenth-Century Modernizations from the Canterbury Tales. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 1991. Includes an anonymous and highly condensed version of NPT, published in 1769, and selections from William Lipscomb’s Canterbury Tales of Chaucer,

Editions and Translations / 51

completed in a Modern Version, published in 1795. Selections from MkT are on pp 222–8; selections from NPT are on pp 228–33. [PG] 189 Dor, Juliette, trans. Les Contes de Cantorbéry. Paris: Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 1991. (See also De Caluwé-Dor 171.) A prose translation into French of selected tales. NPT is on pp 198–212. The translation is based on the second edition of Fisher 172. [PG] 190 The New Ellesmere Chaucer Facsimile. Tokyo: Yushodo; San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1995 (colour), 1997 (monochrome). A fine facsimile reproduction made during the disbinding and repair of the manuscript in 1995. The colour edition is limited to 250 copies and the monochrome to one thousand copies. For the accompanying volume of essays, see Stevens and Woodward 305. [PG]

b Bibliographies, Handbooks, and Indexes There are a number of general bibliographies of English literature that contain material on both tales, for example Watson 235.The first major items specifically on Chaucer are Hammond’s Bibliographical Manual 191, still useful for its incisive judgements, and Corson’s Index of Proper Names 192. Spurgeon’s Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion 404 was reprinted in three volumes in 1925.Tatlock and Kennedy’s concordance to Chaucer’s works 204 was an essential part of the study of Chaucer until superceded by the KWIC concordance edited by Oizumi 249. The major bibliographies of scholarship and literary criticism of Chaucer are by Griffith for 1908–24 201 and 1908–53 218, and by Crawford 1954–63 227. L. Baird’s bibliographies for 1964–73 236 and 1974–85 (with Hildegard Schnuttgen) 245 are indispensable. Specialized bibliographies on the relationship between Chaucer and one particular subject have been a feature of the 1970s and 1980s: for example the Chaucer Glossary by Davis et al. 238 and the Chaucer Name Dictionary by De Weever 247.

191 Hammond, Eleanor Prescott. Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual. New York: Macmillan, 1908. Rpt New York: Peter Smith, 1933. A pioneering bibliographical survey, notable for its range of coverage and its incisive judgements, and still extremely useful. The manual contains sections on the life of Chaucer; the works of Chaucer; works other than CT; verse and prose printed with the work of Chaucer; Linguistics and Versification; Bibliographical. Specific MkT items are on pp 291–2 and NPT items on pp 292–3, but bibliographical references and assessments of the state of scholarship concerning various pertinent textual and background matters are to be found throughout the book. [PG] 192 Corson, Hiram. Index of Proper Names and Subjects of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ together with Comparisons and Similes, Metaphors and Proverbs, Maxims, Etc., in the Same. Publications of the Chaucer Society. First Series 72.London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner; Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1911. Rpt New York: Johnson Reprint, 1967. Rpt Folcroft, PA: Folcroft Library Editions, 1973. Corson’s Index, with an introduction by Skeat, was prepared with reference to the paging and lines of Furnivall’s Six-Text Edition 7. Entries for MkPMkT-NPP are identifiable as those cited between 254/3079 and 282/4010; entries for NPT and endlink between 283/4011 and 301/4652. Part I includes

Bibliographies / 53

193

194

195

196

1). An Index of Proper Names and Subjects; 2). An Addition to the Index, consisting mostly of an expansion of the terms of ParsT; 3). Scriptural Quotations and Allusions, arranged in the order of the books of the Bible. Part II consists of sections on Comparisons and Similes; Metaphors; Proverbs, Maxims and Sententious Expressions; and Prayers, Entreaties, Imprecations, etc. These are arranged in order of their appearance in the text. [DS, JS] Heidrich, Käte. Das geographische Weltbild des späteren englischen Mittelalters mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Vorstellungen Chaucer’s und seiner Zeitgenossen. Freiburg im Breisgau: Hammerschlag & Kahle, 1915. Identifies and annotates place-names or references to location in the works of Chaucer and his English contemporaries; pp 44–87 deal with CT. References to MkP include ‘Rouchestre’ (VII.1926), ‘lussheburghes’ (VII.1962).References to MkT include ‘Damyssene’ (VII.2007), ‘Chaldeye’ (VII.2157), ‘Palymerie’ (VII.2247), ‘Persiens’ (VII.2248), ‘the orient’ (VII.2314), ‘Petro, glorie of Spayne’ (VII.2375), ‘Armorike’ (VII.2388), ‘Cipre’ (VII.2381), ‘Melan ... scourge of Lumbardye’ (VII.2399–2400), ‘Pyze’ (VII.2406), ‘Tybre’ (VII.2476), ‘Macidoyne’ (VII.2656). References to NPT include ‘Mercenrike’ (VII.3112) and ‘Flemyng’ (VII.3396). References to endlink include ‘brasile’ and ‘Portyngale’ (VII.3459). [JS, PG] Wells, John Edwin. A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1400. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; London: Milford, Oxford University Press, 1916. The chapter organization is by genres, with a separate commentary for every work, and bibliographical notes. MkP-MkT-NPP contents and record of scholarship are on pp 708–12, Bibliographical Notes on p 878. The NPT commentary is on pp 711–3, the bibliography on p 878.The Manual was for many years the standard bibliographical guide for all Middle English literature. When a complete revision was commenced in 1967, it was decided that, to avoid duplication of effort, there would be no revision of the Chaucer material, which had been superseded by the continuations of Hammond 191 undertaken by Griffith 218, Crawford 227, Baird 236, and Baird-Lange 245. [JS] —. First Supplement to a Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050– 1400. Additions and Modifications to September, 1918. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1919. MkP-MkT-NPP items are on p 1031; NPT items p 997. [DS] The Year’s Work in English Studies. London: Oxford University Press and Humphrey Milford. 1921-. A collection of bibliographic essays, published annually. Since vol 16 (1935), there has been a separate chapter on Chaucer. Dorothy Everett wrote the

54 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

section on Chaucer for twenty-five years, and produced many fine and influential reviews. [JG, PG] MLA Bibliography 1922– A multi-volume annual bibliography, international since 1956, with a comprehensive section on Chaucer studies. Both reviews and unrevised reprints are included. [PG] Progress of Mediaeval Studies in the United States of America.1–22 (1923– 52). Bulletins 1–12 compiled by James F. Willard; 13–22 by S. Harrison Thomson. All strictly Chaucerian material has been included in this bibliography. A list of doctoral dissertations (in medieval studies) in progress or completed is included in each issue. [BM] Wells, John Edwin. Second Supplement to a Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1400: Additions and Modifications to January, 1923.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1923. MkP-MkT-NPP items are on pp 1092, 1148; NPT items p 1148. [BM] Koch, John. ’Der gegenwärtige Stand der Chaucerforschung.’Anglia 49 (1925), 193–243. A survey of Chaucerian criticism and scholarship. Editions, background and general studies are discussed on pp 195–205, editions and general studies of CT on pp 219–25. The section on MkT is mainly on pp 234–5; material relevant to NPT appears on pp 217, 226, and 235–6. [BM] Griffith, Dudley David. A Bibliography of Chaucer, 1908–1924. University of Washington Publications in Language and Literature 4, No. 1. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1926. A supplement to Hammond 191; in its turn all of its material is included in Griffith 218. MkT items are on pp 87–8, NPT items are on pp 88–90. [RW] Wells, John Edwin. Third Supplement to a Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1400: Additions and Modifications to June, 1926. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1926. MkP-MkT-NPP items are on pp 1196, 1239; NPT items p 1239. [BM] French, Robert Dudley. A Chaucer Handbook. New York: Crofts, 1927. 2nd edn 1947. Designed ‘to make readily available some of the material which scholarship has contributed to an understanding of the poetry of Chaucer’ (p vi). There are substantial sections on contemporary English history and the life of Chaucer, including chronological tables, language and versification, and a bibliography. MkT is dealt with on pp 247–57; NPT on pp 257–65. The second edition is a revision rather than a rewriting and page numbers are the same; there is only a minor difference between the two editions in the section on MkT. There is no convincing evidence for the early, independent existence of

Bibliographies / 55

204

205

206

207

MkT. The most serious objection to an early dating is that the Bernabò tragedy took place in 1385, but the four modern tragedies could have been added when the collection was revised for CT. The criticism by the Knight and the Host bears out the theory that the poet himself recognized the artistic inferiority of such a series of exempla. Lounsbury’s suggestion that MkT satirizes the taste that enjoyed such collections ignores the popularity of Lydgate’s Fall of Princes (with his reference to MkT and the Mirror for Magistrates).A summary of the most obvious sources follows, and French prints a translation by Courtney Langdon of Dante’s Inferno passage which is the source of the Ugolino story. The section on NPT summarizes the versions of the story in the Roman de Renart and Reinhart Fuchs. Neither version served as Chaucer’s source and offered only the barest suggestion for the elaborate manner of telling of NPT. The sources of the intellectual matter of ‘one of the most learned of [Chaucer’s] works’ (p 265) are briefly discussed. Hotson’s theory of the allegorical meaning of the tale 795, although ingenious and interesting, has not met with general support. •Review by Dorothy Everett, YWES 8 (1927), 100–1. The writer has recognized that such a book must be up to date. The sanity of his judgment is shown in his discussion of the recent work of Manly and Curry. [PG] Tatlock, John S.P., and Arthur Kennedy. A Concordance to the Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer and to the Romaunt of the Rose. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institute, 1927. Rpt Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1963. Based on the work of Ewald Flügel on a ‘Glossarial Concordance’ to Chaucer’s works. By 1908, this project had amassed over 1,200,000 slips.(See Flügel 310.)After the war, the scope of the project was reduced to enable quicker publication. The history of its post-war publication is recounted in MLN 38 (1923), 504–6. New slips were made and the Globe Chaucer 19 was used as the base. [JG] Wells, John Edwin. Fourth Supplement to a Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1400: Additions and Modifications to July, 1929. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1929. MkP-MkT-NPP items are on p 1327; NPT items pp 1289, 1327. [PG] ––. Fifth Supplement to a Manual of the Writings in Middle English 10501400: Additions and Modifications to July, 1932. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1932. MkP, MkT and NPP items are on p 1425; NPT items pp 1375, 1425. [PG] Whiting, Bartlett Jere. Chaucer’s Use of Proverbs. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934. MkP and MkT items are on pp 124–5; NPP and NPT items are on pp 125– 7.Whiting finds one proverb and one sententious remark in MkP and six

56 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

208

209

210

211

212

213

214

215

sententious remarks in MkT. The Nun’s Priest uses three proverbs in his tale, including ‘Mordre wol out’ already used by the Prioress, and seven sententious remarks, five of them put into the mouths of the various animals. [PG] Martin, Willard E. Jr. A Chaucer Bibliography, 1925–1933.Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1935. Layout does not follow Griffith 201 entirely. Two appendices contain ‘Notes to Griffith’ and a large number of supplementary items to Hammond’s work 191. MkT items are on p 61; NPT items are on p 62. [RW] Wells, John Edwin. Sixth Supplement to a Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1400: Additions and Modifications to July, 1935. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1935. MkP-MkT-NPP items and NPT items are on pp 1475, 1540. [PG] ‘Chaucer Research, Report No. - .’ MLA Committee on on Chaucer Research and Bibliography. 1937 –. Since the compilation for 1966 (Report 27), the bibliography has been edited by Thomas A. Kirby and published annually in ChauR. Since Report 45 (1984) edited by Bege K. Bowers. [PG] Wells, John Edwin. Seventh Supplement to a Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1400: Additions and Modifications to July, 1938. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1938. MkP, MkT and NPP items are on pp 1591, 1646; NPT items p 1646. [PG] Bateson, F.W. The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940. Supplement, ed. George Watson, 1957. Items on MkP and MkT are in vol 1, p 242; NPP, NPT and endlink pp 242–3. Items in the Supplement on MkP and MkT are on p 141; NPP, NPT and endlink on p 142. See also The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, ed. Watson 235. [PG] Wells, John Edwin. Eighth Supplement to a Manual of Writings in Middle English: Additions and Modifications to July, 1941. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1941 MkP-MkT-NPP items are on pp 1687, 1740; NPT items pp 1688, 1740. [PG] Bunn, Olena S. ‘A Bibliography of Chaucer in English and American belleslettres since 1900.’ Bulletin of Bibliography 19.8 January–April (1949), 205– 8. Not seen. [PG] Brown, Beatrice Daw, Eleanor K. Honigman, and Francis Lee Utley. Ninth Supplement to a Manual of the Writings in Middle English: Additions and

Bibliographies / 57

216

217

218

219

Modifications to December, 1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952. MkP-MkT-NPP items are on pp 1872–73, 1933; NPT items are on pp 1873, 1933. For the Manual and Supplements 1 to 8, ed. Wells, see 194, 195, 199, 202, 205, 206, 209, 211 and 213. [PG] Magoun, Francis P. Jr. ‘Chaucer’s Ancient and Biblical World.’ Mediaeval Studies 15 (1953), 107–36; and Pt 3 ‘Chaucer’s Ancient and Biblical World: Addenda.’ Mediaeval Studies 16 (1954), 152–6. More than a mere ‘concordance-wise listing’ of place names in the ancient and biblical world since ‘Chaucer often embellishes his story by filling in details from his imagination details about certain localities’ (p 107).Chaucer often pictures the material life of the past in the terms of his own day. From MkT there are entries for ‘Babiloigne’ (VII.2149); ‘Bethulia’ (VII.2565); ‘Chaldeye’ (VII.2157); ‘Egipcien’ (VII.2338); ‘Ermyn’ (VII.2338); ‘Gazan’ (VII.2047); ‘Israel’ (VII.2060, VII.2152); ‘Itaylle’ (VII.2460); ‘Jerusalem’ (VII.2147, VII.2596); ‘Lyde’ (VII.2727); ‘Macedoyne’ (VII.2656); ‘Medes’ (VII.2235); ‘Palymerie’ (VII.2247); ‘Perces’ (VII.2235); ‘Perciens’ (VII.2248, 2346); ‘Rome’ (VII.2676); ‘Surryen’ (VII.2339); ‘Thessalie’ (VII.2679); ‘Tybre’ (VII. 2476). From NPT, there are entries for ‘Affrike’ (VII.3124); ‘Cartage’ (VII.3365); ‘Egipte’ (VII.3133); ‘Ilion’ (VII.3356); ‘Lyde’ (VII.3138); ‘Rome’ (VII.3371); ‘Troye’ (VII.3229). [JG, PG] ––. Pt 2 ‘Chaucer’s Great Britain.’Mediaeval Studies 16 (1954), 131–51. There are no entries for MkT. ‘Seint Poules belle’ (NPP VII.2780) is the bell of old St Paul’s Cathedral in London. ‘Mercenrike’ (NPT VII.3112) is Mercia, the kingdom of Kenulfus. [JG] Griffith, Dudley David, Bibliography of Chaucer, 1908–1953. University of Washington Publications in Language and Literature, 13. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1955. A comprehensive bibliography of Chaucer, which includes the contents of 201. MkT items are on pp 232–5; NPT items are on pp 235–8. •Review by Howard R. Patch, MLN 72 (1957), 210–12. There are only a few trivial errors or omissions. The only serious deficiency is the index, and the book as a whole is indispensable. •Review by Ursula Brown, MÆ 27 (1958), 39–43. ‘The breadth of [Griffith’s] plan and the thoroughness of reference are admirable’ (p 43). The ordering of material is the least satisfactory aspect: the absence of numbering and subdivision; the scattering of material that should be together. [JG, PG] Magoun, Francis P. Jr. Pt 2 ‘Chaucer’s Medieval World Outside of Great Britain.’ Mediaeval Studies 17 (1955), 117–42. ‘Armorike’ (MkT VII.2338) is the homeland of Genylon-Olyver; ‘Cipre’ (MkT VII.2391) is the kingdom of Pierre de Lusignan; ‘Lumbardye’ and ‘Melan’

58 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

220 221 222

223

224

225

226

227

(MkT VII.2400 and VII 2399) are used to define Bernabò Visconti; ‘Pyze’ (MkT VII.2409, VII. 2416 and VII.2456) is used to define Count Ugolino. ‘Portyngale’ (endlink VII.3459), Portugal, exported two dyestuffs, with vegetable and insect bases. [JG] Thompson, Phillip, ed. Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities. Michigan: Phillip Thompson. Vol 1 (1960) – Vol 17 (1976). International Guide to Medieval Studies: A Quarterly Index to Periodical Literature. Darien, CT: American Bibliographic Service. Vol 1 (1961). Magoun, Francis P. Jr. A Chaucer Gazeteer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961. A conflation of the earlier papers 216, 217 and 219 with minor amendments and adjustments, but without the prefatory discussion. [JG] Zesmer, David M. Guide to English Literature: From Beowulf through Chaucer and Medieval Drama. With Bibliographies by Stanley B. Greenfield. College Outline Series 53. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1961. Parts one and two contain a number of chapters on Old and Middle English literature and drama, including a chapter on CT, with sections on MkT (pp 251–2) and NPT (pp 252–4). The Bibliography contains a few items on MkT (p 373) and NPT (pp 373–4). [PG] Muscatine, Charles. The Book of Geoffrey Chaucer: an Account of the Publication of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Works from the Fifteenth Century to Modern Times. San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1963. Not seen. A chronological checklist of the printed editions of Chaucer to 1778, with bibliography. [JS] Internationale Bibliographie der Zeitschriften-Literatur aus allen Gebieten des Wissens [International Bibliography of Periodical Literature Covering All Fields of Knowledge]. Ed. Otto Zeller. Osnabrück: Felix Dietrich Verlag, 1965– for 1963/4–. Tarbert, Gary C. and Barbara Beach, original eds. Book Review Index. Detroit: Gale Research Company. Vol 1 (1965)– An index of books reviewed in periodicals. The individual issues are cumulated at the end of each year, and there is also a master cumulation covering the years 1965–84. [PG] Crawford, William R. Bibliography of Chaucer 1954–63. University of Washington Publications in Language and Literature 17. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967. The bibliography was planned as a supplement to Griffith 201 and 218. It also lists reprints of items first published before 1954. MkT items are on p 81, NPT items are on pp 81–3.An introduction on New Directions in Chaucer Criticism is selective in favour of works ‘defining a poetic large enough to account for Chaucer’s most mature achievement,’ but excludes the work of the exegetical critics (p xxxix). [JS]

Bibliographies / 59

228 Baugh, Albert C. Chaucer. Goldentree Bibliographies in Language and Literature. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1968. Second edition 1977. A full selection of recent works directly concerned with Chaucer, with limited coverage of background studies. Items in the first edition are numbered by page: MkP and MkT items are on pp 78–80, NPP and NPT items are on pp 80– 2. The second edition is greatly expanded and updated, with entries consecutively numbered: MkP and MkT items are on pp 107–9; NPP and NPT items pp 109–12. [PG, JS] 229 Whiting, Bartlett Jere, with the collaboration of Helen Wescott White. Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1968. The introduction explains sources, the definition of a proverb, and treatment of quotations. NPT VII.2922 and VII.3091 are listed under ‘swevens,’ VII.3164 under ‘woman.’ ‘Fox’ yields no reference to NPT, but a number of the proverbial sayings listed are appropriate to the presentation of Daun Russell. [JS] 230 ‘Chaucer Research in Progress.’ NM 70 (1969). An annual report by Thomas A. Kirby of Chaucer research work under way though not yet published. Since 1984–5 edited by Bege K. Bowers. [PG] 231 Tubach, Frederic C. Index Exemplorum: A Handbook of Medieval Religious Tales. FF Communications 204. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1969. Pp 517–23 provide an explanatory introduction. The handbook lists 5,400 exempla from collections available in print, but not in MS, and suggests the variety of significances that could be attached to, e.g., a cock, a fox, a widow, a dream. [JS] 232 Ross, Thomas W. Chaucer’s Bawdy. New York: Dutton, 1972. A discussion of Chaucer’s use of erotic terms, with an alphabetical list and glossary, which includes 35 references to MkT and 27 references to NPT. [GC] 233 Dillon, Bert. A Chaucer Dictionary: Proper Names and Allusions, Excluding Place Names. Boston: G.K. Hall; London: George Prior, 1974. Names in MkT and NPT are indexed within the overall alphabetical scheme. There is a cross-referenced list of titles by authors whose names are not mentioned and a bibliography. [GC, PG] 234 Scott, A.F. Who’s Who in Chaucer. New York: Taplinger; London: Hamish Hamilton, 1974. Provides notes on the characters, fictional and historical, human and animal, named and unnamed (e.g., ‘widwe’ in NPT) mentioned in Chaucer’s works. The characters in CT are annotated in alphabetical order on pp 3–64; animals in CT pp 65–8. There is a list of characters organized by tale on pp 69–77: MkT and NPT are on pp 72–3.The spelling of headwords follows the editions of Skeat 15 and Robinson 116. [GC]

60 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

235 Watson, George, ed. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Vol 1: 600–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Each section provides a list of editions and critical studies, in chronological order, up to 1972. Chaucer is discussed on pp 557–628, MkT at p 580 and NPT at p 581. See also F.W. Bateson, ed. The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature 212. [GC] 236 Baird, Lorrayne Y. A Bibliography of Chaucer, 1964–1973. Boston: Hall, 1977. MkT items are listed on pp 131–2, NPT items on pp 133–7, without annotations, but including references to abstracts. Cross-references to other entries are included. [JAS] 237 ‘An Annotated Chaucer Bibliography, 1975 - .’ SAC 1 (1979), – The SAC bibliographies, issued annually, are planned as a continuation of the work of Baird 236, Crawford 227, Griffith 201 and 218, and Hammond 191. [PG] 238 Davis, Norman, Douglas Gray, Patricia Ingham and Anne Wallace-Hadrill. A Chaucer Glossary. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979. A select glossary of words and/or meanings unfamiliar in Modern English, listing senses in order of frequency of appearance. It does not attempt to add to discussion of MkT cruces ‘vitremyte,’ ‘Madrian,’ or ‘Trophee.’ [JAS] 239 Farber, Evan Ira, executive ed. Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals, 1886–1974. Arlington and Inverness: Carroilton Press, 1979–82. 15 vols. 240 Giaccherini, Enrico. ‘Chaucer and the Italian Trecento: a Bibliography.’ In Boitani 680. The sections on Chaucer and Dante (pp 299–301) and Chaucer and Boccaccio (pp 301–3) contain some items relevant to both MkT and NPT. [PG] 241 Matsuo, Masatsugu, Yoshiyuki Nakao, Shigeki Suzuki, Takao Kuya. ‘Machine-Readable KWIC Indexes to Chaucer’s Works.’ HSELL 30 (1985), 36–46. Not seen. Ref Lorrayne Y. Baird-Lange et al. ‘An Annotated Chaucer Bibliography 1986.’ SAC 10 (1988), 229. Sets out the application of the KWIC (keyword in context) Index, together with an English summary. [DS] 242 Weise, Judith. ‘Geoffrey Chaucer, 1343?–1400.’ Research Guide to Biography and Criticism, 1. Ed. Walton Beacham. Washington, DC: Research Publishing, 1985. pp 218–23. Not seen. Ref Lorrayne Y. Baird-Lange et al.’An Annotated Chaucer Bibliography 1985.’ SAC 9 (1987), 291; Baird-Lange 245, p 3. References are selective. [DS] 243 Leyerle, John, and Anne Quick, eds. Chaucer: A Bibliographical Introduc-

Bibliographies / 61

244

245

246

247

248

tion. Toronto Medieval Bibliographies 10. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986. MkP and MkT items are on pp 184–6; NPP and NPT items are on pp 186–90. The entries are briefly annotated. [PG] Allen, Mark, and John H. Fisher. The Essential Chaucer. An annotated bibliography of major modern studies. Boston: Hall; London: Mansell, 1987. A selection of publications on the Monk and MkT from 1900–84 are listed on pp 158–9 and on the Nun’s Priest and NPT on pp 159–63. [DS, PG] Baird-Lange, Lorrayne Y., and Hildegard Schnuttgen. A Bibliography of Chaucer 1974–1985. Hamden, CN: Archon, 1988. MkP-MkT items are on pp 180–1, NPT items are on pp 182–6.There is a substantial introductory chapter, ‘Chaucer Studies: Continuations, Developments, and Prognostications’ (pp xi–liv), covering major developments in Chaucer studies in the 1970s and 1980s, contextualising them in the various theoretical movements of the time, such as new historicism, formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, feminism and Marxism. [PG, DS] Besserman, Lawrence. Chaucer and the Bible. A Critical Review of Research, Indexes, and Bibliography. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 839. New York and London: Garland, 1988. MkP items are on p 161; MkT items pp 162–73; NPP items p 174; NPT items pp 174–8; endlink items p 178. [DS] De Weever, Jacqueline. Chaucer Name Dictionary. A Guide to Astrological, Biblical, Historical, Literary, and Mythological Names in the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. New York and London: Garland, 1988. Names in MkT and NPT are indexed within the overall alphabetical scheme, each accompanied by an explanation of background and a list of select primary sources. Appendices include a glossary, maps of astronomical and astrological terms, and a bibliography. [DS] Cooper, Helen. Oxford Guides to Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. The intention of the Guide is to offer an up-to-date summary of what is known about each of the tales, including such matters as date, manuscript and text, genre, sources and analogues, structure, themes, context and style, together with a critical reading. MkT is dealt with on pp 322–7; NPT on pp 338–56. The difficult reference to Rochester at MkP VII.1926 - the justification for a long history of editors moving Fragment VII to after MLT - may appropriately recall the doubling of its Cathedral as a monastic house and the famous painting of the wheel of Fortune on its walls. Arguments for an early date of composition for MkT are almost entirely hypothetical. MkT raises more substantial textual problems than any other of CT: difficulties include the omission of the Adam stanza, the

62 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

placement of the Modern Instances, and the provision of the epigraph or explicit, ‘De casibus virorum illustrium,’ in fifteen MSS. The series of tragedies - in a single genre, tone and meaning - represent the kind of storycollection that CT is not. Although the metrical form suggests the high style, the language is often simple and direct, shown to best advantage in the tale of Ugolino. NPP functions more as an epilogue to MkT than as a prologue to NPT. NPT makes reference to many of the motifs found in other of CT, suggesting that it is a late work, and may have been written to end Fragment VII. Textual variants of NPT are insignificant. The beast-fable was an ambivalent genre in the Middle Ages: it could be used for elementary instruction, but also as a vehicle for sophisticated rhetoric. The tale has layers of fictionality, which work like a series of Russian dolls, and suggest that there is no decisive meaning to it, and that moral readings are subjective. Read in context, NPT seems to subvert or parody most themes found in the other tales. The debate about sex and gender is varied in this tale by being focused on the male. There is little doubt that the endlink is authentic, but the final couplet must have been provisional at best. [PG] 249 Oizumi, Akio, ed. Programmed by Kunichiro Miki. A Complete Concordance to the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: OlmsWeidman, 1991–4. 12 vols. A KWIC (keyword in context) concordance, based on the Riverside Chaucer 184, superseding Tatlock and Kennedy’s Concordance 204.The concordance to CT is in vols 1–4. Vol 10 contains an integrated word-index to the whole of Chaucer’s works; vol 11 contains a rhyme concordance to CT. [PG]

b

Manuscript and Textual Studies

MkT and NPT, with their prologues and endlinks, have contributed significantly to the complicated textual history of CT. Cooper 248 argues that MkT raises more substantial textual problems than any other tale. Late nineteenthcentury editors of CT commonly made the ‘Bradshaw Shift,’ moving Fragment VII, which contains MkT and NPT, to follow Fragment II, thus creating Furnivall’s Group B. The relative merits of the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS have been the subject of intense study and debate since Manly and Rickert’s edition 97, especially in the last twenty-five years. A handy summary of the issues can be found in Hanna’s introduction to the textual notes of the Riverside edition 184. Blake 284 argues that Hengwrt is the earliest MS of CT, put together by an editorial committee that had access to only one exemplar, probably Chaucer’s working copy. There has been much discussion of the placement of the Modern Instances in MkT. Both the prologue and the endlink to NPT have textual problems. Boyd 302 points out that Hengwrt and thirteen other MSS use a shorter version of NPP, in which the Knight’s interruption of the Monk is not followed by the Host’s criticisms. Vol. 2 of Seymour’s Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts 305a describes all MSS of CT. 250 Furnivall, F.J. A Temporary Preface to the Six-Text Edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. 1: attempting to show the true order of the tales, and the days and stages of the pilgrimage, etc., etc. Chaucer Society. Second Series 3. London: Trübner, 1868. Bradshaw realized that the linking of MLT and ShT in the Selden MS confirmed the possibility of moving the Rochester reference in MkP to a suitable place in the frame-story, and he also changed the Ellesmere order within MkT to leave Croesus at the end connected with NPP. [DS] 251 Skeat, Walter W. The Chaucer Canon with a Discussion of the Works Associated with the Name of Geoffrey Chaucer. Oxford: Clarendon, 1900. In considering dates for the whole canon Skeat repeats the suggestion about MkT that he made in the Oxford Chaucer 15, p 154. [DS] 252 Hammond, Eleanor Prescott. ‘On the Order of the Canterbury Tales: Caxton’s Two Editions.’ MP 3 (1905), 159–78. There are brief mentions of the linking material preceding NPT and of the endlink in this survey of differences between the two Caxton editions. [CW] 253 Skeat, Walter W. The Evolution of The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer Society. Second Series 38. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1907 for 1903.

64 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

The extant MSS of CT indicate four authorial stages of development and a new editorial stage. Hengwrt ‘is a sort of working copy’ (p 7), representing the oldest stage. Petworth represents Chaucer’s first planned arrangement, Corpus and Lansdowne his second, and Harley 7334 his third and latest, with the ‘authorised’ order (p 23). Ellesmere and Cambridge Gg 4.27 have a later, editorial arrangement. With regard to MkT, Hengwrt has neither the Adam stanza (VII.2007–14) nor the Host’s criticism of the tale in NPP (VII.2771–90), with its reference to Croesus (VII.2782); and the Modern Instances come at the end of MkT. In the subsequent authorial arrangements, the Adam stanza and the Host’s words are added, and the Modern Instances are necessarily moved back into the body of MkT to leave Croesus as the last tragedy and thereby accommodate the new Croesus reference in NPP. The Modern Instances are then in ‘an almost absurd position between Zenobia and Nero,’ and ‘it is obvious that [Chaucer] thought it did not much matter’ (p 29). The Ellesmere order, with the Modern Instances again last, represents a stage when, with Chaucer no longer superintending, a copyist has tried to achieve a chronological order (p 21). NPT endlink is found only in Cambridge MS Dd.4.24 and British Library MS Addit. 5140, both of the Ellesmere type, and in MS Royal 17 Dxv, a MS of the Petworth type. The link is genuine but was intended for cancellation by Chaucer. The ‘authorised order’ has Fragment VII as a whole coming after Fragment VI (p 23). [DS] 254 MacCracken, Henry Noble. ‘A New Manuscript of Chaucer’s Monkes Tale.’ MLN 23 (1908), 93. Trinity College Cambridge MS R.3.19, containing most of Stow’s additions to Chaucer, also contains MkT, with Lydgate’s long account of Adam in his Fall of Princes substituted for Chaucer’s short account and missing VII.2375–98 and VII.2421, after which the stanzas are confused. MkT is followed by other parts of the Fall. The selection ‘is interesting, as exhibiting the taste which could select this tale of all others for reading, and then supplement Chaucer by Lydgate. The manuscript belongs not far from Edward IV’s time, and the fall of princes was an absorbing topic.’ [DS] 255 Skeat, Walter W. The Eight-text Edition of the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer Society. Second Series 43. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner; Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1909. The title refers to the Six-Text Edition 7 plus the subsequent prints of British Library MS Harley 7334 9 and Cambridge MS Dd 4.24 24. MkP-MkT-NPP is discussed on pp 2, 4, 6, 11, 22–3, 31; NPT is discussed on pp 22, 31, 34, 39–40. The Harley MS reading ‘tway monthes and dayes two’ (NPT VII.3190) ‘will not do at all; because the day meant is May 3’ (p 39). Skeat now refutes his placement of Fragment VII in the Oxford Chaucer 15. His views on the evolution of CT, as set out in 253, are restated and developed further. He now

Manuscript and Textual Studies / 65

believes that in the Oxford Chaucer 15 his emendations of some nine-syllabled lines by adopting readings from MS Harley 7334 may have been needless (p 40). [DS] 256 Tatlock, J.S.P. The Harleian Manuscript 7334 and Revision of the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer Society. Second Series 41. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner; Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1909. Considers the place of British Library MS Harley 7334 in relation to other MSS of the same family. Rejecting Skeat’s view that ‘some emendations come from an “inspired” source,’ Tatlock concludes that the MS ‘should be used, if at all, only with the greatest suspicion’ (p 32). He rejects its unique readings, even though a few of them seem superior, as being scribal concoctions. MkT VII.2363 and VII.2669 are both the work of a critical scribe responsible for a number of variant readings in this MS. Apart from a passing reference (p 24), there is no discussion of NPT, but the article contributes to the debate over the ordering of the fragment which includes NPT. [DS, CW] 257 Koch, John. A Detailed Comparison of the Eight Manuscripts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as Completely Printed in the Publications of the Chaucer Society. Anglistische Forschungen 36. Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1913. The MSS are divided into two large groups: A, comprising the completely printed Ellesmere, Hengwrt, Cambridge Gg. 4.27 and Dd. 4.24, with four other MSS printed only in extracts; and B, comprising the Corpus Christi College MS, Petworth, Lansdowne and Harley 7334, with 13 MSS printed only in extracts. Each type is treated extensively for various combinations and permutations of agreements, variants and isolated readings, each tale having a separate entry within each section and subsection. Koch concludes that both types go back to one common source, a copy of the poet’s original, but that group A provides superior readings. [JS] 258 –– . ‘Textkritische Bemerkungen zu Chaucers Canterbury Tales.’ ESt 47 (1913), 338– 414. Complements 257 and anticipates the 1915 edn of CT according to the Ellesmere MS 52. Koch’s system of Chaucerian prosody is based on Bernhard Ten Brink, Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst, 1884, as modified by George Lyman Kittredge, Observations on the Language of Chaucer’s ‘Troilus,’ 1891. GP I.164, which refers to the three priests and the chaplain of the Prioress, and the endlink (NPT VII.3447– 62) are Chaucerian, but intended for a correction unexecuted or unrecorded in the extant MSS. References to NPT itself are argued, apart from agreeing with Skeat’s explanation of ‘fourty degrees and oon’ (VII.3199), on the grounds of metrics (VII.2967, VII.3178, VII.3346, VII.3386); grammar alone (VII.2984); or grammar in combination with rhyme (VII.3153). See also Robinson 85 and 116 who shares Koch’s preference for

66 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

the readings of Cambridge MS Dd.4.27 at VII.3178 and VII.3386, but rejects the metrical assumptions on which Koch emends Ellesmere at VII.2967 and VII.3346. [JS] 259 Moore, Samuel. ‘The Position of Group C in the Canterbury Tales.’ PMLA 30 (1915), 116– 23. Starting from an assumption of general dissatisfaction with Furnivall’s ordering of the tales, and from reliance on the MS evidence that a solid block of text is made up of the sequence C–B2 (ie PardT followed by ShT and the rest of the B group), Moore uses internal evidence, especially references to places, to argue for an order ‘not known to exist in any ms,’ namely A B1 C B2 D E F G H I. This allows NPT to precede WBT. [JS] 260 Brusendorff, Aage. The Chaucer Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon, 1925. Rpt 1967. There are two main groups of MSS, the All England group and the Oxford group, each subdivided again on the basis of their arrangement of tales and links. The All England tradition is vastly superior, and within it Ellesmere is much the best MS. Chaucer’s tendency to repeat himself accounts for the Host’s words in MerP and MkP (see Hammond 191, Wells 194). The All England placement of the Modern Instances (after Croesus) is based on the Host’s allusion (in NPP) to Croesus; the Oxford arrangement (between Zenobia and Nero) is the later revised scheme. The whole episode is more lifelike if the Host, ‘a somewhat drowsy listener,’ recalls not the very last utterance but an earlier one. The four contemporary tragedies should stand last. The omission of NPP VII.2771–90 and alteration of VII.2791 are accidental rather than suggesting an early state. Lydgate’s list of Chaucer’s works in Fall of Princes Prologue includes the Monk’s Pitous Tragedies, and Lydgate also says that Chaucer wrote ‘Dante in ynglyssh’ (p 148). Hammond 191 suggests that Lydgate alluded to the tragedy of Ugolino, but the Wife of Bath’s reference to Dante (III.1125 ff) ‘suits our purpose better’ (p 151). NPT endlink, from British Library MS Egerton 2726, is genuine except for the final couplet, VII.3461–2, which was probably ‘added by the scribe of the Cambridge ancestor to give a sort of conclusion’ (p 89), then altered and expanded by later scribes to forge a link with SNT. Chaucer’s verse was not as regular as is often assumed, and scribes often regularized nine-syllable lines on syllabic principles. On the other hand, NPT VII.3076 has twelve syllables in most examples of the All England tradition, but is regularized by the omission of ‘herkneth’ in the Cambridge sub-group of that tradition and in other ways in the Oxford tradition; Brusendorff calls the twelve-syllable line an ‘Alexandrine,’ and judges it to be authentic even if ‘unsatisfactory’ (p 115). He regards ‘hem’ (NPT VII.2877) as a mistake in Chaucer’s original which is

Manuscript and Textual Studies / 67

261

262

corrected in only a few MSS. ‘There must have been good authority, presumably the poet himself’ (p 129) for the gloss in both Ellesmere and Hengwrt which identifies the ‘lord’ (NPT VII.3445) as the archbishop of Canterbury. •Review by Ernest Kuhl, MLN 41 (1926), 402–6, argued that this was ‘one of the most important studies in recent years’ and that it set ‘new standards in Chaucerian research’ (pp 402–3). •Review by Robert K. Root, JEGP 26 (1927), 258–62, admitted its potential value, but accused Brusendorff of cocksureness, carelessness, and ‘scant respect, hardly decent courtesy’ (p 262) for the work of others. •Review by A.W. Pollard, Library 4th series 7 (1926), 229–32, described this as ‘stimulating and refreshing’ (p 229), but criticized the naming of the MS groups after localities, ‘not because the manuscripts were written in these cities, but because the most important of them have drifted to the Bodleian and the British Museum’ (p 230). [RW, BM] Kase, C. Robert. ‘Observations on the Shifting Positions of Groups G and DE in the Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales.’ In Three Chaucer Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1932. In half of the MSS which assign the tales of group G [Fragment VIII] (SNT, CYT) to their ‘proper’ place, i.e. following group B2 [Fragment VII], the endlink to NPT appears. The endlink is found in only two MSS which follow MLT with SqT; it is more generally associated with the better MSS which follow MLT with WBP. [PG] McCormick, Sir William. With the assistance of Janet E. Heseltine. The Manuscripts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; A Critical Description of their Contents. Oxford: Clarendon, 1933. A detailed collation of all known MSS of Chaucer’s CT, which quotes the first and last line of each Tale, Prologue, and Link, together with headings and colophons. Notes indicate whether a division is marked by a special capital. The two sections of Group B (unconnected in all extant MSS except one) are distinguished as Group B1 and Group B2. In MkT the usual headings are assumed, unless otherwise noted. Each Table of Contents serves as an index to the following collation, and notes the variant position of MkT VII.2375– 462 (the Modern Instances). Heseltine’s ‘Study of the Links and Some Outstanding Divergencies of Arrangement in the Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales’ (pp xv–xxxii) summarizes the MSS information. MkP VII.1889–1990 is found in that position in all but 16 MSS. The variant placements of the Modern Instances are summarized (p xxix), as are the variants between the ‘long form’ and the ‘short form’ of NPP (pp xxix–xxx), which are further complicated by whether the Host or the Knight interrupts. NPP VII.2767–2820 was originally lacking or is missing or misplaced or breaks off at some point in thirteen MSS. The long and short forms of this link are

68 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

probably the result of an uncertainty in Chaucer’s mind. For a detailed discussion of McCormick’s work, see Hanna’s chapter on Root in Ruggiers 293, p 192. •Review by Dorothy Everett, RES 11 (1935), 342–4. The book presents facts only, as in the positions of the Modern Instances in MkT, and withholds all theories. [JG, RW] 263 Tatlock, John S.P. ‘The Canterbury Tales in 1400.’ PMLA 50 (1935), 100–39. The eighty-five or so known complete or defective MSS of CT show extraordinary differences in arrangement, omission of undoubtedly genuine passages, and insertion of undoubtedly spurious passages. Chaucer did not publish CT as a whole, and left it without external indication of the order of the groups. The MSS have no authority whatever as regards order, and the Furnivall-Skeat order (7, 15) is the best practically. Lack of authorial revision appears in the six cases of the use of write for the tales (as in MkT VII.2653), and parallels (such as those between the latter half of MkP and NPT endlink or MerP IV.1223–5 and MkP VII.1895–1900) could well be Chaucer’s own. The Hengwrt order of tales is preferable to Ellesmere. The placement of the Modern Instances at the end of MkT and the omission of the MLT and NPT endlinks are ‘meddling’ (p 129, n 78). [JG, RW] 264 Crow, Martin Michael. ‘Unique Variants in the Paris Manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.’ TUSE 16 (1936), 17–41. There are a large number of variant readings in the Paris MS (Bib. Nat. fonds anglais 39) which differ considerably from accepted readings, and we can see, as a consequence, how far an editorial scribe might go in ‘improving’ a text. The editorial corrections by Jean d’Angoulême, brother of Charles d’Orleans, and the scribal changes by John Duxworth include both intentional and accidental variants. Among the former is the comment after only thirty-two lines of MkT, ‘Non plus de ista fabula quia est valde dolorosa sed consequenter incipiunt verba militis ad monachum.’ One tragedy thus omitted is that of Angoulême’s own grandfather, Bernabò Visconti. Words of French origin are substituted for English words: NPT ‘forsleuthen’ VII.3096 is replaced by ‘prolongyn.’ Sometimes a more familiar English word replaces a less familiar one: e.g., NPT VII.2896 ‘reche’ is replaced by ‘turne.’ There is a considerable northern influence in the English of both owner and scribe: eg it is ‘mukke’ VII.3036, a word of Scandinavian origin, not ‘dong,’ which covers the dead man in the cart. None of the unique spurious lines in the MS, listed on p 26, appear in NPT. [JG, RW] 265 Caldwell, Robert A. ‘The Scribe of the Chaucer MS, Cambridge University Library Gg.4.27.’ MLQ 5 (1944), 33–44. Tests Manly and Rickert’s 97 suggestion that the scribe was a Fleming or a Dutchman. The scribe’s ‘grotesque hand’ and numerous errors seem incompatible with his usual competence and careful corrections. Forms which may

Manuscript and Textual Studies / 69

indicate the scribe’s speech habits are presented pp 36–41, including the occasional writing of an o for u, as in ‘porge’ in NPT VII.2947 for ‘purge,’ which might be explained by the fact that in Dutch an unmutated Germanic u was lowered to o. [JG] 266 Pratt, Robert A., ‘The Order of the Canterbury Tales.’ PMLA 66 (1951), 1141– 67. Suggests a compromise between the Chaucer Society order, proposed by Furnivall 7, and the Ellesmere order, accepted by Manly and Rickert 97 and Robinson 85. The ‘Bradshaw-shift’ is accepted, moving Fragment VII (Group B2), containing MkT and NPT, to after MLT, which makes sense of various geographical references, but Pratt rejects Furnivall’s further move of Fragment VI (Group C) to after NPT. WBT should follow NPT directly. Pearsall 180 comments that the attempt to argue that the endlink is actually the opening of the NPT-WBP link is ingenious but goes clean against the MSS evidence, which shows that the endlink, which survives only in the MSS of the a group, which preserve some early drafts, was cancelled by Chaucer. [JG, PG] 267 Gibbons, R.F. ‘Does the Nun’s Priest’s Epilogue contain a Link?’ SP 45 (1954), 21–33. Enlarges on the suggestion of Pratt 266 that there is a close textual relationship between NPT and WBT, thereby securing Fragment VII at both ends. The link would come, however, through the resurrection of six lines not found in the best MSS. Pearsall 180 argues that, although the MS evidence is not unassailable, this is a misuse of Pratt’s argument. Brosnahan 269 demonstrates that these lines, found in only four MSS, are spurious. [JG] 268 Wright, H.G. ‘Thomas Speght as Annotator and Lexicographer of Chaucer’s Works.’ ES 40 (1959), 194–208. Speght’s second edition of 1602 provides more information about certain medieval writers. An expanded note is provided on Geoffrey de Vinsauf and his De artificio loquendi. Speght’s 1602 edition is indebted to Thynne’s Animaduersions, for example in the note on Kenelm. There is much of interest in the glossary as well as in the annotations. [JG] 269 Brosnahan, Leger. ‘Does the Nun’s Priest’s Epilogue Contain a Link?’ SP 58 (1961), 468–82. The six-line continuation of the endlink is found in only four of the group a MSS (Cardigan, Manchester, Additional 5140, and Egerton 2864). Taking the last two lines of the endlink proper plus the six disputed lines, Brosnahan has collected ‘the closest possible parallels to these eight lines that can be found in the accepted canon, in order to determine . . . whether or not the syntax and usage of the six-line continuation can be characterized as not Chaucerian’ (p 473). To the negative syntactic findings, he adds a rejection of the final rhyme as ‘distinctly non-Chaucerian.’ He concludes that the Nun’s Priest’s endlink

70 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

is ‘the one pure end-link’ (p 481) in CT, and endorses the traditional rejection of both the continuation and the Ellesmere final couplet. [JS] 270 Burns, Sister Mary Florence, CSJ. ‘A Textual Study of Thomas Tyrwhitt’s Edition of the Canterbury Tales (1775–1778).’ Columbia University Dissertation, 1961. DA 22 (1961), 1154. A re-assessment of Tyrwhitt’s 1775 edition 2, which makes a detailed comparison of the first edition, the Collation Text, and the recently discovered annotated printer’s copy. Criticism of Tyrwhitt’s eclecticism has been based on his preface, rather than on his practice, which drew almost entirely on MS Harley 7335, using Cambridge MS Dd.iv.24 to supply missing material, a choice validated by modern scholarship as the best available in the absence of both Ellesmere and Hengwrt. Tyrwhitt’s is ‘the first modern critical edition,’ anticipating Robinson 85 (p vii). Material on NPT, especially on its position and the Head and End Links, is found in Chs 3 (pp 117–22) and 5 (pp 212–6). [JS] 271 Baker, Donald C. ‘The Bradshaw Order of the Canterbury Tales: A Dissent.’ NM 63 (1962), 245–61. There are insufficient grounds to support either the Bradshaw shift, the extension of the marriage group (e.g., Lawrence 781), or even Pratt’s revised argument 266. Not one of the MSS contains this seemingly ‘logical’ order: arguably the Ellesmere order represents Chaucer’s incomplete re-working of materials already arranged in something like the Bradshaw order. Arguments based upon the unity of theme in the Marriage Group are unconvincing. Adding NPT to the marriage group distorts it by concentrating on the minor element of women as bad advisors; rather, NPT’s theme is the battle of wits between the Fox and Chauntecleer, and the cock’s foolish pride which almost causes his defeat. ‘Mulier est hominis confusio’ could just as well be an echo of WBT as its provocation. [JS] 272 Hetherington, John R. Chaucer, 1532–1602; Notes and Facsimile Texts Designed to Facilitate the Identification of Defective Copies of the Blackletter Folio Editions of 1532, 1542, c.1550, 1561, 1598 and 1602. Birmingham: Vernon House, 1964/ Re-issued 1967 with appendix to 1687 and corrections. A duplicated typescript which presents facsimiles of the beginning of NPT from each of the folios, with bibliographical notes. A short introduction on the editing and publishing of the folios is intended for the antiquarian book trade rather than the scholar. [JS] 273 Blake, N.F. ‘Caxton and Chaucer.’ LeedsSE ns 1 (1967), 19–36. Defends Caxton’s account of his use of a MS lent by a patron to provide the Nun’s Priest’s endlink and the expanded form of NPP for his 1484 collated edition (CX2). [JS]

Manuscript and Textual Studies / 71

274 Gardner, John. ‘The Case Against the “Bradshaw Shift”; or, the Mystery of the Manuscript in the Trunk.’ PLL 3 Supp (1967), 80–106. Disputes Pratt’s view 266 ‘that Chaucer had an overall plan of the Tales clearly in mind from the outset . . . and that by re-arranging the tales so that references to time and place are logical . . . it is possible to correct the “erroneous” arrangement of the Ellesmere scribe’ (p 81). Gardner proposes instead a developing plan, with dramatic or thematic shifts made at geography’s expense and intended for later correction. The uncompleted process of composition is speculatively reconstructed into clusters of ‘meaningful units,’ the latest form of which is represented by the Ellesmere MS. Accepting that Fragment I is concerned with Justice, and arguing that Fragment VII’s concerns with position, power and Fortune are brilliantly resolved by the Nun’s Priest, Fragments II to V deal as a block with patience, love and headship (or mastery), while Fragment VI is tentatively defined as stating directly the case for renunciation which may be seen as presented obliquely and ironically in Fragment VII (including NPT). [JS] 275 Prins, A.A. ‘The Dating of The Canterbury Tales.’ In Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour of Rossell Hope Robbins. Ed. Beryl Rowland. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974. Pp 342–7. Although British Library MS Harley 7334 is nowadays usually treated cautiously by editors, it is clearly of an early date and is often helpful with difficult readings. Its reading of NPT VII.3190, ‘tway monthes and dayes two,’ is clearly preferable to the other manuscripts’ ‘thritty dayes and two,’ which can only be made to yield the intended date of 3 May - supported by other astronomical references - by a very unnatural reading of ‘Syn March bigan.’ [PG] 276 Garbáty, Thomas J. ‘Wynkyn de Worde’s Sir Thopas and Other Tales.’ SB 31 (1978), 57–67. Questions the long tradition that Wynkyn de Worde did no independent work ‘but followed Caxton’s revised second edition (ca 1484) exactly’ (p 58). Although he based the fourth edition of CT (1498) on Caxton’s second edition, because his copy was apparently defective from late in PrT until possibly the end of MkT, that section was set from a MS belonging to the Hengwrt group. De Worde was careful to choose a very good manuscript from a fine tradition for his text to replace Caxton’s. He thus does not follow Caxton’s order for the Modern Instances. NPT is briefly mentioned in discussion on the collation of this edition. [JAS, CW] 277 Blake, N.F. ‘The Relationship between the Hengwrt and the Ellesmere Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales.’ E&S ns 32 (1979) 1–18. Although most modern scholars think that the Ellesmere MS better represents Chaucer’s intention as to the order of CT, ‘the best text is that found in Hg [Hengwrt]. This has produced the unhappy result that editions follow Hg

72 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

278

279

280

textually but El [Ellesmere] in tale order’ (p 2). Blake argues that ‘Hg is the earliest published form of the poem with the corollary that El is dependent upon it or an intermediary’ (p 15). The Hengwrt order should be given more serious attention. Such reappraisal would have significant consequences for NPT and its linkage material. See also Blake 175. Doyle and Parkes’s view (in 174), that the change of ink at the end of MkT indicates that the editor of Hengwrt acquired the tales piecemeal, should be rejected. The copytext, probably Chaucer’s own set of fragments, was fully available before copying began. [CW, JAS] Baker, Donald C. ‘The Evolution of Henry Bradshaw’s Idea of the Order of the Canterbury Tales.’ ChauN 3 (1981), 2–6. The correspondence between Bradshaw and Furnivall shows how Bradshaw’s ideas on the order of CT developed, though it was Furnivall who gave wide currency to the so-called ‘Bradshaw Shift.’ Working from the twin assumptions that the pilgrimage was intended to be realistic and that Chaucer never abandoned his plans for two tales on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back, Bradshaw made the best possible textual argument on aesthetic grounds. Letter 624 proposes the removal of the Modern Instances to the end of MkT and the renumbering of the fragments. Then MkT begins close to Rochester, is broken off, and NPT would carry the pilgrims to the town. Letter 632 proposes that the fragment covers the second stage of the first day’s journey. [RW] Benson, Larry D. ‘The Order of The Canterbury Tales.’ SAC 3 (1981), 77–120. Most MSS can be assigned to Types a, b, c, d, divided basically into a and non-Type a orders. A comparison of the two shows passages which circulated in two forms, an early and a later revised version: these include the revisions and placement of the Modern Instances in MkT and the ‘long’ or ‘short’ forms of NPP, with the Host rather than the Knight the interrupter. No matter which was earlier, all MSS testify to the superior authority of Type a. The order in Hengwrt is not accidental (see Blake 281), and the scribe (or director) had fragments of already ordered MSS to put together in stages. On metrical and sense grounds (temporal and geographical inconsistencies are not very important), the Hengwrt versions appear to be adaptations of the Ellesmere versions, and Hengwrt itself is a derivative considerably removed from the ancestor of all the non-Type a orders. [RW] Blake, N.F. ‘Chaucer’s Text and the Web of Words.’ In New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism. Ed. Donald M. Rose. Norman, OK: Pilgrim Books, 1981. Pp 223–40. NPT VII.3076 is hypermetric in Hengwrt and other early MSS, but regularized by later scribes: evidence that ‘the scribes made emendations according to metrical principles and that they did not always approve of what Chaucer had

Manuscript and Textual Studies / 73

written’ (p 225). NPT VII.2874 (‘she hath the herte in hoold’) and VII.2879 (‘My lief is faren in londe!’) appear in a late fifteenth-century lyric, but we need not assume that Chaucer is referring to this particular lyric, since the ‘echoes’ are in fact a common collocational set. [BM] 281 –– . ‘Critics, Criticism, and the Order of The Canterbury Tales.’ Archiv 218 (1981), 47–58. There is no evidence that Hengwrt’s order reflects Chaucer’s intentions: we ‘can be certain only that Chaucer arranged those tales together which are part of a single section’ (p 56). In Hengwrt’s ordering, WBT, ClT and MerT are in separate sections’; moreover, WBT is not in close proximity to ClT and MerT. This suggests that the so-called Marriage Group and Marriage Debate (with which NPT is sometimes linked) were not uppermost in Chaucer’s or the Hengwrt compilers’ minds. The MS evidence also suggests that Chaucer composed a tale and only later assigned it to a teller. [BM] 282 –– . ‘On Editing the Canterbury Tales.’ In Heyworth 672. Pp 101–19. It is time to reopen the question of how CT should be edited. The MS tradition goes back to the undervalued Hengwrt MS alone. One issue raised then is the status of passages that are not in Hengwrt. Hengwrt omits (among other passages) the Adam stanza of MkT (VII.2007–14), which is added by another hand in the margin, and a long passage in NPP (VII.2771–90). Although it is impossible to disprove that Hengwrt and Ellesmere represent authorial revisions, the balance of evidence is against it, and Hengwrt should be the base MS, even though its order is best explained as editorial rather than authorial. There was only one copy-text (Chaucer’s own), the exemplar of Hengwrt, and it was constantly revised in the ‘editorial office’, which explains variant readings. Individual tales were not circulated and copied during Chaucer’s lifetime. An editor may have written the Adam stanza, and other inserted passages, which were then distributed (or not). [BM, RW] •Review by A.V.C. Schmidt, MÆ 51 (1982), 234– 7. Blake’s essay is ‘an exercise in a curiously old-fashioned kind of positivism.’ 283 Stevens, Martin. ‘The Ellesmere Miniatures as Illustrations of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.’ SIcon 7–8 (1981), 113–34. The Ellesmere illustrations are usually true to Chaucer’s text, and act as the first textual commentary on it. The portrait of the Nun’s Priest is not distinctive, and ‘one would have trouble even in identifying him as an ecclesiastic’ (p 117). This miniature is important, however, for part of the text is superimposed over the portrait (as with the miniature of the Summoner), proving that the miniatures are contemporary with the text, and were in some cases painted before the text was copied. [BM] 284 Blake, N.F. ‘The Text of the Canterbury Tales.’ Poetica 13 (1982 for 1980), 27– 49.

74 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Modern editorial assumptions, including the respect for the Ellesmere MS, which is already heavily edited, should be questioned. Hengwrt is the earliest MS, put together by an editorial committee which had access to only one exemplar, probably Chaucer’s working copy. This copy was made up of twelve separate sections; Chaucer had established the contents of each section, but had not arranged the sections in order or allocated all of the tales to tellers. The editing process began with the Hengwrt editors, and all subsequent MS traditions derive from the ongoing work of this committee. NPP is an example of the early editing process. There is no evidence that MkT is incomplete, or that the Monk is interrupted by the Knight: in Th the teller protests at not being allowed to complete his tale, and the MS rubrics indicate that Th has been curtailed; the Monk, however, does not protest, and the rubrics state that MkT is ended. The Knight’s ‘namoore of this’ (MkP VII.2767) and (in Hengwrt) ‘telle vs somwhat ellis’ might simply indicate his desire to hear a lighter tale when the Monk tells his second required tale. At some stage an editor noticed the verbal similarity between the Knight’s words and the Host’s interruption of Th, and felt that MkT was meant to be incomplete too. So he added the extra lines where the Host also criticizes the tale, and rearranged MkT so that the four Modern Instances no longer appeared at the end (as in Hengwrt) but earlier in the sequence - giving MkT an unfinished quality. [BM] 285 Owen, Charles A., Jr. ‘The Alternative Reading of The Canterbury Tales: Chaucer’s Text and the Early Manuscripts.’ PMLA 97 (1982), 237–50. The earliest MSS of CT indicate that the rubrics, the marginalia, and especially the ordering of tales were all made by editors after Chaucer’s death: ‘the neat pile of manuscripts postulated by Robert A. Pratt [266] and other proponents of the Bradshaw shift is a fiction’ (p 237). Ellesmere’s order evolved from Hengwrt; the marginalia and glosses developed from the practice begun in Hengwrt. The editor of Cambridge Dd used the Ellesmere order, and the Hengwrt-Ellesmere marginalia and glosses; he also had ‘a collection of texts gathered from the same sources as Hengwrt and Ellesmere - the copies of tales, links, and groups of tales in the hands of Chaucer’s family, friends, and associates, in the hands of friends of friends and associates of associates, and on to [their] families’ (p 244). Cambridge Dd provides the earliest extant copy of the endlink to NPT. The Manly-Rickert proposition 97 that the Merthyr fragment represents ‘one of the “first arranged” manuscripts, perhaps responsible for the Ellesmere a order’ (p 246) is rejected: ‘We have three beautifully written leaves with parts of the Nun’s Priest’s Prologue and Tale in an unedited, accurate text. What and how much came before and after is a mystery’ (p 246). Possibly the Merthyr fragment is evidence that groups of tales were circulated before any complete collection. [BM]

Manuscript and Textual Studies / 75

286

287

288

289

Ramsey, Roy Vance. ‘The Hengwrt and Ellesmere Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales: Different Scribes.’ SB 35 (1982), 133–54. Contrary to most later scholarship, Ramsey argues that ‘Hengwrt and Ellesmere were copied by different scribes with different habits of registering certain accidentals . . . of proofing finished copy, and . . . of registering substantive readings’ (p 133). NPT VII.2894, VII.2931, VII.2942, and VII.3362 (where Robinson 116 has Hengwrt sovereynly rather than Ellesmere sodeynly) illustrate the argument that many Ellesmere variants are scribal. Hengwrt is of high quality and there are many dangers in placing too great a reliance on Ellesmere. [BM] Baker, Donald C. ‘Frederick James Furnivall (1825–1910).’ In Ruggiers 293. Pp 157– 69. An account of Furnivall’s contribution to Chaucer scholarship, especially his Six-Text Edition 7. It includes commentary on his adoption of the ‘Bradshaw shift,’ and Skeat’s adoption and later rejection of it. [BM] Blake, N.F. ‘Editorial Assumptions and Problems in The Canterbury Tales.’ Poetica 20 (1984), 1–19. The issue of the short and long versions of NPP may be related to the presence or absence of the Adam stanza and the position of the Modern Instances in MkT (VII.2007–14, VII.2375–2462). Blake surveys the treatment of these problems by Caxton, Thynne, Tyrwhitt, Skeat, and Manly-Rickert, concluding that the Hengwrt MS provides the clearest guide to the state of the text at Chaucer’s death. Hengwrt lacks the Adam stanza, has the Modern Instances at the end of MkT, and has the shorter NPP. MS Corpus 198 represents the next step in the process of textual transmission: the compiler left a gap and a heading for the Adam stanza, indicating that while he knew it was to be added (from whatever source) it did not become available; the Modern Instances have been shifted by the compiler from the end to the middle (a position which became entrenched in the later textual tradition), but a supervisor has marked this as a faulty arrangement; the text still has the shorter NPP. MS Harley 7334 represents the next step: the Adam stanza has become available; the Modern Instances remain in the middle; and the longer NPP has become available, with its echoes of the Croesus story (perhaps inspired by the fact that the Croesus story had now become entrenched at the end of the Monk’s tragedies). The revision of NPP, therefore, is most likely scribal. [BM] Edwards, A.S.G. ‘Walter Skeat (1835–1912).’ In Ruggiers 293. Pp 171–89. Skeat accepts the ‘Bradshaw shift’ order of CT - that adopted by Furnivall in his Six-Text Edition 7 (the basis of the Oxford Chaucer 15) - without discussing the issue. He acknowledges a debt to Richard Morris in his notes on GP and KnT, but oddly does not acknowledge Morris for the notes on NPT.

76 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

290

291

Skeat’s editing is impressive, but not without its weaknesses. Comparison of Skeat’s 15 and Sisam’s 69 editions of NPT (both of which use Ellesmere as their base) reveals that Skeat makes sixty-three substantive emendations whereas Sisam makes forty-five: Skeat ‘exercised a degree of emendatorial impetuosity that may in some respects obscure his very gifted attempts to reconstruct Chaucer’s text’ (p 184). [BM] Kane, George. ‘John M. Manly (1865–1940) and Edith Rickert (1871–1938).’ In Ruggiers 293. Pp 207–29. Manly and Rickert 97 provide no convincing classification of the MSS of CT from which an archetypal text can be recovered by recension; once committed to this methodology they fail to admit its weaknesses and the inadequacy of the evidence. Their textual judgements are often poor, betraying an inadequate grasp of scribal habits, eg their comments on NPT VII.3248 (p 214). Their lexicographical expertise is suspect: eg they argue that in the variation knew/krew (NPT VII.2855) knew is archetypal and krew an emendation, but ‘krew ... is a much harder reading and probably original here; the obvious and easily coincidental substitution is knew’ (p 218). Their grasp of the language is inadequate: eg they fail to recognize NPT VII.2984 as an ‘unconscious overlay of two constructions by a scribe or scribes uncertain which to write down’ (p 219), and miss the idiom which is the probable original of NPT VII.3036. Their treatment of Ellesmere is prejudiced, ‘as if [they] were under some compulsion to discredit the manuscript which clouded their judgment’ (p 220). Kane concludes that ‘it will be judicious to abstain from using the propositions of this edition as bases for further argument, especially about the prehistory of the manuscript tradition of The Canterbury Tales or about the superiority of this or that manuscript’ (p 229). [BM] Pearsall, Derek. ‘Texts, Textual Criticism, and Fifteenth Century Manuscript Production’. In Fifteenth-Century Studies: Recent Essays. Ed. Robert F. Yeager. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1984. Pp 121–36. In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition of the important part that textual criticism and palaeography have to play in the literary study of medieval works. The concern by editors of the past to produce ‘critical’ texts and to valorize certain MSS over others often resulted in the dismissal of much valuable evidence. Two examples are drawn from NPT. In an effort to avoid the ‘Lydgate’ line of NPT VII.3418, found in both the Ellesmere and the Hengwrt MSS, ‘And whan the fox saw that he was gon,’ modern editors have substituted more metrically regular readings of the line. Robinson 116, for example, prints Cambridge MS Dd.iv.24, ‘And whan the fox saw that the cok was gon.’ In Chaucer’s hands, however, the Lydgate line can be a ‘legitimate and euphonious variant on the normal decasyllable’ (p 125). Ellesmere ‘broghte out of the yerd’ (VII.3422) is represented in Hengwrt by ‘into this yerd.’

Manuscript and Textual Studies / 77

292

293

294

295

Although ‘into this’ doesn’t make much sense, it is not hard to see how this evidently wrong reading might have generated ‘out of the’ in the hands of an improver. As the harder reading, Hengwrt needs consideration. [PG] ––. ‘Thomas Speght (ca. 1550–?).’ In Ruggiers 293. Pp 71–92. Speght’s ‘Arguments to euery Tale and Booke’ in his 1598 edition of Chaucer include some interpretative comments: eg he values NPT’s didactic advice to beware of flatterers and to encourage true friends. For the 1602 edition Speght received textual advice from Francis Thynne (son of William), who was ‘the perfect pattern of a pedant’ (p 84) yet occasionally hit upon appropriate emendations, e.g., Mercenrike for Mertenrike (NPT VII.3112), thritty for twenty (VII.3190), Twenty for Fourty (VII.3195). In this 1602 edition, Speght revised the text of CT in a way remarkable for his time, eg in NPT ‘he introduced more than fifty new readings, most of which are corrections or at least improvements, and many of which defy the whole tradition of the printed texts up to his day’ (p 87). [BM] Ruggiers, Paul G. Gen. Ed. Editing Chaucer. The Great Tradition. Norman, OK: Pilgrim, 1984. Essays by various scholars on the methods and achievements of Chaucer editors from Caxton to Robinson. Contains Baker on Furnivall 287, Edwards on Skeat 289, Kane on Manly and Rickert 290, Pearsall on Speght 291, and Windeatt on Tyrwhitt 294. [DS, PG] Windeatt, B.A. ‘Thomas Tyrwhitt (1730–1786).’ In Ruggiers 293. Pp 117–43. Tyrwhitt ‘deserves to be considered the founder of modern Chaucer editing’ (p 118), especially because of his respect for MS tradition. His editing skills are evident, eg in his rejection of the final two lines of the NPT endlink (VII.3461–2), which in his edition forged a link with SNT, as spurious. His scholarship is evident, e.g., in arguing that Marie de France’s fable is the source for NPT; he prints the text from a MS source in order to show how Chaucer transformed Marie’s text. He also cites Geoffrey of Vinsauf in his NPT commentary (p 138), and notes that ‘Burnel’ (VII.3312) is also used in the Chester plays as a name for an ass. [BM] Blake, N.F. The Textual Tradition of the Canterbury Tales. London: Arnold, 1985. Discussion of the textual history of CT leads to the conclusion that ‘whatever is not in Hengwrt is most convincingly interpreted as a later edition [sic] to the poem and hence not by Chaucer’ (p 202). For MkP-MkT-NPP, the implications are that Chaucer’s own text had no Adam stanza, placed the Modern Instances at the end of MkT, and had the short form of NPP. MkPMkT-NPP comes in the tenth section of the Hengwrt text, but the authorial order of the Fragments is uncertain. •Review by Charles A. Owen, Jr. SAC 9 (1987), 183–7. ‘Few scholars will

78 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

296

297

298

299

accept Blake’s account of how the manuscript tradition of The Canterbury Tales evolved’ (p 185), and he is mistaken in assuming that the Corpus and Harleian MSS had the same exemplar as Hengwrt; but the ‘effort to present a consistent picture of the textual tradition is commendable’ (p 187). [DS] Jones, Alex I. ‘MS Harley 7334 and the Construction of the Canterbury Tales.’ ELN 23:2 (1985), 9–15. The arrangement of quires in British Library MS Harley 7334 reflects the numerologically determined sequence identified by the thirteenth-century Lombard mathematician Fibonacci (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 . . .). In this scheme Fragments V–VI and IX–X would be interchanged and Fragment II would be moved back to join Fragment VII as part of the return journey. [DS] Mosser, Daniel W. ‘Manly and Rickert’s Collation of Huntington Library Chaucer Manuscript HM 144 (Hn),’ Proceedings of the Bibliographical Society of America 79 (1985), 235–40. Manly and Rickert’s description 97 of Huntington Library MS HM 144 (Hn) is very problematic, in particular their foliation of the MS, which seems at variance with its current state, and their contention that MkT was written down before Mel. There is little support for the argument that the two tales were copied separately, or copied from separate exemplars, or copied from an exemplar that did not contain a complete text of CT. [PG] Pearsall, Derek. ‘Editing Medieval Texts: Some Developments and Some Problems.’ In Textual Criticism and Literary Interpretation. Ed. Jerome McGann. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1985, pp 92– 106. The use by scholars and students of the second edition of Robinson 116 is so widespread that it is easy to see it as an authoritative record of the whole work as Chaucer wrote it. However, Robinson’s choice of the Ellesmere MS as his base was clearly mistaken. The Hengwrt MS is intrinsically superior, as is evident in numerous instances, illustrated by Pearsall with examples drawn from NPT. The reasons why it has not been used before now as a base-text, that it lacks some portions of text and presents the tales in a ‘disordered’ sequence, are in many ways reasons for its authority: it shows the reality that Chaucer left CT as ‘a partly assembled kit with no directions’ (p 97). [PG] Horvath, Richard P. ‘A Critical Interpretation of Canterbury Tales B2 3981.’ ELN 24:1 (1986), 8–12. The reading of NPP VII.2791 offered in standard editions belongs to the Ellesmere MS tradition (‘For therinne is ther no desport ne game’) and the long, revised form of NPP. Consideration of the reading which belongs to the Hengwrt MS tradition (‘Youre tales doon vs no desport . . .’) and the short, earlier form of NPP reveals a subtle difference between the two,

Manuscript and Textual Studies / 79

300

301

302

303

304

which casts light on Chaucer’s concern with the distinction between inherent or intended meaning and perceived meaning. [DS] Mosser, Daniel. ‘The Cardigan Chaucer: A Witness to the Manuscript and Textual History of the “Canterbury Tales”.’ Library Chronicle of the University of Texas 41 (1987), 82–11. The Cardigan Chaucer belongs to group a MSS; with the Manchester MS, it forms a smaller sub-group, distinguished by some readings different from those of the larger group. Group a MSS provide the endlink to NPT, which many commentators believe to be genuine, although later cancelled by Chaucer. Cardigan and Manchester add a further six lines to the link, generally thought to be spurious. Whereas MS Cambridge Dd.4.24, the oldest MS of group a, does not link NPT with any particular tale, Cardigan appends six lines that effectively serve as a prologue to the SNT. [PG] Fisher, John H. ‘Animadversions on the Text of Chaucer, 1988.’ Spec 63 (1988), 779–93. The question of whether the extant MSS of CT derive from multiple copytexts or a single copytext incorporating variants arising from authorial revision is difficult to answer, particularly because, apart from the Merthyr fragment of NPP dated ca 1400, none of the MSS is early. [DS] Boyd, Beverley. ‘The Infamous b-Text of The Canterbury Tales.’ Manuscripta 34 (1990), 233–8. Manly-Rickert’s Line III of textual transmission contains both excellent MSS like Hengwrt and MS Gg.4.27, as well as related MSS of the b-text, universally considered the worst version of CT. Hengwrt and thirteen other MSS, including all of the b-text MSS, use a shorter version of NPP. Doyle and Parkes in the Palaeographical introduction to Variorum Edition, Facsimile and Transcription of C Hengwrt 174 note that parallel production of Hengwrt cannot be ruled out, so it is not theoretically impossible for other copyists to have used Hengwrt materials without ever seeing Hengwrt itself. [PG] Owen, Charles A., Jr. The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer Studies XVII. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991. The MSS show us that there was not a single copytext of CT available to scribes and editors in the years immediately following Chaucer’s death, as Blake 284 argues, but ‘a collection of fragments, tales and groups of tales, reflecting the different stages of a developing plan for the whole work’ (p 4). All a MSS include the endlink to NPT; MS Cambridge University Library Dd.4.24 is the earliest. Mosser, Daniel. ‘Reading and Editing the Canterbury Tales: Past, Present, and Future (?).’ Text 7 (1994), 201–32. Computer technology may enable us to create ‘workstations’, in addition to traditional editions, that can reflect more faithfully the diversity, inconsis-

80 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

tency and fragmentariness characteristic of textual production in the Middle Ages. Few modern editions give an adequate picture of the differences between variant MSS of CT, the additions and deletions, and the amount of glossing and commentary of fifteenth-century scribes and editors. The endlink to NPT appears only in alpha MSS, a significant link because Mosser contends that the a text is the first to achieve the alpha ordering of the tales. The a order joins NPT and Second Nun’s Tale, both told by religious narrators and both linked in GP. The Dd scribe left a fifteen-line gap after the endlink, noting also that the expected prologue to the next tale was missing. The Cardigan MS forges an explicit link between the fragments by adding a sixline prologue to the SNT. [PG] 305 Stevens, Martin, and Daniel Woodward, eds. The Ellesmere Chaucer: Essays in Interpretation. San Marino: Huntington Library; Tokyo: Yushodo, 1995. Rpt 1997. A volume of essays produced to accompany the New Ellesmere Chaucer Facsimile 190. [PG] 305a Seymour, M.C. A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. 2 vols. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995, 1997. Volume 2 describes MSS of CT. Volume 1 describes MSS that contains extracts of CT. These are almost all dated post 1450 and fall into two groups: compilations of saints’ lives and miscellanies of ‘worthy’ romances. MS Cambridge, Trinity College R.3.19, a fifteenth-century MS that contains items by Lydgate, Chaucer and others, contains substantial extracts from MkP and MkT, copied from Caxton’s edition of CT (c.1478). The MS does not contain extracts from any other of CT. [PG] 305b Hanna, Ralph III. Pursuing History: Middle English Manuscripts and their Texts. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996. Hengwrts’s placement of the modern instances at the end of MkT is probably correct. The positioning in the middle of the tale, as in modern editions, is probably the result of their having been written on loose sheets in Chaucer’s holograph and then being tucked into the centre of a quire to prevent loss. Pearsall’s most impressive contribution in the Variorum edition 180 is his survey of past criticism. The editorial portions of the volume are less satisfactory. The editor, as in the Variorum as a whole, vacillates between different sorts of editorial procedure. The ten manuscripts chosen for collation, beyond the obvious ones like Ellesmere, need justification. Although NPT is not a problematic text, Pearsall overvalues Hengwrt and seems unable to accept that it might be the best guide to Chaucer’s intent without being a perfect one. Pearsall rejects Ellesmere’s ‘tyranny of the copy text’ but substitutes the alternative tyranny of Hengwrt. The editor’s assumption that Hengwrt is free from accidental error and editorial improvement needs to be

Manuscript and Textual Studies / 81

proven, not just asserted. He does not demonstrate that Hengwrt is the archetype of all surviving copies, but the opposite. In many of the thirtyseven instances where Pearsall rejects modern editions, he is right, but there are some other readings in the Variorum that should not stand. [PG] 305c Blake, Norman F. ‘Language and style in additions to The Canterbury Tales.’ In Studies in Middle English Linguistics, ed. Jacek Fisiak. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997. Pp. 59–78. The scribe of MS British Library Harleian 7334 [Ha4], one of the earliest manuscripts of CT, read his copy text carefully and altered what he disapproved of. Lines VII.3159–62, in which a reference is made to the thirty days and two that God took to create the world, become ‘tway monþes and dayes tuo’ in Ha4. The scribe tidied up the text so as to make its meaning less ambiguous. The epilogue to NPT exemplifies a common feature of spurious links that they have in common with spurious lines: the use of slang and bawdy language. The epilogue is found only in Dd among the early manuscripts. The use of “stoon” to mean testicle is not found elsewhere in Chaucer’s authentic writings. Likewise, the specific reference to Brazil and Portugal is not found elsewhere in Chaucer. [PG] 306 Smith, Jeremy J. ‘Handmade tales: The implications of linguistic variation in two early manuscripts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.’ In Studies in Middle English Linguistics. Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs, no. 103. Ed Jacek Fisiak. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997. Pp 551–60. NPT VII.3157–71 (from Riverside edition 184-) are used to illustrate some of the changes modern editors make to the MSS of CT. Supports the view of the Ellesmere MS as an edited text and Blake’s assessment of the value of the Hengwrt MS. [PG]

bProsody, Linguistic, and Lexical Studies The distinctive eight-line stanza of MkT has continued to attract a small amount of attention. Mustanoja 357 surveys scholarship on Chaucer’s prosody, discussing final -e in particular. Pearsall 388 points out the difference between Chaucer’s metrical practice, as attested by MSS, and his editors. Many books on Chaucer’s language take examples from both tales: for example Burnley 378, Kerkhof 353, Roscow’s book on syntax 375, and Sandved’s Introduction to Chaucerian English 388. Peters 370, a brief introduction for students, contains a phonetic transcription of MkT VII.2423– 30. There are many studies of particular words and phrases in both tales: for example ‘corpus madrian’ (Norris 328, Frost 334, Byers 351, Haskell 356); ‘vitremyte’ (Hart 308, Tatlock 307, Jenkins 325, Young 336, DiMarco 385); ‘cock’ (Baird 372); and ‘gladly’ (Bloomfield 348, Hinckley 316). 307 Tatlock, John S.P. ‘Chaucer’s Vitremyte.’ MLN 21 (1906), 62. Skeat 15 (vol 5, pp 237–8) suggests that behind the statement that Zenobia will wear a ‘vitremyte’ there may lie a proverb ‘in which a glass cap or helmet figures as a symbol of insecurity,’ though he does not know such a proverb. ‘Vitremyte’ is in fact paralleled by the expression galea vitrea in Boccaccio’s De Genealogia Deorum, 14.18, which may even have supplied Chaucer with the expression. [DS] 308 Hart, J.M. ‘Chaucer’s Vitremyte Again.’ MLN 21 (1906), 192. ‘The proverb of a glass helmet, or hood, in the sense of a cheat, or mock,’ is older than Tatlock 307 realizes. It occurs in the thirteenth-century Debate between the Body and the Soul: ‘an houve of glas.’ [DS] 309 Kittredge, George Lyman. ‘The Pillars of Hercules and Chaucer’s “Trophee”.’ The Putman Anniversary Volume. Ed. F. Boas. Cedar Rapids: Torch; New York: Stechert, 1909. Pp 545–66. ‘Trophee’ (MkT VII.2117) arises from misinterpretation of a sentence in the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem: ‘Ast [sic] et ad Herculis Liberique Trophaea me deduxit in orientis ultimis oris.’ Not seen. [DS] 310 Flügel, Ewald. ‘Prolegomena and Side-Notes to the Chaucer Dictionary.’ Anglia 34 (1911), 354–422. Published as ‘raw materials,’ the preliminary fruits of his long-projected Chaucer Dictionary, with the avowed aim of stimulating questions in the field

Linguistic Studies / 83

311

312

313

314

of lexicography. MkT provides examples under ‘arm’ (VII.1921, VII.2262, VII.2268, VII.24444, VII.2448, VII.2510); ‘beest’ as cattle, domestic animal (VII.2171, VII.2173, VII.2217). NPT provides examples under bee (VII.3392); beest as ‘animal in general’ (VII.3279) or ‘fierce, wild animal’ (VII.2899, VII.2931); and benedicitee as an ‘exclamation in which the superstitious desire of warding off some unknown evil, some danger &c is, at least originally, prevailing’ (VII.3393). For Tatlock and Kennedy, Concordance to the Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, see 204. [JS, PG] Vockrodt, G. Reimtecknik bei Chaucer als Mittel zur chronologischen Bestimmung seiner im Reimpaar geschriebenen Werke. Halle a.S.: Buchdruckerei Hohmann, 1914. An attempt to establish the relative chronology of the Chaucerian canon by a statistical analysis of the occurrence of certain forms of rhyme: rhyming by suffix, rhyming of simple and composite words, ‘grammatical’ rhyme (the ‘same’ word, but with a different grammatical function), and ‘spaltreim.’ ‘Of katapuce, or of gaitrys beryis / Of herbe yve, growyng in our yerd, ther mery is’ (NPT VII.2965–6) is an example of comic deployment of the last. Among CT, KnT and PhT show less maturity in rhyming technique, and were therefore written earlier than works such as NPT. [JS] Joerden, Otto. Das Verhältnis von Wort-, Satz-, und Versakzent in Chaucers Canterbury Tales. Anglistische Forschungen 55. Halle: Niemeyer, 1915. GP and NPT are used for exemplification in a study of Chaucer’s metrics that stresses the importance of cadence in Chaucerian rhythm, and which sees this as controlled by the positioning of the primary, and frequently a secondary, caesura. This is a ‘national’ system, interacting in Chaucer’s verse with a more strictly syllabic system which is Romance-derived. [JS] Tupper, Frederick. ‘Chaucer and Trophee.’ MLN 31 (1916), 11–4. Kittredge’s discussion of ‘Trophee’ 309 is unsatisfactory. The gloss in the Ellesmere and Hengwrt MSS is the result of scribal error: the copyist of a common progenitor of these MSS must have found ‘Tropheus’ as a gloss to ‘Trophee’ on a verso and ‘vates Chaldeorum’ as a gloss to ‘Daniel’ (MkT VII.2154) at about the same level on the next recto, and copied the words continuously as ‘Tropheus vates Chaldeorum,’ to which the following scribe added ‘Ille.’ It is thus not necessary to look for a seer called Tropheus (as do Skeat 15, 2: lvi, and Kittredge 309). ‘Trophee’ is in fact easily associated with Guido delle Colonne, trophaea being equivalent to columnae: see Hamilton 391. Chaucer’s reference to the Pillars at both ends of the world, where Guido refers only to the Western columns, is not an issue because loose citation is common in medieval literature. Lydgate’s reference to ‘Trophe’ arose from his ignorance of Italian. [DS] Emerson, Oliver Farrar. ‘“Seith Trophee”.’ MLN 31 (1916), 142–6.

84 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

315

316

317

318

319

To Tupper’s article 313, supporting Hamilton’s suggestion 391, a couple of notes may be added. ‘Trophee’ is more likely singular in form than plural, but the reference would still be to Guido, given the equally common use of the singular form of his name, ‘de Columpna.’ The singular fits Chaucer’s rhyme scheme. At the time, ‘trophee’ had the primary meaning ‘column,’ rather than ‘trophy,’ and ‘column’ itself was not yet in use. [DS] Sauerbrey, Gertrud. Die innere Sprachform bei Chaucer. Halle a.S.: Buchdruckerei Hohmann, 1917. Applies to Chaucer the ideas of Wilhelm Max Wundt in Die Sprache (vols 1 & 2 of Völkerpsychologie, 1904–23) concerning access to the thought processes of a writer through analysis of patterns of grammatical behaviour. Four categories of verbal substantives are discussed, comparing TC with the Italian of Boccaccio, ClT with the Latin of Petrarch, Mel with the French Histoire de Melibée, and discussing NPT and GP as examples of original work. The conclusion is that Chaucer is sometimes conservative, sometimes radical in his usage. [JS] Hinckley, Henry Barrett. ‘Chauceriana.’ MP 16 (1918), 39–48. A set of interpretative annotations to particular words and phrases from TC and CT. There is nothing on MkT. Of the eight involving NPT, the most substantial deal with the colours of Chauntecleer (VII.2859–64); the use of gladly as ‘habitually’ (VII.3224) (see also Bloomfield 348); and the possible derivation from contemporary lyric poetry of Talbot as a proper name for a dog (VII.3383). [JS] Tatlock, John S.P. ‘The Source of the Legend, and Other Chauceriana.’ SP 18 (1921), 419–28. Whose dog is intended in ‘Ran Colle oure dogge’ (NPT VII.3383)? From similar occurrences in Chaucer and other medieval texts (including idioms such as ‘our dog,’ ‘our cat,’ ‘our sire,’ ‘our dame’) Tatlock concludes that this ‘medieval colloquialism is evidently an extension of an ordinary possessive to cases where it involves taking the point of view of the person addressed, and finally becomes stereotyped’ (p 427). The idiom, which he describes as the ‘domestic “our”,’ suggests the intimate context of household and parish life, and ‘has a curious racy savor of the narrow community life of the middle ages’ (p 427). [BM] Emerson, Oliver Farrar. ‘Chaucer and Medieval Hunting.’ Romanic Review 13 (1922), 115–50. Rpt in Emerson 809. Pp 320–77. In ‘For yet ne was ther no man that hym sewed’ (NPT VII.3337) the word sewed is used in its technical sense of ‘pursued as game’ (p 146). [BM] Law, Robert Adger. ‘“In Principio.”’ PMLA 37 (1922), 208–15. The Friar’s ‘In principio’ (GP I.254) refers to the Gospel of John and not to Genesis; it refers not just to John 1:1 but to John 1:1–14, and the Friar uses it

Linguistic Studies / 85

320

321

322

323

324 325

not as a greeting but as a ‘favourite devotion’ (p 213). In NPT VII.3163 ‘In principio’ is taken by some commentators as a reference to John 1:1, but by others as a reference to Genesis which, linked to the following Latin proverb, creates an allusion ‘to Eve’s responsibility for the Fall’ (p 214). But the Latin proverb is commonplace, and nowhere else linked to ‘In principio.’ It is likely that here ‘In principio’ is ‘Chaucer’s own expression, and to be used as a noun’ (p 215). As in the Friar’s portrait, the reference is to John 1:1–14, and in NPT should be translated ‘As true as Gospel’ (p 215). [BM] Smith, Egerton. The Principles of English Metre. London: Oxford University Press, 1923. The first stanza of MkT, VII.1991–8, is an instance of the eight-line scheme which is narrative; it ‘is of no great importance save as being perhaps the basis of the Spenserian stanza’ (p 248). [RW] Pope, Emma F. ‘The Critical Background of the Spenserian Stanza.’ MP 24 (1926), 31–53. MkT VII.2143–50 are cited as part of an argument that the Chaucerian octave stanza is not the source of Spenser’s stanza form, an argument dating from Tyrwhitt. [RW] Rickert, Edith. ‘Godeleef my Wyf.’ TLS Dec 16, 1926, 935. The reference in MkP VII.1893–4 to ‘Goodelief, my wyf’ gives the host’s wife’s name. The Feet of Fines in Kent in the fourteenth century record the name no less than 30 times, and the Lewisham Court Rolls three times; the name also appears in the Subsidy Roll for 1380 in which Henry Bailly’s name also occurs. Rickert lists the MSS forms, noting that eleven MSS record one word instead of two, and suggests that MS Harley 7334’s capitalized oneword form ‘Godeleef’ is the best reading. [RW] Richardson, H.G. ‘Godeleef my Wyf.’ TLS Jan 20, 1927, 44. Several occurrences of Latinized forms of ‘Godelif’ in the ‘Black Book of St. Augustine’s’ extend Rickert’s chain of evidence 322 back to the twelfth century. The name must have been not uncommon in East Kent in the thirteenth century, while the masculine ‘Godleof’ can be traced back to before the Conquest. [RW] Rickert, Edith. ‘“Goode Lief, My Wyf”.’ MP 25 (1927), 79–82. An expansion of 322. [RW] Jenkins, T. Atkinson. ‘Vitremyte: Mot Latin-Français Employé par Chaucer.’ In Mélanges de Linguistique et de Littérature offerts à M. Alfred Jeanroy par ses Élèves et ses Amis. Paris: Droz, 1928. Pp 141–7. The hapax legomenon ‘vitremyte’, in the description of Zenobia (MkT VII.2372), has been explained as ‘glass headdress’ (see 307, 308, 336). The correspondences in Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium place galeata against velata, and Chaucer therefore places ‘helmed’ against ‘vitremyte.’

86 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

326

327

328

329

330

Metathesis may alter ‘vitemitre’ ‘mitrevite’ to ‘vitremite,’ and the Latin vitta allows the meaning ‘lady’s coif.’ Zenobia’s headdress could be a hood with two horns, with a veil attached. [RW] Karpf, Fritz. Studien zur Syntax in den Werken Geoffrey Chaucers. Vienna and Leipzig: Braumüller, 1930. A description of Chaucer’s language use which discusses gender references, number, the use of articles, the means of expressing comparison, the congruence of verbs with various kinds of subject, and ellipses of sentence elements. Where choice is possible, the actual form chosen is often governed by metrical or rhyme considerations. Examples drawn from MkT illustrate, e.g., that ‘thou’ is used to address a social inferior, in contrast to the courtly ‘ye’ (pp 43–4); an article can be inserted for metrical reasons (p 56); augmentation of an attribute can be achieved with the addition of ‘ay’ (p 101); the metonymic representation of people by place as in ‘this wyde world’ is semantically a possible reason for the use of a following plural (p 121). [RW] Camden, Carroll. ‘Chauceriana.’ MLN 47 (1932), 360–2. The entry for ‘I. Worthy’ suggests that the word means ‘able,’ ‘fit,’ ‘suitable.’While the special sense of ‘worthy’ in NPT VII.3243 Goddes worthy forwityng (which Sisam 69 glosses as ‘that commands reverence’) is not specified, Camden’s last capacious definition certainly includes it. [JG] Norris, Dorothy Macbride. ‘Harry Bailey’s “Corpus Madrian”.’ MLN 48 (1933), 146–8. Since Manly 71 is not satisfied that ‘corpus Madrian’ is an allusion to St. Materne or St. Mathurin, and St. Madian, St. Madron, and St. Madryn are not likely, Norris suggests that as proprietor of a London inn, the Host (here treated as a real person) has picked up from Italian travellers the term Madre for the Holy Mother, and has anglicized the ending. [RW] Maynard, Theodore. The Connection between the Ballade, Chaucer’s Modification of it, Rime Royal, and the Spenserian Stanza. Washington DC: Catholic University of America, 1934. Though the Italian influence upon Chaucer is considerable, he had before going to Italy (see Tatlock 601) a command of the ballade octave stanza form of MkT (found already in the French-influenced ABC). Maynard strongly refutes the suggestion (dating from Tyrwhitt) that the MkT stanza plus an alexandrine underlies the Spenserian stanza. [RW] D[ickens], B[ruce]. ‘Seynd Bacoun.’ Leeds Studies in English and Kindred Languages 4 (1935), 76–7. All commentators have assumed that seynd in the phrase seynd bacoun (NPT VII.2845) is the past participle of sengen, and have translated the word as ‘singed,’ ‘broiled,’ or ‘smoked.’ Dickens proposes a contrary derivation

Linguistic Studies / 87

331

332

333

334

from OF seim, sain, meaning ‘fat,’ preserved in modern standard French saindoux, ‘lard.’ Forms in -m are recorded in Middle English and the past participle of a derivative verb, seym’d up, ‘choked with fat,’ is still found in Northumberland. [JG] Mersand, Joseph. Chaucer’s Romance Vocabulary. New York: Comet, 1937. 2nd edn 1939. Traces the controversy over the proportion of Romance words in Chaucer’s vocabulary, devises ‘objective tests’ for it, and in two appendices sets out statistical records and the Romance words introduced by Chaucer. There is little specific discussion of either tale. The percentage of words of romance origin is 37.85 for MkT and 35.26 for NPT, roughly in the middle of the range between the extremes of 21.71% for Reeve’s Tale and 51% for Parson’s Tale. Mersand’s general conclusion is that, although factors such as genre and length affect percentages, Chaucer’s use of romance words was at its height in his middle years, falling off after 1386. [PG] Tolkien, J.R.R. Letter, 27 July 1938 to John Masefield. [32] in Letters of J.R..R.. Tolkien. A Selection ed. by Humphrey Carpenter, with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien. London: Allen & Unwin, 1981. Pp 39–40. ‘I am not at all happy about the effect of Chaucer in general, or the Nonnes Preestes Tale in particular, in a supposed 14th. C. pronunciation. I will do my best, but I hope it will be sufficiently intelligible for some of the sense to get over. Personally I rather think that a modified modern pronunciation (restoring rhymes but otherwise avoiding archaisms) is the best - such as I once heard you use on the Monk’s Tale a good many years ago’ (p 40). [JG] Héraucourt, Will. Die Wertwelt Chaucers, die Wertwelt einer Zeitwende. Kulturgeschichtlice Bibliothek. Band 1. Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1939. Chaucer’s value-system can be deduced from a detailed examination of the semantic field of the words he uses to refer to various aspects of the cardinal virtues. Some sixty references to MkT and forty-seven to NPT are cited in an analysis which suggests that his response to the challenge of the fourteenth century’s new ideas places him at the turning point between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in that he shows an awakened feeling of nationalism, with a preference for Germanic rather than Romance language and ideas, where the Germanic deals with more basic inner values, the Romance with the courtly external fashionable world of forms (summarized pp 344–75). [RW] Frost, George L. ‘That Precious Corpus Madrian.’ MLN 57 (1942), 177–9. Although Harry Bailly is ‘wys, and wel ytaught’ (GP I.755), sometimes his fluency outruns his knowledge. ‘Madrian’ (MkP VII.1892) is presumably a corruption of a saint’s name, St Mathurin being the most likely. The word

88 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

335

336

337

338

339

340

‘madrian’ itself is a shortened form of ‘ginger madrian,’ a conserve which results when ginger is treated with lye. A recipe is quoted from British Library MS Harley 2378. [PG] Shaver, Chester Linn. ‘Chaucer’s Owls and Apes Again.’ MLN 58 (1943), 105– 7. The yoking of owls and apes was not merely an easy rhyme for ‘japes,’ but had become a stock symbol of the uncanny and, severally, the owl and the ape had become bywords for human deformity. Instances can be found in ‘The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy,’ Lyly’s prologue to Campaspe, and Tyll Owlglass. [JG] Young, Karl. ‘Chaucer’s “Vitremyte”.’ SP 40 (1943), 494–501. Supports Skeat’s guess in the Oxford Chaucer 15 that the word ‘vitremyte’ (MkT VII.2372) formed on Latin ‘vitream mitram,’ means glass head-dress, its fragility contrasting with the strong helmet Zenobia had worn. There is a contemporary use of ‘taenam vitream’ in Fasciculi Magistri Joannis Wyclif, meaning head covering of glass. [PG] Seaton, Ethel. ‘“Goode Lief My Wife”.’ MLR 41 (1946), 196–202. Extends Rickert’s suggestion that ‘goode lief’ is a proper name (322, 324). The name is one form of the popular Flemish saint, Godeleva, patron saint of Ghistelles, and is frequently recorded in thirteenth-century Kent. There were also connections between Flanders and England through Queen Philippa of Hainault and the Flemish weavers in London. Chaucer visited Bruges as envoy in 1377 where the Benedictines supported the cult of St Godeleva. Her legend is a type of wedded virgin-martyr. [PG] Henshaw, Millet. ‘Le Clameur de Haro.’ Southern Folklore Quarterly 14 (1950), 158–9. Editors since Skeat have given little attention to the use of the word ‘harrow’, the old Norman cry for aid. The use of the old Norman Clameur de Haro survives in the Channel Islands. The full cry is, allegedly, Haro, Haro, Haro: A mon aide, mon Prince, on me fait tort! [JG] Klinefelter, Ralph A. ‘Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale 2843.’ Expl 10 (1952), #32. NPT VII.2842–6 suggest a listing of separate items, so ‘whit and black’ should not be seen in apposition with ‘milk and broun breed’ of the next line. OED offers a distinction between a crop of beans, called ‘black or green crops’ and ‘white crops,’ crops like corn which whiten in ripening. ‘Whit and black’ should be glossed therefore as ‘corn and beans (peas).’ [JG] Kökeritz, Helge. ‘Rhetorical Word-play in Chaucer.’ PMLA 69 (1954), 937–52. Cites Robinson 85 that puns are unusual in Chaucer and that it is not always easy to determine whether they are intentional. Chaucer’s tribute to Geoffrey de Vinsauf may not be so fully ironical as critics generally believe. See also Baum 343 and 344, Naunin 611. [JG]

Linguistic Studies / 89

341 Sagen, Leda V. ‘Preliminary Study of Chaucerian Use of “gan”.’ M.A. Dissertation. [Seattle:] University of Washington, 1954. Dir D.D. Griffith. In NPT, ‘gan’ is distributed 5 times with infinitive; 4 times as ‘gan to’; and 2 times as ‘gan for to,’ from a total use of 656 times with 350 infinitives. Examines contexts in which it is claimed ‘gan’ unambiguously means ‘began,’ and argues that Chaucer ‘delegated some unusual verbal power to “gan” in placing it fifty-three times in the initial position of his verses’ (p 51). [JG] 342 Hamm, Victor. ‘Chaucer: “Heigh Ymaginacioun.”’ MLN 69 (1954), 394–5. ‘Heigh ymaginacioun’ (NPT VII.3217) is usually glossed as ‘divine foresight’ or ‘divine foreknowledge,’ but the prophetic view of the imagination is a tradition running from Plato’s Timaeus and has its highest medieval expression in the Middle Ages in the work of Dante. [JG] 343 Baum, Paull F. ‘Chaucer’s Puns.’ PMLA 71 (1956), 225–46. Annominatio, which involves the juxtaposition of words with similar appearance or sound but different meaning, for example Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s traduction in Poetria Nova (v 1099), is very like the modern pun. Chaucer would have learned about word play from Geoffrey if from nowhere else. Although agreeing with Robinson’s caution that it is not always easy to determine if Chaucer’s puns are intentional, Baum thinks that ‘certain of Chaucer’s puns are unmistakably deliberate, and have long been so recognized’ (p 229). There is a possible pun on color and collar in Chauntecleer’s description at NPT VII.2864, and the term compleccioun at VII.2955 could refer either to Chauntecleer’s temperament or his very red comb. [JG] 344 ––. ‘Chaucer’s Puns: A Supplementary List.’ PMLA 73 (1958), 167–70. The entry for gladly notes that Mrs Hornstein drew Baum’s attention to ‘gladly and habitually’ in As gladly doon thise homycides alle (NPT VII.3224). The latter sense is established in HF 1242. The entry on in principio notes the possible similar playfulness on ‘gretteste auctor’ (NPT VII.2984) and Valerius Maximus. [JG] 345 Salmon, Vivian. ‘Some Connotations of “Cold” in Old and Middle English.’ MLN 74 (1959), 314–22. In Icelandic, kaldr (from ‘kaldrar’ in Sturlungasaga) means, in context, ‘illomened,’ ‘deceitful,’ or ‘hostile [advice].’ NPT VII.3256 fully supports the connotation of ‘ill-omened’ since Pertelote’s fatal advice brought Chauntecleer nearly to his death. [JG] 346 Pratt, Robert A. ‘Chaucer and the Pillars of Hercules.’ In Studies in Honor of Ullman. Ed. Lillian B. Lawler, Dorothy M. Robathan, William C. Korfmacher. St Louis, MO: The Classical Bulletin, St Louis University, 1960. Pp 118–25. Most articles identify sources that mention only one set of pillars in the West. Closer sources are the anonymous Irish account of the destruction of Troy, the Togail Troi, which mentions pillars in both East and West, and Walter Map’s Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum de Non Ducenda Uxore. Chaucer’s

90 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

347

348

349

350

351

mention of Trophee (MkT VII.2117) as his own source is normally interpreted as a reference to Guido de Columnis, on the analogy of columna and tropaea. Pratt argues against this and offers an explanation based on scribal error. [PG] Benson, L.D. ‘Chaucer’s Historical Present: Its Meaning and Uses.’ ES 42 (1961), 65–77. Expectation of the use of the historic present is not always fulfilled, as in the confused chase in NPT, which remains in the preterite: ‘if one believes that the historical present arises from the personal involvement of the narrator, it is even harder to account for the lack of the historical present in this section . . . although the narrator becomes so personally involved that Colle is called “oure dogge,” he does not shift to the historical present’ (p 77). The low incidence of the historic present in NPT is part of a pattern in which factors such as date of composition, a Romance source, or literary quality seem to have no correlation with the incidence of the construction. See also Ness 377. [JS] Bloomfield, Morton W. ‘Middle English Gladly, an Instance of Linguisticism.’ NM 63 (1962), 161–74. In a number of cases, including NPT VII.3223–5, gladly ‘operates as the Modern German gern’ (p 172) rather than as ‘willingly’ or ‘habitually.’ See also Hinckley 316. [JS] Daniels, Edgar F. ‘Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, B², 4054.’ Expl 23 (1964), #33. Calls on the authority of the Middle English Dictionary to suggest that colour in ‘And lyk the burned gold was his colour’ (NPT VII.2864) means neck or hackle, noting that ‘each of the preceding colors (red, black, azure, and white) is assigned to a part of the cock’s body.’ [JS] Rowland, Beryl. ‘“Owles and Apes” in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale, 3092.’ MS 27 (1965), 322–5. It is ironically appropriate that, in the second of Chauntecleer’s ‘ensaumples’ of prophetic dreams, the man whose death is accounted for by supernatural evil should think that owls and apes in dreams were of no significance. Both are used in the visual arts as figurae diaboli. Christian iconography is a more likely reference for Chaucer than the more esoteric dream-lore in which owls and apes are figures of ill-omen. See also Shaver 335. [JS] Byers, John R., Jr. ‘Harry Bailey’s St. Madrian.’ ELN 4 (1966), 6–9. The name (MkP VII.1892) is a blunder by the Host. Its situation between references to Mel’s pacific Dame Prudence and Harry’s aggressive wife, Goodelief, suggests that none of the previously suggested identifications is appropriate. It is likely that Harry was swearing by St (H)adrian, a martyred Roman soldier whose wife, St Nathalia, combined the attributes of Prudence and Goodelief. The ‘Madrian’ is probably a corruption of corpus pretiosum

Linguistic Studies / 91

352

353

354

355

356

(H)adrianum, whereby the m is transferred to the following proper name. [JAS] Halle, Morris, and Samuel Jay Keyser. ‘Chaucer and the Study of Prosody.’ CE 28 (1966), 187–219. An application of transformational linguistic methods to Chaucerian prosody. Rules are proposed which will ‘establish an abstract pattern [of metre] that is satisfied by particular arrangements’ of the linguistically determined stresses of Middle English. A discussion of these stresses, with special emphasis on Romance stress, precedes illustrative scansion of a number of lines, including lines NPT VII.3089, VII.2967, and VII.2866, the latter two meeting the conditions in which a metrical position is occupied by more than one syllable. A concluding section on ‘Chaucer’s Art Poetical’ examines the interpretative implications. [JS] Kerkhof, Jelle. Studies in the Language of Geoffrey Chaucer. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1966. 2nd edn revised and enlarged, 1982. A comprehensive traditional language study, with occasional use of examples from MkT and NPT. [JS] Bauer, Gero. ‘Historisches Präsens und Vergegenwärtigung des epischen Geschehens. Ein erzähltechnischer Kunstgriff Chaucers.’ Anglia 85 (1967), 138–60. An analysis, drawing on Benson 347, of the relationship of different uses of the historical present to questions of narrative technique, such as narratorial distance. NPT is one of many instances in which a pilgrim-narrator establishes distance by opening his/her tale with the epic preterite of ‘whilom ther was.’ [JS] Kolinsky, Muriel. ‘Pronouns of Address and the Status of Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales.’ PLL 3 Supp (1967), 40–8. ‘The choice made of ye or thou in each speech addressed by the Host to a pilgrim is closely correlated with the order in which that pilgrim appears [in GP] and hence with his social status’ (p 40). Among the apparent inconsistencies, explained as examples of affectionate, derisive or ironic usage, is the use of thou to the Nun’s Priest, who appears fifth in GP, playing ironically against his use of ye to the Monk shortly before. The two instances of ye in the NPT endlink may be a mark of respect or conventional in giving thanks. [JS] Haskell, Ann Sullivan. ‘The Host’s Precious Corpus Madrian.’ JEGP 67 (1968), 430–40. Rpt as ch 1 of Essays on Chaucer’s Saints. Ed. Ann S.Haskell. The Hague: Mouton, 1976. Proposes St Adrian, a name found as a MS variant, as the ‘Madrian’ of MkP VII.1892. He was a late third-century Greek martyr whose legend appears in, for example, the Golden Legend and the Roman Martyrology, and who is

92 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

357

358

359

360

361

362

mentioned in the majority of English rituals, including the widespread Sarum rite. Adrian died by brutal dismemberment. His main feast day is September 8, coinciding with the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. There are five (rather tenuous) echoes of the legend of St Adrian in the first thirty-four lines of MkP. These may have a satirical bearing on Harry’s account of his domestic life. [JAS] Mustanoja, Tauno F. ‘Chaucer’s Prosody.’ In Rowland 643. Pp 58–84/ 65–94. A survey of scholarship, which considers rhyme, stanza forms and the question of oral delivery, but gives most space to metrics, including the particular problem of final -e. The theories of Southworth, Verses of Cadence, and Halle and Keyser 352 among others are discussed. The revised edn includes additional discussion of final -e, and the bibliography is comprehensively updated. [JS] Robbins, Rossell Hope. ‘“Lawriol”: CT, B 4153.’ ChauR 3 (1968), 68. A reconciliation and explanation of the two apparently contradictory means of purging by laureole, ie, vomiting and bowel evacuation, joining common editorial opinion in considering that Pertelote recommends the latter. [JS] Elliott, R.W.V. ‘When Chaucer Swears.’ In Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association: Proceedings and Papers of the Twelfth Congress held at the University of Western Australia, 5–11 February, 1969. Ed A.P. Treweek. Sydney: AULLA, 1970. Pp 417–34. Oaths are integral to Chaucer’s art: those in CT offer insight into the user’s character, social standing, religion, and mood. In NPT, however, oaths are part of the mock-heroic texture: the characters’ oaths show that ‘beneath the royal exterior of Chauntecleer and the romantic beauty of his paramour there lies, God wot, something decidedly vulgar’ (p 425). [GC, JS] Mustanoja, Tauno F. ‘The Suggestive Use of Christian Names in Middle English Poetry.’ In Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of Francis Lee Utley. Ed. Jerome Mandel and Bruce A. Rosenberg. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970. Pp 51–76. Disagrees with Robinson 116 that ‘John’ is the Nun’s Priest’s real name, for it is equally possible that in NPP VII.2810 and VII.2820 the name is used conventionally for a typical priest. The Host’s derisive tone in VII.2810 is signalled by his use of the pronoun thou. However, ‘daun Piers’ (NPP VII.2792) is the Monk’s real name. [GC] Robinson, Ian. Chaucer’s Prosody: A Study of the Middle English Verse Tradition. London: Cambridge University Press, 1971. The ‘superb chase’ at NPT VII.3390–7 is an example of Chaucer’s use of the half-line. [GC] Knight, Stephen. ‘The Language of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Teaching of English 23 (1972), 29–45. Chaucer’s use of language shapes the meaning of NPT. In the descriptions of

Linguistic Studies / 93

363

364

365

366

367

the widow, Chauntecleer and Pertelote, the mock-heroic tone is established by the use in a humble context of ornate and courtly language. Vocabulary and syntax distinguish the oratorical and bombastic Chauntecleer from the businesslike Pertelote in order to demonstrate his foolish pride. [GC] Eliason, Norman E. ‘Personal Names in the Canterbury Tales.’ Names 21 (1973), 137–52. MkT is excluded from this study. In NPT, the names Chauntecleer and Russell are probably taken from whatever source Chaucer was using. Pertelote seems to be Chaucer’s coinage. Neither the Monk nor the Nun’s Priest is actually named. The phrase ‘by youre name,’ added to the Host’s ascription of ‘daun Piers’ (NPP VII.2792) to the Monk, probably means ‘to assign you a name.’ Likewise, ‘sir John’ (NPP VII.2810, VII.2820) may be a generic usage, not the real name of the Nun’s Priest. [GC, PG] Elliott, R.W.V. Chaucer’s English. The Language Library. London: Deutsch, 1974. The mock-heroic tone of NPT depends in part on the discrepancy between the courtly surface of the birds and the vulgarity of their oaths. See also Elliott 359. [GC] ––. ‘“Faire subtile wordes”: An Approach to Chaucer’s Verbal Art.’ Parergon 13 (1975), 3–20. There are passing references to NPT (at p 14), commenting on the importance of oral qualities in the original performance reading of the tale. [CW] Besserman, Lawrence L. ‘Chaucerian Wordplay: the Nun’s Priest and his Womman divyne.’ ChauR 12 (1977), 68–73. Chaucer uses wordplay as a device for establishing the Nun’s Priest’s hostility to the Prioress. In the digression in which the Nun’s Priest makes his disclaimer, ‘My tale is of a cok . . .’ (VII.3252–66), and particularly in the last line, ‘I kan noon harm of no womman divyne’ (VII.3266), there are multiple meanings within the four lexical units in the line and no less than nine in the final word. The Nun’s Priest, who dare not openly attack his employer, veils his misogyny in puns which he leaves for his audience to interpret. See Pearsall 470 for a critique of this argument. [CJW] Blake, N.F. The English Language in Medieval Literature. London: Dent; Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977. There is nothing on MkT, but there are four references to NPT (pp 19, 58–9, 108, 158) of a lexical and stylistic nature. Editors falsely privilege one line of the song ‘My lief is faren in londe!’ (NPT VII.2879), which may never have been intended as a title, by placing it in inverted commas and using a capital M for ‘My.’ When a medieval author ‘wished to indicate a title, this was usually made clear by some kind of introductory phrase’ (p 59), as in PF 29– 30: ‘This bok of which I make mencioun / Entitled was . . . .’ Terms such as

94 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

368

369

370

371

Avoy, used by Pertelote, are French, not English, colloquialisms: the ‘colloquialism springs from its literary origins, not from its basis in English speech’ (p 158). •Review by Henry Hargreaves, RES ns 29 (1978), 330–1. The book demonstrates well that the study of language and literature cannot be divorced. [CW, PG] Crépin, André. ‘Module de douze vers dans le conte du Prêtre du Monnains [sic]’. In Linguistique, civilisation, litterature. Ed. André Bordeaux. Paris: Didier, 1980. Pp 180–4. NPT is constructed throughout in distinct blocks of verse of approximately twelve lines, corresponding in some ways to the stanza forms of some of Chaucer’s other poems. [PG] de Weever, Jacqueline. ‘Chaucerian Onomastics: the Formation and Use of Personal Names in Chaucer’s Works.’ Names 28 (1980), 1–31. Chaucer’s style is typically medieval in its use of colours and figures of rhetoric and its associated lavish use of names. Appeals to authority, invocations, and apostrophes are an integral part of Chaucer’s poetry. Amongst names of medieval people, Bradwardyn appears in the Nun’s Priest’s humorous application of the doctrine of free will. Three English Geoffreys show variation: Geoffrey de Vinsauf is Gaufride, a variant of the Latin genitive singular, but Chaucer calls himself plain Geffrey. In MkT, Petro is a Spanish variant of Pierre de Lusignan, distinct from Don Pedro of Castile. Of the nine English Christian names appearing in Chaucer’s works, seven are names of saints, including Kenelm in NPT. CT can be divided into tales of two types: those with named and those with unnamed characters. The names in both MkT and NPT derive from sources, except for Pertelote in NPT. See also 247. [PG] Peters, Robert A. Chaucer’s Language. Journal of English Linguistics Occasional Monographs I. Bellingham, WA: Western Washington University, July 1980. Designed as a brief reference work on Chaucer’s language for the student of literature, covering background, vocabulary, phonetic symbols and phonology, morphology and syntax. There is a phonetic transcription of MkT VII.2423–30 on pp 60–1. [RW] Wentersdorf, Karl P. ‘Heigh Ymaginacioun in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ SN 52 (1980), 31–4. Surveys and rejects the arguments that By heigh ymaginacioun forncast (NPT VII.3217) means ‘foreordained by the knowledge of the One on high’ (see Manly 71, Robinson 116, Donaldson 121, Fisher 172) or ‘foreseen by the exalted imagination,’ ‘foreseen by dream’ (see Sisam 69, Hamm 342). Without reference to Davis 238, Wentersdorf argues that ymaginacioun

Linguistic Studies / 95

372

373

374

375

means ‘a plot,’ and that forncast means ‘planned beforehand,’ and translates: ‘by a dire plot as planned beforehand’ [ie by the fox] or ‘in accordance with a heinously contrived plot’ (p 34). Since in NPT VII.3323 the fox’s deed is described as traysoun, NPT VII.3217 might also be translated: ‘by dire and premeditated treachery’ (p 34). [BM] Baird, Lorrayne Y. ‘O.E.D. Cock 20: The Limits of Lexicography of Slang.’ Maledicta 5 (1981), 213–25. The use of cock in the sense of ‘penis’ (O.E.D. sense 20) was known in the fourteenth century, despite the Dictionary’s first dating of 1618. OED suggests an origin of this use associated with urination rather than reproduction; cock sense 12, ‘tap’ or ‘spigot,’ ‘a spout or short pipe serving as a channel for passing liquids through’ was first recorded in 1481–90. On the other hand, there is widespread linguistic evidence in many languages linking the bird gallus gallinaceus with the male sexual organ. The idea of the water-cock seems to have originated in the idea of the phallus-cock, rather than the other way round. [PG] Barney, Stephen A. ‘Suddenness and Process in Chaucer.’ ChauR 16 (1981), 18–37. An examination of the words sodeynly (and sodeyn) and proces in Chaucer’s works, especially TC, with some comments on the use of sodeynly in NPT. Chauntecleer’s plunge into misfortune is signalled by ‘But sodeynly hym fil a sorweful cas’ (NPT VII.3204), and sodeynly is echoed in its reversal: ‘Lo, how Fortune turneth sodeynly’ (VII.3403). It appears as Chauntecleer escapes from the fox ‘And as he spak that word, al sodeynly / This cok brak from his mouth’ (VII.3415–6): the ‘colliding syllables “cok brak” nicely suggest the suddenness’ (p 21). [BM] Fisher, John H. ‘Chaucer and the French Influence.’ In New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism. Ed. Donald M. Rose. Norman, OK: 1981, 177–92. French models (e.g., in Machaut and Gower) shape the pentameter and eightline stanza of MkT (pp 178–9). [RW ] Roscow, G.H. Syntax and Style in Chaucer’s Poetry. Cambridge and Totowa, NJ: Brewer, 1981. Chaucer’s audience was interested in the mimetic function of language (p 8). The traditional view of Middle English syntax is that it is loose and illogical. The introduction (pp 1–9) discusses the ‘looseness’ of the syntax of NPT VII.3064–73, attributed by commentators to Chaucer’s ineptness (Sisam 69) or to Chauntecleer’s. Roscow challenges Blake’s argument 367 attributing it to the ‘deficiencies and irregularity of Early English syntax’ (p 6). There are chapters on word-order, idiomatic usage, pleonasm, ellipsis, relative clauses, and co-ordination and parataxis. Numerous examples are drawn from both tales. [DS, BM]

96 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

376 Merlo, Carolyn. ‘Chaucer’s “Broun” and Medieval Color Symbolism.’ CLAJ 25 (1982), 225–6. In medieval poetry generally, brown is equivalent to black, as in NPT VII.2844. [BM] 377 Ness, Lynn, and Caroline Duncan-Rose. ‘A Syntactic Correlate of Style Switching in the Canterbury Tales.’ In Papers from the 3rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics. Ed. J. Peter Maher, Allan R. Bomhard, and E.F. Konrad Koerner. Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, series 4, vol 13. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1982. Pp 293–322. Chaucer’s abrupt shifting from the present tense to the preterite has been interpreted as a stylistic aberration, as an indication of durative aspect, or as a feature of Middle English verse caused by the exigencies of rhyme and metre. However, tense can be shown to be the reflection of a linguistic norm, and part of the grammar of Middle English. Discourse and narration are to be distinguished. In CT external direct discourse occurs when Chaucer directly addresses his audience outside the narrative of the journey, primary internal discourse occurs in the dialogue of the pilgrims, secondary external discourse occurs in the dialogue of characters within tales, and tertiary internal discourse occurs in dialogue within a story told by one of the characters within a tale (e.g., NPT VII.3004–7). In these situations natural tense is used. In CT external narration occurs when Chaucer narrates the episode of the journey, primary internal narration occurs when the pilgrims tell their tales, and secondary internal narration occurs when a character within a tale tells a story (eg, NPT VII.2984ff). In narration past events are usually described in the preterite. It is in internal narration, which calls for ‘casual styles of informal speech’ (p 308), that tense switching occurs. In NPT secondary internal narration occurs in Chauntecleer’s three anecdotes told to justify his apprehensions about the dream. In the first of these he switches to the present tense in VII.2994. Tense switching is more common in primary internal narration (as in VII.3172–83), but the important point is that it belongs to the same general category as secondary internal narration: ‘they are both internal character narration, where stylistic features appropriate to storytelling in natural, unselfconscious speech are to be expected’ (p 312). [BM] 378 Burnley, David. A Guide to Chaucer’s Language. London: Macmillan, 1983. The Hengwrt MS is used as source for CT. Part 1, ‘The Language of the Text,’ deals with problems likely to be encountered in grammar and syntax. References to MkT are scattered throughout: instances include adjectives with final -e (VII.2669); infinitive forms (VII.2636); the subjunctive (VII.2812); passive expressions (VII.2360); multiple negation (MkP VII.1934). Examples from NPT include analysis of VII.3064–3109 (pp 95–9), illustrating the devices of ‘cohesion’ or ‘coherence.’

Linguistic Studies / 97

379

380

381

382

Part 2, ‘Variation, Context, and Style,’ places Chaucer’s language and vocabulary in its broad contemporary context and discusses linguistic diversity, Chaucer’s vocabulary, register and propriety, levels of style, and the architecture of Chaucer’s language. Instances chosen from MkT include dialect terms (VII.2066–7), and low terms (MkP VII.1898–9, VII.1921); religious narrators’ use of a term in a disapproving way, as in VII.2063 and VII.2119. Harry Bailly uses different levels of style, when his request to the Prioress for a story is contrasted with the request he makes to the Nun’s Priest in NPT VII.2810–5. Examples from NPT include: the mock-heroic use of formal legal language for the fox’s plotting of his crime (VII.3217); how the terms of address and the series of imperatives with which the Host speaks to the Nun’s Priest convey his ‘patronising familiarity’ (NPP VII.2810–15); Chaucer’s use of the terms fruyt and chaf (NPT VII.3443). [RW, BM] Glowka, Arthur W. ‘Chaucer’s Bird Sounds.’ USF LangQ 21 (1983), 15–6. Chaucer often uses imitative bird sounds, sometimes for the delight in sound, but also to sustain the illusion of talking birds, and for verbal wit such as puns. Some bird sounds made by Chauntecleer are traditional, but Chaucer seems to have invented others. The sounds ‘remind the reader that the main character is, after all, a rooster’ (p 15). [BM] Regan, Charles Lionel. ‘Of Owls and Apes Again: CT, B2 4282.’ ChauR 17 (1983), 278–80. As in NPT VII.3092, owls and apes are linked in the Chester Deluge and in Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. In Burton the image of a double or turning picture (fair maid and owl or ape) is used as a symbol of the wisdom and folly in the greatest of men and as ‘contrast between the beautiful and the monstrous, ugly, or contrary to nature’ (p 279). This supports Shaver’s argument 335 for a traditional collocation of apes and owls, indicative of the monstrous, and questions Robinson’s claim 116 that Chaucer links ‘owles’ with ‘apes’ primarily to obtain a rhyme for ‘japes.’ [BM] Rigg, A.G. ‘Clocks, Dials, and Other Terms.’ In Middle English Studies: Presented to Norman Davis in Honour of his Seventieth Birthday. Ed. Douglas Gray and E.G. Stanley. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. Pp 255–74. In Middle English, orloge (NPT VII.2854) refers to various devices for measuring time, both mechanical and astronomical. Usages meaning ‘sun-dial’ usually appear in biblical translations or commentaries; elsewhere the term refers to a mechanical clock, such as the one with which Chauntecleer is compared in NPT VII.2853–4. [BM] Burrow, J.A. ‘Four Notes on Chaucer’s Sir Thopas.’ In his Essays on Medieval Literature. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984. Pp 60–78. In Th, Chaucer uses ‘sir’ for knights on eleven occasions; nowhere else in his works is this title prefixed to a knight’s name. The term occurs elsewhere in Chaucer’s works, but only on five occasions with a proper name. Two of

98 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

383

384

385

386

these are in NPT, VII.2810 and VII.2820, and ‘clearly represent the old custom . . . of applying the title to a priest’ (p 70). When Chaucer refers to ‘Launcelot de Lake’ (NPT VII.3212) there is no title ‘sir.’ Unlike his English contemporaries, and general English practice, Chaucer follows the French tradition (exemplified, e.g., by Froissart), where from the thirteenth century ‘messire’ replaced ‘sire’ as the title for knights, and ‘sire’ became a title for members of the upper bourgeoisie (and therefore appropriate to the world of Th). [BM] Sandved, Arthur O. Introduction to Chaucerian English. Chaucer Studies 11. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1985. A few examples of Chaucerian morphology are taken from MkT: ‘wynter’ (VII.2059), ‘wilde’ (VII.2173), ‘drank’ and ‘dronke’ (VII.2226 and VII.2228), ‘bonde’ (VII.2270), ‘heelp’ (VII.2046), ‘fleigh’ (VII.2689) (pp 46, 52, 72, 73, 74, 80). Examples from NPT include: ‘yeres’ (VII.3216), ‘dremynges’ (VII.3090), ‘digestyves, laxatyves’ (VII.2961, VII.2962), ‘Kenulphes sone’ (VII.3111), ‘in londe’ (VII.2879), ‘colde’ (VII.3256), ‘blisful’ (VII.3197, VII.3201), ‘false mordrour’ (VII.3226), (pp 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53). [DS, PG] Di Marco, Vincent. ‘Another Look at Chaucer’s “Trophee”.’ Names 34 (1986), 275–83. Kittredge’s 309 explanation of ‘Trophee’ can be supported against the objections raised by Pratt 346. Latin trophaeum was misunderstood in various translations of the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelum before and after Chaucer, including the Middle English translation. Chaucer might well have derived his own misunderstanding of trophaea from a passage of the Epistola later than that cited by Kittredge, either in the text of the Epistola itself or in the excerpt from it in the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais. [DS] DiMarco [sic], Vincent. ‘Wearing the Vitremyte: a Note on Chaucer and Boccaccio.’ ELN 25:4 (1988), 15–9. Whatever the derivation of ‘vitre-,’ ‘-myte’ undoubtedly derives from OF mite, Latin mitra, ‘a woman’s headdress,’ and may well carry further connotations of the Maeonian mitra, a cloth cap worn by a woman. In literary descriptions this specifically marks a woman’s status as distinct from a man’s. Zenobia’s attempt to arrogate a man’s privileges is unreasonable to the misogynist mind of the Monk, and Zenobia is punished appropriately by being thus reduced to the status of a mere woman. [DS] Pearcy, Roy J. ‘Chaucer’s “Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” VII. 3218.’ Names 37 (1989), 69–72. The reference to the fox breaking through the hedges into the chicken run (NPT VII.3218) contradicts the previous reference to the yard fenced with sticks (NPT VII.2848). It is possible, however, that Chaucer regarded hedgebreaking as something which foxes do by nature, and that the reference is not linked solely to the topography of this particular expedition. Such is the

Linguistic Studies / 99

387

388

389

389a

implication of the name Percehaie, literally ‘hedge breaker,’ one of Renart’s three sons in Le Roman de Renart, one of the sources of NPT. [PG] Tieken-Boom van Ostade, Ingrid. ‘The Origin and Development of Periphrastic Auxilliary Do: a Case of Destigmatisation.’ NOWELE North-Western European Language Evolution 16 (1990), 3–52. Even in older stages of the English language, children used the auxilliary do in ways that differed from adults. The child’s ‘Fader, why do ye wepe?’ (MkT VII.2432) and ‘Is ther no morsel breed that ye do kepe?’ (VII.2434) are the only instances of empty periphrastic do in Chaucer. Elsewhere, Chaucer uses do as a causative auxilliary. The periphrastic auxilliary always existed as a simplified language device used when addressing and being addressed by children, and gradually lost the stigma attached to its use by adult native speakers of English. [PG] Pearsall, Derek. ‘Chaucer’s Meter: The Evidence of the Manuscripts.’ In Medieval Literature: Texts and Interpretation, Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1991. Pp 41–57. There is a difference between Chaucer’s metrical practice and that of his editors both ancient and modern, as examples drawn from NPP and NPT show. Editors have devised ‘systems that obscure the freedom, variety, and flexibility of Chaucer’s meter’ (p 57). In particular, modern editors have been able to produce regular decasyllabic lines by selecting among the MSS for appropriate variants. The Ellesmere MS frequently has a smoother and more metrically regular reading than the Hengwrt MS, suggesting that it has been emended metrically. [PG] Dane, Joseph A. ‘Mulier Est Hominis Confusio: Note on Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale, line 3164.’ Notes and Queries 39 (1992), 276–8. By the late fourteenth century, the words confusio and confuse were technical terms in the study of language, alluding in particular to the wide range of meanings that a particular word might have. This range of meanings is the word’s propria confusio. The word homo is a particularly good example of such linguistic ‘confusio,’ signifying not just a masculine individual but the species humankind. [PG] Philmus, Maria R. Rohr. ‘The Case of the Spenserian Sonnet: A Curious ReCreation.’ Spenser Studies 13 (1999), 125–37. The ‘Spenserian’ sonnet does not belong exclusively to Spenser. It rhymes in the same way as the ‘Scots’ sonnet, derived from the Chaucerian octave of the Monk’s Tale and some other poems that was a popular stanza in Scotland throughout the sixteenth century, used by all the Scots makaris, although it lapsed from use almost entirely in England. Although the earliest known sonnets in the Scots form, found in the Bannantyne MS (1583), appear before

100 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Spenser wrote his own sonnets, there is no evidence that Spenser had access to any manuscript collections of Scots verse. He seems to have evolved his design independently of the Scots, at the same time as the nine-line stanza of the Faerie Queene, which is closely connected to it. The nine-line stanza is not derived from the ottava rima of Ariosto and others but from the eight-line stanza of the Monk’s Tale. ‘Spenser extended the Monk’s Tale stanza’s pattern to obtain three quatrains, and completed them with the requisite couplet rhyming separately.’ (133–3) [PG]

b Sources, Analogues, & Allusions Much of the earliest work on both tales took the form of studies of sources and analogues. This culminated in the publication of Bryan and Dempster’s Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales 441 in 1941: the chapter on MkT is by Root, and on NPT by Hulbert. Morris 531, Root 393, Looten 430, and Miller 496 are general guides to Chaucer’s sources. Studies of the influence of particular authors or literary traditions on MkT and NPT include Shannon 427 and Minnis 515 on pagan antiquity, Fyler 501 on Ovid, Fansler 402 on the Roman de la Rose, and Schless 530 on Dante. A reverse source study is Miskimin 657 on the reception of Chaucer in the Renaissance. When the writing of scholarly articles on MkT began in earnest in the 1920s, one of the commonest topics was the relationship of the tale to the tradition of thought about Fortune, tragedy and Boethius. Koch 415 traces all Chaucer’s borrowings from Boethius. The series of writings by Patch examines the tradition of Fortune from Roman times. The relationship between Chaucer and the writers of the Italian Trecento has been the subject of study from the beginning, and is examined in a collection of essays edited by Boitani 680. The question of Chaucer’s relative dependence on Boccaccio has always been contentious. Godman 522 makes a detailed comparison of the Zenobia episode in Boccaccio and Chaucer. Because of the widely admired Ugolino story, comparison with Dante has been a regular theme in commentary on the tale (see Kellett 413, Looten 423 and 430, Boitani 494, 521 and 540, Wallace 543a, Spillenger 547a, Cooper 548d, and Pinti 548f). Chaucer has usually fared the worse in the comparison. Stugrin 754 examines the pathos of the Canterbury Tales in the context of Ricardian poetics. Kate Oelzner Petersen’s monograph on the sources of NPT 390 was one of the first substantial studies of the tale. She argues that its closest parallels are branch ii of the Roman de Renart and the opening episode of Reinhart Fuchs, although the tale is not specifically derived from either. Lecompte 408, however, sees such similarities as exist between branch ii of the Roman de Renart and Reinhart Fuchs as the result of two men of letters working independently with the same material. Detailed comparisons between Chaucer’s tale and the French beast story analogues is provided also by Pratt 485 and by Thomas in his dissertation 518. Terry 524 provides an English translation of various branches of the Roman de Renart, including branch ii. There are many studies of the fabular and beast epic traditions from which NPT emerges: Robin 815; Rowland, in a variety of publications, especially

102 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

945; Dargan 392; and McKnight 396. The Reynard tradition is discussed in many publications. Best 520 provides an introduction to the major Reynard poems with summary and commentary. Boussat 454 and Flinn 459 survey the Reynard tradition from a French perspective. The iconographical aspects of the tradition are dealt with in Varty 476. There are also many studies of other sources for NPT. Thompson 458, Crider 500, Peck 512 and Thomas 533 discuss biblical allusions. The relationship of the tale to various classical texts has also been a rich source of study: Haas 505 and 694 studies the lament for the dead in classical and medieval times; Minnis 515 examines Chaucer’s knowledge of pagan antiquity. Koch 415, Shannon 427, Harbert 489, and Hoffman 470, are general surveys of Chaucer’s use of classical authors and texts. Of the influence of the major Latin writers, Nitchie 409 discusses Virgil and Fyler 501 discusses Ovid. Particular attention has been paid to the Disticha Catonis and the work of Boethius. Brusendorff 426 and Thomas 539 examine the references to Cato in the argument between Chauntecleer and Pertelote. The classical sources of Chaucer’s dream theory are examined in several books and articles. Hieatt 901 concluded that Chaucer was being deliberately confusing in a subject that he found fascinating but unresolved; the various publications of Curry - 792, 794 and 801 - warn against exaggerating the influence of Macrobius on Chaucer. A seminal study of Chaucer’s relationship to the medieval rhetorical arts is Manly’s 1926 article 607, which has often been reprinted. Faral 420 made a number of medieval rhetorical texts, including Geoffrey’s Poetria Nova, readily available. Murphy 426 challenges the view that Chaucer was familiar with classical and medieval rhetorical texts. Payne 877 and 917 and Jordan 913 also discuss Chaucer’s general relationship to medieval rhetoric. Tyrwhitt 2 identified ‘Gaufred, deere maister soverayn’ (NPT VII.3347) as Geoffrey de Vinsauf, and comparisons between NPT and the apostrophe on the death of King Richard in Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s work, the fifth of six examples, have been frequently made. Baldwin 803, 806 and 812 emphasized Chaucer’s parody of the prolixity and mechanical use of ‘colours’ recommended in Geoffrey’s work. The most important vernacular influences on NPT are the Divine Comedy and the Roman de la Rose. Fansler’s 1914 study 402 of Chaucer’s use of the Roman de la Rose stresses the importance of Jean de Meun’s philosophical passages for NPT. There is less work on the opposite side of this process. Literary comparisons between NPT and Henryson’s Taill of Schir Chantecleir can be found in Ker 808, Fox 468, McDonald 474 and 484, Kratzmann 506, and Mehl 529. O’Neill 516 suggests that Milton’s daybreak scene in ‘L’Allegro’ 49–52 is adapted from NPT VII.3191–7. Fulwiler 547 speculates that the film Babe is a twentieth-century version of NPT.

Sources / 103

390 Petersen, Kate Oelzner. On the Sources of the Nonne Prestes Tale. Boston: Athenaeum Press, 1898. Rpt New York: Haskell House, 1966. Although the starting-point of NPT is an episode from the cycle of Reynard the fox, much new material was added to the traditional story. The story of the cock and the fox is found in both the literary tradition, in both learned fable and epic animal tale, and in oral tradition. The animal fable represents the story in its plainest form; the oral versions show a tendency towards that amplification which is most fully developed in the epic animal tale. In particular the dream of Chauntecleer appears only in versions of that type. Amongst other things, this marks NPT as belonging unmistakably to the genre of animal epic. Although former scholars saw the pursuit by the dogs as the original ‘cadre’ (p 10) of the story, it is, in fact, only an accessory theme in versions of the story of Chauntecleer. The pursuit of the fox existed previously as a ‘floating unit’ (p 14). The substance of the story consists of two themes: first, a trick by means of which a captor gains control of the captive; second, the captive’s counter-trick, by means of which he escapes. The captor’s trick is most commonly of the ‘oculis clausis’ type, first recorded in literary tradition in a fable of Aldemar, and the captive’s counter-trick, existing in numerous forms, functions by tempting the captor to speak. The closest parallels to NPT can be found in those epic versions of the story of the cock and the fox which have come down to us - Branch ii of the Roman de Renart and the opening episode of Reinhart Fuchs - although the tale is not specifically derived from either. NPT differs from these texts in several significant ways: the order of events, especially the lateness of the appearance of the fox; the absence of several features, including the fox’s preliminary trial of the fence, the hen’s sight of the fox and Chauntecleer’s reassuring words; the skepticism about dreams of the hen rather than the cock in NPT; the poverty of the woman in NPT; the description of the cock’s terror and surprise at first seeing the fox in NPT; the use of names. Chaucer seems to have used a version that was very similar to the original of Reinhart Fuchs, but which contained some of the greater detail that is characteristic of Roman de Renart. [PG] 391 Hamilton, George L. The Indebtedness of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde to Guido delle Colonne’s Historia Troiana. Columbia University Studies in Romance Philology and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1903. Rpt New York: AMS, 1966. ‘Trophee’ (MkT VII.2117), to whom Chaucer attributes the statement that Hercules set up a pillar at either end of the world, reappears in Lydgate’s Fall of Princes as the title of a supposed ‘Lombard,’ i.e., Italian, source for TC. ‘Trophee’ translates the second name of Guido delle Colonne (de Columpnis),

104 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

392

393

394

395

and the source of the stanza concerned (VII.2111–8) is a passage in Guido’s Historia in which the pillars are represented as a token of victory, a trophaeum, ‘trophy’. [DS] Dargan, E.P. ‘Cock and Fox: A Critical Study of the History and Sources of the Mediaeval Fable.’ MP 4 (1906), 38–65. A genealogy of the cock and fox fable produced by an examination of the analysis of motifs in fifteen versions, from the Rheims MS of the Appendix to Phaedrus (ca AD 750) to Caxton’s Fables of Aesop (1484). These can be divided into three categories: 1). the over-arching themes which mark the essential points of the story in Chaucer; 2). Leitmotiven or developments of the story; 3). simple motifs which supply minutiae. The analysis is backed by several sub-tables of genealogy, which help clarify the profusion and diversity of material. Dargan introduces a lost-manuscript hypothesis, but does not use it to privilege some sources rather than others; and the conclusion admits all of these influences. [CW] Root, Robert Kilburn. The Poetry of Chaucer: A Guide to its Study and Appreciation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; London: Archibald Constable, 1906. Rev edn 1922. Rpt 1934, 1950. Rpt Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1957. The date of the Monk’s tragedies is possibly between 1375 and 1380. Chaucer began the series as a ‘serious work of art’ (p 33), but had already recognized its ‘essential literary badness’ (p 33), when he incorporated it into CT, conveying his criticism through the Host and the Knight. Sources include not only Boccaccio but also the Vulgate, Ovid, Boethius, Guido, and others, the account of Ugolino being ‘taken bodily’ from Dante’s Inferno. The ‘unspeakable monotony’ (p 207) of the tales makes them intolerable, except for that of Ugolino which is ‘rich in pathos and true tragic power’ (p 207) because it successfully reproduces Dante’s matchless art. The eight-line stanza, with an added alexandrine, gives the Spenserian stanza. Possible sources for NPT include Roman de Renart and Reinecke Fuchs. Petersen’s view 390 that Chaucer follows a version of the epic now lost to us, which was nearer to the German Reinecke than to the French Renart, is the likeliest. [DS, RW, CW] Gelbach, Marie. ‘On Chaucer’s Version of the Death of Croesus.’ JEGP 6 (1907), 657–60. The death of Croesus on the gibbet, referred to in MkT VII.2756–9 and NPT VII.3338–40, is probably derived from Jean de Meun, and their shared account is most closely paralleled by those in the Vatican Mythographers 1 and 2. [DS] Hinckley, Henry Barrett. Notes on Chaucer: A Commentary on the Prolog and Six Canterbury Tales. Northampton, MA: Nonotuck Press, 1907. Rpt New York: Haskell House, 1964. NPT is discussed on pp 121–56. There are a number of parallels to NPT in the

Sources / 105

396

397

398

399

400

literatures of various languages but no convincing case that any one fable is a direct ancestor of it. The sources include Dutch or Flemish material, Speculum Stultorum, Hippocrates’s prescription for hellebore, and possibly the works of Robert Holkot. In addition to the languages generally thought to have been understood by Chaucer, he probably knew something of the dialects and literature of the Netherlands. [CW; JS] Mcknight, G.H. ‘The Middle English Vox and Wolf.’ PMLA 23 (1908), 497–509. A repository of information on medieval beast fables of European and nonEuropean provenance, although there is only passing reference to NPT. [CW] Toynbee, Paget. Dante in English Literature from Chaucer to Cary (c.1380— 1844). 2 vols. London: Methuen, 1909. The Ugolino story and MkT VII.2471–2 and VII.2477–8 of the Nero story are reproduced from Skeat’s Oxford Chaucer 15 as passages indebted to Dante’s Inferno and accompanied by brief notes (1: pp 11–2). [DS] Kittredge, George Lyman. ‘Chauceriana: Chaucer and Geoffrey de Vinsauf.’ MP 7 (1910), 481–2. Tyrwhitt 2 identified ‘Gaufred, deere maister soverayn’ (NPT VII.3347) as Geoffrey of Vinsauf. Geoffrey’s Nova Poetria 43–5 is the source of TC 1.1065– 9. [JS] Nadal, Thomas William. ‘Spenser’s Muiopotmos in Relation to Chaucer’s Sir Thopas and The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ PMLA 25 (1910), 640–56. Spenser’s poem is mock-heroic from beginning to end, modelled initially on Th and in its later part on NPT, with an ‘obvious etymological kinship’ declaring that Spenser’s Clarion ‘is Chauntecleer’s namesake’ (p 654). [JS] Spurgeon, Caroline F.E. Chaucer devant la critique en Angleterre et en France depuis son temps jusqu’à nos jours. Paris: Hachette, 1911. Rpt New York: Franklin, 1972. A study in French of the reception and criticism of Chaucer’s work in England and France, based upon material collected for Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion (1357–1900) 404. Ch 1 traces the history of Chaucer’s reputation in England. Ch 2 classifies types of allusion to Chaucer; this includes a survey of the frequency of references to different works, which shows that NPT declined after 1700 from high popularity to disapprobation (pp 114, 75). Ch 3 examines the characteristics attributed to Chaucer, noting changes of fashion. Ch 4 traces Chaucerian biography. Ch 5 gives an account of his imitators. Ch 6 examines the impact on his reputation of developments in literary scholarship and criticism. Ch 7 discusses his reception in France. Appendices provide a bibliography of Chaucer’s works; citations illustrating Chaucerian criticism; and allusions in French texts. MkT references are on pp 10, 284, 286, 388, 390, 395. NPT references are on pp 28, 52, 62, 66, 75, 114–16, 205–6, 285, 287–8, 326, 353, 389, 390. [JS, DS, PG]

106 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

401 Shannon, Edgar F. ‘Notes on Chaucer.’ MP 11 (1913), 227–36. In the story of Hercules, Chaucer’s confusion of the episodes of Busirus and Diomedes (MkT VII.2103–4) may have arisen from a misunderstanding of Ovid’s Heroides 9.67–70. [DS] 402 Fansler, Dean Spruill. Chaucer and the Roman de la Rose. New York: Columbia University Press, 1914. Rpt Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1965. Chaucer is never merely imitative of RR, nor even as dependent upon it as some suggest. His sharing of Jean de Meun’s critical, inquiring attitude is mitigated by attitudinal differences, Chaucer being ‘optimistic, charitable and constructive’ rather than ‘pessimistic, cynical and destructive’ (p 229). The influence of RR on MkT is evident in the accounts of Nero (pp 24–8), Croesus (pp 28–30), and Samson (pp 30–1), and possibly also in the phrasing at lines VII.1937 (p 79), VII.2498 and VII.2710 (p 119), and VII.2790 and VII.2814 (pp 74–5). NPT shows Jean de Meun’s philosophical influence. On questions of destiny, free will and necessity, Chaucer makes humorous application of doctrines seriously elaborated in TC. [DS, JS] 403 Hadow, Grace E. Chaucer and His Times. Home University Library. New York: Holt; London: Williams and Norgate, 1914; rpt through 1934. Rpt Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1941. The stories in MkT are drawn from all sorts of sources. The tragedies succeed each other with ‘placid regularity,’ with no particular insight shown by the narrator in his occasional comments. The tale of Ugolino is the best, with Chaucer making very significant changes to his source in Dante: ‘the stern horror of Dante’s story is too terrible to admit of [Chaucer’s] pathos’ (pp 102– 3). While Chaucer’s version is very touching, it never rises to real tragedy. In NPT, Chaucer expanded his sources, as can be seen by comparing the 626 lines of NPT with Marie de France’s 38 or Roman de Renart’s 453. NPT’s humour is all-pervading. In Ch 4, Pertelote is discussed as typical of the good wives of her class, as the Wife of Bath is of the bad. Mock-heroic and witty aspects are discussed in Ch 5, and satirical treatment of dreams as forewarnings in Ch 7. [PG, JS] 404 Spurgeon, Caroline. Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion 1357–1900. Chaucer Society. Second Series 48, 49–50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner; Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1914, 1918, 1921, 1922, 1922, 1924, 1924. Rpt in 3 vols Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925; New York: Russell and Russell, 1960. A long introduction (Vol I, pp ix–cxliv) provides an outline history of Chaucer criticism, an examination and classification of various types of Chaucer references, qualities attributed to Chaucer, the evolution of the Chaucer biography, the evolution of literary criticism, the evolution of scholarship and accuracy in literary matters. Vol I, pp 1–504 contains a chronological list of refer-

Sources / 107

ences to Chaucer between 1357–1800. Vol II deals with references between 1801–1900. Vol III contains appendix A, pp 1–109, an additional list of English and Latin references; appendix B, pp 1–125, a survey of Chaucer’s reputation in France and a list of French references; appendix C, pp 126–53, a list of German references. The index is pp 1–87. References and allusions to Chaucer up to 1800 are ‘given fairly completely’ (p v); between 1800 and 1868 the most important are given; thereafter ‘only the chief editions of the poet and a few notable or typical criticisms are included’ (p v). The few items specifically concerned with MkT and NPT are noted in the Index (pt 7), p 29. From allusions to NPT in the eighteenth century, Spurgeon argues (p lxxviii) that it is the only tale to have decreased in popularity: until 1700 it appears to have been amongst the most popular tales, but there are only four references to it between 1700 and 1800, two of them derogatory. See also Alderson 451, Boys 439, and Bond 425 and 429. [BM, DS, PG] 405 Tatlock, John S.P. ‘Notes on Chaucer: the Canterbury Tales.’ MLN 29 (1914), 140–4. A contemporary carved miserere of a fox running off with a cock is compared to NPT VII.3375–91; NPT VII.3182–3 are compared to a fifteenth-century Latin poem on the resemblance between a cock and a priest; and the notion, in a thirteenth-century sermon, that the priest as pastor drives away the devil as wolf by crying ‘Ha! Ha!’is referred to in NPT VII.3381. [JS] 406 ––. The Scene of the Franklin’s Tale Visited. Chaucer Society. Second Series 51. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner; Milford, Oxford University Press, 1914. The story of Zenobia is clearly derived from Boccaccio, but the reader is referred to Petrarch (MkT VII.2325): Chaucer never directly acknowledges Boccaccio, ‘the writer to whom he owed most’ (p 60). [DS] 407 Jefferson, Bernard L. Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1917. Rpt New York: Haskell House, 1965; Gordion Press, 1968. Chaucer is indebted to Boethius for much of the serious side of his poetry. MKT illustrates ‘the fickleness and emptiness of power so emphasized by Boethius’ (p 85), but is more particularly Boethian in the accounts of Hercules, Nero, and Croesus. In Ch 2, on the influence of Boethian ideas of Providence, Jefferson discusses Chaucer’s two extended passages on free will and foreknowledge: TC 4.958–1078 follows closely Boethius’s questioning of Philosophy; NPT VII.3234–54 is derived from her answer, although the Nun’s Priest does not endorse Boethius’s doctrine of conditional necessity, but leaves it to the clerks to adjudicate between it, Augustinian free will, and Bradwardinian foreordination. This non-resolution is characteristic of Chaucer and of his characters. Ch 5 provides particular instances of lines which reveal

108 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

408

409

410

411

412

specific influence of the Consolation. In MkT, these are VII.1973–7, VII.1991– 4, VII.1995–6, VII.2095–2110, VII.2136–9, VII.2239–46, VII.2463–90, VII.2521, VII.2549–50, VII.2727–32, VII.2761–4, and VII.2766 (pp 144–5). Jefferson mentions the NPT instances noted by Skeat 15 (2:xxxiv), and adds lines VII.2839, VII.3338 and VII.3370 (p 145). [DS, JS] Lecompte, I.C. ‘Chaucer’s Nonne Prestes Tale and the Roman de Renard.’ MP 14 (1917), 737–49. Criticizes source studies of the kind exemplified by Petersen 390 - studies which evoke a complicated stemma involving lost sources, rather than allowing for invention. ‘We are forced to the old and simple conclusion that when Chaucer wrote his Nonne Prestes Tale he knew the existing story of Branch 2 of the Roman de Renard, and probably Marie de France’s fable’ (p 163). Such similarities as exist between NPT and Reinhart Fuchs, as against the Roman de Renard, are the result of two ‘men of letters’ working independently with the same material. [JS] Nitchie, Elizabeth. Vergil and the English Poets. Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1919. Rpt New York: AMS Press, 1966. In his knowledge of Virgil and use of Virgilian material, Chaucer stood out in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. References to the Aeneid in CT include the death of Priam and the treachery of Sinon (NPT VII.3356–9 and VII.3228). [BM] Shannon, Edgar F. ‘Chaucer and Lucan’s Pharsalia.’ MP 16 (1919), 609–14. In the story of Julius Caesar, the reference to a triumph (MkT VII.2696) may have been suggested by passages in Lucan’s Pharsalia 4 and 5, and it is clearly Lucan’s account which is the basis for the story as a whole. [DS] Brown, Carleton. ‘Mulier est Hominis Confusio.’ MLN 35 (1920), 479–82. The phrase ‘Mulier est hominis confusio’ (NPT VII.3164), as Tyrwhitt pointed out, appears in Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum Historiale as the initial response to the question ‘Quid est mulier,’ and is followed by other insults. Vincent took his definition from the Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Secundi philosophi, and he was not the only medieval compiler to rifle this text for a definition of woman. The ‘mulier’ passage is often ‘found detached from its context as an isolated bit of monastic wisdom’ (p 480): Brown cites versions from five Oxford MSS. Many readers of NPT would have recognized the context, and realized that ‘hominis confusio’ is one of the mildest insults in the passage: after supplying the rest they would have had a sharper sense of the irony in Chauntecleer’s mistranslation. [BM] Korten, Hertha. Chaucers literarische Beziehungen zu Boccaccio. Rostock: Carl Hinstorff, 1920. Connections between CT and Decameron were to be expected, because of

Sources / 109

the proximity of time and the similar formal character of the frame for the stories, especially since it has long been recognized that Boccaccio is god parent to TC and LGW as well as MkT in CT. Diversity is a key principle in CT, as in Boccaccio, with the depressing effect of MkT counteracted with the cheerful NPT. Sad stories find little approval, with both the Knight and the Host rejecting MkT. The confessions with which individual pilgrims such as the Monk preface their stories find parallels in Decameron, where the motif of interruption also occurs. Before Chaucer began work on CT he had already written two collections following the Boccaccio model, LGW and MkT, whose beginnings hark back to the decade 1369–79. Chaucer’s attribution of the Zenobia story to Petrarch (VII.2325) is a bona fide error; or at least we lack any proof to the contrary. [RW] 413 Kellett, E.E. ‘Chaucer as a Critic of Dante.’ London Mercury 4 (1921), 282–91. Rpt in his Suggestions: Literary Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923. Pp 166–84. Chaucer makes many allusions to Dante and his works, but his admiration is not indiscriminate. His admiration for Dante is shown in the story of Ugolino, and in his theft of lovely lines. His discriminating attitude to Dante appears when he robs the story of Ugolino of its terror and leaves only its pathos. But his gradual disuse of allegory is implicit criticism of Dante, and he could not have been unaware of Dante’s insensibility to incongruity and humour. Chaucer mocks ‘irrelevant learning’ and ‘displays of erudition,’ but is sufficiently self-aware to ‘mock at his [own] little vanities’ (p 290). Both Chaucer and Dante often indicate the hour of the day by an elaborate astronomical periphrasis, but only Chaucer could attribute the same skill to a barnyard cock. [BM, RW] 414 Ord, Hubert. Chaucer and the Rival Poet in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, A New Theory. London & Toronto: Dent, 1921. Rpt New York: AMS Press, 1973. Shakespeare’s repeated mention of Partlet, or Dame Partlet the Hen, is one of his few generally accepted references to Chaucer’s works. The Sonnets are compared with Rom in order to identify Chaucer with the ‘Rival Poet’ whom Shakespeare regards with varying terms of estimation and scorn. [BM] 415 Koch, John. ‘Chaucers Boethiusübersetzung: Ein Beitrag zur Bestimmung der Chronologie seiner Werke.’ Anglia 46 (1922), 1–51. Chaucer’s references to Boethius are not necessarily drawn from his own translation, and only close verbal parallels can be taken as representing his own work. Some references are close in content or in sense to the original, but others are only superficially related: e.g., the story of Croesus is connected with the explanation of the term tragedy which Chaucer uses three times (MkP VII.1973–7, MkT VII.1991–4, VII.2761–4), the last being most faithful to the original; but the mentions of the wheel of the Goddess of Fortune are

110 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

questionably related, because for a long time such references were in general circulation. Though Chaucer is fascinated with Nero (Boece II.m.6, III.m.4), Croesus (II.pr.2), and Hercules (IV.m.7), he does not always follow Boethius blindly, but maintains his own ideas concerning freedom of will, or else draws on other sources. The type and extent of translation from Boethius can throw light upon the dating of the poems. Where Chaucer keeps to his original in MkT, he compresses it, as when Hercules’s twelve deeds are compressed into fourteen verse lines. The concise presentation extends to the Modern Instances, though this group could have been added later, as the original evidently ended with the Croesus story (p 39). But the presentation in all the stories is so similar that a different time of writing is not noticeable. It seems that Chaucer planned the tragedies for the serious monk, because of the three explanations of ‘tragedy.’ And since the tragedies are not mentioned in the prologue of LGW, we can assume with even more certainty that MkT only came into being during the work on CT, and subsequent to 1381, the date proposed for the translation of Boece. Although Koch makes no precise dating for NPT, he associates it with the maturity of KnT. A comparison of TC IV.974–1078 and NPT VII.3234 ff (both derived from the same section of the Consolation) is instructive: the former is tedious and longwinded, a sign of its closeness in time to Chaucer’s original translation; the latter is a breezy summary, indicating its relative distance in time from the original translation, and enforcing the generally held view that NPT is among Chaucer’s most mature works. [BM, RW] 416 ––. ‘Chaucers Belesenheit in den römischen Klassikern.’ ESt 57 (1923), 8–84. Chaucer’s knowledge of classical Latin texts may have come from secondary sources, so that to prove direct borrowing there must be very close parallels with the original. Koch concludes that Chaucer knew Virgil’s Aeneid (see NPT VII.3355–9) and Macrobius’s Somnium Scipionis (see NPT VII.3122–6), and had read (or knew extracts from) Valerius Maximus’s Factorum et Dictorum memorabilium (NPT VII.2984–3104). [BM] 417 Trigona, F. Prestifilippo. Chaucer Imitatore del Boccaccio. Catania: Studio Editoriale Moderno, 1923. MkT is dealt with on pp 79-94. MkT was certainly written after Chaucer’s first visit in 1373 to Italy. Not only the idea but also the stories are drawn from Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium and De Claris Mulieribus. The stories chosen for MkT are listed, and the contemporary stories noted (including Bernabò Visconti’s death date of 1385), and the treatment of Ugolino drawn from Dante’s Inferno. An Italian translation of Chaucer’s Ugolino stanzas is contrasted with the Inferno passage, with the superiority of Dante noted. [RW]

Sources / 111

418 Cook, Albert Stanburrough. ‘Chaucer and Venantius Fortunatus.’ MLN 39 (1924), 376–8. The comparison between Chauntecleer’s crowing and the sound of the ‘murie orgon’ (NPT VII.2851) may derive from a line in Venantius Fortunatus’s Easter poem: ‘Hinc filomela suis adtemperat organa cannis’ (p 377n). [BM] 419 Crawford, S.J. ‘Croesus’s Dream.’ TLS June 26, 1924, 404. Chaucer tacks the story of the dream of Polycrates’ daughter on to the story of Croesus in MkT, both recorded separately in Herodotus; but Chaucer is merely following earlier medieval writers such as Jean de Meun in RR and Vincent of Beauvais. [RW] 420 Faral, Edmond. Les Arts Poétiques du XIIe et du XIIIe Siècle: Recherches et Documents sur la Technique Littéraire du Moyen Age. Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, fasc. 238. Paris: Librairie H. Champion, 1924. Rpt 1962. An edition of a number of important early rhetorical treatises on the art of poetry, including Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova (pp 195–262), lines 368–430 of which are the source of Chaucer’s allusion (NPT VII.3347–54) to Geoffrey’s lament on the death of Richard I, including the apostrophe to Friday. Whether Chaucer knew the whole of this text has been the cause of critical debate: Manly 607, Young 444. While Geoffrey provides other examples of apostrophe, the lament on the death of Richard is the most important. [BM] 421 Förster, Max. ‘Boccaccios De Casibus Virorum Illustrium in englischen Bearbeitung.’ Deutsche Litteraturzeitung ns 1 (1924), 1943–6. Only two tales from Boccaccio’s Decameron are adapted into English in the Middle Ages, but De Claris Mulieribus and De Casibus Virorum Illustrium are adapted by Chaucer and by Lydgate. [RW] 422 Schirmer, W.F. ‘Boccaccios Werke als Quelle G. Chaucers.’ GRM 12 (1924), 288–305. Whereas Chaucer knew compilations of the type of De Casibus, it is doubtful whether or not he knew Boccaccio’s work. The Monk says that he has a hundred such tragedies in his cell, but tells only eight of Boccaccio’s eightytwo stories. However, starting with Adam would fit any compilation of the time, as would the statement that Adam was created on the field of Damascus. There are no verbatim parallels, Chaucer’s versions are more extensive than Boccaccio’s, and the end of Croesus contradicts Boccaccio. The reference to Petrarch may be an intended or unintended error. [RW] 423 Looten, [le] C[hanoine]. ‘Chaucer et Dante.’ RLC 5 (1925), 545–71. Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium suggests the idea and the themes of MkT. Bernabò, the precursor of Machiavelli’s Prince, died in prison, and so his story leads by a natural association of ideas to Ugolino (Inferno 32 and 33). But, although it is dangerous to compare Chaucer with Dante, whose

112 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

superiority is so obvious, he goes ahead and does so, using a prose translation of Chaucer’s stanzas, commenting on the inferiority of Chaucer’s version, whereas he sees Dante’s narration as having ‘une intensité de vie prodigieuse’ (p 564). See also 430, which re-presents the substance of the article. [RW] 424 Praz, Mario. ‘Chaucer and the Great Italian Writers of the Trecento.’ New Criterion 6 (1927), 18–39, 131–57, 238–42. The two great epitomes of medieval poetry, RR and the Divine Comedy, are constantly in Chaucer’s mind, behind other more immediate sources. The difference in stature between Dante and Chaucer can be gauged by comparing the two versions of the Ugolino episode (pp 36–8); ‘what in Dante is a cosmic tragedy, in Chaucer is dwarfed down to the size of a domestic tragedy of starvation.’ Chaucer succeeds much better in imitating Dante’s style in the brief account of the death of Peter of Spain. These instances show how little Chaucer is affected by the sublimer sides of Dante’s genius, for he sees Dante chiefly as an encyclopaedia of learned quotation. ‘An amazing output of fungous criticism’ (p 136) has resulted from applying modern ideas about historical accuracy to sources. The wildest explanations (see Tupper 313) have been advanced to deal with Trophee (MkT VII.2117); the term occurs in a stanza deriving mainly from Ovid. As regards Lollius, Chaucer does not mention Boccaccio, either because the texts he saw were anonymous, or else because they reached him under the name of Petrarch, as the Monk suggests in the story of Zenobia (MkT VII.2325–6). . •Review by Dorothy Everett, YWES 8 (1927), 105. Praz’s instances of borrowing were mostly new, but his method of attacking the problem is not, in spite of his opening diatribe against other source-hunters. [RW] 425 Bond, Richmond P. ‘Some Eighteenth Century Chaucer Allusions.’ SP 25 (1928), 316–19. Some corrections and additions to Spurgeon 404. Entry 1717 notes excerpts from Dryden’s translation of NPT (1–39, 40–54) used in James Greenwood’s The Virgin Muse. Entry 1745 cites Dryden’s ‘Tale of the Cock and Fox.’ [JG] 426 Brusendorff, Aage. ‘He Knew Not Catoun for his Wit Was Rude.’ In Studies in Philology: Miscellany in Honour of Frederick Klaeber. Ed Kemp Malone et al. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1929. Pp 320–39. After initial consideration of MilT reference, Brusendorff prints Latin texts of the Disticha Catonis with following Middle English paraphrase, noting that Anglo-French and Middle English versions are numerous. A comparison of NPT VII.2941 with his text of II, 31 (Sompnia ne cures) and its Middle English paraphrase (To metyngges truste thou no kyn thyng) (ed p 328) demonstrates one of the instances where it is impossible to decide from Chaucer’s

Sources / 113

quotations of the Dicta whether he used the original or an English translation. [JG] 427 Shannon, Edgar Finley. Chaucer and the Roman Poets. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, VII. Harvard University Press, 1929. Rpt 1957. Rpt New York: Russell and Russell, 1964. MkT VII.2103–4, the confusion of the two episodes of Busiris and Diomedes (explained by Skeat as a confusion of two passages in Boethius), could have arisen from a misunderstanding of Heroides 9.67–70, where Ovid’s penchant for giving a character various names appears. It is probable that Chaucer knew Busiris only from references to Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Ars Amatoria and Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, and would not have realized that he was any other than the tyrant, especially when in KnT he carefully explains the distinction between Daphne and Diana. NPT VII.3356–9, which tell how Priam was slain by Pyrrhus, are from the Aeneid, ii, 550–4. Chaucer refers specifically to Virgil’s poem as Eneydos in VII.3359. The uproar in the barnyard can be compared mock-heroically with the supposedly historical account of Priam’s death. [JG, RW] 428 Babcock, R.W. ‘The Mediaeval Setting of Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale.’ PMLA 46 (1931), 205–13. MkT is ‘representative of a general mediaeval type’ (p 205) of story collection. The definition of tragedy was widely current in the Middle Ages, the taste for collections of diverse types was widespread, and the tradition of ‘tragedie’ in both moralistic and narrative form continued for two centuries. The sources identified by Patch 610 and Wells 194 indicate three traditions: the Roman, the clerical medieval, and the non-clerical medieval. A table of writings in the Roman tradition lists not only those that contribute specifically to Chaucer but also works that deal generally with fickle Fortune; the Fabulae of Hyginus parallel Boccaccio, and Hauvette (Boccace. Étude Biographique et Littéraire, Paris, 1914) has suggested that, as Boccaccio has depended on Hyginus, De Casibus is not the first of the species. In the clerical tradition collections of tales used as exempla evolved, supplying the impulse for the moralizations by Boccaccio and his followers, Laurent de Premierfait and Lydgate, but not MkT, which is closer to the non-clerical tradition. De Casibus is differentiated from MkT by its moralizing purpose and its dream setting, and Robinson’s opinion that MkT grows out of RR, and the tradition of Fortuna, stands. See also Patch 725 and 610, Wells 194, Robinson 85 and 116, Bryan and Dempster 441. [RW] 429 Bond, Richmond P., John W. Boweyer, C.B. Millican, and G. Hubert Smith. ‘A Collection of Chaucer Allusions.’ SP 28 (1931), 481–512. A supplement to Spurgeon 404. Entry 17 is a modernized description of the widow from the opening 38 lines of NPT by an anonymous author (BL MS Stowe 970 ff 8–9). [PG]

114 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

430

431

432

433

434

Looten, le Chanoine. Chaucer: Ses Modèles, Ses Sources, Sa Religioun. Fascicule XXXVIII. Lille, 1931. The substance of Looten’s 1925 work 423 is reprinted in chapter 1 with little change. The second and third chapters compare Chaucer with Boccaccio. Did Chaucer meet Boccaccio personally in Italy? Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium dates from 1363–4. The tragedies which the Monk recounts do not follow chronological order, and Chaucer avoids the abundance of detail found in Boccaccio. In NPT, Chaucer ventures on to philosophical ground, taking precise terminology from the fiery debates on necessity. His main sources here are Augustine and Boethius. Baugh 834 is unenthusiastic about Looten’s work. See also Leff 856. [JG, RW] MacCallum, Mungo. Chaucer’s Debt to Italy. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1931. Chaucer returned from his 1373 journey to Italy with a knowledge of important Italian works. Some of these were combined with a new stanzaic metre in MkT, as well as SNT and ClT. In his recasting of the extracts from the De Casibus, Chaucer added, among other things, especially the episode of Ugolino, which he had meanwhile read in Dante. Chaucer repeats the story of the Hunger Tower in full, dwelling with sympathetic pathos on the sufferings and filial piety of the little victims, but omits the dreadful setting. Chaucer’s compassion contrasts with Dante’s sternness. Boccaccio’s Epics suggested verse, subject and construction to Chaucer; Dante’s Vision suggested portraiture and style to him. [RW] Hamilton, M.P. ‘Notes on Chaucer and the Rhetoricians.’ PMLA 47 (1932), 403–9. NPT contains two jibes at Geoffrey de Vinsauf: the well-known lament for Richard, and Geoffrey’s tiresome enlargement on the theme ‘worldly joye is soon ago’ (NPT VII.3206), which, ‘if it exists, is veiled’ (pp 407–8). One comparison is supported by Baldwin 806. See Young 444, who also makes the comparison with ‘the general theme of the Latin praesagium.’ [JG] Sakanishi, Shio. ‘A Note on the Nonne Preestes Tale.’ MLN 47 (1932), 150–1. Considers the many conjectures caused by NPT VII.2984, ‘Oon of the gretteste auctor that men rede’ and notes, inter alia, that Tyrwhitt 2 identifies the auctor as Cicero, Warton as Valerius Maximus, and Petersen 390 as Holkot; and that Manly 71 states that Chaucer may have had another source. Chaucer’s explicit statement that the second story occurs ‘right in the nexte chapitre’ [NPT VII.3065] made scholars hesitant, but another source, the Expugnatio Hibernica of Giraldus Cambrensis has them in the correct order. It is likely that Chaucer knew both Giraldus and Holkot, but was thinking rather in terms of Giraldus. [JG] Silverstein, H. Theodore. ‘Chaucer’s “Brutus Cassius”.’ MLN 47 (1932), 148– 50.

Sources / 115

435

436

437

438

439

In the Oxford Chaucer 15, Skeat cites other post-Chaucer examples of the conflation of Brutus and Cassius (MkT VII.2697). Hammond 191 cites as source the Alfredian translation of Boethius. The error (itself a double error, confusing two Brutuses) predates even Alfred, and is evidenced in a ninthcentury commentary on the Bucolics and Georgics of Virgil, which presumably copies a text which accidentally omitted a sign for et. [RW] Spencer, Theodore. ‘The Story of Ugolino in Dante and Chaucer.’ Spec 9 (1934), 295–301. Rpt in Theodore Spencer: Selected Essays. Ed. Alan C. Purves. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1966. Pp 41–8. In Chaucer’s divergences from Dante’s story of Ugolino, the ‘Aristotelian’ terror of the Dante version is replaced by pathos. This stems in part from the frame, which in MkT ‘has no enduring moral validity,’ for the stories ‘are merely illustrations of the “false wheel” of Fortune,’ and the misfortunes are the ‘result of a blind external force’ (p 296). A close analysis of Chaucer’s version of Dante’s story shows that Chaucer has ‘changed the emphasis from Ugolino to the children’ (p 298), and his touches of realism further emphasize the pathos. The realism of religious presentation in all the art forms of the time, and so Chaucer’s emotional training, stressed realism with its resultant charm and pathos, and so Chaucer’s changes to Dante reflect fourteenth-century habits of feeling. [RW] Aiken, Pauline. ‘Vincent of Beauvais and Dame Pertelote’s Knowledge of Medicine.’ Spec 10 (1935), 281–7. Pertelote is second only to the Doctour of Physyk ‘as an authority on practical medicine . . . her contention that dreams are caused by a condition of the stomach or by an excess of some humour is entirely in accord with Vincent [of Beauvais in the Speculum Naturale or the Speculum Doctrinale]’ (p 281). Vincent emphasizes the relationship between red colera and tertian fever, urges the evacuation of the dangerous humour, but does not recommend worms. See also Lowes 819, Paffard 858. [JG] Patch, Howard Rollin. The Tradition of Boethius: a Study of his Importance in Medieval Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1935. It is likely that no single author had as profound an effect on Chaucer as Boethius and the Consolatio. Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium is one of the sources of MkT. [JG] Wimsatt, W.K., Jr. ‘Vincent of Beauvais and Chaucer’s Cleopatra and Croesus.’ Spec 12 (1937), 375–81. Jean de Meun and the mythographers may have been sources for the Croesus story, but MkT VII.2727–32, while echoing Boethius, Consolation 2.pr.2, and probably pre-dating Chaucer’s translation of Boethius, could have Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum Historiale 4, 17, as another of its sources. [RW] Boys, Richard C. ‘Some Chaucer Allusions 1705–1799.’ PQ 17 (1938), 263–70.

116 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Supplements Spurgeon 404 with a bibliography of Chaucer allusions that have been published since 1925, then assembles some allusions that have been overlooked, chiefly in eighteenth-century periodicals. Entry 1736 is ‘Chanticleer discarded; a Fable,’ London Magazine, 5, 89. Entry 1769, ‘The Cock and Fox, or Flattery is the Food of Fools. An Original Fable,’ London Chronicle, 26.508 (November 23–5)’ is an anonymous modernization of NPT in which the fox devours the cock. [JG] 440 Dieckmann, Emma. ‘ . . . Moore Feelynge than had Boece, . . . ‘ MLN 53 (1938), 177–80. We can be sure that Chaucer knew of Boethius’s De Musica because, as Skeat points out in the Oxford Chaucer 15 (III, p 260), the work is quoted in HF II, 788 ff. But ‘feelynge’ in music (NPT VII.3293–3301) is the last thing anyone knowledgeable about the theory of music would expect of Boethius, who was a follower of the Pythagorean view that music has its origins in mathematics. [JG] 441 Bryan, W.F. and Germaine Dempster, eds. Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941. Rpt Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1958. The entry on MkT is by R.K. Root. MkT, as a series of exemplary tragedies, resembles Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium in outline but not in substance. RR also contains a series of tragedies, which Chaucer follows for Nero and Croesus. No particular source for Lucifer and Adam is suggested. The primary source for Samson is Judges 13–16, but Chaucer probably also used De Casibus 1.17, which Root prints. Many sources for the story of Hercules are possible; Root prints Metamorphoses 9.125–241. The source for Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar is Daniel 1–5, but a number of non-biblical details suggest a subsidiary source. The story of Zenobia is based on Boccaccio, De claris mulieribus, 98, printed here. No written source for the story of Peter of Spain has been found: Root believes that Chaucer was dependent on word of mouth. The account of the death of Pierre de Lusignan, at variance with historical fact, may have been derived from Guillaume de Machaut, La Prise d’Alexandrie (see Braddy, PMLA 50 (1953), 78–80), lines 8631–5 and 8686–8702, printed here. Word of mouth was the source for Bernabò. Ugolino is from Dante, Inferno 33.1–90, printed here. Nero is based on RR, 6183–6488, printed here. Holofernes is based on Judith. Antiochus is based on 2 Maccabees 9. The story of Alexander is composed of commonplaces that might have come from many sources. No precise source for Julius Caesar is given. Croesus is based on RR, 6489–6622 printed here. The entry on NPT is by J.R. Hulbert. The longer extracts presented are: Le Roman de Renart, Branch II, 1–468 (text from Ernest Martin edition Strassbourg, 1882); Reinhart fuchs, 11–176 (text from G. Baesecke edition,

Sources / 117

Niemeyer, Halle, 1925); two Exempla taken from Valerius Maximus Factorem et dictorem memorabilium, libri novem (text from C. Helm editionn, Leipzig, 1885), the first, from Lib. i, Cap. vii, 10, headed ‘1. Analogue to B 4174–4252’ [2984–3062], the second, from Lib. k, Cap. vii, 3, headed ‘2. Analogue to B 4254–94’ [3064–3104]. All texts are provided with light foot-glosses and sidenotes. Introductory comments on pp 645–6 claim, citing Lecompte 408, that the tendency of recent years has been to reject Petersen’s theory 390 that the tale derives from a version nearer to the German analogue than to the French, but to hold that the source was a French version close to the Roman, if not identical to it. But the lack of French proper names, especially Reynard, makes it improbable that Chaucer knew the precise French text that we have. Hulbert also presents Sisam’s suggestion 69 that Chaucer’s immediate source was a version, perhaps oral, in which the other characters had lost their names. The suggestion that no specific source can be cited for the sermonistic development of the tale is elaborated by Donovan 843. See also the rejoinder by Donaldson 866 and the further analogues cited by Dahlberg 452. •Review by Dorothy Everett, MÆ 12 (1943), 78–84. The chief value of the book is its comprehensiveness and completeness rather than the novelty of its ideas. The material in the NPT section seems unduly restricted compared to the other tales - especially for one of Chaucer’s most learned tales - for example, in the matter of rhetorical machinery that Chaucer employs. [PG, JG] 442 Olson, Clair C. ‘Chaucer and the Music of the Fourteenth Century.’ Spec 16 (1941), 64–91. Chaucer displays little familiarity with music theory: he mentions no contemporary and the only theorist he mentions is Boethius. There is a humorous mention of Boethius at NPT VII.3293–4, but this does not prove that Chaucer had read his treatise, De Musica. See also Dieckmann 440. [JG] 443 Aiken, Pauline. ‘Vincent of Beauvais and Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale.’ Spec 17 (1942), 56–68. Vincent’s Speculum Historiale is a more important source of MkT than Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium. It contains a larger number of stories and presents them in a form more like Chaucer’s. Aiken finds confirmation of her argument in the tales of Adam, Sampson, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Nero, Caesar and Croesus. [PG] 444 Young, K. ‘Chaucer and Geoffrey de Vinsauf.’ MP 41 (1943–4), 172–82. Compares NPT VII.3347–54 with Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s Monodia. Commentators have insufficiently emphasized that, in the later Middle Ages, this particular passage in the Nova Poetria had an exceptional vogue as a literary gem. The lament on the death of King Richard is the ‘longest of the literary examples in the treatise and was, in some mss, furnished with rubrics or glosses drawing attention to its structure and significance’ (p 172). The la-

118 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

ment circulated independently and thus Chaucer’s burlesque has a very keen edge. The apostrophe on the death of King Richard is the fifth of Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s six examples. NPT VII.3200–9 may be compared with Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s fourth apostrophe. The general theme of the Latin praesagium, which warns that worldly prosperity is unstable and must suffer a reversal, is the theme of the aphorism ‘For evere the latter ende of joye is wo; / God woot that worldly joye is soone ago’ (NPT VII.3205–6). There are other ‘resemblances, not only in general content, but also in particular aspects’ (p 179). [JG] 445 Whiting, Bartlett Jere. ‘Some Chaucer Allusions, 1923–42.’ N&Q 187 (1944), 288–91. It is regrettable that few or no quotations have been gathered from writings later than the nineteenth century; twentieth-century quotations ought to be of equal value to those in Spurgeon 404. There are five allusions to NPT, including two to ‘Murder will out’ (NPT VII.3052). [JG] 446 Praz, Mario. Geoffrey Chaucer e I Racconti di Canterbury. Roma: Edizioni Italiane, nd. [1947]. An introduction to the study of Chaucer, in Italian. There are chapters on Chaucer’s life; Chaucer’s ‘culture,’ especially French and Italian influences; CT; and Chaucer’s language. The Ugolino passage in MkT allows us like no other to understand the differences between Chaucer and Dante. Chaucer’s version begins in a pedestrian manner, proceeds from beginning to end straightforwardly, stressing the single point of the cruelty of condemning innocent children to death. Chaucer usually improves upon his sources, but here he reveals himself as inadequate when confronted with ‘la meravigliosa concisione dantesca’ (p 91). Chaucer omits Ugolino’s dream and, although often more detailed than Dante, loses much of the tragedy of the scene: compared with Dante’s version, Chaucer’s is like the death of Macduff’s son compared to the other tragic scenes in Macbeth. [PG] 447 Pratt, R.A. ‘The Classical Lamentations in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ MLN 64 (1949), 76–8. There are many classical sources for the shrieks and lamentations to which the old widow’s cries are compared: Jerome’s Epistola adversus Iovinium for the story of Hasdrubal’s wife; the Aeneid for the fall of Troy. Despite this, Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s Nova Poetria must have mentioned the fall of Troy and NPT VII.3355–73 have not been discussed in connection with it. Five lines below the apostrophe on the death of Richard I, there are lines which comment on ‘Ylion, Cartage and Rome.’ The cries themselves, however, were probably suggested to Chaucer by his main source: Reinhart Fuchs 135 has ‘Pinte schrei.’ [JG]

Sources / 119

448 Johnson, Dudley R. ‘The Biblical Characters of Chaucer’s Monk.’ PMLA 66 (1951), 827–43. A French version of the Scriptures, the Bible Historiale of Guyart Desmoulins, was the principal choice for the Biblical portions of MkT rather than the Vulgate. MSS of this work were present in England during the fourteenth century. The argument is strongest in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, where the detail of the castration of the captured Israelite children (VII.2151-3) is not Biblical, but is found in the Bible Historiale (as well as other books). [PG] 449 Mossé, Fernand. ‘Le Roman de Renart dans l’Angleterre du moyen âge.’ Les Langues Modernes 45 (1951), 70–84. Considers various forms of the name Reynard and, on the basis of NPT VII.3334, queries whether Chaucer knew the name Renart. [JG] 450 Stahl, W.H. trans. Macrobius: Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. Introduction and notes by William Harris Stahl. Records of Civilisation, Sources and Studies 27. New York: Columbia University Press, 1952. Although Macrobius’s Commentary is best known to English readers through Chaucer’s numerous references to it, Chaucer does not always seem to be aware that Scipio’s Dream was the work of Cicero. In NPT VII.3123–5, Scipio’s Dream is attributed to Macrobius, although in PF Chaucer understands that Cicero was the author. It is unlikely that Chaucer had read the whole of Macrobius’s Commentary. Although many commentators regard Macrobius as the source of Chaucer’s knowlege of dreams, his classification was also available to Chaucer in John of Salisbury, pseudo-Augustine, Vincent of Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, and many other writers. [JG] 451 Alderson, William L. ‘A Check-list of Supplements to Spurgeon’s Chaucer Allusions.’ PQ 32 (1953), 418–27. Culminates in a bibliography of 78 publications which expand Spurgeon’s 404 list of allusions to Chaucer. The earlier section of the study offers corrections to several of the items in this bibliography, eg Bond 425 and 429. [JG] 452 Dahlberg, Charles. ‘Chaucer’s Cock and Fox.’ JEGP 53 (1954), 277–90. Confirms Donovan’s thesis 843 and suggests that NPT reflects the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century controversies between the friars and the clergy. Earlier studies have not succeeded in establishing a satisfactory source for the name ‘Russell’, but the analogues Renart-le-nouvel and Li Dis D’Entendement suggest that Chaucer may have had the Franciscans in mind for the source of the name. Donovan’s assertion that the fox can be seen as a symbol for the heretic can be supported from various analogues, some also suggesting that the fox represents mendicant friars. Phillipa of Hainault, queen of Edward III, grew up in a court which sheltered ardent anti-mendicants. The cock, on the other hand, in Li Dis de Trois Estas du Monde, is the symbol of the best in the orders of chivalry, priesthood and marriage. Chaucer may also

120 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

453

454

455

456

have had in mind the tradition of cock-priest in the endlink. The widow may be a symbol of the Church. [JG] Schlauch, Margaret. English Medieval Literature and its Social Foundations. Warszawa, 1956. Rpt London: Oxford University Press, 1967. MkT is a miniature version of Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium, but it is a melancholy collection of anecdotes. The story of Ugolino is the high point, although Chaucer tones down the horror of Dante’s version. Although simple in plot, NPT is artistically complicated. Chaucer’s transformation of the basic type of beast fable is of a high order, adding elements of burlesque and parody. The capture and pursuit are a riotous burlesque of epic style. [JG] Boussat, Robert. Le Roman de Renard. Paris: Hatier-Boivin, 1957. There are chapters on manuscript tradition, branches, Latin precursors, sources, depiction, parody and satire, art and style, ‘la suivance,’ ‘le dernier cycle,’ and Reynard in the modern age. Chapter 10, ‘Adaptations Étrangères,’ lists NPT and Vox and [the] Wolf as English adaptations. [JG] Hazelton, Richard. ‘Chaucer and Cato.’ Spec 35 (1960), 357–80. Chaucer knew of Cato as an authority on ethical matters but frequently parodied him. He may have drawn this comic strategy from the Latin satirical poets, who often parodied their auctores. An example is the debate on dreams in NPT, with its ludicrous oppositions of ‘experience’ and ‘auctorite,’ and with Chauntecleer’s outbidding of Pertelote’s Cato with ‘many a man moore of auctorite’ (NPT VII.2975); but we must remember the extravagant respect of Chaucer’s contemporaries for Cato to appreciate the audacity of reducing ‘all his auctoritas to a cackle’ (p 373). This represents, however, Chaucer’s general practice. See also Hoffman 470. [JS] Fish, Stanley E. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and its Analogues.’ CLAJ 5 (1962), 223–8. Disagrees with Maveety 869 that NPT ‘is not so much a departure from the fable as an extension of it,’ and argues that comparison with Marie de France provides too narrow a base. Departures from the basic structure of all other versions of the story of the cock and the fox are the result of a fundamental change in point of view from ‘the restricted pointedness of an exemplum’ to ‘the shifting panoramic view of a sympathetic skepticism’ (p 224). In making responsibility a major and unsolved problem, Chaucer re-allocates the scoffer’s role to Pertelote, so that Chauntecleer, having out-argued her, succumbs to her beauty and to the fox’s flattery - or to ‘destinee, that may nat been eschewed’ (NPT VII.3338). Such questions are open, whereas Roman de Renart and Reinhart Fuchs give firm if unimaginative answers. The questions raised are serious, but ‘in the union of the mock-heroic style and the talking-beast fable genre lies the keynote of Chaucer’s gently tragic presentation of a

Sources / 121

457

458

459

460

461

universe in which man is at once all and nothing-at-all’ (p 228). See Pratt 485. [JS] McDermott, William C. ‘Chaucer and Virgil.’ CM 23 (1962), 216–7. Chaucer’s epithet of ‘firy’ for the Hydra (MkT VII.2105) is without classical parallel. McDermott suggests the origin of this in Chaucer’s false association of Virgil’s fiery Chimaera with the Hydra (Aeneid 6.288). [PG] Thompson, W. Meredith. ‘Chaucer’s Translation of the Bible.’ In English and Medieval Studies: Presented to J.R.R. Tolkien on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Ed. Norman Davis and C.L. Wrenn. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1962. Pp 183–99. Chaucer’s familiarity with the Bible was largely second hand, corresponding to French rather than Latin sources. Simple application of the rhetorical principle of decorum will not account for the distribution of such material to particular pilgrims. Within the narratives, biblical reference is generally meant to lend greater significance to character and incident, or to carry an argument by the medieval habit of citation of authority: both can be turned to comic effect, and NPT is an example of the latter function. [JS] Flinn, John. Le Roman de Renart dans la littérature française et dans les littératures étrangères au moyen âge. University of Toronto Romance Series 4. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963. A survey of medieval versions of Roman de Renart; NPT is discussed on pp 679–88. Flinn disagrees with Mossé 449 that the difference in proper names for Pertelote and the fox is conclusive evidence against direct knowledge of the Renart cycle itself. NPT derives from a version of Branch 2 of Roman, and Chaucer made considerable changes to it to accommodate his own interests, dreams, free will and necessity, and marriage. See further Pratt 485, Blake 490. [JS] Grennen, Joseph E. ‘Chauntecleer’s “Venymous” Cathartics.’ N&Q 208 (1963), 286–7. Chauntecleer’s rejection of laxatives (VII.3155) is part of the bookishness of NPT. A passage in Roger Bacon’s De retardatione accidentium senectutis stresses the importance of distinguishing the noxious effects of laxatives from the beneficent ones. [JS] Varty, Kenneth. ‘Reynard the Fox and the Smithfield Decretals.’ JWCI 26 (1963), 347–54. Stresses the value of iconographical evidence for the literary historian. (See also Robertson 871, Rowland 350, and Salter 930.) Varty describes in detail eight scenes from the fourteenth-century Smithfield Decretals which illustrate Roman de Renart, and notes elements which bear witness to variants of the Roman ‘now lost or awaiting rediscovery’ (p 354). One of these is the distaff-chase, which does not appear in the Branch II text, but does appear in

122 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

a fourteenth-century illustration and in NPT VII.3383, ‘And Malkyn, with a dystaf in hir hand.’ Chaucer knew the Roman de Renart and drew upon it for NPT. [JS] 462 Murphy, James J. ‘A New Look at Chaucer and the Rhetoricians.’ RES ns 15 (1964), 1–20. Challenges several propositions of Manly 607 and his followers: that Chaucer was familiar with classical rhetoric and used the works of ‘so-called’ medieval rhetoricians, especially Geoffrey of Vinsauf, and that he relied upon medieval verse-writing manuals for his knowledge of colores or figures. There is little evidence of an active rhetorical tradition in fourteenth-century England or of the use of verse manuals, other than Chaucer’s apparent allusions. Chaucer’s knowledge of colores and figurae could have been learned entirely from fourteenth-century grammar texts, or from his French reading, which would also have supplied a general association of the term rhetoric with poetry. As for direct knowledge of Geoffrey of Vinsauf, evidence of verbal parallels such as ‘the latter end of joye is wo’ (NPT VII.3205) is unconvincing, the sentiments being too common for borrowing to be demonstrable, while the reference to Geoffrey and his planctus at NPT VII.3347–54 has an obvious source in Trivet, whose work Chaucer uses elsewhere, and who introduces the planctus into his account of the death of King Richard with the words ‘Master Geoffrey of Vinsauf, in his book concerning Eloquence, laments his death in these verses’ (p 14). See also Murphy’s Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: a History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1974; and Payne 917. [JS] 463 Varty, Kenneth. ‘The Pursuit of Reynard in Mediaeval English Literature and Art.’ NMS 8 (1964), 62–81. Resumes discussion, begun in Varty 461, of an early episode in Roman de Renart, in which the fox seizes a cock or goose and is pursued, usually by a woman with a distaff. Its representation in English art, in NPT VII.3331–7 and VII.3375–92, and in the anonymous fifteenth-century False Fox, is examined. There is a long artistic tradition, traceable in the visual arts from Wells ca 1200 to Beverley in 1520, and corresponding in some measure to a literary tradition extending from Pierre de St Cloud through Marie de France and Chaucer to False Fox. Some of the visual representations immediately inspired by Chaucer are geographically distributed along pilgrimage routes. [JS] 464 Clark, George. ‘Chauntecleer and Deduit.’ ELN 2 (1965), 168–71. Taking up Steadman’s point 863 that Chaucer’s mock-heroic method is to make ‘barnyard fowls - the lowest of the rurales - speak, feel, and act like curiales’ (p 168), Clark argues that the specific curiales invoked are Mirth and Gladness from Roman de la Rose. Apart from general similarities of their

Sources / 123

465

466

467

468

469

enclosed precincts, rhetorically elaborate descriptions and singing, he notes the correspondence of the heroine’s precocious age at the beginning of the love relationship, and the changes whereby Pertelote’s receiving Chauntecleer’s heart rather than giving hers ‘reflects the latent antifeminism lurking in this adaptation of courtly love,’ while the correction of her age from seven years to days ‘brings the allusive recreation of idealized courtly love back to the barnyard earth’ (p 171). [JS] Hoffman, Richard L. ‘Ovid and the Monk’s Tale of Hercules.’ N&Q 210 (1965), 406–9. Chaucer’s confusion of the names Busirus and Diomedes (MkT VII.2103–4) is not attributable to his main source, Boethius. It originates in an eleventhcentury gloss on the Ibis. Hoffman agrees with Shannon 401 that Chaucer’s confusion of two similar stories is not a very serious error for one who was not a ‘professional scholar.’ [JAS] Steadman, John H. ‘Champier and the Altercatio Hadriani: Another Chaucer Analogue.’ N&Q 210 (1965), 170. Adds a further example of the medieval circulation of Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Secundi philosophi, the extended satirical definition of woman, which Brown 411 identified as an analogue to Chauntecleer’s ‘Mulier est hominis confusio’ (NPT VII.3164). His analogue is ‘a brief anti-feminist work’ included in a 1525 Paris edition of Simphorien Champier’s La nef des princes et des batailles de noblesse. [JS] Dronke, Peter. ‘Chaucer and Boethius’ “De Musica”.’ N&Q 211 (1966), 92. The Fox appears to endorse the superior status accorded to the philosophical understanding of music over mere performance in Boethius’s De Musica when he tells Chauntecleer that he has ‘in musyk moore feelynge / Than hadde Boece, or any that kan synge’ (NPT VII.3293–4). However, the caesura provides ‘the little pause, the slight hesitation’ that ‘intimates that on this point [Chaucer] found Boethius as insensitive, as quaintly wrong-headed as most of us would today’ (p 92). [JS] Fox, Denton. ‘The Scottish Chaucerians.’ In Brewer 890. Pp 164–200. There is a comparison of Henryson’s Taill of Schir Chantecleir and the Foxe with NPT on pp 173–9. While both use the fable to deflate human self-importance and rely heavily on changes of style, there are fundamental differences of narrative management and tone. Henryson is more immediately and more constantly serious, and accordingly concludes his Taill with an unambiguous four-stanza Moralitas. [JS] Grennen, Joseph E. ‘“Sampsoun” in the Canterbury Tales: Chaucer Adapting a Source.’ NM 67 (1966), 117–22. Chaucer may have used Le Livre de la Chevalier de La Tour-Landry in reshaping the story of Samson in MkT as an exemplum concerned with the consequences of revealing confidences to a woman. [JAS]

124 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

470 Hoffman, Richard L. Ovid and the Canterbury Tales. London and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966. A reprint of 465 with further discussion of the poisonous shirt in MkT VII.2119– 34 and its possible origin in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 101–241. The clause ‘that it maked’ (VII.2128) may mean ‘who caused the shirt to be sent (or worn).’ That Hercules is presented as self-poisoned through illicit love is consonant with the implication that he died because he trusted to Fortune. [JAS] 471 Johnston, Everett C. ‘The Medieval Versions of the Reynard-Chanticleer Episode.’ LangQ 4 (1966), 7–10. A comparison of five versions: the Middle High German Reinhart Fuchs, the Old French Roman de Renard, the Flemish Reinaert de Vos, the Middle English Of the Vox and the Wolf, and NPT. The Flemish version has all the aspects of the true beast epic; the true value of Chaucer’s version lies in the windy monologue uttered by Chanticleer. [JS] 472 Pratt, R.A. ‘Chaucer and the Hand That Fed Him.’ Spec 41 (1966), 619–42. Chaucer drew much of his material for WBT, SumT and PardT from the Communiloquium, a manual of anecdotal and hortatory material prepared in the second half of the thirteenth century by the Franciscan scholar and preacher, John of Wales. NPT VII.3325–8 derive from a passage in the chapter ‘De cavenda adulatione’ (p 636), and the repeated use of curiis in this passage confirms that courtes is the correct reading in NPT VII.3326. Chaucer generally uses the Communiloquium for purposes of characterization, dramatic clash and satire. ‘In his wholesome digression on flattery the Nuns’ Priest is not exactly hypocritical, but neither is he sincere - the elegant apostrophe serving to satirize rhetoric and preaching at once’ (p 639). [JS] 473 Richmond, Velma Bourgeois. Laments for the Dead in Medieval Narrative. Duquesne Studies Philological Series 8. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1966. Laments were a significant element of medieval narrative, and medieval writers had in mind an established genre explained in rhetorical handbooks. Compared with Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s lament for Richard I, widely circulated and regarded as an example of superior literary practice (see also Young 444), Chaucer generally neglected the lament (except in BD). Richmond notes in passing that MkT has several laments, but makes no suggestion of interaction with NPT on this point. [JS] 474 McDonald, Donald. ‘Henryson and Chaucer: Cock and Fox.’ TSLL 8 (1967), 451–61. Nine elements are common to NPT and Henryson’s Tale of the Cock and the Fox and not found in any other extant version. Henryson found, in the originality of NPT’s depiction of the cock and hen as human beings, a model for

Sources / 125

475

476

477

478

479

his own anthropomorphic treatment of animals - the consistent area in which he expands his sources elsewhere in the Moral Fables. [JS] Robbins, Rossell Hope. ‘A New Chaucer Analogue: the Legend of Ugolino.’ Trivium 2 (1967), 1–16. A late fifteenth-century MS preserves an expanded, jog-trot, English version of the Monk’s Ugolino story. Many lines closely follow Chaucer, though some added material suggests familiarity with Dante. The expansion - from fifty-six lines to two hundred and sixty-six - is achieved by embellishment and moral commentary. [JAS] Varty, Kenneth. Reynard the Fox: A Study of the Fox in Medieval English Art. Leicester: Leicester University Press; New York: Humanities Press, 1967. Traces the influence of Roman de Renard in medieval England through iconographical evidence (see Varty 461) and concludes that ‘Reynard was much better known in England than literary evidence suggests’ (p 24). The introduction traces French developments from Pierre de St Cloud’s animal epic with a villainous hero (ca 1150) to the early fourteenth-century satirical Renard le Contrefait, and notes that on literary evidence ‘the fox seems to have had considerable difficulty navigating the English Channel.’ In the visual arts, however, the story is variously represented, with the pursuit scene being the most popular, and Varty follows Sisam 69 in considering that Chaucer’s narrative technique plays upon this, approaching an expected scene slowly and indirectly in order to tease and entertain (p 24). The subsequent influence of NPT on the graphic and plastic arts is discussed pp 34–41. [JS] Cook, James W. ‘The Nun’s Priest and the Hebrew Pointer.’ AN&Q 7 (1968), 53–4. Taking up Broes’s argument 563 that NPT satirizes the Prioress by parodying elements of her tale, including its account of the punishment of the Jews, Cook speculates that Chaucer may have known the Mishle Shu’alim, an Anglo-Jewish collection of animal fables generally attributed to Rabbi Berechiah, a twelfth-century scholar and exegete. [JS] Hoffman, Richard L. ‘The Influence of the Classics on Chaucer.’ In Rowland 1968/1979 643. Pp 162–75/ 185–201. Chaucer is the medieval Ovid. NPT is mentioned as one of Hazelton’s 455 examples in his demonstration of Chaucer’s ‘parodic and heterodox use of Cato’ (p 172). The revised edition gives a brief updating of scholarly discussions, especially of individual mythological figures, and extends the bibliography. [JS] Ruggiers, Paul G. ‘The Italian Influence on Chaucer.’ In Rowland 643. Pp 1479. The Ugolino story indicates the limitations of Chaucer’s tragic point of view. By omitting a larger moral context and system of just retribution, and by

126 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

480

481

482

483

replacing Dante’s horror and grandeur with a diffuse pity, Chaucer makes the plight of good and bad indifferently the work of Fortune, so that suffering has no meaning beyond itself. [JAS] Allen, Judson Boyce. ‘The Ironic Fruyt: Chauntecleer as Figura.’ SP 66 (1969), 25–35. An examination of allegorical interpretations of the cock, as contained in a possible source, Hugh of St Cher. He confirms the presence of exegetical material (see Donovan 843, Dahlberg 452) while amplifying Manning’s conclusion 868 that it is part of the poem’s comedy, another dimension of ironic rhetoric. Some element in Chauntecleer’s character and behaviour constantly undercuts the allegory’s moral value: ‘mock epic, mock sermon, mock allegory combine; irony extends through the full range of meaning. The fruit is chaff’ (p 35). [JS] Kelly, Douglas. ‘Theory of Composition in Medieval Narrative Poetry and Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova.’ MS 31 (1969), 117–48. A defence of the aesthetic value of Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s work, especially with regard to his treatment of composition, and a demonstration of his influence on a number of European writers. The perversion of epic apostrophe for mock-heroic purposes does not prevent Chaucer from using the device seriously, and others like it, elsewhere. Kelly believes, unlike Murphy 462, in Chaucer’s first-hand knowledge of Geoffrey. [JS] Mogan, Joseph John, Jr. Chaucer and the Theme of Mutability. De Proprietatibus Litterarum, Series Practica 3. The Hague & Paris: Mouton, 1969. Extends Jefferson’s work 407 by considering mutability material from sources other than Boethius and by providing more detailed literary analysis of instances of the theme. The contribution of Christian concepts of opposition (spiritual and eternal vs material and finite) and the consequent linking of the themes of transitoriness and contempt of the world should be emphasized. The remarks on MkT are essentially a summary of earlier commentary (see Farnham 728, Jefferson 407, and Socola 735). Chaucer’s account of Fortune here follows the conventional de casibus scheme; it is Fortune’s whimsicality which is emphasized rather than any causal relationship between the actions of Fortune and of the victims. Mogan does not pursue an overall theme for NPT, but notes ‘incidental references’ to Fortune, and ‘For evere the latter ende of joye is wo’ (VII.3205), in support of his contention that a sense of the close connection between happiness and sorrow is an important element in the tale. Chamberlain, David S. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and Boethius’s De Musica.’ MP 68 (1970), 188–91. In De Musica 1.9, Boethius rates reason higher than the senses in music.

Sources / 127

Chauntecleer and his father, ironically praised for ‘feelynge’ (NPT VII.3293) and ‘herte’ (VII.3303) in their singing, are defective musicians who lack reason. See also Dronke 467. [GC] 484 McDonald, Donald. ‘Chaucer’s Influence on Henryson’s Fables: The Use of Proverbs and Sententiae.’ MÆ 39 (1970), 21–7. Henryson’s use of sententiae in the Moral Fables is indebted to Chaucer, especially NPT VII.3164 where the comedy derives not only from the mistranslation but also from the mock-heroic incongruity of the presentation of the animals as rhetorically sophisticated and erudite’ (p 22). [GC] 485 Pratt, R.A. ‘Three Old French Sources of the Nonnes Preestes Tale.’ Spec 47 (1972), 422–44 (part 1), 646–68 (part 2). Part 1. Chaucer adapts 1). Marie de France’s Del cok e del gupil, which supplies the narrative from the cock’s capture to its escape; 2). an expansion in Branch II of Roman de Renart by Pierre de St Cloud, which adds the hens, the old woman, and a warning dream and Chauntecleer and Pinte’s discussion of it; and 3). an expansion of this in Branch VI of Renart le Contrefait whose ‘longwinded and redundant digression’ may have shown Chaucer ‘how to expand and inflate to the point of absurdity’ (p 427). Pinte’s discussion of women’s counsel in Renart may have suggested one of NPT’s basic conflicts. Both Pinte and Pertelote scold their husbands for cowardice and are sceptical of the significance of dreams. Marie provides the basis of the rest of NPT, though Renart and Roman provide details of the chase, and the sequence of farmyard, dream, discussion, enticement to sin, chase, escape, and moralite of NPT is credited to Pierre. Part 2. Whereas in Roman and Renart the rivalry between cock and fox predominates, in NPT conflict develops between the cock and his wife over women’s counsel and the significance of dreams. From Pinte’s arguments in Renart Chaucer took the Andromache exemplum but gave it to Chauntecleer. Renart may be the source of Pertelote’s knowledge of herbs. Chaucer changes the fox’s name, avoiding the connotations that ‘Renart’ had accrued. Though the hen appears in Roman, Renart’s Pinte is the model for Pertelote. Chauntecleer comes from all three sources: his beautiful singing and susceptibility to flattery from Marie; his name and proud nature from Pierre; his fatalism and learning from Renart (the latter derived from Holcot’s Super Sapientiae Salomonis). But Chauntecleer’s passion for Pertelote and their courtly qualities are innovations. To the anthropomorphism of his sources Chaucer adds absurd details so that ‘in a spirit of comic incongruity [he] has Chauntecleer and Pertelote oscillate between the gallinaceous and the human’ (p 660). In laughing at a pompous cock readers are laughing at themselves: ‘The butt of his satire is man’ (p 660). Chaucer humanizes his characters, placing them ‘against an essentially tragic background of universal

128 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

486

487

488

489

490

history’ (p 661). Mock-heroic set-pieces contribute to the alternation between high and low styles and the comic inflation and deflation of the hero. Chaucer also parodies the ‘inane interruptions’ of Renart (p 665), borrowing particularly from Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova, and parodies the ‘excessive moralising of Marie by piling up moralites to the point of absurdity’ (p 666). [GC] Guerin, Richard. ‘The Nun’s Priest and Canto V of the Inferno.’ ES 54 (1973), 313–5. The reference to Launcelot de Lake (NPT VII.3210–13) is not to Walter Map’s version of the Arthur story (as suggested by Hinckley 395, p 141) but to the Inferno, where Francesca tells Dante that her illicit love affair with Paolo began while they were reading the story of Lancelot. See also Schless 530 and Brody 489. [GC] Brewer, D.S. ‘Chaucer and Chrétien and Arthurian Romance.’ In Chaucer and Middle English Studies: In Honour of Rossell Hope Robbins. Ed. Beryl Rowland. London: Allen and Unwin, 1974. Pp 255–9. The reference to Launcelot de Lake (NPT VII.3211–13) may be a joke at Marie de Champagne, who provided the story of Lancelot to Chrétien de Troyes. [GC] Dronke, Peter, and Jill Mann. ‘Chaucer and the Medieval Latin Poets.’ In Brewer 654. Pp 154–83. The apostrophe to Friday (NPT VII.3347 ff) is derived from Geoffrey of Vinsauf. Both Speculum Stultorum and NPT are beast epics in mock-heroic style, but Chaucer, though he comes close to medieval Latin satire, burlesques his own rhetoric and philosophical framework. [GC] Harbert, Bruce. ‘Chaucer and the Latin Classics.’ In Brewer 654. Pp 137–53. Pertelote’s discussion of dreams (NPT VII.2923 ff) borrows from Macrobius’s commentary on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis. Chauntecleer’s story of the two travellers (NPT VII.2984 ff) may be taken from Cicero’s De divinatione or from Holcot or Gerald of Wales. [GC] Blake, N.F. ‘Reynard the Fox in England.’ In Aspects of the Medieval Animal Epic. Proceedings of the International Conference, Louvain, 15–17 May 1972. Ed. E. Rombauts and A. Welkenhuysen. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series l, Study 3. Leuven: Leuven University Press; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975. Pp 53–65. The view that Chaucer’s principal and direct source for NPT was Roman de Renart or some derivative from it does not necessarily hold. Since English fable-collections contain many stories about animals not found in the Roman, it is unlikely that it exercised more than a general influence upon them. NPT contains many elements not in Roman but showing traces of other sources. Caxton translated his Reynard the Fox from a Dutch rather than a

Sources / 129

491

492

493

494

French source, and his familiarity with NPT led him to alter some of the names to make them agree with those in Chaucer’s version. [CJW] Bornstein, Diane. ‘Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale, 2095–2142.’ Expl 33 (1975), #77. The recitation of the twelve labours of Hercules is derived from Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy (4.m.7. 13–31), where it is followed by a denial of the existence of fortune as chance. The Monk’s failure to grasp this exposes him as an incompetent contemplative who uses the Consolation as a source for secular tales without absorbing its wisdom. See also Socola 725, Babcock 428. [JAS] Lock, F.P. ‘Chaucer’s Monk’s Use of Lucan, Suetonius, and “Valerie”.’ ELN 12 (1975), 251–5. The Monk’s literary allusions in MkT VII.2719–21 show his reading to be wide rather than deep; his sources offer no support for his stress on Fortune rather than Providence as, for example, in the tragedy of Caesar. The Monk’s stress on the whim of Fortune also conflicts with the standard medieval view, which was to stress the providential meaning of Caesar’s death. The carelessness of the Monk’s reading is thus further demonstrated. [JAS] Mann, Jill. ‘The Speculum Stultorum and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ ChauR 9 (1975), 262–82. CT’s only direct reference to Nigel of Longchamps’ Speculum Stultorum (ca 1180) is NPT VII.3312, where ‘Daun Burnel the Asse’ is mentioned. The ass is a fool, but Nigel shows that the folly of Burnellus is humane and that folly and wisdom are not easily distinguishable. Through Burnellus, Nigel raises doubts about the wisdom of learning and the learned. There are parallels in method between Speculum and NPT. The beast fable as Chaucer uses it here defies the purported moralizing of the narrator. [CW] Boitani, Piero. ‘The Monk’s Tale: Dante and Boccaccio.’ MÆ 45 (1976), 50–69. In MkT, Dante’s innovative frame, in which the subjects of the narrative tell their own stories, is set aside in favour of traditional medieval compilation. Boccaccio’s preoccupation with the way Divine Providence directs human affairs is replaced by the notion of Fortune as absolute ruler, and his organization according to chronological order gives way to an order dependent on those characteristics of Fortune being emphasized. A comparison of the Ugolino story in the Inferno with that in MkT details Chaucer’s omissions and additions (only five lines are actually translated from Dante: MkT VII.2444, VII.2447–8, VII.2450–1), and draws two main conclusions. Firstly, a cultural difference is evident in the contrast between Dante’s ethical and political dimension and the popular belief in an arbitrary Fortune which governs Chaucer’s story. Secondly, in order to enhance the realism and hence the pathos of the situation, Chaucer builds up a pattern of minute historical and topographical details and loosens the temporal rela-

130 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

tionships, so that the time of the narrative conforms to that characteristic of oral story-telling. The change from horror to pathos is also effected by such stylistic factors as register choice. In the tragedy of Zenobia, synthesized from Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium and De Claris Mulieribus, Chaucer’s build-up of concrete particulars, change of register, and use of a paratactic syntax in place of Boccaccio’s humanist, periodic Latin, here generate a popular idiom which is nevertheless capable of heightening when this is functionally appropriate. [JAS] 495 Eisner, Sigmund. ‘Chaucer’s Use of Nicholas of Lynn’s Calendar.’ E&S ns 29 (l976), 1–22. A discussion of the identity, life and work of the fourteenth-century astronomer, Nicholas of Lynn, whose one surviving work is his Calendar for 1387 to 1462 (see 504), used by Chaucer on his own admission. In NPT VII.3193–9, on May 3 Chauntecleer observes that the sun ‘in the signe of Taurus hadde yronne / Twenty degrees and oon, and somwhat moore,’ (NPT VII.3194–5), and correctly estimates the time of day from the sun’s position. ‘On May 3, according to Nicholas, the sun was at Taurus 21° 6’. At prime or 9.00 a.m. on that day the altitude of the sun was 41° 5’ or Chauntecleer’s ‘Fourty degrees and oon, and more ywis.’ If Chauntecleer used a bit more of the knowledge that comes to him ‘by kynde,’ he would know that if at that moment a six-foot man appeared in the barnyard, his shadow would be six feet ten inches long’ (p 19). Eisner maintains that ‘Chaucer positively received this information from Nicholas of Lynn’ (p 19) and not from any other source. [CW] 496 Miller, Robert P., ed. Chaucer: Sources and Backgrounds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. There are a couple of references to MkT. Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium was probably one of the models of MkT. The companion piece, De Claris Mulieribus provided the tale of Zenobia. NPT is lightly touched upon at pp 3, 34, 42, 44, 51n, 57n, 62n, 66, 74, 76n, 228n, 234n, 238, 350n. No single source is of great importance, but attention is drawn to a number of significant biblical, Graeco-Roman, and medieval writings. [PG, CW] 497 Pratt, R.A. ‘Some Latin Sources of the Nonnes Preest on Dreams.’ Spec 52 (1977), 538–70. Although there were many authorities on dreams to whom Chaucer might have turned, the treatise which Chaucer follows most closely in NPT is Robert Holcot’s commentary on the Book of Wisdom, Super Sapientiam Salomonis. This can be seen especially in the farmyard debate on dream lore. Chauntecleer’s exempla showing ‘that dremes been to drede’ are derived from Valerius Maximus via Holcot. However, Chaucer’s own wide reading is demonstrated in that NPT draws on commentaries by Cicero, Valerius Maxi-

Sources / 131

498

499

500

501

mus, and Albertus Magnus: his retelling of the exempla in their particulars derives about equally from all three. The mention of Daniel (NPT VII.3127–9) is ‘an echo’ of MkT (p 559). The phrase ‘By heigh ymaginacioun forncast’ (NPT VII.3217) is discussed in relation to Dante’s ‘l’alta fantasia’ in Purgatorio 17.25 and Paradiso 33.142 (pp 565–6). Chaucer’s audience would have been amused by NPT’s ‘choice glimpses, sometimes distorted, of the scholastic view of significative dreams’ (p 570). [CW] Torrance, Robert M. The Comic Hero. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978. Ch 4, ‘Renegade Vassal: Reynard the Fox’ (pp 83–110), discusses the complex and ambiguous position of the Reynardian figure in society. There is intermittent mention of NPT (pp 92–6). [CW] Waller, Martha S. ‘The Monk’s Tale: Nero’s Nets and Caesar’s Father - an Inquiry into the Transformations of Classical Roman History in Medieval Tradition.’ ISSQ 31 (1978), 46–55. Two details used by Chaucer in MkT illustrate differences in the tramsmission of the classical historical tradition in the Middle Ages. The detail of Nero’s ‘nettes of gold threed’ (VII.2475) is passed down from Suetonius unchanged, and Chaucer could have found it in any number of medieval works; but the misinformation that Julius Caesar rose, by ability and energy, ‘from humble bed to roial magestee’ (VII.2672) is a detail transformed almost beyond recognition. The English tradition that Caesar was the son of a baker may have developed from anecdotes in Suetonius in which Caesar displays magnanimity towards people who insult him by alluding to his affair with King Nicomedes or to his baldness. Such material is attractive to medieval writers seeking exempla of princely behaviour or of virtue. The attribution to Caesar of humble origins is transferred from his great-nephew Augustus whose great-grandfather, according to Mark Antony, kept a bakery in Aricia. Once Gregory of Tours, in the sixth century, had redrawn the family relationships to make Julius the grandfather of Augustus, it became possible to describe Julius as the son of a baker. The earliest extant source for this misinformation seems to be Ranulph Higden, from whom Chaucer possibly acquired it. [JAS] Crider, Richard. ‘Daniel in the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale”.’ AN&Q 18 (1979), 18–9. Chauntecleer’s allusion to Daniel and dreams (NPT VII.3126–7) refers to Daniel 4, rather than to Daniel 7, as most editors suggest. Daniel 4 tells of the mysterious dream of Nebuchadnezzar, which Daniel interprets correctly. There is a parallel between Nebuchadnezzar’s fall and Chauntecleer’s. The Nun’s Priest parodies the tragedies recounted so tediously by the Monk, one of which is the fall of Nebuchadnezzar. [CW] Fyler, John M. Chaucer and Ovid. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1979.

132 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Like most later medieval and Renaissance poets, Chaucer owes more to Ovid than to any other classical author. Ch 6, ‘Order and Energy in the Canterbury Tales: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ (pp 148–63), is more concerned with Ovidian techniques of narration than with specific debts to Ovid. NPT does not simply echo the preceding tales but subsumes them. The preceding tales are all severely limited, MkT most of all in its structure and comprehensiveness of vision. In NPT, there is no single perspective on the barnyard and its inhabitants: the hens are at once Chauntecleer’s ‘sustres and his paramours’ (line 2867). The narrator breaks the illusion of the beast fable at the moment he rationalizes it. Narrative technique also has implications for NPT’s elusive ‘moralite’: ‘When rhetoric can make a case for anything - Chauntecleer as everyman . . . as epic hero . . . as rooster - no case is secure’ (p 162). •Review by Richard L. Hoffman, JEGP 80 (1981), 231–4. The book offers little new evidence of the Ovidian influence on Chaucer. The chapter on NPT is the most baffling of all, because it has the least to do with Ovid. •Review by Lisa J. Kiser, MP 78 (1980–1), 167–9. The chapter on NPT ‘shows Fyler at his best and most original’ (p 168). [PG, CW] 502 Minnis, A.J. ‘A Note on Chaucer and the Ovide Moralisé.’ MÆ 48 (1979), 254–7. Chaucer drew upon the Ovide moralisé in several of his major works. The Nun’s Priest’s assertion, ‘al that writen is, / To oure doctrine it is ywrite, ywis’ (NPT VII.3441–2) may come direct from Romans 15:4, but this passage is used at the beginning of the Ovide moralisé also. Chaucer regarded NPT ‘as an Aesopian fabula’ (p 256). He ended NPT with a call for his readership to take ‘the moralite,’ having begun ‘by echoing the beginning of the most substantial collection of “moral fables” known to him, the Ovide moralisé’ (p 257). [CW] 503 Correale, Robert M. ‘Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale, VII, 3444–6.’ Expl 39:1 (1980), 43–5. In NPT VII.3445, ‘my lord’ refers not to a human lord, or to Christ or God, but to St Paul, who is quoted in the immediately preceding NPT VII.3441–2; NPT VII.3444–5 echo 1 Thessalonians 4:3; and NPT VII.3444–6 resemble the concluding prayer in a homily for the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul in Mirk’s Festial. [BM] 504 Eisner, Sigmund, ed. and introd. The Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn. Trans. Sigmund Eisner and Gary Mac Eoin. The Chaucer Library. London: Scolar Press, 1980; Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1980. Nicholas of Lynn composed his Kalendarium for 1387 to 1462 in 1386, and dedicated it to John of Gaunt. The introduction explains the principles of the Kalendarium in detail; the section on Chaucer’s use of it (pp 29–34) is a reprint, with minor variations, of Eisner 495, pp 15–22. [BM]

Sources / 133

505

506

507

508

509

Haas, Renate. Die mittelenglische Totenklage: Realitätsbezug, abendländische Tradition und individuelle Gestaltung. Regensburger Arbeiten zur Anglistik und Amerikanistik 16. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1980. English summary pp 353–5. Traces the lament for the dead in classical and medieval times before examining its use in Middle English literature, including Chaucer. The parody of Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s lament for Richard is examined on pp 163–6; its place in NPT is discussed pp 287–95. The comedy of this lament derives in part from the discrepancy between the high style and the subject of the lament, a cock, and in part from the audience’s awareness that the cock is certainly not dead. Dryden’s version is compared unfavourably with the original (pp 315–17). [BM] Kratzmann, Gregory. Anglo-Scottish Literary Relations 1430–1550. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Ch 3 deals with ‘Henryson and English Poetry,’ and Part 2 of this ch (pp 86– 103) with ‘The English Affinities of the Morall Fabillis.’ Henryson’s The Cock and the Fox is not indebted substantially to NPT, but a comparison of the two poems reveals the distinctive qualities of each. NPT’s parody of rhetoric is in part a warning of the danger of ‘undiscriminating’ (p 91) use of the stylistic devices prescribed in the rhetorical treatises. Henryson, however, ‘uses parody for the purposes of moral discrimination rather than literary satire’ (p 91). In Henryson there is the logically conclusive moralitas which in NPT remains elusive. [BM] Boitani, Piero. ‘Ugolino e la Narrativa.’ Studi Danteschi 53 (1981), 31–52. A brief comparison of the Ugolino episode (p 41) with Chaucer’s later version in MkT, concentrating upon Dante’s narrative technique. See also Praz 424, Boitani 494. [RW] Coggeshall, John M. ‘Chaucer in the Ozarks: A New Look at the Sources.’ SFQ 45 (1981), 41–60. Four American Ozark folk tales preserve an oral tradition which Chaucer used for NPT, PardT, MilT, and RvT. In ‘Asa Baker’s Dream,’ the protagonist dreams of his brother’s death, but is disbelieved when he relates the dream; when Asa discovers that his brother was murdered on the night of the dream he avenges his death. The main similarities are: both protagonists dream about an imminent death with quite precise details, which later comes true (or nearly does so); both shout as they wake from the dream and disturb their partners; both are told to ignore their dream; both tales stress a ‘justice will out’ theme. [BM] Diekstra, Frans. ‘Chaucer’s Way with His Sources: Accident into Substance and Substance into Accident.’ ES 62 (1981), 216–36. NPT is an example of the disruption of genre expectations. VII.2880–1 lecture

134 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

the reader about the conventions of beast fable ‘right at the point that the reader has abandoned the traditional genre expectations’ (p 229). [BM] 510 Minnis, A.J. ‘Aspects of the Medieval French and English Traditions of the De Consolatione Philosophiae.’ In Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence. Ed. Margaret Gibson. Oxford: Blackwell, 1981. Pp 312–61. The three vernacular translations of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy in Old French and Middle English literature are influenced by glosses accompanying the Latin. Whereas Jean de Meun was indubitably the primary source for MkT, Trevet’s commentary on the Croesus story (which itself incorporates some of William of Conches’ glosses) provided additional material, and indeed supplies all the details required to supplement the RR (see Wimsatt 438 for a different view), including the conclusion that links back to the MkP, where the definition of tragedy includes those who had not deserved their downfalls, as well as those who had. The Nero story is more difficult, because the detail about Nero wearing a garment only once is unparalleled in either Jean de Meun or Trevet, though it is found coupled with the detail that Nero was accustomed to fish with golden nets in both Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum Historiale and in Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, one or other of which seems to have inspired MkT VII.2473–6. However, the only genuine parallel between Vincent and Chaucer is the notion that Nero feared his schoolmaster, and Trevet’s commentary provides the information. Appendix 1 (pp 347–9), in examining Chaucer’s list of the Labours of Hercules, suggests that Trevet’s glosses may have led to the confusion between Diomedes and Busirus. [RW] 511 ––. ‘The Influence of Academic Prologues on the Prologues and Literary Attitudes of Late-Medieval English Writers.’ MS 43 (1981), 342–83. Although Chaucer, unlike Gower, did not employ academic prologues, the ‘introductions . . . to the texts prescribed for study in universities and schools’ (p 342), in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, he knew the Aristotelian causal scheme, and his use of mateere in the sense of materia libri is common. In MkT, maner is used in the sense of modus agendi when tragedy is discussed, though there is no evidence that Chaucer knew the most sophisticated commentaries on modus tragoediae. NPT VII.3438–43 are briefly compared with the introduction to the early fourteenth-century Ovid Moralisé, which argues that ‘although fables may seem false, to the person who understands them properly the truth contained in them is obvious’ (p 378). [BM, RW] 512 Peck, Russell A. ‘St. Paul and the Canterbury Tales.’ Mediaevalia 7 (1981), 91–131. Rpt (with minor variations) as ‘Biblical Interpretation: St. Paul and The Canterbury Tales.’ In Chaucer and Scriptural Tradition. Ed. David Lyle Jeffrey. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1984. Pp 143–70. The Nun’s Priest and the Parson both cite St. Paul as an authority, the one as

Sources / 135

a justification for the use of fable, the other for rejecting it. The fruit and chaff metaphor, used in association with the Pauline maxims, also appears in the Man of Law’s Headlink, suggesting that the B2 group ‘is organized around problems of critical perception’ (p 93) and that these Pauline references have structural as well as thematic significance. [BM] 513 Burchfield, Robert. ‘Realms and Approximations: Sources of Chaucer’s Power.’ E&S ns 35 (1982), 1–13. Chaucer’s knowledge, gleaned from sources, ‘is absorbed within the verse’ (p 3). The details of Pertelote’s medical knowledge (NPT VII.2922–32) are recorded in contemporary manuals, but in the poem they ‘lie embedded . . . in the serio-comic dialogue of an animal world, adding subtlety to the factuality of the context and ending by being distant from, though still visibly proximate to, the source of the knowledge’ (p 4). [BM] 514 Henderson, Arnold Clayton. ‘Medieval Beasts and Modern Cages: The Making of Meaning in Fables and Bestiaries.’ PMLA 97 (1982), 40–9. Writers of beast fables usually provide explicit morals, but some writers varied the traditional meanings assigned to the beasts and their actions. We should not assume that we can transfer the meanings of any prior text to a new text. With regard to NPT, in some texts the fox is used to satirize friars; in some texts cocks represent priests; in others no such equations are made. [BM] 515 Minnis, A.J. Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity. Chaucer Studies 8. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer; Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1982. Source studies must satisfy the criterion of historical plausibility in two respects: dissemination and provenance. Chaucer’s sources should be studied in their entirety to gain information about their ideological structure; for instance, Nicholas Trevet’s commentary on Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy influences the theory of tragedy in MkT, especially VII.2761–6, and is relevant to NPT. Trevet took his definition of tragedy from Isidore’s Etymologiae, and alters the original by stressing ‘the indiscrimate nature of fortune’s blows’ (p 27). Trevet’s association of Isidore’s theory of tragedy with the story of Croesus may lie behind Chaucer’s linking them in MkT. In MkP VII.1973–7, there is an expansion of Isidore’s theory, which could have come from Trevet’s gloss, where reference to iniquities is removed to cover all the Monk’s tragic figures. The tragedy of Nero in MkT, though it follows Jean de Meun’s RR closely, takes the detail of Nero’s fear of Seneca from Trevet’s gloss. In stressing Seneca’s moral virtue, Chaucer implies that he is a good pagan. Bradwardine’s De Causa Dei and Sermo Epinicius are relevant to NPT. •Review by P.J. Mroczkowski, RES ns 36 (1985), 406–8. The book only deals incidentally with less noble or sinful pagans, as in MkT. From the late medi-

136 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

516

517

518

519

eval regard for ‘good pagans,’ does it follow that the poetic compositions depended decisively on such ideas? [BM, RW] O’Neill, William. ‘“L’Allegro,” “Il Penseroso,” and Some Daybreak Scenes from The Canterbury Tales.’ N&Q 227 (1982), 494–5. Milton adapts lines from KnT, SqT, and NPT for the daybreak scenes in ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso.’ Lines 49–52 of ‘L’Allegro’ are adapted from NPT, especially VII.3191–7. [BM] Thomas, Paul R. ‘An Ironic Monkish Allusion: Chaucer’s Learned Audience in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”.’ Encyclia: Journal of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 59 (1982), 45–52. During his flattery of Chauntecleer the fox alludes (NPT VII.3312–19) to an incident in Nigel de Longechamps’ Speculum Stultorum, where a cock who had had his leg broken by a priest’s son exacts vengeance by remaining silent, refusing to crow (although NPT’s fox does not mention this detail) on the morning when the son must be awakened to journey to the city for his ordination. The story in the Speculum has many ironic resonances for NPT. Both Chauntecleer and the priest’s son see their enemies in prophetic dreams, but suffer for ignoring the messages of those dreams. The Speculum may also have influenced the narrative structure of NPT: both dreams occur in the early morning, whereas in Chaucer’s immediate source, Roman de Renart, the cock’s dream occurs later in the morning. Chauntecleer’s oversleeping (NPT VII.2891) and the suggestions of overeating (NPT VII.2923) may also derive from the Speculum. There is anthropomorphism in the Speculum, but animal behaviour is also stressed. [BM] Thomas, Paul R. ‘The Literary Contexts of The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ DAI 44 (1983), C–755. University of York Dissertation, 1982. A study based on a comprehensive reading of Le Roman de Renart. Chaucer’s detailed recollection of the beast epic particularly affected the mock-heroic tone of his tale, the anthropomorphism of his animals, the penchant he shows for authorial intrusion in his tale, and the depcition of the chase scene in ways that Pierre de Saint-Cloud’s branch about Chauntecleer and Renart could not have done by itself. Chaucer also parodied another outgrowth of the beast fables, the fable-exempla of the popular preachers. [BM] Bennett, J.A.W. ‘Chaucer, Dante and Boccaccio.’ In Boitani 680. Pp 89–114. The Ugolino story from Inferno 33, the most poignant scene in the Monk’s tragedies, suggests that Boccaccio has unconsciously directed Chaucer back to Dante, contrasting the three-year-old son’s question (MkT VII.2432–4) with Boccaccio’s phrase ‘amplissimo fletu’ and Dante’s ‘che hai?’ Chaucer’s Monk, not Dante, cries out against Fortune in VII.2413–4, as Chaucer’s Hugelyn does in VII.2445–6, where no such cry could sound in Dante’s Hell. [RW]

Sources / 137

520 Best, Thomas W. Reynard the Fox. Twayne World Author Series 673. Boston: Twayne, 1983. An introduction to the major Reynard poems, with summary and commentary. Ch 1 (pp 1–32) is on Ysengrimus, and Ch 2 (pp 33–69) on the early branches of Roman de Renart. The development of the Reinardus and Sprotinus episode in Ysengrimus is briefly traced through, e.g., Alcuin’s Versus ad Gallo, the eleventh-century Gallus et Vulpes, and Marie de France’s fables. The Renart and Chantecler episode in Branch 2 of Roman de Renart is summarized; the episodes with fox, cock, titmouse, cat, and crow in this branch ‘caricature various types of unworthy knights - complacent ones, like Chantecler; thieving ones, like the crow; and deceitful, vicious ones, like Renart’ (p 40). [BM] 521 Boitani, Piero. ‘What Dante Meant to Chaucer.’ In Boitani 680. Pp 115–40. T.S. Eliot’s query, ‘What did Dante mean to Chaucer?’ does not necessarily point to the type of source-study that Praz 424 and Schless 530 employ, with its emphasis on transformation in tone and purpose, as when Chaucer makes the description of the death of Ugolino’s children sympathetic to the point of sentimentality. For Chaucer, Dante is a master of craft and a source for counterpointed verbal imitation, as he distances himself from as well as echoes Dante. Though Boccaccio mentioned Ugolino in De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, Ulysses might well have been chosen to fit the Fortune theme. Chaucer chose Ugolino instead not only because of the passion in the story, but also because of Dante’s handling of the narrative. In Chaucer’s adaptation of the Ugolino story in MkT, the Monk twists Dante’s text so that horror becomes pathos, indirect poetry becomes detailed account and direct, ‘prosaic’ oral narrative. Chaucer refers his readers back to Dante’s version in MkT VII.2458– 62, but he eliminates the light, space, silence and mouth which dominate in Dante, and amplifies hunger, grief and tears, adding factual details, and establishing a cause-effect connection in the action. [RW] 522 Godman, Peter. ‘Chaucer and Boccaccio’s Latin Works.’ In Boitani 680. Pp 269–96. Even where Chaucer is primarily dependent on Boccaccio, his work is informed by a wide range of other sources, both classical and medieval. Only five stories recounted in De Casibus Virorum Illustrium and De Mulieribus Claris occur as complete and distinct exempla in MkT, and in none can Boccaccio be shown as Chaucer’s primary source. The Zenobia example is, then, the only instance where Chaucer relies on the Latin works of Boccaccio. In general, Boccaccio sees divine providence as directing human affairs, whereas Fortune alone is dominant in Chaucer, and Boccaccio’s views on the importance of political ideas or specific human failings are eliminated in MkT, especially when Chaucer’s idiosyncratic internal order for developing the

138 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

theme of fortune disregards chronology, as Boccaccio’s more leisurely narrative does not. Both Boccaccio’s treatments of Zenobia are based on the Historia Augusta, but he emphasizes her continence in De Mulieribus Claris, and her final defeat as representative of mutability in De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. His two distinct types ofpolemical generalization take him far beyond that source. Chaucer’s MkT begins with the statement of the central theme of De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, and when he comes to the account of Zenobia, he sticks closely to his sources, beginning with De Mulieribus Claris and ending with De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. But ‘in detail and in emphasis there are marked and subtle differences’ (p 275), as in MkT VII.2253–4. A close side-by-side comparison between extracts from the source and Chaucer’s version (VII.2255–70) provides several instances where Chaucer wryly twists the source to lessen respect, to add a note of homely amusement, to substitute for high-sounding generalizations ‘a series of earthy asides’ in the style of WBP. VII.2274–8, VII.2283–6 and VII.2291–4 help to imply that Zenobia is a bit of crank, as Chaucer undermines the sternness of his source, and he ends (as in VII.2263–6, VII.2370–4) by portraying her as an impoverished woman. MkT has received a bad press, its solemn pomposity thought to suit its narrator, but an examination of the Zenobia episode invites a more sympathetic appraisal. The Host in MkP VII.1924–5 and VII.1932–48 sets out to provoke the Monk, in linking anticlericalism with sexuality. The Monk’s reply (VII.1965–77) offers the Host the opposite of what he wishes to hear, in a manner calculated to deflate him; he opens with quiet dignity, and, ironically apologizing for his ignorance (given the following learned narrative), he gives ‘a series of splendidly barbed retorts to the Host’ (p 280). The Host’s response (NPP VII.2780–7) shows that he has missed the point. Past critics have read Boccaccio rather than Chaucer, where Boccaccio’s sententious polemic is employed ‘to an ironical end’ (p 281), and Chaucer uses Boccaccio in MkT to thwart and pillory the Host. His appearance of deference to the written authority of his sources is, like Boccaccio’s own relationship to his sources, shown to be ‘only as good as the use to which it is put’ (p 291). See also Babcock 428, Bennett 519, Brusendorff 260, Howard 659, Praz 424, Bryan and Dempster 441, Socola 735, Strange 569 and Whittock 645. •Review by James Simpson, MÆ 54 (1985), 306–8. Godman’s analyses of Chaucer’s daring changes are crisp, but his conclusions are tendentious, for he defends MkT as a whole on the basis of the Zenobia story, and the irony that depends on an understanding between ironist and audience is doubtfully assumed. [RW] 523 Kirkpatrick, Robin. ‘The Wake of the Commedia: Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio’s Decameron.’ In Boitani 680. Pp 201–30.

Sources / 139

Chaucer’s reverence for Dante is expressed in such ‘intelligent and subtle acts of “translation” as we find in MkT’ (p 201). In ‘The Three Rings’ in the Decameron, Boccaccio introduces important social,metaphysical, and linguistic issues, but implies that beyond these ‘there are still resources we may draw upon’ (p 225), resources embodied in the art of fiction itself. The irony of NPT, however, asks us to look beyond the art of fiction, just as NPT compels the Host ‘to look with renewed attention’ (p 226) upon the Nun’s Priest, in a ‘fresh and generous acknowledgement of his individuality’ (p 227). The description of the widow’s table (VII.2843–5) is emblematic: ‘there is an order in . . . bread and eggs, table and farmyard that renders literary sophistication either ridiculous - as it is in Chauntecleer - or, at best, a skilful but unassuming interpreter - as it is in the Priest and Chaucer’ (p 229). For Chaucer, ‘beyond literature there always lie the realities of bread and commonsense’ (p 229). [BM, RW] 524 Terry, Patricia, trans. Renard The Fox. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1983. Translation of Branches II, Va, I and VIII of Roman de Renart from Ernest Martin’s 1882 edition (as revised and reprinted 1970). Terry is not concerned with the relationship between Roman and NPT, but notes in the introduction that Pinte is cleverer than her spouse; Chaucer does not give Pertelote any such attributes but ‘transforms her into a belittling purveyor of bad advice’ (p 19). [BM] 525 Yates, Donald N. ‘Chauntecleer’s Latin Ancestors.’ ChauR 18 (1983), 116–26. NPT’s immediate sources are French, but earlier Latin analogues provide specific narrative traits and descriptive details. Alcuin’s De gallo and Ademar of Chabannes’ fable of the fox and the partridge are mentioned. The twelfthcentury Gallus et vulpes includes ‘the germ of a mock-heroic, comical treatment’ (p 120) and shares concluding sentiments with NPT: in both ‘the audience is warned that though the narrative is just a fable, it contains a true lesson’ (p 120). The main discussion is of Isengrimus, a long animal epic written in Ghent ca 1150. Here the cock and fox episode contains elements which appear in NPT but not in the French sources, e.g., a pilgrimage context (in Isengrimus the animals are on a pilgrimage); an opening reference to the dawn; a Friday date; a three year-old fox; an episode in which the fox tries to flatter the cock after losing him; emphasis on Fortune as enemy. Chaucer may not have known Isengrimus (although he travelled in Flanders, and makes two allusions to Flanders in NPT), but he was perhaps influenced by a derivative version, of the kind represented by the early fifteenth-century Low German De vos und de hane. [BM] 526 Delany, Sheila. ‘“Mulier est hominis confusio”: Chaucer’s Anti-popular Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Mosaic 17 (1984), 1–8.

140 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

527

528

529

530

Chaucer’s selectiveness with his sources suggests his attitude to authority and the role of women in marriage. In Roman de Renart and Reinhart Fuchs, the peasant couple who own the chickens are in discord over dangers to the farmyard; and the wife’s practical foresight proves to be correct. In both texts, Pinte correctly interprets the dream of the fox on pragmatic and empirical grounds, having earlier glimpsed the fox. These ‘popular’ texts challenge and parody the prevailing ideology: both support ‘a “feminist” viewpoint clearly opposed to the clerical antifeminist tradition which maintained the subordination of wife to husband’ (p 4). Chaucer, however, replaces the peasant couple with a widow who is ‘a model of moderated desire and goodnatured acceptance’ (p 5); he changes the hen’s role, since Pertelote ‘trivializes the dream’ (p 5). There is some ‘attractive practicality’ (p 6) in Pertelote’s herbal knowledge; certainly Chauntecleer is pompous in his parade of learned authority, yet NPT shows Pertelote to be wrong and Chauntecleer right. Thus Chaucer ‘rescues’ NPT from the subversive import of its sources: ‘the vindication of Chauntecleer does represent a vindication of authority over experience, clerical-intellectual tradition over popular tradition, idealism over materialism, as well as husband over wife’ (p 6). [BM] Johnson, James D. ‘Identifying Chaucer Allusions, 1953–1980: An Annotated Bibliography.’ ChauR 19 (1984), 62-86. A supplement to the allusion bibliographies of Spurgeon 404, Alderson 451, Bond 425, Bond et al. 429, Boys 439, and Bunn 314. MkT is mentioned in items 13 and 90; NPT in items 15, 24, and 90. [DS, BM] Kennedy, Richard F. ‘Another Chaucer Allusion.’ N&Q 229 (1984), 156. In his Discourse of the Felicitie of Man: or his Summum bonum (1598), Sir Richard Barckley refers to the ‘great feare’ occasioned by the fox chase in NPT in the context of a discussion of the sinfulness and misery of contemporary Popes who ‘roar and thunder and “put all Christendome many times in a great feare”.’ [BM] Mehl, Dieter. ‘Robert Henryson’s Moral Fables as Experiments in Didactive Narrative.’ In Functions of Literature: Essays Presented to Erwin Wolff on his Sixtieth Birthday. Ed. Ulrich Broich, Theo Stemmler and Gerd Stratmann. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1984. Pp 81–99. Also in Boitani and Torti 1029. Pp 131– 47. Henryson is concerned with the moral justification of storytelling and the didactic effectiveness of fiction. Chaucer does not feel the same urge to justify literature by ‘insisting on its moral purpose and wholesomeness - he leaves that to the Nun’s Priest’ (p 81). [BM] Schless, Howard H. Chaucer and Dante: A Revaluation. Norman, OK: Pilgrim, 1984. Chaucer omits Dante’s reference to Ugolino’s dream and cannibalism, but

Sources / 141

Chaucer expands his narrative in other ways, emphasizing the pathos. Guerin’s claim 486 that NPT VII.3198–3213 allude ironically to Paolo and Francesca is unconvincing: while it is true that they had been reading the Book of Lancelot, the reference to this book comes more likely from common knowledge. Hamm’s claim 342 that ‘heigh ymaginacioun’ (NPT VII.3217) is influenced by Dante’s two uses of the term ‘l’alta fantasia’ is more convincing, but it is odd that Chaucer did not use the more exact cognate ‘fantasye,’ a word which he uses on many occasions. The claim by J.P. Bethel, ‘The Influence of Dante on Chaucer’s Thought and Expression’ (Harvard dissertation, 1927), that the balancing of alternatives in NPT VII.2999 might be influenced by similar constructions in Dante, is rejected since the topic and its formulation are a commonplace of the period; and Bethel’s claim that the reference to Sinon (NPT VII.3228) derives from Dante is dismissed, since there are no convincing verbal parallels, and Chaucer could have obtained this information from many sources. See also Pratt 497 and Brody 989. . •Review by David Wallace, SAC 8 (1986), 245–9. Schless re-examines all suggestions of Chaucer’s indebtedness to Dante, acknowledging uncertainties associated with source studies. [BM, DS] 531 Morris, Lynn King. Chaucer Source and Analogue Criticism. A Cross-Referenced Guide. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 454. New York and London: Garland, 1985. MkT items are on pp 148–50; NPT items on pp 151–5. Further sections are indexed by authors of sources, by genre or by document, and by titles of sources. See also Bryan and Dempster 441. [DS, PG] 532 Peden, Alison. ‘Macrobius and Medieval Dream Literature.’ MÆ 54 (1985), 59–73. Macrobius’s theory of dreams was not studied extensively before the twelfth century or used in literary accounts of dreams. Although the discovery of more scientific Aristotelian studies of dreams in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries gave Macrobius’s theories a new lease of life, after the thirteenth century his influence waned. At no time, however, is there clear evidence of the influence of Macrobius’s work on literary dreams, not even, despite much critical commentary, on the RR. Chaucer’s references to Macrobius indicate some familiarity with him, but little can be deduced from these citations. Chaucer seems to have relied more heavily on other theorists, such as Robert Holcot, and NPT is rather to be seen as a ‘witty parody of contemporary Aristotelian ideas’ (p 69). [PG] 533 Thomas, Paul R. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Last Allusion: Romans 15: 4.’ Encyclia: Journal of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 62 (1985), 41–9. The reference to Romans 15: 4 in NPT VII.3440–3 provides a text for those seeking to justify the moral worth of the fable. Although often quoted out of

142 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

534

535

536

537

538

context, in context the meaning of the verse is clearly that scriptures were given to teach us. NPT VII.3444–6 function like the benediction to a sermon, drawing special attention to the ‘goode men’ (NPT VII.3440) who should perceive the moral to the tale. [PG] Wallace, David. Chaucer and the Early Writings of Boccaccio. Cambridge: Brewer, 1985. Chaucer’s adaptation of Dante’s Ugolino episode ‘moves our pitee’ (p 146). [DS] Kelly, H.A. ‘The Non-Tragedy of Arthur.’ In Kratzmann and Simpson 768. Pp 92–114. It is unlikely that Chaucer was familiar with any discussions of tragedy other than that in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (II.pr.2) and an accompanying gloss like the one found in Cambridge University Library MS Ii.3.21, which was given to the Library within a generation of Chaucer’s death. Boece includes a close translation of this gloss. [DS] Scragg, Leah. ‘Rosaline’s “Perttaunt Like”- A Possible Emendation.’ In KM80: A birthday album for Kenneth Muir, Tuesday, 5 May, 1987. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, nd [1987?]). Pp 129–30. The difficult and possibly corrupt ‘perttaunt like’ (Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, V. ii. 67) has been interpreted in many ways, but one possibility is that the first element may be some form of ‘Pertelot.’ Shakespeare used the name on two other occasions as well, using the relationship of the cock and hen more generally to suggest the dominance of the female over the male. [PG] Botterill, Steven. ‘Re-reading Lancelot: Dante, Chaucer, and Le Chevalier de la Charrette.’ PQ 67 (1988), 279–89. Detailed comparison of Dante’s account of Ugolino with that in MkT makes obvious the exemplary function of the latter. An edifying pathos is made textually overt in MkT through the foregrounding of the defenceless children and the presentation of Ugolino as victimized and overcome with grief. As pathetic protagonist, the Ugolino of MkT belongs in the tradition of the imprisoned Lancelot of Le Chevalier de la Charrette as depicted in Godefroi de Leigni’s addition to the unfinished work of Chrétien de Troyes. Where Chaucer’s Ugolino (like Lancelot) uses speech to express his grief and emerges as a victim of Fortune, Dante’s Ugolino is silent, depriving himself of relief and his children of consolation, and emerging as a victim of his own failure in humanity. [DS] Olmert, Michael. ‘An Eskimo Analogue to Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Motif: International Newsletter of Research in Folklore and Literature 6 (1988), 3. The tale of the raven and the marmot can be found in Edward W. Nelson, The

Sources / 143

539

540

541

542

Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (for 1896– 7), part 1, The Eskimo About Bering Strait, published in 1899. A raven, guarding a marmot’s hole, is tricked by him into dancing with his eyes shut, thus enabling the marmot to escape. [PG] Thomas, Paul R. ‘Cato on Chauntecleer: Chaucer’s Sophisticated Audience.’ Neophilologus 72 (1988), 278–83. Pertelote’s appeal to the ‘auctorite’ of Cato (NPT VII.2940–1) in rejecting the significance of Chauntecleer’s dream is itself overturned when the dream is literally fulfilled. However, in rejecting Cato out of hand, Chauntecleer ironically reveals his own ignorance: the whole distich, as distinct from the first three words, refers only to those dreams that are forms of wish-fulfillment. Furthermore, the kind of wisdom in Disticha Catonisis is exactly the kind suited to a cock in the everyday battle for survival. [PG] Boitani, Piero. The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Ch 2, pp 20–55, consists of a detailed comparison between the versions of the story of Ugolino in MkT and in Dante’s Inferno. Chaucer’s concept of tragedy as ‘fall’ is difficult for modern audiences to accept. MkT is a string of stories that go in various directions and do not strictly correspond to the definitions of tragedy given by the Monk. The Modern Instances are not really narratives; three of them ‘sound rather like epitaphs which merely record the death by treason of the three men’ (p 45). In his narrative of Ugolino, Chaucer removes the broad political and literary context from Dante’s story and there is little use of chiaroscuro in technique: ‘his presentation looks like a black and white film of scenes from a concentration camp’ (p 51). [PG] Hale, David G. ‘Another Latin Source for the Nun’s Priest on Dreams.’ N&Q 234 (1989), 10–1. Nicholas of Lyra’s Postilla litteralis, the most popular and influential commentary of the fourteenth century on the entire Bible, makes, in the commentary on Genesis, many of the same points about dreams as Chauntecleer and Pertelote. Nicholas’s avoidance of the kind of typological and moral allegorization of Joseph’s dreams found in earlier commentaries supports a cautious approach to the question of the tale’s allegorical status in general. [PG] Bestul, Thomas H. ‘Chaucer’s “Monk’s Tale”: Sources and Analogues in the Age of Computing.’ In Computer-Based Chaucer Studies. Ed. Ian Lancashire. Toronto: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto, 1993. Pp 177–87. Reviews the development of compilations of sources and analogues of CT from Furnivall’s Originals and Analogues of Some of Chaucer’s Canterbury

144 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Tales (1872–87), through Bryan and Dempster’s Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales 441, to the new version currently under preparation, edited by Robert Correale and Mary Hamel. Not only is the latest version pushing at the economic and printing limits of the traditional singlevolume codex, but it has been overtaken by technology and undermined by developments in critical theory, which seem to call in question the very premises upon which it is based, for example the concept of authorial intentionality and the distinction and hierarchising of text, source and analogue. There is, however, still a need for such a collection - we can only understand a work’s complex intertextuality if we have ready access to those texts themselves - but any new collection of sources and analogues should be computerized, preferably in a hypertext environment, integrated with some future version of the electronic version of the Riverside Chaucer 184, and with Internet access. [PG] 543 Kelly, Kathleen Ann. ‘An Inspiration for Chaucer’s Description of Chauntecleer.’ ELN 30:3 (1993), 1–6. Bestiarists are usually more interested in the cock’s allegorical significance than its physical appearance, nor is there a physical description of it in the medieval analogues of NPT. The description of the phoenix, on the other hand, especially the one in Mandeville’s Travels, could have provided Chaucer with many of the details. Particular points of resemblance include the prominence of the colours red, blue and yellow, and the reference to both birds ‘shining.’ The allusion reinforces the mock-heroic mode of the tale, and there may be a parallel between Chauntecleer’s escape from the jaws of death and the rebirth of the phoenix. [PG] 543a Wallace, David. ‘Dante in English.’ In The Cambridge Companion to Dante. Ed. Rachel Jacoff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. 237–58. The Ugolino episode in Inferno 33 has been translated into English more than any other passage in Dante. Chaucer’s version is not a translation, however, but a radical recontextualisation, and ‘the dominant emotional register is pathos, rather than terror or is Chaucer’s stylistic model rather than Dante’s vernacular poetry. The story of Hugelyn is Chaucer’s ‘attempt to introduce the new Italian humanistic format to an English audience’ (p 238). [PG] 544 DiMarco, Vincent. ‘Nero’s Nets and Seneca’s Veins: A New Source for the Monk’s Tale?’ ChauR 28 (1994), 384–92. Although it is generally accepted that much of the portrait of Nero is dependent on RR, there is no consensus about the source of the second stanza of Chaucer’s vignette. The precise details of Nero’s extravagant habits and fishing with golden nets, in the order in which Chaucer has them, are found, however, in the Alphabetum narrationum, an unedited text of the early fourteenth century. The same text is also a better source for the details surrounding Seneca’s death. [PG]

Sources / 145

Johnson, James D. ‘Identifying Chaucer Allusions, 1981–90: An Annotated Bibliography.’ ChauR 29 (1994), 194–203. A supplement to other allusion bibliographies and especially to Bond 527. Item 17 mentions MkT; Items 14, 18, 22, and 25 mention NPT. [PG] 546 Boswell, Jackson Campbell, and Sylvia Wallace Holton. ‘References to the Canterbury Tales.’ ChauR 29 (1995), 311–36. A list of references to characters in CT, in books published during the period covered by the Short-Title Catalogue, 1475–1640, and not noted previously. There are four references to Chauntecleer and Pertelote and two to the Monk of GP, although none to MkT itself. [PG] 547 Fulwiler, Lavon. ‘Babe: A Twentieth-Century Nun’s Priest’s Tale?.’ Conference of College Teachers of English Studies. Denton, TX. 60 (1996), 93–101. Babe, one of the most popular films of 1995, can be compared productively with NPT in terms of structure, setting, characterization, symbolism, and moral meaning. In both texts, an outer story of human beings frames an inner story involving animals, although there is much less interaction between the two worlds in NPT than in Babe. Careful attention to the details of the animal breeds is the basis of their realistic portrayal in both texts. There is a welldeveloped allegorical tradition in which the cock is a symbol of Christ, but Babe’s very name also recalls the babe in the manger in Bethlehem. [PG] 547a Spillenger, Paul. ‘”Oure flesch thou yat us”: Langour and Chaucer’s Consumption of Dante in Hugelyn.’ Chaucer Yearbook 3 (1996), 103–28. The story of Ugolino has most to do, not with Fortune, but with ‘textual cannibalism’ (p 106), with Chaucer’s uneasiness about cannibalizing the continental literary tradition in the absence of English models. The immediate use of the word ‘Erl’ (VII.2407) of Hugelyn frames the Italian story with an aggressive Englishness. No explanation of Chaucer’s use of ‘languor’ (VII.2407) to describe Hegelyn’s predicament is completely satisfying. Langour is very much the property of male courtly lovers in Chaucer as well as in European literature generally. The word is most often used to denote the effects of unrequited sexual desire; love is seen as coming from without, and the male lover is the helpless victim of Fortune. Boece shows also that Chaucer associates languor with the debilitating effects of reliance on Fortune. But Fortune is also a woman, and her fickleness echoes features of the traditional courtly lady. The character Boethius is in effect in love with Fortune. In Boethius, languor is a sickness of the body worthy to be pitied, the word used by Dante. But, while Dante may have felt compassion for Ugolino’s children, he was in no doubt of the justice of Ugolino’s placement in Hell. Chaucer’s use of languor, however, ‘suggests his awareness of a more Boethian perspective as an alternative to the Dantean “guistizia” that he had recently discovered in his reading of the Inferno (p 199). It is inconceivable 545

146 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

that Chaucer was not thinking of the Inferno when composing the story of Hugelyn. Hugelyn does not see his life in context: ‘viewed in these terms, the pathos of Hugelyn, his essential passivity, is what accounts for the word ‘langour’ at the end of the first line’ (p 121). Chaucer found in Dante’s text a ‘simulacrum of his own acts of poetic appropriation’ (p 123). In Dante’s poem, Ugolino is at first gnawing on the physical skull of another, but his speech recalls a textual cannibalism in its references to Virgil’s own poetry. [PG] 548 Taylor, Paul B. ‘L’Histoire de Néron par le “Grant Tranlateur, Noble Geoffrey Chaucier”.’ In Le Moyen Age dans la Modernité. Mélanges offerts à Roger Dragonetti. Ed. Jean R. Scheidegger, Sabine Girardet, and Eric Hicks. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1996. Pp 427–42. Chaucer’s sources for the story of Nero in MkT are Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum, book VII, and Jean de Meun, RR 6184–6488. Jean leaves out the details of Nero fishing in the Tiber and the opulent lifestyle of the Emperor, which are crucial in Chaucer. In Jean’s version, Nero forces Seneca to suicide because he is ashamed to revere the man who has been his master since childhood. Chaucer could have drawn the details of Nero’s fastidious dress from Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, book III, meter 4. The story of Nero follows Zenobia and Ugolino and precedes Holofernes; all four stories illustrate the collapse of a dynasty, possibly a warning to Richard II (the last Plantagenet monarch) of the abuses of power. [PG] 548a Houwen, L.A.J.R. ‘Flattery and the Mermaid in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ In Animals and the Symbolic in Medieval Art and Literature. Ed. L.A.J.R. Houwen. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1997. Pp 77–92. The main sources of the fable of the cock and the fox do not account for the reference to the mermaid in NPT. Physiologus is not the only text to mention the mermaid’s song; it appears in bestiaries, in twelfth and thirteenth century encyclopedias, in fourteenth century compendia of moralized lore, and in many collections of homilies and didactic treatises. The primary symbolism of the mermaid’s song is not concupiscence but flattery. Flattery was commonly associated with mermaids, especially in moral-didactic literature of the later Middle Ages, for example in Hoccleve’s La male regle. The most interesting example of the connection between pride, flattery, and the mermaid appears in Guillaume de Deguileville’s Le pèlerinage de la vie humaine. [PG] 548b Taylor, Paul Beekman. Chaucer Translator. London, New York, Oxford: University Press of America, 1998. Although Chaucer clearly has an eye on Rome for the story of Nero in MkT, Jean de Meun does not include fishing in the Tiber or the emperor’s opulent array as details. Chaucer may never have read the principal source that is cited by Jean, Suetonius’s De vita Caesarum, book VI, chapter 7. Chaucer, like Jean, drew also on the Scholastic commentary tradition of Boethius,

Sources / 147

which attributed Nero’s fall to worldly vanity. Wheras both Boethius and Jean suggest that Nero’s fall is the result of a turn of the wheel of fickle Fortune, Chaucer makes Nero solely responsible for his own misfortune. [PG] 548c Thomas, Paul R. ‘Chaucer Transforming his Source: from Chantecler and Pinte to Chauntecleer and Pertelote.’ Journal of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters 75 (1998), 82–90. Despite his devotion to auctorites, Chaucer made many changes to the fable that underlies the the plot of NPT and transformed the main characters. The Chantecler of Le Roman de Renart is a self-satisfied country squire rather than a knight, and he loves Pinte for her smartness rather than her beauty. Nowhere in Branch IIIa of the source story does Chantecler make love to Pinte. The dreams in the two versions are different, and Pertelote interprets the dream correctly, unlike Pinte. Chauntecleer is also correct in concluding that his dream will bring him ‘adversitee’ (VII.3151–3). [PG] 548d Cooper, Helen. ‘The Four Last Things in Dante and Chaucer: Ugolino in the House of Rumour.’ New Medieval Literatures 3 (1999), 39–66. Although Dante’s Commedia acquired instant fame in Italy, it remained little known outside for more than a century. Chaucer is the one great exception to the wider European lack of response to Dante’s great poem. All Chaucer’s mature poetry is in some measure a response to Dante. But, although Chaucer regarded Dante as a giant among dwarves, he believed that his views were wrong, especially on the eschatological issues of death, judgment, hell and heaven. Some of these differences in religious thinking coincide with trends of thought in Lollardy. In particular, Chaucer does not accept Dante’s claim about privileged access to the afterlife, and Chaucer consistently refuses to speculate about the destination of the souls of the dead. Chaucer borrows both words and longer passages from Dante’s Commedia, and the longer borrowings are ‘less innocent’ (p 48), often refiguring ‘the definitive and the eternal as the relative and temporal, the univocal as the explicitly ambiguous’ (p 49). The contrast between Dante’s Ugolino and the version of the story of Hugelyn in MkT could hardly be greater, and Chaucer’s reaction to Dante’s story is ‘part fascination, part utter rejection’ (p 51). Chaucer’s story is one of undeserved, rather than deserved, fall, and of the operation of blind fortune. Chaucer transforms the story from Hell to this world, and Chaucer refuses to invent for Hugelyn an ultimate destination beyond the grave. [PG] 548e Boenig, Robert. ‘Chaucer and St. Kenelm.’ Neophilologus 84 (2000), 157–64. Saints are mentioned constantly in CT. St. Kenelm had a dream that prophesied his own murder, but other details not mentioned directly by Chaucer inform the tale and provide also a close analogue to PrT. Kenelm was initially poisoned, comically recalling Pertelote’s prescription of violent laxatives such as hellebore, but the most striking connection is Kenelm’s dream about climb-

148 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

548f

ing a tree and his transformation into a bird. The story reinforces the satirical relationship between NPT and PrT and their two narrators. Kenelm also had his throat cut; his body was hidden in a pit and its whereabouts revealed by a miracle. [PG] Pinti, Daniel. ‘The Comedy of the Monk’s Tale: Chaucer’s Hugelyn and Early Commentary on Dante’s Ugolino.’ Comparative Literatrue Studies 37 (2000), 277–97. Although no fewer than eight commentaries on Dante’s Comedy appeared between Dante’s death and the birth of Chaucer sometime in the early 1340s, it is commonly assumed that Chaucer read Dante in an unmediated way. The study of the relationship between the two poets would profit by greater account being taken of the interpretive environment in which Dante’s poem was read and reproduced. This will also help avoid a simplistic polarization between the ‘closed’ and dominating Dante and an open, ironical Chaucer. Trecento commentators did not take Dante’s auctoritas for granted, but were actively engaged in constructing it: ‘Chaucer, a fourteenth-century, learned reader of Dante, may have read the Ugolino story and rewritten it into his own poem as a commentary on the construction of poetic authority’ (p 278). What Chaucer saw implied in the Ugolino story was made explicit in the commentary tradition was the way in which a vernacular poet’s rise to the status of author was dependent upon commentators. The story of Hugelyn suggests that there is no historical or textual stability to be found in the past, and in the commentaries on Dante ‘Chaucer would have found texts that . . . figured in their own intertextuality the subverted binarism of father and children, poem and gloss’ (p 290). [PG]

bThe Narrators of the Tales Considered as Characters Kittredge 604 first drew attention to the important relationship between narrator and tale, work extended by Lumiansky 561 and many others, but subjected to increasing criticism in recent years, for example by Owen 641 and Lawton 589. The relationship between the Monk and the Nun’s Priest as characters and narrators, and by extension between their respective tales, was a feature of the dramatic reading of CT from its beginnings. One of the most venerable issues of narrative technique is the relationship between the Nun’s Priest as narrator and his tale. Studies that read NPT in terms of the Nun’s Priest’s relationship with the Monk or Prioress include Hulbert 557; Malone 559; Lumiansky 560, 561 and 568; Broes 563; Hatton 640; Delasanta 570; and Watkins 573. More skeptical notes were struck from the 1960s: by Harrington 566, Lawlor 914, and especially by Lawton 589. In Watkins’s view 573 the Nun’s Priest is an unreliable narrator; Oerlemans 595 disputes the prevailing view that the Nun’s Priest is a supremely gifted narrator; for Pearsall 689, the tale is misread if spoken by any voice other than the ‘maturest and wittiest voice of the poet himself.’ The status of the endlink, which offers most of the physical portraiture of the Nun’s Priest, is particularly important, and is discussed in Pearcy 571 and Pearsall 180 and 1002. 549 Kittredge, George Lyman. ‘Chaucer’s Discussion of Marriage.’ MP 9 (1912), 435–67. Rpt in Wagenknecht 865. Rpt (with note on subsequent discussion) in Schoeck 627, 1:130–59. Excerpts in Brewer 664. Pp 306–28. Although this article does not discuss NPT in its argument for marriage as an informing idea in CT, it became, along with Kittredge 604, the basis for later discussions which sought to draw NPT into the ‘marriage-group’ or ‘marriage-debate’ - sometimes, as in Kenyon 606, Lawrence 781 and Moore 259, arguing for a different order for the Tales - as well as for readings which dramatized the ‘character’ of the Nun’s Priest. Pearsall’s identification 180, p 39, of Kittredge as the ‘first and greatest exponent of the “dramatic principle”’ in CT seems supported by the fact that what was noteworthy to Koch in his review, ESt 46 (1912), 114, was not the marriage topic but Kittredge’s vision of a human comedy in which the pilgrims are the dramatis personae, and the interest that lies not in the tales themselves but in their characterization of the tellers and their contribution to the developing relationships between the pilgrims. [JS]

150 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

550 Meyer, Emil. Die Charakterzeichnung bei Chaucer. Studien zur englischen Philologie 48. Halle: Niemeyer, 1913. The depiction of the Nun’s Priest reflects the anti-clericalism of Chaucer’s age, but is also typically Chaucerian in that humour acts as an insurance against bitterness. The GP portraits often keep something in reserve for revelation during the character’s narrative performance. Pertelote, in her admirable wifeliness, is an alleviating contrast to the characters of Alison and May, although nagging is an aspect of her solicitude. The poor widow is an idealized character, a counterpart morally to the Parson, socially to the Plowman. Koch 783 criticizes Meyer for treating the characters in loose social and moral terms and confusing the pilgrims with the characters within the tales. [JS] 551 Manly, J.M Some New Light on Chaucer. Lectures delivered at the Lowell Institute. New York: Holt, 1925. Rpt Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1959. At least some of the pilgrims were real persons, with whom Chaucer can be shown to have had definite personal contact. Possibly the Monk of the GP was ‘drawn from a living model’ (p 262), and was altered because he was ‘too real’ and his monastery could be guessed. ‘It was perhaps when he conceived the [Nun’s] Priest . . . that Chaucer felt obliged to change his original conception of the Monk and transform him from the splendid worldly scorner of labor and books whom we know in the Prologue to the sad-faced pedant with a hundred tragedies in his cell who greets our astonished ears when the Host calls upon him to tell his tale’ (pp 221–2). The Prioress belonged to the Benedictine nunnery of St. Leonard’s, Bromley, in Middlesex. The confessor at this small convent was the local parish priest, so there is no possibility that there were three priests attached to it: further proof of the inauthenticity of ‘and preestes thre’ (GP I.164). [BM, RW] 552 Tatlock, John S.P. ‘The Date of the Troilus: and Minor Chauceriana.’ MLN 50 (1935), 277–96. Though tales sometimes do not perfectly complement tellers, MerT cannot have originally been meant for the Monk. [RW] 553 Bressie, Ramona. ‘“A Governour Wily and Wys”.’ MLN 54 (1939), 477–90. William de Cloune, Abbot of Leicester (1345–78), was, like Chaucer’s GP Monk who ‘heeld after the newe world’ (I.176), a hunter, and he also entertained royal guests including Peter of Cyprus. Cloune’s successor, Philip de Repindon, the most distinguished Leicester monk of the newer era after Edward’s death which reverted to ‘olde thynges’ (I.175), was more like the ‘intellectual, conventional, irreproachable Monk’ (p 489) of MkP and NPP. [RW] 554 Tatlock, John S.P. ‘Chaucer’s Monk.’ MLN 55 (1940), 350–4.

Narrators / 151

555

556

557

558

559

Chaucer’s pilgrims are ‘vivid types,’ combining medieval fondness for general truths with Chaucer’s own instinct for the concrete. Tatlock argues against identification with a particular individual in the case of the Monk pace Bressie 553. He proposes a connection with the Benedictine abbey of Westminster, from the statement that the Monk may tell the life of St Edward, who refounded the Abbey and whose shrine is venerated behind the high altar. MkP, pace Manly 551, pp 222, 261–2, is consistent with the vivid Monk of GP. [PG] Kuhl, E.P. ‘Chaucer’s Monk.’ MLN 55 (1940), 480–1. The difference between a canon and a monk in the late Middle Ages was so slight as to result in frequent confusion. Kuhl expands Tatlock’s 554 association of Monk with St Edward, pointing to his importance in the fourteenth century, especially during the reign of Richard II. [PG] Stevenson, David Lloyd. The Love-Game Comedy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1946. The Host makes the same sort of remarks to the Nun’s Priest in the endlink as he does to the Monk, indicating a ‘lighthearted, amused skepticism toward a man who professes virginity’ (p 53). [JG] Hulbert, J.R. ‘The Canterbury Tales and their Narrators.’ Studies in Philology 45 (1948), 565–77. Stories are made appropriate in two main ways: by assigning to the narrators tales which suit their social class; and by the use of links. Although general suitability has been recognized for hundreds of years, it was Kittredge who emphasized a dramatic relationship between the tales and their tellers: ‘each [tale] is addressed to all the other personages, and evokes reply and comment, being thus, in a real sense, a part of the conversation’ (p 566). Had Chaucer lived to complete CT, he would have provided links to all the tales and sketches at least of the Second Nun and the Nun’s Priest. NPT was written for the pilgrim who tells it: on the basis of VII.3260–6, NPT is appropriate to a priest, specifically one attached to a nunnery. See also Hinckley 395. [JG] Sherbo, Arthur. ‘Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest Again.’ PMLA 44 (1949), 236–46. Disagrees with Manly 551 that the Nun’s Priest was a parish priest and disagrees with his rejection of ‘prestes thre’ (GP I.164). Considers whether the Prioress was from Stratford, near Barking Abbey, and proposes that the Nun’s Priest is one of those priests who acted in the dual role of bodyguard and attendant. The phrase in the endlink, ‘as thou hast myght’ (endlink VII.3452), suggests physical virility and prowess. [JG] Malone, Kemp. Chapters on Chaucer. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1951. Rpt 1961. Chaucer has the Knight break off MkT because of its dramatic effect: polite-

152 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

ness is not expected of the Host, and the Knight’s rudeness makes a great impact. The Knight’s views are the expression of the general unsophisticated public toward literary art. The worldly Monk of GP is a different character from the bookish narrator of MkT. The Prioress’s retinue is a kind of household group, needed because a person of her importance and sex could hardly travel alone. It can be deduced from NPP that the Nun’s Priest is poor in wealth, but sweet-spirited in temperament. NPT is so very ‘Chaucerian’ ‘that one is inclined to call the priest Chaucer’s deputy and let it go at that’ (p 232). Malone does not read the endlink ironically; we learn more about the priest’s physique than his character from it. [PG, JG] 560 Lumiansky, R.M. ‘The Nun’s Priest in the Canterbury Tales.’ PMLA 48 (1953), 896–906. In the absence of a GP portrait, any view of the character of the Nun’s Priest must be based on NPP VII.2810–15, VII.2816–17; on the Narrator’s brief remark about him (VII.2818–20); endlink VII.3447–60; and on the superb tale he relates to the company. On these grounds, the Nun’s Priest is ‘most convincingly visualized as an individual who is scrawny, humble, and timid, while at the same time highly intelligent, well educated, shrewd, and witty’ (p 897). The host’s remarks in the endlink are broadly ironic. The host’s lines are disrespectful and he looks down on the Nun’s Priest because he is under the supervision of a woman. The antifeminist aspects of the tale are the Priest’s way of hinting his dissatisfaction with the ‘petticoat’ rule of the Prioress. NPT is directed also at the Monk’s sententiousness and pomposity. See also Sherbo 558, Hamilton 432, and Dempster 842. [JG] 561 ––. Of Sondry Folk: the Dramatic Principle in the Canterbury Tales. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1955. The Monk has a sensuous love of luxury, but in his non-asceticism he was merely like many contemporary worldly monks, and the narrator’s remark, ‘And I seyde his opinion was good’ (GP I.183), need not be read as direct satire. The Monk resembles Don John of ShT in some respects. The attitude of the Host to the Monk varies between deference and mocking over-familiarity. MkT is completely uninspired and functions as revenge upon the Host for his taking of liberties. Like the tales of the Miller and Reeve, NPT has a simple appropriateness of tale to teller, and an externally motivated dramatic situation.’ . •Review by Basil Cottle, JEGP 55 (1956), 292–3. Thurgood’s ‘big untidy thumbnail sketches’ reveal ignorance of both medieval architecture and costume. [PG, JG] 562 Kaske, R.E. ‘The Knight’s Interruption of the Monk’s Tale.’ ELH 24 (1957), 249–68. The Monk and the Knight are closely paralleled and contrasted: as ‘arche-

Narrators / 153

types’; in austerity vs luxury; in achievement vs its lack; in mannerly reserve vs brusqueness. On a more general level, the two represent ideals of monasticism and chivalry, but whereas the knightly ideal is fulfilled, the monastic is not. Other contrasts include the active vs the contemplative life and the church vs secular feudalism. The openings of the portraits in GP contain verbal echoes especially between the Knight riding out to war and the Monk riding out to hunting. The Knight’s loyalty to his ideal is contrasted with the Monk’s outspoken rebellion. The Monk’s array contrasts with the Knight’s battle-stained clothing. Overall, the description of the Monk is a ‘parody’ of the description of the Knight. The Knight’s interruption confronts this pseudo-knight. But, in a comic way, each displays a literary taste seemingly at odds with character: the softliving Monk produces a de casibus tragedy; the austere Knight apparently pleads for ‘escape literature.’ Of all the tales, the Knight’s and the Monk’s are the most Boethian, but whereas MkT is a ‘philosophically inadequate representation of “evil” fortune . . . the Knight’s Tale . . . is a philosophically true representation of good fortune apparently evil.’ The Monk distinguishes only between material prosperity and adversity and never between the moral qualities of the people affected by Fortune. He ignores Boethius’s central point that Fortune, however bad things may look, acts always ultimately for the best. In contrast, KnT emphasizes the ‘meaningful place of Fortune in God’s ordered scheme.’ [PG] 563 Broes, Arthur T. ‘Chaucer’s Disgruntled Cleric: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ PMLA 78 (1963), 156–62. NPT has unity only insofar as ‘every element in the story bears some relation to the Priest’s implicit aim . . . to discredit the Prioress and establish his own intellectual and moral superiority’ (p 157). Chauntecleer is more admirable in NPT than in its sources because he is the animal counterpart of the Priest, through which he can criticize women and enjoy a dominance over them that he has been unable to achieve in his own life. The Prioress is satirized through Pertelote; the virtuously frugal widow is a reproof to her; and her mawkish tale is parodied by Chauntecleer’s story of the murdered man whose body is buried beneath a dung heap [sic]. The learned digressions demonstrate the Nun’s Priest’s intellectual superiority to the Prioress. See also Donaldson 121, Harrington 566, Lumiansky 561, Root 393, and Sherbo 558. [JS] 564 Lenaghan, R.T. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Fable.’ PMLA 78 (1963), 300–7. The Nun’s Priest has neatly met the demands of both Host and Knight with his hybrid genre: the merry tragedy. The hybridization, which explains critical uneasiness over whether the tale is game or earnest, involves two different voices for two kinds of fable. The voice of the rethor is heard in the beginner’s composition exercise of embellishing a fable as a short moral tale, usually

154 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

565

566

567

568

with animal characters. The inappropriateness of the elaborate rhetoric provides the basic irony of NPT, but our amusement is directed at the complacent follies of Chauntecleer and of the rethor, who is a caricature created by the Nun’s Priest. The latter’s proper voice remains one of ‘uncompromised intelligence’ (p 306) as he shows himself a sophisticated fabulist, who ironically invites us to consider alternatives to the rethor’s simple moral about the perils of flattery. See also Manning 868. [JS] Brown, Joella Owens. ‘Chaucer’s Daun Piers: One Monk or Two.’ Crit 6 (1964), 44–52. A refutation of the alleged inconsistency between the jovial monk of GP and what Manly 551 called the ‘sad-faced pedant’ of Fragment VII. Although MkT attempts to present a new and more monkish picture of its narrator, bookish, moralistic, and pious, there are, even within the MkT, plenty of echoes of the pilgrim narrator’s likes: three of the tragic heroes are hunters; there is frequent mention of eating and drinking. [PG] Harrington, David V. ‘The Undramatic Character of Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest.’ Discourse 8 (1965), 80–9. A review of discussions of the dramatic relationship between the Nun’s Priest and his tale, concentrating especially on Lumiansky 560, 561 and Broes 563. Characterizations of the Nun’s Priest operate from very scanty material in GP and the possibly spurious endlink; and even this provides contrary views, with critics like Lumiansky insisting that the Host’s words are sarcastic. The anti-feminism of NPT VII.3256–66 is part of a general pattern of teasing and ironic satire on a range of topics, including courtliness and pedantry; such material is addressed to the reader rather than to the pilgrims and is ‘much less significant for characterizing a particular priest than it is for revealing Chaucer’s general concerns’ (p 87). [JS] Ridley, Florence H. The Prioress and the Critics. University of California English Studies 30. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965. Chaucer’s presentation of the Prioress is only ‘mildly satiric’ (p 23). Like Broes 563 or Lumiansky 561, Ridley is ‘inclined to believe that Chaucer’s attitude toward Madame Eglentine was much the same as that of the Nun’s Priest’ (p 35). However, while she agrees with such critics that the intelligent, widely read, witty cleric resents the dominance of a simple-minded, poorly educated, humourless woman and mocks her in his tale, both through the presentation of the widow (p 153n) and by parodying elements of her tale, Ridley reads the tone very differently: ‘he mocks her gently in ways that she probably did not understand’ (p 34). See also Hawkins 881. [JS] Lumiansky, R.M. ‘Two Notes on the “Canterbury Tales”.’ In Studies in Language and Literature in Honour of Margaret Schlauch. Ed. Mieczyslaw

Narrators / 155

Brahmer, Stanislaw Helsztynski and Julian Krzyzanowski. Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1966; New York: Russell & Russell, 1971. Pp 227– 32. Chaucer’s treatment of diet may provide a clue to his literary intentions. The description of the widow’s diet (NPT VII.2833–45) suggests that ‘the undernourished Nun’s Priest, in his usual indirect fashion, is slyly delivering a dietary lecture to . . . his well-fed fellow churchman, the Monk’ (pp 229–30). Chaucer sharply contrasts the personal traits of the story-tellers. The comment on worldly misfortune (NPT VII.3205–9) satirizes the Monk’s dull sententiousness. Lumiansky re-asserts his views in 561 that the Host’s description of the Nun’s Priest is sarcastic and that the tale is anti-feminist. [JS] 569 Strange, William G. ‘The Monk’s Tale: A Generous View.’ ChauR 1 (1967–8), 167–80. MkT reveals the psychology of the narrator. Its tragedies fall into five groups, which interact dramatically and dialectically to disclose the doubts which occupy the Monk’s mind about the relationship between his own pursuit of worldly pleasures and God’s justice. A comparison of the groups shows that the Monk is confused, and vacillates between the Christian idea of Fortune, as the agent of a just God to punish transgressors, and the arbitrary goddess Fortuna, who destroys the innocent by chance. The dissonant presence of both in the final tragedy of Croesus evidences the Monk’s failure to solve the dilemma, and as such constitutes a fitting ending for the Tale. The Knight’s interruption is prompted by the questioning of the world’s order and justice which his own Tale had asserted, whereas Harry Bailly remains ignorant of the issues at stake. By translating the tragic vision of MkT into beast fable, NPT succeeds in bringing out the presumption which renders mankind susceptible to the operation of Fortune. NPT offers a model of how to avoid the power of Fortune in the person of the poor, happy, and unpresuming widow. ‘Her portrait begins [NPT]; her intervention makes it possible for Chauntecleer to save himself at its close’ (p 179). See Delasanta 570, Fry 742, Jones 753, and Pace 738. [JAS, JS] 570 Delasanta, Rodney K. ‘“Namoore of this”: Chaucer’s Priest and Monk.’ TSL 13 (1968), 117–32. NPT shows the personal antagonism felt by the Nun’s Priest towards the Monk, who represents the antithesis of the Nun’s Priest’s personality and career within the Church. Instead of a learned Benedictine, the Monk reveals himself to be ignorant of both philosophy and theology. By contrast, the Nun’s Priest, who might not be expected to be a learned man, dramatizes the operation of Divine Providence in the world and the possibility of free will operating within that mystery, thus offering both an exposition of the Monk’s errors and an orthodox solution. NPT shows up the inadequacy of the Monk’s

156 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

simplistic and heretical view of Fortune. This ‘denied not only Providence and Divine foreknowledge but also the possibility of man’s freedom functioning within the Divine plan’ (p 126), whereas NPT carefully distinguishes between the dream as signification and the exercise of free will by which Chauntecleer saves himself. The Nun’s Priest mocks the Monk by deliberate re-creation of his own confusions, for example the ‘the bumping together of fate, fortune, and predestination’ (p 129) in VII.2984–3000. See also Watson 634, Hemingway 605. [JAS, JS] 571 Pearcy, Roy J. ‘The Epilogue to The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ N&Q 213 (1968), 435. Disputes the opinions of Robinson 116 and Manly and Rickert 97 that Chaucer meant to cancel the NPT endlink. Readings which take the Host’s physical description of the Nun’s Priest as sarcastic, eg Lumiansky 561, or explain away his role as father-confessor to the Prioress’s convent, e.g., Sherbo 558, are rejected. The endlink is less about the Nun’s Priest than about the dramatic characterization of the Host, who reveals ‘his combination of bourgeois prejudice with a taste for obscenity’ by drawing, not on exegetical traditions, but on vulgar popular jokes associating convent priests with the cock of a barnyard. [JS] 572 Garbáty, Thomas Jay. ‘The Monk and the Merchant’s Tale: an Aspect of Chaucer’s Building Process in the Canterbury Tales.’ MP 67 (1969), 18–24. Defends and elaborates Manly’s thesis that the Monk was the original teller of MerT. The GP portrait is filled with double entendre portraying the Monk as an amorous man, and this is confirmed by the words of Harry Bailly in MkP (which are taken as evidence that the pilgrims in general are aware of the Monk’s nature). MerT rounds out the Monk’s portrait textually as the GP had already described him physically. MkP VII.1889–1964 originally followed the ClT, and fit much better there than following Mel. The Monk’s story of January and May is a response to the ShT, at that point allotted to the Wife of Bath. The shift is caused by the reallocation of the ShT and by an extension of the Prioress-Monk parallel to assign both of them a didactic moral tale; the tragedies are more in keeping with the traditional idea of the Monk. [JAS] 573 Watkins, Charles A. ‘Chaucer’s Sweete Preest.’ ELH 36 (1969), 455–69. The Host’s description of the Nun’s Priest in the endlink is to be taken literally as ‘accurate, if vulgar, praise’ (p 458), but is dramatically ironic because the physiognomy of a ‘sperhauk’ (endlink VII.3457) indicates the Nun’s Priest’s capacity to make satirical prey of the Host himself. Other physical details indicate ‘a healthy and handsome young cleric, of temperate disposition’ (p 459). Far from identifying with Chauntecleer (see Broes 563), the Nun’s Priest identifies with the frugality and patience of the widow, while Chauntecleer is their moral and physical antithesis, at least until he is ‘repentant and trans-

Narrators / 157

574

575

576

577

formed’ (p 461). NPT is ‘an incitement to confession, contrition and satisfaction’ although the Nun’s Priest, being sanguine, ‘mixes sentence and solace with an irony, wit, and even-tempered sophistication worthy of Chaucer himself’ (pp 468–9). One sign of this sophistication is his establishment of himself as an ‘unreliable narrator’ distanced from his tale, but distancing fails in his disavowal of misogyny and in his determination to counteract MkT’s tragedies by an exemplum which will confirm his position on the side of human responsibility in the debate about free will and necessity. [JS] Woo, Constance, and William Matthews. ‘The Spiritual Purpose of the Canterbury Tales.’ Comitatus 1 (1970), 85–109. The Host’s remarks in the endlink (VII.3450–1) suggest that the Nun’s Priest’s inclinations towards lechery were restrained only by his being in holy orders. [GC] Berndt, David E. ‘Monastic Acedia and Chaucer’s Characterization of Daun Piers.’ SP 68 (1971), 435–50. The apparently different presentations of the Monk in GP and in his Tale can be reconciled if his behaviour is evaluated in terms of the psychological insights found in traditional analyses of the monastic vice of acedia. A link is thus made between his impatience with monastic rules; the gloominess and propensity to idle chatter he exhibits in MkP; and the spiritual aridity and inordinate interest in material goods he reveals in the Tale, since the transience of material goods emphasizes that there can be no relief for the despair of a man whose worldliness has separated him from salvation. See also Braddy 727 and 736, Spencer 435. [JAS] Sequeira, Isaac. ‘Clerical Satire in the Portrait of the Monk and the Prologue to The Monk’s Tale.’ In Literary Studies in Honour of Dr. A. Sivaramasubramonia. Ed. K.P.K. Menon, et al. Trivandrum, India: St Joseph’s Press, 1973. Pp 34–43. Chaucer’s satire works through a tension between the sacred office and the actual person of the Monk, who is shown to breach monastic rules in seven ways. His worldliness and faults, as evidenced from GP, offer support for the sexual assumptions Harry Bailly makes in the MkP. The tales are deliberately dull, since the Monk wishes to punish Harry with boredom. See also Bressie 553, Kaske 562, Tatlock 554. [JAS] Engelhardt, George J. ‘The Ecclesiastical Pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales.’ MS 37 (1975), 287–315. The Monk could be motivated by the canonical precept that monks should not preach but should lament the misery of the human condition, but MkT is really trying to exculpate his own betrayal of the values of the monastic life. There is a binary classification of the pilgrims into ‘homines spirituales and homines animales - those perfect . . . and those defective in ethos’ (p 287).

158 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

‘The interplay of Chanticleer and Pertelote incorporates that medieval tropology by which man symbolizes the reason or the spirit, woman the passions or the flesh, man giving his name to virtue or fortitude, woman yielding hers to infirmity or frailty. The Priest exploits this tropology, which associates the homo animalis with woman and the homo spiritualis with man’ (p 297). NPT contains a veiled warning to the Prioress against the misleading influence of the Second Nun: there has been a substitution whereby ‘Chanticleer does not represent the narrator Priest. This royal fowl stands rather for the Prioress’ (p 297) and Pertelote for the Second Nun. [CW, PG] 578 McGinnis, Wayne D. ‘The Dramatic Fitness of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ CEA Critic 37 (1975), 24–6. The context of NPT governs its subject matter. The Nun’s Priest is moved not only to burlesque the Monk’s tragedies but also to have a dig at the Prioress. There is a parallel between the murdered man in the dung cart and the murder of the Christian child in PrT, and a verbal echo in the observation in both tales that “murder will out.” NPT alludes playfully to the Prioress’s love of animals and her taste for seriousness and ‘curteisie.’ In the Nun’s Priest’s deferential ‘I kan noon harm of no womman divyne’ (NPT VII.3266) there is a reminder that he is dependent on the Prioress and therefore hardly desirous of being coarsely offensive to her. [CW] 579 Zacher, Christian K. Curiosity and Pilgrimage. The Literature of Discovery in Fourteenth-Century England. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. The book analyzes medieval literature in terms of various patristic sins, although it does not pay much attention to allegory. MkT is one of a group concerned with how to tell tales and whether to tell them; the artistic issue is raised in order to unfold the moral one. The Monk is represented as an undisciplined figure afflicted with monastic instabilitas and resultant verbosity. There is an aesthetic and moral propriety in his double failure to tell a tale well and to abide by the rules of his order. . •Review by M.C. Seymour, RES n.s. 29 (1978), 79–81. ‘A lively statement of an interesting idea’ (p 81). •Review by Kurt Olsson, MP 77 (1979–80), 196–200. The use of the term curiositas is the ‘most vexing term in this inquiry’ (p 196). The book is at its best when discussing CT, and provides convincing evidence that the vice of curiositas exists in pilgrims like the Monk. [JAS, PG] 580 Lumiansky, R.M. ‘Chaucer.’ New Encyclopaedia Britannica 1978, “Macropaedia” Vol 4, 62–5. Character sketches, links between tales and the tales themselves ‘fuse as complex presentations of the pilgrims’ (p 64). The tales are remarkable examples of short stories in verse. [JG]

Narrators / 159

581 Middleton, Anne. ‘Chaucer’s “New Men” and the Good of Literature in the Canterbury Tales.’ In Literature and Society. Ed. Edward W. Said. Selected Papers from the English Institute n.s. 3, 1978. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. Pp 15–56. Chaucer’s ‘new men,’ including the Monk, are self-conscious literary performers who, with a characteristic set of educational, literary, social, and civil ideals, explore the good of literature which denotes an ideal of vernacular eloquence and its expressive values. The Monk’s ‘unexpected fund of Boethian tragedies, instead of the robust manly fare Harry Bailly anticipates from a religious who has so emphatically professed his modernity and worldliness’ (p 18), shows his concern for the ‘proper style,’ and ‘enditing’ has the sense of an ideal secular high rhetoric, as in MkP VII.1978–80. When he ‘endites’ false Fortune (MkT VII.2668–70), the term sustains the dual sense of the term, its legal sense (ModE indict), and its rhetorical sense (ModE indite), where the rhetoric of complaint ‘implicitly invites and directs an audience’s feelings as moral actors’ (p 56, n 34), as the Boethian argument for world transcendence becomes a lament for the passing of human greatness. [RW] 582 Olsson, Kurt. ‘Grammar, Manhood, and Tears: The Curiosity of Chaucer’s Monk.’ MP 76 (1978), 1–17. The Monk is grammaticus, as is indicated by his interest in poetic rules and procedures of analysis, in his familiarity with auctores, and in his decision to tell a series of exempla as his story, but his hunting pursuits, love of worldly trappings, and penchant for aimless compiling of information further reveal him to be ruled by curiositas. Tragedy, as the Monk shapes it, has become a secular genre from which any spiritual basis has been excluded. The subject of his narrative is manliness, redefined from the Host’s physical notion of the term to a capacity for a knowledge that satisfies curiosity, a redefinition which descends from the philosophical conception of ‘manhod’ found in Boethius to something superficial and limited. MkT relates to the Consolation by working backwards, implicitly answering certain of Philosophy’s key questions with an error of ‘foryetynge.’ Accepting the medial placement of the Modern Instances, Olsson proposes three divisions: the first four tales efface the distinction between mutable things and the Good; the next ten tales focus on the idea of security, which, it emerges, can be found neither in the goods of Fortune, nor in virtue, nor in human relationships; and the last three tales embody the Monk’s search for man’s essence and dignity within a secular world ruled by chance, and grounds them in the external virtues of courage and wit which enable a self-assured delight in the things of Fortune because they enable a guarded readiness against her whimsy.

160 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

The Monk’s smug self-confidence is nowhere shaken during his performance, for his tragedies are examples of curiositas, external spectacles to which he does not himself relate. Olsson argues that there is an implicit conflict in the tale between curiositasand confession, and the Monk is the only pilgrim who tells a tale to justify keeping the inner self concealed. [JAS] 583 Fleming, John V. ‘Daun Piers and Dom Pier: Waterless Fish and Unholy Hunters.’ ChauR 15 (1980–1), 287–94. The combined ideas of unholy hunters, cloisterless monks and waterless fish may reflect Peter Damian’s essay on the omnipotence of God (De Divina Omnipotentia). Having himself left business administration to return to a hermit’s cell, he offers his account of the experience to a monk (Abbot Desiderius). Thus the larger contextual congruences and verbal wit link Peter Damian’s text to Chaucer’s monk. Since the Knight in his interruption to MkT addresses the Monk as ‘daun Piers,’ Chaucer could well have taken Dante’s Paradiso 21 introduction of Peter Damian and his rebuke to modern pastors to imply criticism of the Monk for his predilection for ‘business administration’ over his monastic ideal. [RW] 584 Fox, Alistair. ‘Chaucer’s Revision of the Nun’s Priest’s Character and its Consequences.’ In The Interpretative Power: Essays on Literature in Honour of Margaret Dalziel. Ed. C.A. Gibson. Dunedin, NZ: English Dept, University of Otago, 1980. Pp 25–34. Chaucer cancelled the NPT endlink when he decided to alter the Nun’s Priest’s personality. NPT VII.2851–2 and VII.2867 indicate that NPT was written with this narrator in mind, and Chaucer’s first impulse may have been to project Chauntecleer’s attributes onto the Nun’s Priest, and draw a ‘comic analogy between a cock surrounded by hens and a priest surrounded by nuns’ (p 26). Thus he highlighted the parallel between Chauntecleer and the Nun’s Priest in the endlink. The consequent analogy between the Prioress and Pertelote was potentially improper and its ironies unsubtle: probably at this stage Chaucer transferred the Nun’s Priest’s gallinaceous attributes to the Monk (MkP VII.1943–8). The MS evidence shows that NPP was subject to revision, and the amplification in NPP VII.2771–9 (preparing for a tale to counterbalance MkT’s tragedies) suggests that the decision to give MkT (which indicates nothing of its teller’s character or profession) to the Monk, and to juxtapose MkT and NPT, was a late one, designed to produce a contrast in theme and genre. The analogy between Chauntecleer and the Monk is in keeping with the portrait of the Monk in GP, and so ‘the whole beast-fable is turned into an implicit reproof and warning to the Monk about being “recchelees”’ (p 30). Through these changes, the Nun’s Priest becomes a satirist rather than an object of satire. [BM]

Narrators / 161

585 Robertson, D.W. Jr. ‘Simple Signs from Everyday Life in Chaucer.’ In Hermann and Burke 671 Pp 12–26. Chaucer’s technique of antiphrasis in the case of the Monk does not temper or diminish the criticism of inconstant monks, but allows for amusement as well. The Monk’s portrait is an exaggerated picture, indicating a trend that was evident during Chaucer’s lifetime, and one that led eventually to the monastic dissolution. [RW] 586 Cooper, Helen. ‘The Girl with Two Lovers: Four Canterbury Tales.’ In Heyworth 672. Pp 65–80. The Monk (see Manly 551) may have been the original narrator of MerT, and the reference to the Monk in MilP I.3118–19 may point to that early connection. As antitype of the Knight in GP, the Monk relates tragedies which ‘quiet’ KnT by denying the possibility of stability in earthly affairs and of man’s control over the irrationality of the world. [RW] 587 Havely, Nicholas. ‘Chaucer, Boccaccio and the Friars.’ In Boitani 680. Pp 249–68. The irony found in Boccaccio’s treatment of the friars is also found in the portrait of the Monk, and in the Host’s less subtle innuendoes in MkP. [RW] 588 Ferster, Judith. Chaucer on Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. The Host ‘tries to manipulate the Monk by offering him a picture of himself as a powerful, highly sexual man who does not belong in the church’ (pp 146–7), but after the presentation of the monk in ShT the pilgrim Monk is not flattered. In revenge he narrates ‘a seemingly endless group of tragedies’ (p 147), but the Host makes the point that without an audience there is no meaning. . •Review by David Mills and David Burnley, YWES 66 (1985), 163. Although there is ample evidence of skill in accurately reading Chaucer’s text, there are many ‘analogical leaps, oversimplifications . . . and bathetic jargon-beset statements’ (p 163). [DS, PG] 589 Lawton, David. Chaucer’s Narrators. Chaucer Studies 13. Cambridge: Brewer, 1985. We should not strain to see connections between the character sketches of GP and the narratorial personae of the tales. The narratorial voice of MkT is not distinguishable from that of the legends in LGW: ‘it is the serious and learned historian-poet reporting on his sources’ (p 95). Although the tragedies suit a typical monk, they were not designed for the Monk of GP, but written at an earlier date, in the 1380s, as noted by Robinson 116, p xxix. Although there is a parallel between the Nun’s Priest’s lonely male position in the convent and Chauntecleer’s position in his roost, the tale itself is not wish-fulfilment. Dramatic readings of CT are selective of those passages assigned to the narrator (usually bad) and those to Chaucer himself (usually

162 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

good). Both SqT and NPT are concerned with talking birds and contain inflated rhetoric, but nobody has argued that the Nun’s Priest is immature or that his personality has much to do with the success of the tale. . •Review by Vincent Gillespie, MÆ 57 (1988), 312–13. Lawton refreshingly celebrates ‘tonal inconsistency’ as the basis of reading Chaucer. . •Review by Helen Cooper, RES ns 38 (1987), 382–3. The ‘elevation of rhetoric over fictional personality is always liberating, never belittling’ (p 382). [PG, DS] 590 Olson, Glending. ‘Chaucer’s Monk: the Rochester Connection.’ ChauR 21 (1986–7), 246–7. Rochester, referred to in MkP VII.1926, is connected with both the Monk and his tale. Its cathedral was a major Benedictine foundation, and it stood next to the castle, ‘a provocative correlate of the Monk’s own ambivalent position in regard to the religious and the secular life’ (p 247). A large painting of the Wheel of Fortune adorned the north wall of the choir. Such symbolic use of contemporary detail is typical of the late medieval tendency ‘to assimilate one system of thought and reference to another’ (p 253). [DS] 591 Olson, Paul A. The Canterbury Tales and the Good Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. MkT is located between two positions on monasticism: one which sought increased temporal power for the lords of the Church, and another (Wycliffite) which sought an end to a structured institution for contemplatives. Chaucer opposes both. Monks had been the traditional producers of chronicles contemplating historical events through a providential perspective, but Chaucer’s Monk cannot see past the appearance of events because he has no regard for contemplative study, being concerned rather with temporal power. The tragedies concern the fall of temporal lords and reveal the Monk’s contempt for knighthood; the Knight responds by cutting him off after the Modern Instances (these understood as coming at the end of the tale), which have referred closely to his own world. Next to KnT, MkT contains most of the clearly contemporary references in CT. NPT is a penitential fable about the narrator himself and also applicable to Madame Eglentine, to the Monk and to ‘all ecclesiastical Melibees’ (p 151). Chauntecleer is a parallel to the Nun’s Priest. His name ‘Chant Clear’ recalls the liturgical duties of the priest and also the Prioress, and her martyr, St Cecilia. NPT repeats unwittingly the story of the Fall, but also the story of the senile Solomon. The seven wives, the playing at being a haremed lion-king, the listening to birdsong all come from misunderstandings of Solomon and the Song of Songs. The hen run symbolizes the convent, thought to be particularly susceptible to temptation and heresy, easy prey for the little foxes of Song of Songs 2:15. . •Review by Janet Coleman, SAC 10 (1988), 180–4. ‘Olson argues convinc-

Narrators / 163

ingly that Chaucer departs from the old three-order picture . . . and turns to the more recent, trenchant analysis of estates provided by Wycliffites’ (p 181). This is ‘Chaucer’s account [of society] glossed by his contemporaries,’ a reading which situates Chaucer ‘in the wider, early humanist and European context’ (p 184). . •Review by Glending Olson, Spec 63 (1988), 972–4. ‘While it is refreshing to read a book that finds Chaucer concerned with something other than the problems of writing poetry, one can nevertheless question whether the Canterbury Tales operates as exclusively in the realms of satire and controversy as this provocative but partial study contends’ (p 974). [PG, DS] 592 Wurtele, Douglas J. ‘Chaucer’s Monk: An Errant Exegete.’ LTh 1 (1987), 192– 209. The Monk’s worst failings, inobedientia and accidia, are evident in both GP and MkT. The close link between tale and teller, operating through ‘authorial irony at the recalcitrant Monk’s expense’ (p 195), establishes Chaucer as ‘master of the art of proprietas’ (p 205). A detailed comparison of the Monk’s accounts of Adam, Nebuchadnezzar, and Samson with the Old Testament and with authoritative Biblical commentaries such as the Glossa Ordinaria and Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica, which the Monk should have known, shows that he distorts and misrepresents the Biblical narratives. His accounts should have illustrated ‘the workings of Providence upon nations and the involvement of freely chosen human acts, good or bad, with the divine dispensation,’ but instead they illustrate ‘the malicious, irresistible, and independent workings of Fortune, displayed as a kind of malevolent pagan force on the lives of celebrated men and women’ (p 194). He ignores the orthodox explanations of the relationship between Fortune and Providence given by Augustine and Boethius. [DS] 593 Leicester, H. Marshall, Jr. The Disenchanted Self: Representing the Subject in the Canterbury Tales. Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1990. NPT contains much play with ‘style’, violating its edges and boundaries more than any other tale. It allows the narrator erotic fantasy and pleasure in attacking the Prioress’s Tale, eg in Chauntecleer’s reference to the life of the murdered child, St Kenelm. But the Nun’s Priest, unlike the Wife of Bath, is unsure what he can get away with and ‘tries to socialize his losses by making his own problem the theme of the tale’ (p 216). The Nun’s Priest’s treatment of his private pleasure as a public issue is an example of masculine jouissance. [PG] 594 Frese, Dolores Warwick. An Ars Legendi for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: Reconstructive Reading. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1991. GP was composed in its final form after all the tales, with the exception of

164 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

595

596

597

598

CYT, were written and assigned. MkT revises the derogatory view of ‘text’ which dominates in the GP portrait of the Monk. MkP suggests a highly textualized narrative to follow, but in the tale this textual tradition is put aside in favour of an oral tradition, with constant reference to articulation and audition. [PG] Oerlemans, Onno. ‘The Seriousness of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ ChauR 26 (1991–2), 317–28. The Nun’s Priest is not, as is frequently asserted, Chaucer’s most gifted narrator, supremely in control of the tale’s delicate mixture of didacticism and comedy. He is forced to tell a comic story that will quit MkT, although not happy himself. As the tale unfolds, the narrator struggles to balance the demands of instruction and entertainment, but his failure in the former is paradoxically the source of his success in the latter, demonstrating ‘the freedom of his fallen will to meander in its attempts to make connections, to organise the world around him’ (p 326). His tale thereby shows the ability of narrative to reflect the diversity of being. [PG] Herold, Christine. ‘The Unfortunate Iconography of Chaucer’s Wayward Monk.’ ELN 31:4 (1994), 5–10. MkT is both a genuinely tragic exemplum and a parody of one. The bald head and its association with glass have been part of the iconography of Fortune since ancient times. Zenobia’s ‘vitremyte’ (VII.2372), from Latin vitrea, ‘glass,’ reinforces this connection. Fortune also often appears with burning eyes, as do, for different reasons, many of her victims. [PG] Marzec, Marcia Smith. ‘“I Wol Yow Seyn the Lyf of Seint Edward”: Evidence for Consistency in the Character of Chaucer’s Monk.’ In Geardagum: Essays on Old and Middle English Language and Literature 15 (1994), 85–96. There is a connection between the worldly, hunting monk of GP and the pious narrator of MkT in the promise to tell the life of St Edward. Both Edward’s chastity and his love of hunting are frequently mentioned in lives of the saint, and, in citing St Edward, Chaucer’s Monk is trying to prove that hunting is not necessarily evidence of a lecherous character. [PG] Camargo, Martin. ‘Rhetorical Ethos and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Comparative Literature Studies 33 (1996), 173–86. In reflecting so extensively on his own status as rhetor and in exploring the nature of the first person narrator, Chaucer revivified the Platonic-Aristotelian concept of rhetorical ‘ethos’, the way in which the real character of the poet or the orator comes through the text or the way in which they deliberately create a persona. Preaching raises the question of ethos in a special way: the Pardoner and the Parson are at opposite ends of a continuum which explores the relationship between the moral character of the narrator and the literary quality of the text. In the case of the Nun’s Priest, however, whatever

Narrators / 165

view of his character the reader forms must be generated from his tale alone; there is no description in GP against which his character as revealed there can be measured. Although the Host asks for pleasure from the tale - ‘be myrie of cheere’ (MkP VII.1924) - he presumably does not expect it, judging from the disparaging comments he makes about the narrator’s ‘foul and lene’ horse (NPP VII.2813). In the endlink, the Host realigns his sense of the Nun’s Priest’s real character to fit the interpretation he has made of his tale, an allegory of the Nun’s Priest’s erotic relations with the Prioress and the other nuns. [PG] 599 Cox, Catherine. ‘And Preestes Thre.’ In Chaucer’s Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.’ Ed. Laura C. Lambdin and Robert T. Lambdin. Westport, CA, and London: Greenwood, 1996. Pp 55–68. The brawniness of the Nun’s Priest, mentioned in the endlink, would make him a useful bodyguard for the nuns on their pilgrimage, but his virility, alluded to in the same passage, hints at the common suspicion that priests attached to convents often seduced the nuns. The community of nuns served by the priest is a parallel to the harem of hens served by Chauntecleer. [PG]

b The Tales Considered Together Discussions of both tales can be found in many general studies of Chaucer’s work, from Pollard 600 in 1893 to Aers 690 in 1986, and in many studies of a more specialized nature. Narratological studies frequently refer to both tales without drawing detailed comparisons between them. Most comparative studies of the two tales have sought either to discover a common theme in them or to locate both tales within a wider grouping of CT. Hemingway’s early study of the Monk and Nun’s Priest 605 sees Chauntecleer as a comic portrayal of the Monk, and there have been many other ‘dramatic’ readings of the tales, for example Watson 634. Two of the most important points of comparison between the two tales are the themes of fortune and tragedy. The attempt to understand the wider grouping of CT to which MkT and NPT belong seemed to gain in importance once the ‘Bradshaw Shift’ was no longer widely accepted. There have been many suggestions for a general theme in the tales of Fragment VII: for example, the nature of literature (Gaylord 639,Cooper 682, and Condren 722f); private conduct (Howard 659 and 701); Ovidian concepts of change (Allen and Moritz 670); the theme of violence (Gruenler 722g). Pearsall 689 believes that the integration of Fragment VII was only undertaken late in Chaucer’s career. 600 Pollard, Alfred W. Chaucer. London: Macmillan, 1893. 2nd edn 1931. The story of Ugolino is strikingly better than all the rest of MkT. The stories of MkT were probably first composed towards the end of the period 1369–79. After completing the Modern Instances, Chaucer abandoned the attempt to improve the collection and ‘turned his own failure into ridicule’ (p 68). As Rochester had been spoken of as ‘faste by’ when the Monk began his tragedies, and as it was at Rochester that the pilgrims must have spent the second night, NPT probably closed the story-telling of the second day. [JG, PG] 601 Tatlock, John S.P. The Development and Chronology of Chaucer’s Works. Chaucer Society. Second Series 37. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1907. MkT is discussed on pp 164–72; there is no substantial discussion of NPT. References to Dante make 1373, after Chaucer’s first journey to Italy, the earliest possible date of MkT, but a probable quotation from Gower’s Mirour de l’Omme at line 2661 would make 1379–81 the earliest. The prevalent view puts MkT before CT as a whole, on the grounds that it seems dull to us and must have been so to Chaucer himself, as it was to the Host and the Knight. Chaucer should not, however, be taken out of his age: ‘instead of first follow-

The Tales Together / 167

ing and then scorning a “dominant taste,” it seems probable that Chaucer constantly shared it and was in the head and front of its creation’ (p 168). Equally, the stanzaic form does not necessarily indicate an early date: PrT is late. The death of Bernabò Visconti in 1385 gives the latest date for the Modern Instances, and the question is whether they belong in the body of the tale, being composed when the rest was, or at the end, as an afterthought. The majority of MSS place them in the middle; the story of Croesus comes last, with its definition of tragedy (VII.2761–6), and is referred to in NPP (VII.272–83); the Monk has already apologized in MkP for departing from chronological order. Unless Chaucer allowed a version with the Modern Instances as an afterthought to get into circulation before revising their position, we should assume MkT was written after 1385, even after 1386–7, when he was otherwise occupied. Previous views about the date are summarized on p xi. [DS] 602 Mackail, J.W. The Springs of Helicon. A Study in the Progress of English Poetry from Chaucer to Milton. London: Longmans, Green, 1909. MkT contains passages of fine rhetoric but has no unity of construction or organic quality. Although it would be hard to beat NPT ‘for humour and light grace . . . one does not look in . . . [it] for really great poetry’ (p 53). [PG, DS] 603 Edmunds, E.W. Chaucer and His Poetry. Poetry and Life Series. London, Bombay, Sydney: George Harrap, 1914. Rpt 1929. Ch 2–5 interweave biography with description of texts. Ch 6 discusses the individual tales. The ‘sombre tone’ of MkT arises from the influence of Dante. Ugolino’s story is quoted in full from the Globe Chaucer 19, pp 157–58. The section on NPT (pp 159–67) consists mostly of a printing (from the Globe Chaucer 19) of the first 300 lines of the text, since Edmunds considers this, rather than the narrative outcome of the encounter between Chauntecleer and the fox, to be the heart of the matter. See Donaldson 866. [DS, JS] 604 Kittredge, George Lyman. Chaucer and His Poetry. Percy Turnbull Memorial Foundation Lectures on Poetry, Johns Hopkins University 1914. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Milford, Oxford University Press, 1915. Rpt through 1967; rpt with Introd. by B.J. Whiting, Harvard University Press, 1970. Since ‘Chaucer always knew what he was about’ (p 151), it should be possible to discern planning in CT. The tales and their tellers constitute a human comedy in dramatic form. ‘Structurally regarded, the stories are merely long speeches expressing, directly or indirectly, the characters of the several persons’ (p 155), but, in being addressed to the other pilgrims, they also constitute action and provoke reaction. MkT, like LGW, the other collection of tales written before CT, illustrates the ‘orderly habits of medieval literature’ (p 150) and the willingness of Chaucer to accept the yoke of rhetoric and to defer to

168 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

technical authority. Chaucer was a conscientious student of literary form, not an untaught genius: ‘Every work of Chaucer’s is referable to some definite literary category which was recognized as such by his educated contemporaries’ (pp 15–16). In NPT ‘the effect is that of parody ... It is, in form, an exemplum, or preacher’s illustrative anecdote, enormously developed until it swallows up the sermon. But it is also . . . a mock-heroic poem, perfectly constructed and finished to the last detail. Every trick of style which the schools taught is utilized for comic effect [as when] Geoffrey of Vinsauf is apostrophized . . . with an ironical aspiration to his learning and sententiousness’ (pp 13–14). See also Kittredge 549. [PG, JS] 605 Hemingway, Samuel B. ‘Chaucer’s Monk and Nun’s Priest.’ MLN 31 (1916), 479–83. MkT is pedantic, repetitive, and conservative, and is satirized in NPT. NPT responds directly to MkT by making Chauntecleer a comic portrayal of the Monk’s personal characteristics, and by parodying his literary style through a burlesque of exemplum-type literature. The connection with the Monk’s moralizing is established by the repetitions, of Croesus as one of the exempla, and of the moral of the Samson exemplum, namely that women can neither keep nor give counsel (see also Sisam 69 and Robinson 85 who question this.) Mel, MkT and NPT initiate the marriage debate and lead into WBT despite the absence of a link that ‘either was never written or has been lost’ (p 482). See also Delasanta 570, Hatton 640, Ruggiers 653, Watkins 573, Watson 634. [DS, JS] 606 Kenyon, John S. ‘Further Notes on the Marriage Group in the Canterbury Tales.’ JEGP 15 (1916), 282–8. Supports Lawrence 781 and Moore 259 in arguing for the placement of NPT between MkT and WBT. NPT looks back to MkT stylistically as ‘a kind of parody of the serious theme of the fall’; but it picks up one of the Monk’s tragic themes, the ascendancy of woman over man, and emphasizes this by entitling it not ‘The Cock and the Fox’ but ‘The Tale of the Cok and the Hen.’ The Nun’s Priest’s reliance on ‘auctours’ for a negative view of ‘conseil of wommen’ prepares the way for the opening of WBP, without any need to postulate, as Lawrence does, that the link has been left unwritten. See Tupper 782 and Severs 832. [JS] 607 Manly, John Matthews. ‘Chaucer and the Rhetoricians.’ PBA 12 (1926), 95– 113. Warton Lecture on English Poetry 17. Separate printing London: Oxford University Press [1926]. Rpt in Schoeck 627, pp 268–90. Rpt (in part) in Burrow 646, pp 126–30 and in Brewer 664, 2 pp. 355–402. The early thirteenth century treatises of Matthieu de Vendôme (Ars Versificatoria) and Gaufred de Vinsauf (Documentum de Arte Versificandi and Nova Poetria) were still in vogue in Chaucer’s time, and their doctrine

The Tales Together / 169

deals with 1) organization; 2) amplification and abbreviation; 3) style. Style and its ornaments can be sub-divided into two classes: first, ‘those in which human emotion and aesthetic feeling have always found utterance’, and second, ‘highly artificial and ingenious patterns of word and thought’ (pp 106–7). Use of the second kind is limited to highly rhetorical passages, such as MkT, which has the largest percentage of rhetorical devices in CT. This is natural, given that it is a collection of tragedies. Although Chaucer parodies the whole apparatus of medieval rhetoric in NPT, his poetic development is to be traced not in his rejection of rhetoric, but in the way he came more and more to make only a dramatic use of these rhetorical elements. NPT parodies MkT, and therefore is itself replete with rhetoric, but much of the rhetoric in NPT is ‘the vitally dramatized utterance of speakers whose actions, and attitudes, and sentiments we accept as belonging to a world of poetic reality’ (pp 110–1). The proportions of rhetoric used in the other tales show a growing recognition of the need to use the devices dramatically to conform with the character who is telling the tale. [BM, RW] 608 Snell, F.J. The Age of Chaucer (1346–1400). Introd. J.W. Hales. London: Bell, 1926. The influence of Dante is found in the correspondence between the number of stories projected for MkT and the number of cantos in the Divine Comedy; in the story of Ugolino; and in the mutually suggestive terms ‘comedy’ and ‘tragedy’ (p 162). The best story is that of Ugolino, which ‘makes the most of circumstances as calculated to strike the imagination and the heart’ (p 225). There is a summary of NPT (p 227) and some brief critical comments. The tale functions primarily as a comic contrast to MkT. There is wit, as in Chauntecleer’s prudent translation of the Latin maxim (NPT VII.3163–6), and the wit ‘alternates with a certain “elvishness” manifested in the frivolous introduction of points which claim serious treatment’ (p 22), as in the importing of theological issues into the barnyard (VII.3234–50). [BM, DS] 609 Cowling, George H. Chaucer. London: Methuen, 1927. Combines whimsical biography, interpretation, and some source study. The Knight’s stinting of the Monk has our sympathy, yet ‘in their age these stories must have been regarded with admiration’ (p 164), as Lydgate’s Fall of Princes (based on de Premierfait) indicates. Chaucer appears, from the story of the murdered man in the muck-heap (NPT VII.2984–3062), to have read Cicero’s De Divinatione. Chaucer neither translated nor imitated, but took an old story and told it again with the utmost freedom. Chauntecleer, not Reynard, is the hero of NPT. [JG, RW] 610 Patch, Howard Rollin. The Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927. Rpt London: Frank Cass, 1967. Allusions to the goddess Fortuna, the only pagan deity to survive the de-

170 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

cline and fall of ancient Rome, abound in the literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. When the idea of Jove was supplanted by the Christian God, the fickle goddess had the field to herself as the figure for ‘chance,’ reflecting one kind of human temperament. The composite portrait of Fortuna in the Middle Ages derives from three distinct mental attitudes towards her: the pagan, the attitude of compromise, and the Christian (the independent ruling power, the power which shares the universe with some other force, and the power completely subservient to God). Patch deals with the conception of Fortuna as a goddess; the technical terms of her cult; her general appearance and character; the limits of her powers and the field of her activities; the literary formulae for expressing all these topics. Fortune may unreasonably exalt a man, but it is his own business to avoid self-satisfaction. There are eleven references to MkT. NPT VII.3403–4 is an instance of pride, acquired through [Chauntecleer’s?] own fault, leading to downfall. [RW] 611 Naunin, Traugott. Der Einfluss der mittelalterlichen Rhetorik auf Chaucers Dichtung. Frederick-Wilhelms-Universität Dissertation, (Bonn), 1929. Dir. W.F. Schirmer. Published Grossenhain: Plasnick, 1929. Pace Manly’s view that Chaucer begins as a conscious exploiter of formal rhetoric and only gradually moves to an imaginative use of devices, the influence of the rhetoricians appears at all periods of Chaucer’s life, sometimes more in the later than in the earlier poetry. This sets Chaucer apart from his contemporaries, though his example is followed by later poets such as Lydgate. However, where in the arly periods Chaucer’s rhetoric tends to be used purely as ornament, in the later periods it is closely interwoven into the story. The major section (pp 19–48) on Chaucer’s use of rhetoric contains many illustrative examples from MkT and NPT: for instance, Chaucer’s frequent use of apostrophe dates from after his second Italian visit, which suggests that he has imitated it from Italian poetry. See also Manly 607. [RW] 612 Dempster, Germaine. Dramatic Irony in Chaucer. Stanford University Publications, University Series. Language and Literature, vol 4, number 3. Stanford University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1932. Rpt Humanities Press, 1959. Dramatic irony results from ‘a strong contrast, unperceived by a character in a story, between the surface meaning of his words and deeds and something else happening in the same story’ (p 7). Although every one of the Monk’s “tragedies” could develop the irony of Fate’ (p 86), there is no striking dramatic irony, rather illustrations of the mutability of Fortune, and each account is too short to allow for irony of action. Two excellent examples of irony can be found in NPT: the deception of the fox; and the feeling of security of Chauntecleer and Pertelote before Chauntecleer is taken. See

The Tales Together / 171

also Birney 614 and Dane, Joseph A, ‘The Myth of Chaucerian Irony’, PLL 24.2 (1988), 115–33. •Review by A.J. Barnouw, ES 16 (1934), 147–8. Dempster traces the development of Boccaccio’s technique to one peculiarly Chaucer’s own. [JG, RW] 613 Birney, Earle. ‘English Irony Before Chaucer.’ UTQ 6 (1937), 538–57. Rpt in Rowland 688. Pp 20–35. Written at a time when the received opinion was that little irony was apparent in the Middle Ages. Various definitions of irony are offered: indirect satire; a transparent pretence that a particular incongruity is non-existent; the contemporary idea of ‘wit graced with pointed wings’ (p 21). ‘Parody,’ which mocks a literary form, should be distinguished from ‘burlesque,’ ‘which draws laughter, not from the form it affects, but from the material which it pretends to consider worthy of that form’ (p 29). It is this latter which is the spirit of the mock-heroic NPT. There are few ironists, listing various medieval Latin writers such as John of Salisbury, but one of the most important ironic precursors of Chaucer is ‘the wit of that greatest and most delightful treasury of all medieval irony, the multiple saga of Reynard the Fox.’ [JG] 614 ––. ‘The Beginnings of Chaucer’s Irony.’ PMLA 54 (1939), 637–55. Rpt in Rowland 688. Pp 54–75. The earlier assumption that irony is a quality of the mature Chaucer only is questionable, for the ironic spirit manifests itself early in Chaucer’s works. Naunin 611 is correct in thinking that such rhetorical styles appeared early in Chaucer’s work and were more firmly integrated within Chaucer’s technique as he matured. The structural ironies of fate and of drama found later in Chaucer are already present (contrary to Dempster 612 and Farnham 728) in MkT, though in the early works irony is ‘only an incidental grace or a spontaneous byplay,’ not ‘the spirit of irony [that] take[s] possession of an entire poem’ (p 655). Only seven of the eighteen unfortunates in MkT ‘fall without personal error’ (p 651), including two (the two Peters) whom Chaucer had personal reasons to present as guiltless, three (Alexander, Pompey, Caesar) who were ‘pagan saints of literature’ (p 651), Ugolino (as Chaucer concentrates on the children), and Hercules, in what seems pure caprice on Chaucer’s part. Others, however, are ironic victims of their own pride. Though Zenobia’s and Bernabò’s contribution to their fate is left in doubt, passages such as VII.2141–2, VII.2370–4, VII.2489–92, VII.2521–6, VII.2531–2, and VII.2603–4, show ironically the juxtaposition of past glory and present misery, and Fortune’s malice and injustice. Chaucer’s irony does not stem from a parody of his models. Medieval rhetoric ‘recognized officially the curious value of saying something different from what is meant, not to deceive with a lie, but to awaken to a truth’ (p 55). See also Brusendorff 260, Dempster 612, Looten 430, Kellett 413, Farnham 728. [JG, RW]

172 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

615 Patch, Howard Rollin. On Re-reading Chaucer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939. Rpt 1949, 1959. There are some scattered comments on MkT. Chaucer’s desire for pathos does not mean that his works are sentimental; his irony does not exclude pity. The Host offers the salutary comment of lines NPP VII.2784–7; the consequent sullen reply of the Monk shows that ‘Chaucer knew what sentimentalism soured was like’ (pp 84–5). Pathos alone did not get Chaucer very far in MkT. Chaucer shows his own prejudices, as when the Knight interrupts the Monk, and the Host ventures his own obscene impudence; it is the poet who has done all this (p 167). Chaucer’s opportunities for social reform were limited: only too readily could his audience turn away, and bid him choose another tale, ‘as the pilgrims silenced the Monk’ (p 188). Comments about NPT occur throughout the book rather than gathered within a single section. NPT VII.3338–41 seem indicative of Chaucer’s settled determinism, but Fortune steps in to help Chauntecleer and ‘if a man keeps his eyes open he can take advantage of celestial indecision’ (p 122). Even in the fabular mode of NPT, what Chaucer cares most about is Chauntecleer and Pertelote. Chaucer reflects throughout his work on the difficulties of the domestic scene, but never with rancour, and there is always ‘a steady loyalty to the benediction of wedded love’ (p 254), including NPT. [JG, RW] 616 Coghill, Nevill. The Poet Chaucer. The Home University Library of Modern Knowledge. London: Oxford University Press, 1949. Rpt through 1960. MkT is early work for the most part, in Chaucer’s Italian and Boethian manner. It shows the tiny germ of a tragic form fully attained in Troilus. The story of Ugolino is the one masterpiece of the collection: Dante’s dreadful story has been softened by Chaucer ‘with all the pity of his nature’ (157). NPT vies with MerT as the most Chaucerian story in CT, demonstrating ‘the quintessence of Chaucer’s wit, gaiety and learning’ (p 154). Chaucer’s long interest in the notions of destiny and necessity is the basis of his irony. •Review by Dorothy Everett, YWES 30 (1949), 52–3. The discussion of CT contributes less to the understanding of Chaucer than other parts of the book. The book is marked by the author’s enthusiasm, easy manner and ‘gift for the telling phrase’ (p 53). [JG, PG] 617 Speirs, John. Chaucer the Maker. London: Faber, 1951. The interlude between Mel and MkT is one of Chaucer’s vividest. Many of the stories may have been composed before CT was begun, but the Modern Instances may be later insertions. The story of Ugolino is the most striking: pity and humanity mitigate the horror of the narration. Pp 185–93 rework the section of 831, including a new paragraph on free will and necessity. NPT puts Chaucer in the forefront of medieval European poetry. [PG, JG]

The Tales Together / 173

618 Preston, Raymond. Chaucer. London: Sheed and Ward, 1952. The genial Monk of GP is ‘frozen’ back into ‘My Lord the Monk’ by the Host’s ribaldry and provocation. The story of Ugolino is the best. Chaucer’s octave is less impressive than his rhyme royal: it is ‘like seven lines of terza rima with an extra rhyme in the middle.’ NPT ‘leaves us beautifully and finally and even Socratically persuaded that we cannot entirely know the Nun’s Priest’ (p 205). NPT is the literary equivalent of a ‘jig fugue, a quodlibet’ (p 220). Occasionally, Dryden’s translation improves Chaucer, but he misses important features by transforming the Nun’s Priest. [JG, PG] 619 Brewer, D.S. Chaucer. London: Longmans, 1953. 2nd edn 1960. 3rd edn 1973. The story of Ugolino is by far the best of MkT; it is an ‘exquisitely pathetic little piece - Dante’s sombre power turned all to favour and prettiness’ (154). The other stories are too ‘bare’ to be moving. The cynical reference to the story of Launcelot de Lake in NPT VII.3212–13, that women ‘holde in ful greet reverence,’ shows that Chaucer had little respect for Arthurian knight-errantry. The fantasy element of the plot of NPT is played against a setting which is humble, realistic, contemporary and local. •Review by James Kinsley, MÆ 23 (1954), 53–5. The book is ‘gracefully written, full of sound sense and suggestion’ (p 55), but breaks no new ground in the discussion of the poems. [JG, PG] 620 Sinclair, Giles. ‘Chaucer: Translated or Obliterated?’ College English 15 (1953– 4), 272–7. The sole assistance of the gloss provided in most college texts of Chaucer will not enable the student in a survey course to read more than GP. Sinclair proposes, as a corrective, the use of a good translation and analyses eight. Tatlock and Mackaye 46 are accurate but full of archaisms and inversions. Nicolson 90, the best-known of modern verse versions in the United States, is aware of semantic change but has fillers and sometimes descends to doggerel. Hill 91 is a word for word translation which sometimes uses obsolete expressions, but shows a reverence for Chaucer’s language. The freedoms of Morrison 107, as evidenced by the opening lines of NPT, are sometimes used to good effect, but some readers might object to his breeziness. Hitchens 100 is a compromise version, not a translation. Lumiansky’s 104 almost literal prose translation is very unwieldy, but has few of the disadvantages of Tatlock and Mackaye 46. Coghill 110 genuinely attempts to render Chaucer into modern English and is one of the better translations. [JG] 621 Schaar, Claes. Some Types of Narrative in Chaucer’s Poetry. Lund Studies in English, 25. Lund: Gleerup; Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1954. Three main types of narrative can be identified in Chaucer’s work: ‘summary narrative’; ‘close chronological narrative’; and ‘loose chronological narrative.’ MkT is an example of ‘summary narrative with special rhythmical char-

174 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

acteristics’ (p 65). Close chronological narrative can be seen in NPT VII.3161– 7, where every single stage in the succession of events of Chauntecleer’s capture is related. Loose chronological narrative can be seen in NPT VII.2985– 3067, the first instance in the tale of dreams coming true. Whereas versions of this in putative sources are mere summary anecdotes, Chaucer’s episode is ‘an entire whole’ (p 237). . •Review by J.A.W. Bennett, MÆ 25 (1956), 57–9.The types of narrative are treated like ends in themselves and were probably not so for Chaucer. . •Review by Kemp Malone, Spec 31 (1956), 407–8. Although many of Schaar’s distinctions are obvious, his is the first book to make them in a systematic way. . •Review by Gardner Stillwell, JEGP 54 (1955), 409–12. The reader must often work unnecessarily hard to decide what has been said and some of the categories are very unstable. [PG, JG] 622 ––. The Golden Mirror: Studies in Chaucer’s Descriptive Technique and its Literary Background. Lund: Gleerup, 1955. Photographic rpt with index. Denmark: Villadsen, 1967. A study of Chaucer’s descriptive method in portraits, emotions, and natural scenery, and a comparison of them with medieval literary practice. Schaar’s basic belief is that medieval descriptive technique ‘seldom indulged in spontaneous realistic descriptions but had recourse to more impersonal conventions’ (p 5). The descriptive manner widely adopted in MkT corresponds generally to that employed by Boccaccio, De Claris Mulieribus and De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, that is, brevity and laconism. There is some comparison of sources on p 241, but aside from this section and pp 87—88, other references to NPT find it one incidental member of a list. The book has had a controversial reputation and reviewers were sharply divided over the value of the study, although all agreed that Schaar misapprehended some favourite portraits (Criseyde, the Cook, the Wife of Bath, Absolon and Alison). . •Review by Bland EStud 42 (1961), 98–100. For all his wide reading and careful exposition, Schaar nowhere indicates that he has felt the ‘miracle Chaucer accomplished in his verse’ (p 99). . •Review by Derek Brewer MLR 52 (1957), 407–8. Although Schaar’s scholarship is evident, the book is ‘an obvious case where scholarship separated from criticism becomes pointless’ (p 407). . •Review by Ursula Brown RES 9 (1958), 297–300. Challenges the use of tabulating. [PG, JG] 623 Zanco, Aurelio. Chaucer e il suo mondo. Torino: Petrini, 1955. Rpt. 1965. Includes brief discussions of all of Chaucer’s works, including CT, listed in Bradshaw shift order despite using Robinson 85 as the source for quotations. A substantial introduction covers Chaucer’s life, Chaucer’s England,

The Tales Together / 175

and Chaucer’s ‘cultura.’ The tragedies of MkT were written early, during an immature stage of Chaucer’s art, and later revised. Chaucer works within the de casibus tradition associated with Boccaccio. The sources of the individual tragedies are listed and briefly discussed. NPT is among the best of CT, well adapted to the narrator, a robust man with some very unascetic tendencies. Hotson’s reading of NPT 795 is not persuasive. [PG, JG] 624 Baum, Paull F. Chaucer: A Critical Appreciation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958. A book predicated on the belief that Chaucer has not been truly criticized at all. Fragment VII forms a kind of unit: the ‘Surprise Group.’ Contrast, surprise and reversal unite the tales of this fragment. After the Monk revenges the demand from the Host for a dirty story, he really gets the tale of mirth from the Nun’s Priest. . •Review by Basil Cottle, JEGP 58 (1959), 676–8. ‘An exceedingly interesting book of critical studies’ (p 676), but the destructive criticism is generally overweighed. . •Review by Howard R. Patch, MLN 75 (1960), 50–3. ‘A book written with malice toward all and with charity for almost none’ (p 50). [JG, PG] 625 Mudrick, Marvin. ‘Chaucer as Librettist.’ PQ 38 (1958–9), 21–9. A review of translations of Chaucer. Criticizes Morisson’s 107 replacement of lines. Lumiansky’s 104 word for word fidelity produces a prose translation with ‘jerky, short-winded rhythms’ (pp 22–3). Coghill’s 110 colloquial ease often degenerates into ‘limpness, coyness, jargon again, and sheer inaccuracy’ (p 24). Cites Housman’s 816 rebuke of Dryden, but otherwise defends his modernizations, which produce at times ‘a superbly vigorous poem in its own right, in a civilized idiom still susceptible to plain words’ (p 25). Pope’s translations are ‘operatic’ (p 27). The Augustans were ‘the last English poets who had a sufficiently large command of technique and decorum . . . to be capable of turning Chaucer into a contemporary’ (p 29). [JG] 626 Bronson, Bertrand H. In Search of Chaucer. Alexander Lectures, 1959. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1960; rpt 1963. Chapter 2 rpt as ‘In and Out of Dreams’ in Essays on Medieval Literature and Thought. Ed. Helaine Newstead. Literature and Ideas Series. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1968. It is likely that Chaucer always planned some kind of dramatic frame for the stories of MkT, possibly a dream-vision like the source in Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium. The shift of the frame to the contemporary reality of the Canterbury pilgrimage makes the stories seem small and remote. NPT shows Chaucer’s evasiveness about the ‘credit’ of the dream world (p 35) and can be contrasted with the partial resolutions offered in HF or PF of tensions between allegorical, symbolic and naturalistic characterization. Chauntecleer

176 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

627

628

629

630

and Pertelote are seen in ‘double exposure . . . so that we can hardly decide which is the personification and which the actuality, which sense and which symbol’ (p 58). See also Corsa 631. [PG, JS] Schoeck, Richard J., and Jerome Taylor, eds. Chaucer Criticism: An Anthology. 2 vols. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1960–1. Vol 1, ‘The Canterbury Tales,’ includes reprints of Manly 607, Kittredge 549, and Williams 846. Vol 2, ‘Troilus and Criseyde and the Minor Poems,’ includes a reprint of Ch 1 of Dodd 780. [JS] Mahoney, John F. ‘Chaucerian Tragedy and the Christian Tradition.’ AnM 3 (1962), 81–99. Robertson established the view that Chaucer’s tragedy is ‘Boethian, based on the strength of the concept of Fortune in the medieval mind, and a tragedy whose source and artistic point is moral’ (p 82). MkT is the narrative of a man ‘by profession and display artistically dull’ (p 84), incapable of understanding that tragedy is not about the activities of Fortune but about the wrong love which leads to subjection to Fortune (as in Adam’s Fall). KnT and MLT share the theme of ‘joye after wo,’ a motif only apparently inverted by NPT’s ‘For ever the latter ende of joye is wo’ (VII.3205 ff). NPT ‘ironically fulfils the definition of tragedy which the Monk had given but was unable to execute’ (p 88). The Robertsonian definition of Boethian tragedy in Chaucer can be extended by including the issue of free will and responsibility, also present, along with Fortune, in these tales. Contrastively, the notion of the tragic flaw, can be seen in the stories of Palamon, Arcite, Constance and Chauntecleer for all real purposes guiltless. Man’s flaws are inevitable in a postlapsarian world, but are tolerable ‘because of the Christian tradition of felix culpa, whereby the Adamite analogue which Robertson saw as the basis of Chaucer’s tragedy becomes, through the theme of “happy sin,” a greater analogue of Christ, and an explanation of the recurrent “joye after wo” theme’ (p 98). [JS] Grennen, Joseph E. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Monarch Review Notes and Study Guides. New York: Monarch Press, 1963. Summaries and commentaries of MkT are on pp 60–3, NPT on pp 63–7. The melancholy contemplation of horrors suited medieval taste better than the high tragedy of the Greeks or Shakespeare. The tales are more suited to the withdrawn contemplative than the hunting monk of GP. NPT is the earliest mock-heroic poem in English and is treated as a major tale. Grennen emphasizes its anti-feminist elements. [PG, JS] Bowden, Muriel. A Reader’s Guide to Geoffrey Chaucer. London: Thames & Hudson; New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1964. Rpt 1988. An introductory study primarily concerned with the part environment played in Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry. MkT is one of several tales that show Chaucer’s interest in knighthood. It is not inappropriate that the Monk, a man of the

The Tales Together / 177

world, should extol chivalric figures. Generalized tributes are paid to the chivalry of Alexander the Great, Peter of Cyprus and Julius Caesar. Although dull and heavy-going, MkT is appropriate to its teller. Daun Piers has had an education proper to a monk and is able to give a learned definition of tragedy. NPT is a delightful parody of serious narrative: in its discussion of Destiny (VII.3234–50); and in its comically incongruous assigning of serious knowledge, eg Chauntecleer’s astrological and Pertelote’s medical lore. Its literary quality as parody is sustained by rhetorical conventions of description and of the citation of authorities. [PG, JS] 631 Corsa, Helen Storm. Chaucer: Poet of Mirth and Morality. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964. Rpt, without introd., Toronto: Forum House, 1970. Chaucer’s poetry ‘provokes joy because his philosophical and theological view of life . . . proclaims an Order, both in this world and the next, even as it celebrates the struggle of the individual to maintain equilibrium’ (p v). The Monk’s unimaginatively and prosaically narrated ‘collection of anecdotes’ fulfils various kinds of comic function: firstly in the situational comedy of the interchanges amongst Monk, Host, and Knight which frame it; secondly, in the raising of generic concepts of tragedy and comedy; and thirdly, in the implicit world view of the tale which, conveying a sense of existential absurdity that suggests disorder and irrationality governing life, threatens both mirth and morality. The Monk’s understanding of tragedy is the same as Chaucer’s, but the Monk does not comprehend the complexity of his theme and so unwittingly questions the existence of Order and hence of a connection between Fortune and human action. Ch 7, ‘Comedy Predominantly Philosophical,’ discusses preoccupations with Fortune, free will and human responsibility shared by Mel, MkT, and NPT, where ‘the themes allegorically portrayed [in Mel] are dramatically vitalized by a cock, a hen and a fox.’ Corsa concentrates on Chauntecleer as author of his own woes, and is equivocal about the Nun’s Priest’s ‘skillful evasion’ of commitment on the question of women’s counsels. Chauntecleer’s double nature as ‘Homo Sapiens and Rara Avis’ is essential to maintaining an awareness of fable, ‘lest in losing the illusion of the cock-world we miss the mockery it directs at the world of human beings’ (p 215). •Reviewers such as D.S. Brewer, N&Q 210 (1965), 83 and G. Wright, Thought 40 (1965), 131–2, find Corsa’s concepts too imprecise to sustain prolonged argument for a Boethian divine comedy, although Brewer speaks of ‘sensitive readings in terms of a novelistic dramatic realism.’ [BM, JAS] 632 Howard, Edwin Johnston. Geoffrey Chaucer. Twayne English Authors Series 1. New York: Twayne, 1964. Rpt Griffin Authors Series. London: Macmillan, 1976.

178 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

A study of Chaucer’s life and works which departs from the conventional in including a final chapter on ‘Chaucer Through the Years.’ The narrator of MkT is different from the Monk portrayed in GP: the outdoorsman has become a scholar. MkT provided Chaucer with a way of using already-written material which would otherwise have gone to waste. The story of Ugolino is by far the best. Chaucer intended to revise GP to remove the problem of the ‘preestes thre.’ His source for NPT was an unidentified incident from the beast epic of Reynard the Fox. The elaborations of his original produced a story both gay and learned. Rejecting Hotson’s 795 historical reading as unconvincing and ‘other interpretations’ as even more so, Howard nonetheless ventures into topical allegory by suggesting that VII.3325–30 are a warning to Richard II to beware of flattering friends at court. There is an annotated bibliography. •Review by D.S. Brewer, N&Q 210 (1965), 83. This study is ‘remarkably oldfashioned’ in its ‘decent, commonsense, pedestrian account of . . . the writings, every one of which is at least mentioned.’ [PG, JS] 633 Maclaine, Allan H. The Student’s Comprehensive Guide to the Canterbury Tales. Woodbury, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, 1964. A handbook for advanced students, giving an overview of critical opinions on GP and each tale. Material covered includes principal commentaries, with brief data on genre; sources and analogues; date and verse form; a summary of the text; a selective gloss; and a summary of significant critical interpretations. MS studies and technical studies in language or prosody are largely excluded. MkT is dealt with pp 240–51; NPT pp 252–62. [JS] 634 Watson, Charles S. ‘The Relationship of the “Monk’s Tale” and the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale”.’ SSF 1 (1964), 277–88. A ‘roadside drama’ reading involving both Kittredge’s emphasis 604 on the interplay of the pilgrims and Brewer’s 619 on the interplay of their tales. However, although the narrators of the two tales present a contrast between good nature and moroseness, the tales are related primarily in terms of their contents. The germ of NPT occurs in the last tragedy, Croesus, and the dream he misinterpreted. The theme of woman being man’s confusion was developed by the Monk in the tragedies of Adam, Hercules, Odenake, and Holofernes. Both tales develop the theme of fall from prosperity and the moral that pride goes before a fall. Part of this theme is the correct attitude to changes of Fortune. NPT is designed to remedy the sense of hopelessness induced by MkT, that good fortune may be regained by the exercise of moral alertness. Both tales bear characteristics of the sermon. The most basic contrast is that between medieval tragedy and medieval comedy. [PG, JS] 635 Hussey, Maurice, A.C. Spearing, and James Winny. An Introduction to

The Tales Together / 179

Chaucer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965. Rpt with corrections 1968 and several times thereafter. NPT VII.3347–54 is used to discuss Chaucer’s attitude to Geoffrey de Vinsauf and the artes poeticae in general. NPT is a ‘mocking echo’ of the marriage debate (p 151) and is thematically and formally related to MkT in a ‘coherence which takes the form of contrast or parody.’ When the Nun’s Priest picks up the Monk’s story of the ominous dream of Croesus, the mockery of his story is not merely against the beasts of his fable, ‘but against the human aspirations embodied in them and in the Monk’s heroes - the pretension to be creatures of tragic destiny, a pretension expressed particularly in the rhetorical “high style”’ (p 152). [JS] 636 Loomis, Roger Sherman. A Mirror of Chaucer’s World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965. A pictorial companion to Chaucer, geared more specifically to Chaucerian texts than most background studies of his age are. Illustrations to MkT are the fall of Nebuchadnezzar (no. 139), Zenobia (140), and Pedro of Spain (141). The Nun’s Priest’s portrait ignores the Host’s specifications; ‘the man himself is not burly, and his face is pale and almost effeminate’ (p 86). Illustrations to NPT are Seneca (no 142), the Horologe at Wells Cathedral (143), Cato Instructing his Son (144) torture by rack (145), the warning ghost (146), the fall of Troy (147), and a henwife chasing a fox (148). [JS, PG] 637 Ruggiers, Paul G. The Art of the Canterbury Tales. Madison and Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965; rpt 1967. Pp 184–96 rpt as ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ in Chaucer The Canterbury Tales: A Casebook. Ed. J.J. Anderson. Casebook Series. London: Macmillan, 1974. Pp 222–35. Excerpts in Sullivan 938. Pp 111–14. As a structure, CT is no mere ‘encyclopaedic farrago,’ but involves the audience in a passage from ignorance to knowledge, through an examination of the choices available to man. While Chaucer exploits all the genres, ironic comedy and romance prevail. The interruption of MkT brings Knight and Monk together to focus on the perplexities of tragedy and comedy to prepare the ground for NPT. The concept of tragedy in MkT is limited and mechanical, especially with reference to the effect of character upon action. NPT is analysed (pp 184–96) as a conflict of reason and instinct placed firmly ‘against the larger questions of love, the destinal order, and human responsibility,’ the final vote being cast in favour of self-control (p 184) and against the Monk’s mechanistic concept of tragedy. Chauntecleer’s error is not lustful uxoriousness, but pride (which gives point to the mock heroics) and self-delusion. Like Rodax 642, Ruggiers sees the fox as sharing in the final recognition of the advantages of self control which constitutes the happy ending. [JAS, JS]

180 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

638 Williams, George. A New View of Chaucer. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965. Williams makes scattered references to MkT: it is a medieval work in its lack of unified structure; its dullness may reflect Chaucer’s dissatisfaction with old literary models; and three of the stories concern prominent fourteenth-century characters with whom Chaucer had some personal connection. (Williams incorrectly has Lionel married to Bernabò’s daughter instead of his niece.) In attempting to demonstrate that ‘at least half of Chaucer’s poetry reflects his intense preoccupation with individual personalities whom he knew,’ especially John of Gaunt, Williams follows Manly 551 and Hotson 795. May 3rd, used as a date of escape in both KnT and NPT, refers to Richard’s escape from the governance of the Duke of Gloucester and his recall of John of Gaunt on May 3rd, 1389: although Williams footnotes the fact that this was a Monday, not the Friday of NPT. Joyce Bazire’s view, YWES 46 (1965), 87–8, of ‘a fascinating study’ was not shared by Edmund Reiss, CE 27 (1966), 649: ‘If Professor Williams were not serious, this book would be a riotous satire on the foolishness of topical allegory.’ [JAS, JS] 639 Gaylord, Alan T. ‘Sentence and Solaas in Fragment VII of the Canterbury Tales: Harry Bailly as Horseback Editor.’ PMLA 82 (1967), 226–35. Fragment VII, the ‘Literature Group,’ is held together by the single, though broad, subject of story-telling. The Host’s attempts to organize the pilgrims into telling alternating tales of sentence and solaas draw attention to his inadequate grasp of these terms. Harry has misjudged the Monk when he requests a light-hearted tale to follow Mel, since the preceding sequence of tales commit the Monk to treat a serious theme. One of the things not comprehended by Harry is the possibility of combining sentence and solaas, although the manifestation of this in NPT makes that work a fitting conclusion to the whole Fragment. The Host sees the story of the rooster and some clownish maxims, ‘but all the joy, the vigor, even the danger of playing with words and speech . . . is overlooked by Harry the chafferer’ (p 235). [JAS, JS] 640 Hatton, Thomas J. ‘Chauntecleer and the Monk, Two False Knights.’ PLL 3 Supp (1967), 31–9. The Monk’s definition of tragedy is oversimplified, ignoring the importance of the protagonist’s attitude towards Fortune and making Fortune’s role in human affairs meaningless. NPT presents a Boethian answer to the problems raised by the Monk’s handling of his tragedies and specifically depicts the Monk’s own spiritual deficiencies and suggests he is in a spiritually precarious situation. In particular, the mock-heroic characterization of Chauntecleer reflects on the Monk’s temporal ambitions, while the management of the narrative corrects his failure to take human responsibility and the operation

The Tales Together / 181

of grace into proper account in his tragedies of Fortune. See also Corsa 631, Donovan 843, Watson 634. [JAS, JS] 641 Owen, Charles A., Jr. ‘The Design of The Canterbury Tales.’ In Rowland 1968/ 1979 643. Pp 192–207/ 221–42. There is a continuing conflict between those discussions of CT which see it as a collection of stories and those which read it dramatically. The interpretations of Lumiansky 561, the most systematic proponent of the dramatic principle, ‘create a drama that the text hardly sustains’ (p 198). Questions of dramatic theme, whether partially defined like the marriage-group or wouldbe comprehensive like the religious designs, are interlocked with questions of the ordering of the fragments. CT is a still-evolving design, in which Fragment B2 follows A, with B1 an abandoned beginning awaiting final placing. Several critics have suggested an earlier start for the marriage group in the tales of Fragment B2: for example the anti-feminism of the Monk or the relevance of NPT to issues raised by the Wife of Bath. The tales of this fragment have long been seen as affording examples of different medieval genres and reinforce the ‘literary’ interest of the pilgrimage, its concern for the uses and abuses of style and form. In the revised edition the three-page addition records a general falling into line on the Ellesmere order and posits critical emphasis on a ‘complex dialectic’ in CT and on the important contribution made to this by drama (except in Jordan’s view 913). Among relevant specific studies, Owen notes Joseph 932 and Gaylord 639. The bibliography is substantially updated. [PG, JS] 642 Rodax, Yvonne. The Real and the Ideal in the Novella of Italy, France and England: Four Centuries of Change in the Boccaccian Tale. Studies in Comparative Literature 44. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968. MkT appears to have been added to CT ‘for bulk.’ The tragedies are either frankly didactic or merely gloomy. NPT occupies a point at which realism and idealism intersect in morality, style and humour. In relation to Pertelote, Chauntecleer is both ‘thoroughly chicken’ and an ideal creature, in which condition he makes connections with the supernatural world and merges with the romantic prince as much as with the fatuous human husband. Similarly, in relation to the fox, ‘no epithet is too extreme’ for daun Russell as the betrayer of an ideal, but when the two engage in ‘sheepish bickering they are in a realistically humanized state’ and in the chase ‘we are back again in the vivid realism of nature, from which all the other levels derive their life’ (p 13). [JS, JAS] 643 Rowland, Beryl, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies. Toronto, New York, London: Oxford University Press, 1968/rev 1979. An attempt to make the formidable mass of Chaucerian criticism accessible.

182 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Each of the 22 self-contained chapters on various topics reviews significant scholarship, offers individual opinion, and supplies a bibliography. The revised edition updates the surveys and bibliographies and is indexed. Includes Braddy 908, Hoffman 478, Jordan 913, Miller 915, Mustanoja 357, Olson 916, Owen 641, Payne 917, Ramsey 918, Rowland 920, Ruggiers 479, and Wood 924. [JS] 644 Wagenknecht, Edward. The Personality of Chaucer. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968. Described as a study in ‘psychography,’ this work denies a distinction between persona and author (see Bronson 626) and assumes that it is possible to develop an understanding of Chaucer’s personality from his writings rather than from Chaucer Life-Records, (ed. Crow and Olson, 1966). In MkT, Chaucer shifts the emphasis of the Ugolino story from horror to pity, but does not always retain Dante’s sublimity and high seriousness. Chaucer deploys his knowledge of medicine and dreams as an artist rather than as a believer. Examples of the comic deployment of traditional material in NPT are the rhetorical high style of the invocation to Geoffrey of Vinsauf and the anti-feminist view of women’s counsel. In Chaucer’s interest in fortune, destiny and free will, there is a correspondence between narrator and author. ‘Like the Nun’s Priest, [Chaucer] could suffer himself to be drawn away from the matter in hand by theoretical considerations, but like him, too, he could bring himself up sharply: “I wol nat han to do of swich mateere” [VII.3251]’ (p 136). [JS] 645 Whittock, Trevor. A Reading of the Canterbury Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968. Like other tales whose narrators are seen to fall short of their intentions, MkT’s mechanical tragedies burlesque the literary form itself. The Monk’s choice of genre is prompted by the Host’s jibes, and his knowledge of his books proves to be superficial, limited to mere plot outlines. His narratives have no literary merit, but rather have been organized (by Chaucer) to show the effect of mindless repetition of meaningless incident. To relieve the monotony, however, some better quality tales, such as Zenobia and Ugolino, have been included. Even here, comparison of the Ugolino with its source in Dante reveals the limitations of Chaucer’s piece. NPT is the supreme example of Chaucer’s ‘exploitation of mixed modes’ (p 228). The description of the widow provides a realistic frame in which the fantasies that follow may take their proper place, but it also establishes ‘the bedrock principles of life’ (p 230). NPT celebrates joy, truth and God’s bounty, with all its elements set in a Christian framework within which ‘the comedy, by bringing the cock’s pride and complacency to the test, has shown the foolishness of human conceit, and restored through mirth the joy of self-knowledge’ (p 249). Pearsall 180 p 53, describes Whittock as following ‘his Cambridge mentors,’ Speirs 831 and

The Tales Together / 183

646

647

648

649

Holbrook 848, in seeking a ‘moral and hortatory function’ for NPT. •Reviews by R.T. Davies, RES n.s. 20 (1969) 477–9, by Robert M. Jordan, JEGP 69 (1970) 165–7, and by H.L. Rogers, AUMLA 33 (1970) 110–12. All three reviewers lambast the book for its ahistorical, anachronistic criticism (Jordan makes the obvious connection with the Scrutiny project), and comment variously on its glaring solecism of imposing on CT a modern romantic idea of unity, a pantheistic religion at odds with Chaucer’s medieval Christianity, and a modern, dated liberalism. Davies is alone in suggesting that the book is, nevertheless, ‘well worth reading.’ [JAS, JS] Burrow, J.A., ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Anthology. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. Includes reprints, in part, of Manly 607, Woolf 800, and Spearing 884. Cottle, Basil. The Triumph of English 1350–1400. London: Blandford, 1969. Three of the four Modern Instances of MkT make reference to the horrors of the age in which Chaucer lived. Chaucer could have heard of King Pedro of Spain at first hand from his wife, who was attached to the household of Pedro’s daughter who had married John of Gaunt. Chaucer gives no hint, however, of the cruel streak that had given Pedro his nickname. Chaucer may have met Bernabò Visconti in Milan in 1378. Despite Chaucer’s ‘manly admiration’ in NPT for the widow’s regimen, he endows her with more worldly goods than were common to really poor peasants. Those who tell religious tales handle them very capably. The whole technique of NPT is ‘teasing and tangential’ (p 267), and here as elsewhere Chaucer is not profoundly philosophical for long. [PG, JS] Pearsall, D.A. ‘Chaucer II: The Canterbury Tales.’ In The Middle Ages. Ed. W.F. Bolton. London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1970. Pp 163–94. CT evolves dramatically through the links; the Knight interrupts the Monk’s monotonous catalogue of misfortune because he has the authority of rank, and is ‘the only one with the moral authority to say that the Monk is not telling the complete truth’ (p 168). The many morals in NPT cannot be reduced to a simple formula. The moralité lies not in NPT’s content but in its development by ‘an elaborate apparatus of moral and philosophical comment’ (p 185) and in ‘the style, which enacts the workings of the trained mind for us to wonder at and deplore’ (p 186). [GC, JAS] Burrow, John. Ricardian Poetry. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971. The modern preference for large-scale narrative over small-scale narrative has contributed to the under-valuing of texts cultivating the latter. That the art of MkT is one of abbreviation rather than amplification is implied by a reference to lack of pointing (i.e., describing in detail) made at the end of the Ugolino (VII.2458–62). Yet even here there is some cultivation of ‘point’: the description of the fire in the tragedy of Nero, for example, enlivens the whole

184 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

scene. NPT illustrates the fondness of medieval authors for framing devices and stories within stories: both the stories of prophetic dreaming are told, on the authority of a great author, by Chauntecleer, who is reported by the Nun’s Priest, who is reported by Chaucer. Chauntecleer, ‘enclosed al aboute’ in his little yard, loomed over by the poor widow, recalls the predicament of medieval man positioned in the least part of a world, itself no more than a pinprick in the cosmos. The exemplary mode is prevalent everywhere in CT, but is everywhere subverted, most fully in NPT. The problem of what the Nun’s Priest means by asking the audience to look for a moral seems a characteristically Chaucerian problem. . •Review by John Block Friedman, JEGP 73 (1974), 241–4. The argument is not wholly persuasive; it is better in briefly developed insights rather than in literary history. The notes are inconvenient to use and perfunctory. . •Review by D. Farley-Hills, RES ns 23 (1972), 327–9. Although the discussion of individual poems is illuminating, the need to find common qualities that justify the common term ‘Ricardian’ frequently clashes with the need for critical discrimination’ (p 326). [PG, JAS] 650 Eliason, Norman E. The Language of Chaucer’s Poetry: An Appraisal of the Verse, Style, and Structure. Anglistica 17. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1972. MkT, like LGW, is experimental work, possibly experimenting with narrative technique, trying to determine the effects of brevity and the ways of achieving it. Some stories achieve brevity by drastic condensing of the narrative; others by totally eliminating it. MkT is unfinished only in the sense that Chaucer allows the Knight to interrupt the stories once they had been placed in CT. The reader is prepared for this interruption by having MkP make out the narrator to be a bore. To seek significance in NPT is to fall for Chaucer’s ‘joke.’ It has an obvious moral about flattery, but more important is the ‘chaff,’ the elaboration of a beast fable into a parody ridiculing literary pretentiousness and masculine weaknesses. [GC, PG] 651 Kean, P.M. Chaucer and the Making of English Poetry. 2 Vols. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972. MkT, simply a series of exempla of reversals of Fortune, uses material which is handled seriously by Chaucer elsewhere. Its flatness of verse matches the ‘flat superficiality’ (2, p 130) of its conclusions. The Host demands a contrast to MkT: NPT is comic burlesque yet complements MkT’s theme of Fortune by stressing the role of free will. The Nun’s Priest’s discussion of free will and predestination is confused, but Chauntecleer’s fall is deserved because his passion for Pertelote is ‘contrary to Nature’s purpose’ so that he has ‘placed himself peculiarly at the mercy of Fortune’ (2, p 135). The moralitas focuses on personal responsibility, balancing MkT’s emphasis on bad luck. There is

The Tales Together / 185

an ‘oblique comparison’ to the Fall as Adam and Eve failed to use free will properly (2, p 137). However, this ‘comedy of folly and deceit’ (2, p 137) should not be construed as a moral allegory. The comedy depends on the juxtaposition of human and animal worlds. In contrast with KnT, MLT, and ClT, NPT presents an image of disorder in marriage. •Review by R.T. Davies, RES ns 24 (1973)199–201. Although it is not always easy to keep one’s hold on what the book is said to be about, it is ‘the rich product of mature study not only of Chaucer but also of the monstrous mass of work about him’ (p 200). •Review by Morton W. Bloomfield, MÆ 43 (1974), 193–5. A ‘ramble through the Chaucer country’ (p 193) that seems to lack a unifying principle. [GC, PG] 652 Knight, Stephen. The Poetry of the Canterbury Tales. Sydney and London: Angus and Robertson, 1973. A revised version of 362. The function of MkP is to characterize the Host’s vigorous, dominating personality. The Monk’s response shows him to be a simple man of moderate intelligence, whose literary notions are merely memorized and limited, since his definition of tragedy lacks the Boethian moral that the only security is in God. Chaucer chose to write the tale in a dull way, and this aim is realized in the repetitive style, flat moral conclusions, and lack of any conceptual frame for the series of tragedies. Some of the later stories show more flair, however, which suggests that the narrator is to be seen most clearly early in the tale, but later Chaucer moves beyond this process of characterization to assert his own poetic control. The satire of NPT is directed at ‘the medieval habit of making a moral mountain out of a literary molehill’ (p 57). However, Chaucer is not dismissing moralizing, courtliness, or scholarship altogether, but showing that ‘soberness can be comic’ (p 72). See also Knight 957. [GC, JAS] 653 Ruggiers, Paul G. ‘Notes towards a Theory of Tragedy in Chaucer.’ ChauR 8 (1973), 89–99. MkT is an anomaly because, although Chaucerian tragedy spans the diverse views that existence is absurd, and that Providence is in control, there is a tendency to resist the bleaker aspects of tragic experience. Chaucer’s sense of the tragic derives partly from the Latin tradition and especially from the religious and philosophical atmosphere in which he wrote. As Christian culture preferred to make tragedy merely one episode in a larger pattern of the reconciliation of man to God, so ‘Chaucer seems always to be searching for a way to dissolve the knot of unrelieved suffering’ (p 95). NPT is mentioned briefly as ‘a counterbalance to the fortunal view’ (p 97) of the tragedies of MkT. See also Babcock 428, Robertson 737, Socola 735, Watson 634. [GC, JAS]

186 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

654 Brewer, Derek, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer. Writers and their Background. London: Bell, 1974. Contains Brewer 963, Dronke and Mann 488, Harbert 489, Kolve 967, Manzalaoui 968, Schless 745, and Shepherd 746. 655 Simms, Norman. ‘Nero and Jack Straw in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Parergon 8 (1974), 2–12. Jack Straw, a folk figure symbolizing unjustifiable popular rebellion, functions as a backwards comment on the Monk’s tragedy of Nero, by which the people’s rebellion against a cruel tyrant becomes ‘a game that Fortune plays against the proud ruler’ (p 4). The name Jack Straw and the reference to the noise of the mob (NPT VII.3393–7) suggest a springtime ritual. All references are linked ultimately to the theme of self-control and the use of power. [GC, JAS] 656 Dean, Nancy. ‘Chaucerian Attitudes Toward Joy with Particular Consideration of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ MÆ 44 (1975), 1–13. Despite the current critical emphasis on religious or theological readings of Chaucer, it is the joys of this world that are primarily celebrated and described in CT. Chaucer’s representations of attitudes to joy derive from Boethius, and pivot around attitudes towards worldly prosperity. The Monk’s assumption is that joy coincides with prosperity. His assumption is challenged by NPT, which shows life to consist of many events and many acts of choice, none of which need be influenced by Fortune. The Nun’s Priest ‘presents a joyful tale with a strenuous view of living. Man’s life is not heroic in either the Knight’s or the Monk’s sense’ (p 10). Man will make many mistakes, many of them remediable, through his folly; proper joy will help him to survive the hazards and subdue his own pride. See also Watson 634. [JAS, CW] 657 Miskimin, Alice S. The Renaissance Chaucer. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, MkT was read, not as a further part of the characterization of the Monk, but as ‘Chaucer’s’ kind of tragedy. In the Nun’s Priest’s concluding injunction, ‘Taketh the moralite, goode men’ (VII.3340), ‘the literal meaning of words [is] simultaneously undermined and affirmed’ (pp 84–5). In a chapter on ‘The Imaginary Audience,’ the Nun’s Priest is discussed in connection with the complex I and ye of direct and indirect address: the context is his aside about ‘the book of Launcelot de Lake’ (VII.3212). [CW] 658 David, Alfred. The Strumpet Muse: Art and Morals in Chaucer’s Poetry. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1976. MkT and NPT belong to a section of CT in which Chaucer widens the gap between the literariness of the tales and the realism of the frame, thus moving the audience back and forth between different kinds of fiction. MkT does not generate dramatic illusion; rather, Chaucer uses the ‘malleable frame of his

The Tales Together / 187

fiction’ (p 222) for the purpose of critical reflexivity, as the strategy of interruption enables him to comment on a work, originally produced at an earlier period, which is both too monkish and inadequate in its conception of tragedy. In Fragment VII, Chaucer begins to reassert his ‘authority’ over the text, and ‘the apex of this art comes in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ (p 223). NPT is elaborately concerned with all the issues of authorship. In the persona of Chauntecleer, Chaucer presents a complex interplay between the fiction of the talking chicken and the reality of what he represents in human terms. In their differing interpretations of dreams, he and Pertelote demonstrate a fundamental difference between men and women. NPT contains traps for the unwary: ‘Every critic who takes up the Priest’s invitation to find the “moralite” seems to lose his perspective and his sense of humor and begins to sound as learned and pompous as Chauntecleer himself’ (p 229). [JAS, CW] 659 Howard, Donald R. The Idea of the Canterbury Tales. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976. The tales of Fragment VII constitute a section on the theme of ‘private conduct,’ and all of them, with the exception of NPT, reflect and enhance GP portraits of the tellers and deepen their characterization. The Monk is a study in the psychology of powerlessness. The de casibus stories he chooses to relate are about powerful people, and must appeal to his own obsession with power and dignity. But Fortune’s destruction of the powerful is no consolation for his own lack of power, as he presents a hopeless and frightening world in which man has no control over his destiny. There are occasional references to NPT throughout, with some sustained treatment in Ch 5, pp 282–8. While NPT refers back to KnT, PrT, and MkT, Chaucer satirizes the individual tellers of these tales less than ‘the pomposity and vanity with which people discussed matters of seriousness and the heavy-handed rhetorical forms into which they cast their discourse’ (p 283). Although NPT is manifestly a warning against self-important interpretative pomposity, ‘its fine Chaucerian spirit has seduced ever so many intellectuals into the very flattery which it satirizes’ (p 286). NPT unifies Fragment VII. •Review by A.V.C. Schmidt, RES ns 29 (1978), 466–9. The book is ‘probably the most stimulating . . . on the Canterbury Tales yet written’ (p 466). The idea that some tales ‘discredit’ others, for example NPT and MkT, is confusing. Howard’s classification of the tales can be contended, but is ‘fascinating and ingenious’ (p 468). [JAS, CW] 660 Burlin, Robert B. Chaucerian Fiction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977. The Monk’s tragedies are an extension of the pomposity and pedantry displayed by the Monk in his prologue. The Tale is not only not what Harry expected, but also fails to fulfill its teller’s intentions of restoring his dignity as a Monk. His attribution to Fortune of the cause for the fall from prosperity,

188 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

without incorporating the protagonist’s possible responsibility, undermines the Tale’s claim to a religious purpose. His stories disclose an admiration for power rather than for virtue, and his performance admirably explores the personality of a man whose desire for power and pleasure is expressed in a vocation not designed for those ends. NPT is discussed on pp 227–34. The Livre de Melibee et de Dame Prudence ‘clearly stands behind the debate over the nature of dreams [in NPT], a debate that takes up more than half of the Tale’ (p 228). With Donaldson 121, Burlin sees NPT largely in terms of ‘satire of rhetorical practice’ (p 231), to the extent that ‘the form, not free will or destiny, becomes the content or, to use the narrator’s own jargon, the “chaf” becomes the “fruyt”’ (p 232). . •Review by Robert Jordan in 997. . •Review by Donald R. Howard, JEGP 77 (1978), 267–70. Although the book raises an important topic, its answers are disappointing. . •Review by Gloria Cigman, RES ns 29 (1978), 469–70. Burlin’s three categories of fiction work well most of the time; the most stimulating is the third category of ‘Psychological Fictions.’ ‘Our need now is for more books like this to argue from and with’ (p 470). . •Review by A.J. Minnis, MÆ 49 (1980), 146–9. The high quality of the textual analysis and the subtlety of argument are the strengths of the book. [JAS, CW, PG] 661 Gardner, John. The Life and Times of Chaucer. London: Paladin; New York: Knopf, 1977. After his first ambassadorial mission to Italy, Chaucer began in MkT to write the kind of short lives that Petrarch and Boccaccio were writing, in a humanist spirit, focusing as much on the character and deeds of the subject as the moral to be drawn, and turned more and more to themes and techniques out of Dante. Although MkT is one of Chaucer’s less successful works, it is subtler and more entertaining than critics have generally allowed, and all the tales have some poetic interest. In NPT, a late work, serious values are expressed along with ‘sharp ironic undercutting’, and ‘the act of writing itself is mocked as absurd’ (p 293). The ‘povre widwe’ is an accurate as well as a subtle portrait of a Kentish peasant woman. [PG, CW] 662 Owen, Charles A. Jr. Pilgrimage and Storytelling in the Canterbury Tales: The Dialectic of ‘Ernest’ and ‘Game’. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977. The tales of Fragment VII are unusually self-contained, in that they generally do not develop relationships with the GP portraits. The Monk’s tragedies are thus a dignified rebuke to the Host rather than a reflection of the Monk’s interests. Originally written in the 1370s, these perfunctory exercises are probably Chaucer’s first attempt at direct narrative, and show a progression from initial awkwardness to developing skill to loss of interest (Owen assumes the

The Tales Together / 189

medial placement of the Modern Instances). The Knight’s interruption and stated preference for success stories stem from his position as defender of the status quo, since stories featuring repeated falls from high estate question the stability of society. In his account of the widow and her simple way of life, the Nun’s Priest is not satirizing the Prioress, but rather giving a gentle lesson on the true sources of satisfaction in life. The follies of Chauntecleer are treated with gentle humour, though ‘the betrayal of his posturing by his nature suggests what constantly befalls another species of posturing biped’ (p 138). The Nun’s Priest’s digression on the debate between Chauntecleer and Pertelote as a reminder of Adam and Eve shows that, fundamentally, NPT is not antifeminist, for the real significance of Adam and Eve is not antifeminism, but original sin. Various possibilities for a ‘moralite’ are discussed, one of them being that the Host has listened better than he listened to the Monk, but what he has understood is another matter. •Review by A.C. Spearing, MÆ 48 (1979), 142–6. The book offers an unusually close partnership of scholarship and criticism, combining a theory of textual development of CT with an interpretation of the tales. Owen’s hypotheses are ultimately, however, no more than interesting speculation. [JAS, CW, PG] 663 Wentersdorf, Karl P. ‘Chaucer’s Worthless Butterfly.’ ELN 14 (1977), 167–72. A discussion of the multiple associations of the butterfly in ‘two different traditions - the significatio in bono, in which the butterfly functions as a symbol for the soul, and the significatio in malo, where it stands for that which is at best simply worthless and at worst thoroughly evil’ (p 168), an appropriate figure for pride and inconstancy. The Host interjects at the end of MkT, in NPP.VII.2790, that ‘Swich talkyng is nat worth a boterflye.’ There is no discussion of Chauntecleer’s sighting of the butterfly (NPT VII.3274) in the vegetable garden. [JAS, CW] 664 Brewer, Derek, ed. Chaucer: The Critical Heritage. 2 vols. The Critical Heritage Series. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. A compilation of early Chaucer criticism. In Volume 2 1837–1933, an extract from James Russell Lowell’s My Study Windows (1871) suggests that MkT satirizes the long-winded morality of Gower. Manly’s 1926 British Academy lecture on rhetoric 607 is reprinted almost in its entirety (pp 385–402) with its view that MkT contains some highly rhetorical passages with elaborate, artificial figures. NPT is the striking exception to the rule that the humorous tales are largely free from rhetorical figures. Other references to NPT include Leigh Hunt (pp 70–1), Stopford A. Brooke (p 158), Furnivall (pp 174, 177), and John William MacKail (pp 288, 292–3). [PG, CW] 665 Brewer, Derek. Chaucer and His World. London: Eyre Methuen, 1978. The unusual way in which Chaucer laments the death of Pedro of Spain in

190 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

MkT could be explained by Chaucer’s trip to Spain in 1366, which may have given him personal knowledge of the king. Chaucer’s wife became lady in waiting to Pedro’s daughter, Constance of Castile, after her marriage to John of Gaunt. There are two brief references to NPT (pp 38, 158), both relating to Jack Straw’s rebellion (VII.3393–7). [PG, CW] 666 Benson, Robert G. Medieval Body Language: A Study of the Use of Gesture in Chaucer’s Poetry. Anglistica 21. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1980. Werner Habicht’s study of gesture in Old English poetry, Die Gebärde in englischen Dichtungen des Mittelalters, Munich, 1959, distinguishes three types of gesture: expressive, demonstrative, and ceremonial. Benson’s broad definition of gesture is ‘any expressive bodily movement, manner, bearing, posture, facial expression, or sound’ (p 10). Chaucer’s ‘use of gesture in his best poetry is the most successful employment of that device in English poetry before 1500’ (p 9). There are thirteen examples of gestures from MkP and MkT listed in the Appendix (pp 146–7): nine expressive, three demonstrative, and one demonstrative/expressive. NPT appears once in the text (pp 62– 3); the appendix (pp 147–8) provides a list of gestures in NPT: expressive (VII.2886, VII.3023, VII.3086–7), demonstrative (VII.3177–82, VII.3322, VII.3457), ceremonial (VII.3331–3), ceremonial/demonstrative (VII.3304–8). [BM, RW] 667 Fichte, Joerg O. Chaucer’s ‘Art Poetical’: A Study in Chaucerian Poetics. Studies & Texts in English 1. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1980. Chaucer’s work shows the development from ‘a limited awareness of the power of poetry to the recognition that the poetic act equals the paradigmatic act of creating order in a world characterized by confusion’ (p 21). Chaucer’s ‘pronounced tendency towards irresolution’ (p 101) is exemplified by the Host’s unsuccessful role as ‘governour,’ shown in the disorderly transitions and sprawling variety which is ‘especially noticeable in Fragment VII’ (p 103). Awareness of the theme of disorder leads to appreciation of Chaucer’s belief in ‘the ordering function of art’ (p 112). He ridicules the didactic function of literature, implicitly postulated by the Man of Law and by the Monk, who is ‘a convinced determinist’ (p 113). At least six of the characters in MkT are free from any personal guilt, and the Monk firmly believes in Fortune’s power and responsibility for the fall of the virtuous. In NPT disorder results from a failure to heed reason, and is resolved only by Chauntecleer’s recovery of reason. In other tales disorder remains more recalcitrant. Chaucer does not attempt to resolve this disorder by appealing to the traditional Boethian or ‘the old a priori conception of the universe as governed in an orderly fashion according to God’s divinely ordained plan’ (p 111); he is, rather, interested in humanistic not theological topics. The narrow-minded view of the function of poetry espoused by the Man of Law, the Monk, and the Parson is chal-

The Tales Together / 191

lenged by NPT, which advances the view that ‘imaginative literature is justification in itself’ (p 115). [BM, RW] 668 Klene, Jean. ‘Chaucer’s Contributions to a Popular Topos: The World Upside-Down.’ Viator 11 (1980), 321–4. Three major manifestations of the traditional ‘upside-down’ world are evident in Chaucer’s works: the impossiblia, role reversals, and statements about the disordered world. Examples of the role reversal topos include reversals between animals and human beings, and between men and women, e.g., the Wife of Bath’s treatment of her husband. Chaucer does not give an example of animals triumphing over humans within a single tale, but the juxtaposition of MkT and NPT suggests the tradition. In MkT, even great human beings succumb to adversity, but in NPT Chauntecleer triumphs over adversity. In analogues the fox is often depicted as ‘overthrowing political and religious figures’ (p 328); in CT the triumph of animal wisdom in NPT contrasts with the lack of wisdom in MkT. [BM] 669 Lawler, Traugott. The One and the Many in the Canterbury Tales. Hamden, CN: Archon, 1980. A study of ‘the complementary relationship in CT between unity and diversity, oneness and multiplicity’ (p 15). Where ‘The Monk reduces a series of individual histories [‘the many’] to a single brief formula [‘the one’],’ ‘the Nun’s Priest mocks this by extending and articulating as far as he can what is in fact a stereotyped and predictable story’ (p 100). By treating separately the lives of a series of historical personages, the Monk implies that the individual has dignity and importance. When Chaucer examines human beings in general (‘the many’) he finds not ‘the one’ but ‘the two,’ male and female, the male deriving his character primarily from his profession, the female from her sex. ‘Mulier est hominis confusio’ (NPT VII.3164) is typical of the fact that ‘virtually everyone [in CT] assumes that women are susceptible of generalization’ (p 64). The contrast between Chauntecleer and Pertelote exemplifies a generic contrast throughout CT: Chaucer’s ‘women are in general earthbound and solid, his men searchers after abstract ideals (often foolish)’ (p 65). Authority is another version of ‘the one’ and experience a version of ‘the many.’ The stereotypes of beast-fable are even more rigid than the professional stereotypes of the fabliau, but the Nun’s Priest creates the illusion of an experiential tale, while ultimately confirming the authority of the typical and general. [PG, BM] 670 Allen, Judson Boyce, and Theresa Anne Moritz. A Distinction of Stories. The Medieval Unity of Chaucer’s Fair Chain of Narratives from Canterbury. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1981. Pp 58–61, 218–19. The Monk himself is only one of the pilgrims who, in confessing his insecu-

192 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

rity in the face of fiction, and apologizing for his problems with it (MkP VII.1985, VII.1988–90), affirms its value and importance. The Host, in rejecting a repetition of the tragic instances, rejects the medieval reverence for exempla; whereas the Knight, in recognizing their exemplary tone, comes closest to reading a story correctly. Since MkT, like CT, is a collection, Chaucer is suggesting that the Knight’s careful reading of it comes closest to the type of reading which Chaucer finds most appropriate to poetry. However, the interpretation which the Monk invites is that life does not make sense, so that the Monk himself exists as a contradiction of his tale; it is a partial view which is part of a set of interlocked glosses (within the fragment) on human experience. A new ordering of CT is advocated, based on ‘medieval’ principles of interpretation found in commentaries on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and in particular on classification of Ovid’s changes into four categories: natural, magical, moral, and spiritual. In this ordering the ‘moral’ group comprises PrT, Th, Mel, MkT, NPT, and ParsT (discussed in Ch 7, pp 212–31, as ‘the interpretation group’); NPT is the central text, a warning against certain modes of interpretation. The Nun’s Priest invites his audience to allegorize the story, but any resultant allegory is perversely reductionist; this warns the reader that stories are not things to be told only in order to be rejected. Dryden’s version of NPT, with its direct and predictable moral, reveals a failure of interpretation, since he encourages us to take ‘the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille’ (VII.3443). NPT, however, teaches us how to interpret all stories properly: they ‘demand to be accepted, not reduced, heard as stories, not as the husk of allegories or the too easy platforms of oversimplifying generalizations’ (p 225). See also Kaske 562. This book was widely praised: by Theodore A. Stroud, MP 80 (1982), 177– 80; by Helen Cooper, RES ns 35 (1984), 219–21; by John C. Hirsh, MÆ 53 (1984), 123–5. •Review by Derek Pearsall, SAC 4 (1982), 135–40, is concerned that the authors apply to Chaucer an ‘ideological reconstitution’ (p 138) which is analogous to what medieval commentators did to Ovid, and which like them results in ‘a work not of literary criticism but of moral edification’ (p 138): after ‘the brilliance of the opening chapters, this book goes down as an exciting failure’ (p 140). [BM, RW] 671 Hermann, John P., and John J. Burke, eds. Signs and Symbols in Chaucer’s Poetry. University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1981. Contains Chamberlain 1041, Gardner 756, Reiss 673, and Robertson 585. 672 Heyworth, P. L., ed. Medieval Studies for J.A.W. Bennett. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Contains Blake 282 and Cooper 586.

The Tales Together / 193

673 Reiss, Edmund. ‘Chaucer’s Thematic Particulars.’ In Hermann and Burke 671. Pp 27–42. Many details or ‘particulars’ in Chaucer’s works are primarily there for their thematic significance, and Chaucer is prepared to sacrifice realism or narrative consistency for it. Harry Bailly’s agreement with the Knight’s objections (NPP VII.2784–99) is an ironic commentary giving new retrospective meaning to the Tale. His phrase ‘no remedie’ echoes the ‘no remedie’ at the heart of the Monk’s view of tragedy (MkP VII.1993–4). Harry’s casual interjection ‘so God yow blesse!’ offers the ‘remedie’ that the Monk is not aware of, and the reference to the butterfly, a ready-made symbol, not only gives an allegorical sense to the narrative but also calls up the possible redemption of man via its significatio in bono, since the Monk has in effect denied the idea of rebirth in his various ‘tragedies.’ The ‘preestes thre’ of GP I.164 has the local thematic effect of suggesting ‘the incongruous retinue of a great lady who is making what seems to be more a progress than a pilgrimage’ (p 27). When ‘the Nun’s Priest’ (p 27) tells his tale, this inconsistency would not have worried the audience: ‘number here would have been regarded as an accidental quality, not a substantial one’ (p 28). [BM, RW] 674 Barney, Stephen A. ‘Chaucer’s Lists.’ In The Wisdom of Poetry: Essays in Early English Literature in Honor of Morton W. Bloomfield. Ed. Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1982. Pp 189–223. The main sources for the lists, which often disrupt Chaucer’s narratives, are: ‘wisdom literature, oral poetry, rhetoric, satire, encyclopedic . . . moral and homiletic literature, and technological literature, especially scientific writing’ (p 194). As representative of this strand from wisdom literature, the Monk threatens a list (MkP VII.1972), and his Tale comprises an exemplary list explicitly directed towards the thematic end of ‘falls of Fortune.’ Chauntecleer and Pertelote also use lists derived from wisdom literature, but they indicate Chaucer’s scepticism about such generalized wisdom. The art of rhetoric provides the kind of list which ‘attempts to name directly the central principles of character’ (p 211), but such lists are usually too abstract to reveal anything of significance. Chaucer’s knowledge of science came to him in lists: he tends to present such knowledge in the same form, but the comic tone of many lists (including those in NPT) suggests that ‘at times [he] regards the trappings of science with a critical attitude’ (p 214). The fox chase in NPT is included in the category of ‘action lists’ (p 218), a form often used by Chaucer for satire, but which is here primarily comic. [BM, RW] 675 Boitani, Piero. English Medieval Narrative in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Trans. Joan Krakover Hall. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge

194 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

University Press, 1982. Originally published as La Narrativa del Medioevo Inglese. Biblioteca di Studi Inglesi 36. Bari: Adriatica, 1980. An increasingly strong artistic, ideological and even national self-consciousness developed in English narrative during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Chaucer gives different solutions to the problem of the popular framed collection of narratives. The series of tragedies in MkT is typologically related to Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. In comparison, though furnished with ‘an end,’ the internal mechanisms and the different levels of narrative fiction within the CT are still problematic, and render the whole very complex. MkT is one which comes closest to a harmony between origin, theme and stylistic register. As compared with Boccaccio’s Decameron, the CT lacks historicity in the sense given the term by Baratto, though ‘historicity’ re-emerges in the Ugolino story and the Modern Instances of the MkT. MkT is merely a mechanical accumulatio of stories united by the same tragic theme, brought about by fortune, a collection of exempla on a preordained theme without precise chronological or historic plan. NPT has a playful delight in its own literary self-consciousness. The web of allusions to other texts (biblical, astrological, rhetorical, literary, philosophical, historical) generates complex and comic ironies. The narrative and the process of narration are inextricably mixed up. [BM, RW] 676 Brewer, Derek. Tradition and Innovation in Chaucer. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1982. Class-distinction and social mobility are important to Chaucer, and whereas the Monk’s medieval definition of tragedy is the fall from high to low degree, the Knight cuts short the Monk’s series of tragedies to say that he would rather hear of people improving their position. NPT mocks the very idea of ‘sentence.’ It reveals the ironic interplay between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ culture, for example in Chauntecleer’s mistranslation of ‘In principio . . . ‘ (VII.3163). The juxtaposition of opposites draws attention, not so much to the relativity of truth, as to the limitations of any specific formulation of it. The reference to ‘Launcelot de Lake’ (VII.3126) may be to Chrétien de Troyes. [RW, PG] 677 Burrow, John. Medieval Writers and Their Work: Middle English Literature and its Background 1100–1500. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Chaucer ‘displays a marked scepticism about the exemplary mode, or at least about its workings in practice’ (p 111), especially in cases (as with the Pardoner) where there is a discrepancy between the exemplum and the intention of the exemplifier. Instances of the discrepancy between exemplum and mens exemplificantis include ‘the worldly and “well-faring” Monk’ who narrates ‘ensamples’ to ‘prove the fickleness of fortune and the vanity of the world’ (p 111). Chauntecleer offers many exempla to prove that dreams have prophetic

The Tales Together / 195

678

679

680

681

meaning, but his behaviour when he catches sight of Pertelote reveals how easily ‘the voice of history and traditional wisdom’ (p 112) is ignored. [BM, RW] Coles Editorial Board. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: Notes. Toronto: Coles Publishing Company, 1982. A student guide offering some background material on Chaucer’s life, works, language, and social context, and summaries and brief commentaries on CT. MkT is discussed on pp 58–62; NPT on pp 62–7. In MkP, the Host reveals himself as a hen-pecked husband. Chaucer’s source, Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium is a humanist text emphasising the importance of man as an entity in himself. Chaucer brings the work back to the medieval viewpoint by cutting almost all the detail out of the narratives except for the tragic downfall. The moral of NPT is simple, but Chaucer’s treatment is rich and complex. [PG, BM] Leitch, L.M. ‘Sentence and Solaas: The Function of the Hosts in the Canterbury Tales.’ ChauR 17 (1982), 5–20. The tensions in CT between art and audience and between art and time are part of the wider tension between ‘solaas’ and ‘sentence.’ The Host reminds the pilgrim-artists of their responsibility to their audience. Harry feels that he also has a responsibility to his audience (see Gaylord 639), as when he interrupts the Monk, to prevent the pilgrims from becoming bored, and although enduring moral tales, he reserves his approbation for merry tales, and faults the Monk because of his tale’s lack of mirth. The Knight’s interruption also expresses distress (or disdain?) over the Monk’s lack of mirth. Evidence for their awareness of this responsibility includes, from NPT: acknowledgement of audience by means of direct address (VII.3325), reminders of earlier topics (VII.3255), and stressing moments of significance (VII.3210); apology for lack of skill (VII.3240); avoiding preaching or digression (VII.3251–2). The Host’s ideal tale is one which offers ‘solaas,’ although the Nun’s Priest’s agreement to gladden the pilgrims’ hearts after MkT (NPP VII.2816–17) is tinged ‘with light sarcasm’ (p 13). As CT develops the Host’s authority is undermined until he is ultimately replaced by the Parson, when ‘solaas’ is replaced by ‘sentence.’ Yet the preceding tales need not be rejected, for the major tale is that which traces Chaucer’s physical and spiritual journey, and which perhaps culminates in an acceptance of ‘sentence’ - an acceptance which demands a knowledge of what must ultimately be rejected, the world of ‘solaas.’ [BM, RW] Boitani, Piero, ed. Chaucer and the Italian Trecento. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Contains Bennett 519, Boitani 521, Giaccherini 240, Godman 522, Havely 587, Kirkpatrick 523, and Larner 759. [PG] ––, and Anna Torti, ed. Literature in Fourteenth-Century England: The J.A.W.

196 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Bennett Memorial Lectures, Perugia, 1981–1982. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1983; Cambridge: Brewer, 1983. Contains Mann 760 and Brewer 1023. 682 Cooper, Helen. The Structure of the Canterbury Tales. London: Duckworth, 1983; Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1984. Fragment VII is the longest but most diffuse of the groups within CT and turns on a debate about literature. NPT comments directly on Mel and MkT, and more generally on CT as a whole, especially by subverting a range of forms: romance, fabliau, debate, tragedy, hagiography, epic, courtly love, philosophy, rhetoric. The most immediate target is MkT: ‘The Monk’s tragedies imposed a single tone and moral and style; in the beast-fable, everything is relative’ (p 180). MkT resembles LGW in a number of ways. It is the sort of story collection that consists of a prologue followed by an unlimited number of tales sharing ‘a single tone, a single genre, a single narrative pattern, and a single moral’ (p 177). Chaucer changes the moral theme of Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium from just retribution to capricious fortune. The tale of Ugolino is the high point of MkT, but the easy moralitas of the turning of Fortune’s wheel seems not only inadequate but immoral. There are seven levels of narration in NPT: those of Chaucer, the pilgrim persona, the Nun’s Priest, Chauntecleer, the author of Chauntecleer’s dream stories, the dream stories themselves, and the prophetic voice within the second dream. This final voice, which warns the dreamer that he will drown if he sails the next day, offers a message both straightforward and unequivocal (although, ironically, his ‘tale’ is not believed by his companion); but as we move outwards from this innermost story-teller, meaning becomes more relative and complex. This pattern typifies CT as a whole, as we move from local detail to total work. Whereas MkT is everything that CT is not, NPT, in its emphasis on relativity, ‘is the Canterbury Tales in miniature’ (p 180), and in it ‘poet and narrator merge’ (p 184). •Review by A.J. Minnis, EIC 35 (1985), 265–9, is representative of reviewers, describing Cooper’s book as ‘a considerable achievement - in the ambition of its earlier chapters, [and] in the sanity and quality of so many of its critical insights’ (p 269); but he notes that tales ‘which do not meet her requirements receive little praise, with little attempt being made to suggest other standards in accordance with which they could be seen differently’ (p 268), and that although students will no doubt continue to prefer NPT to ParsT ‘they should at least acknowledge the historically-determined assumptions which underlie their value-judgments’ (p 268). •Review by N.F. Blake, ES 66 (1985), 170–1. A book dealing with the ‘structure’ of CT should take greater cognizance of the MS tradition. [BM, PG]

The Tales Together / 197

683 Traversi, Derek. The Canterbury Tales: A Reading. London: Bodley Head; Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1983. The Host’s picture of his domestic life paves the way for his address to that ‘worldly celibate’ (p 212), the Monk, with its implied comment on his misplaced vocation. The definition of tragedy is wooden, querying the relationship between imaginative art and moral precept. The Monk’s treatment of the problem of ‘Fortune’ is ‘pedantic and dead’ (p 214), and the Knight and the Host recognize this flaw, that ‘a tale told for moral ends without a measure of art will, in the process of failing as a tale, fail to persuade those who hear or read it of the validity of the “lesson” it is designed to convey’ (p 216). NPT is a ‘distillation of the distinctively Chaucerian spirit’ (p 210), exposing some of the deepest themes of the pilgrimage to subtle comic scrutiny. Chauntecleer’s courtly fantasy world is attractive, but ‘enclosed, isolated from the dangers of the real world, by the protecting boundaries of the widow’s domain’ (pp 219–20), a domain which is a symbol of the real world in which most are compelled to live. The scholastic debate over free will and predestination is subjected to irony, not because Chaucer is unconcerned about such issues, but because it is ‘salutary for men to avoid the temptation to take themselves too seriously’ (p 233). Scientific knowledge (as with dream-lore) and literary rhetoric have their value, but they can be comforting and escapist illusions. Chauntecleer’s quotation and translation of the Latin maxim (VII.3163–6) holds together a creative ambiguity which should not be subjected to ‘one-sided or self assertive resolution’ (p 229). NPT brings together many of the themes and concerns of CT as a whole, and is ‘close to the heart of the whole undertaking in its humane, entirely unsolemn seriousness’ (p 236). [BM, RW] 684 Brewer, Derek. An Introduction to Chaucer. London and New York: Longman, 1984. 2nd. edn 1998. Chaucer is known to have been in Navarre in February, 1366, and he was probably on a diplomatic mission between the court of the Black Prince in Aquitaine and that of Peter of Spain, of whom he writes in MkT VII.2375–90 (p 51). Medieval tragedy is pathetic rather than ennobling; the most pathetic and moving of the tragedies in MkT is that of Ugolino, taken from Dante. It is impossible to tell how uneasy Chaucer felt about MkT; that he could refer to the death of Bernabò at some time after its occurrence in 1385 shows him still working on MkT ‘in full maturity’ (p 196). The development of the story of the cock and the fox from Aesop to the medieval period is briefly examined, with some discussion of Gallus et Vulpes. NPT is not allegorical: ‘The poem is about itself, its own morality, its own reversals, its own fun . . . . It has an underlying, entirely recognisable, unfragmented Chaucerian identity’ (p 199). [BM, DS]

198 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

685 Brewer, Elisabeth. Studying Chaucer. York Handbooks. Harlow: Longman; Beirut: York, 1984. Rpt 1989. A handbook for students unfamiliar with medieval writers and their background. MkP-MkT is summarized on p 131. Brief comments refer to the Monk’s definition of tragedy and the backgrounds of Ugolino, Nero, Julius Caesar, and Croesus; ‘such stories afforded Chaucer little scope for his genius (though his contemporaries enjoyed them)’ (pp 131–2). NPP-NPT is summarized on p 132. The alternation of human and animal characteristics is the source of the tale’s brilliant comedy. Beneath the surface of the tale, there are serious discussions of the nature of dreams, free will and predestination, medicine, and rhetoric. In the last lines, the narrator reminds us of the solemn purpose of the pilgrimage. [DS, PG] 686 Kane, George. Chaucer. Past Masters Series. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. A general introduction to Chaucer’s life, times, and works. An ideal emerges from CT of ‘a harmonious personality, inclined to right conduct, characterized by integrity’ (p 101), but the ‘pathos of the human condition lay in the conflicts and confusion of values by which the ideal was rejected’ (p 101). Chaucer’s exercises in retelling notable calamities ‘survive as the contribution of the deplorable Monk . . . it appears that Chaucer thought little of them’ (p 88). NPT is mentioned briefly (pp 96–7), but some of the general comments are relevant to it, e.g., that Chaucer had addressed the ‘related issues of divine foreknowledge, predestination, future contingencies and free will’ (p 102) when translating Boethius, and this experience seems to have caused him to distance his concern over the issues, ‘as if showing him the aridity of epistemology, that it changes nothing except the terms of a problem’ (p 102). [BM, DS] 687 Sklute, Larry. Virtue of Necessity: Inconclusiveness and Narrative Form in Chaucer’s Poetry. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1984. Many of Chaucer’s poems are characterized by both incompleteness and inconclusiveness. ‘Inconclusiveness’ is ‘a frequent inability on the part of the Chaucerian “voice” to derive universal or certain meaning from the elements of his experience, an inclination to avoid drawing conclusions’ (p 19). Contemporary philosophical movements which allowed for cognitive indeterminacy are analagous to this. The MS evidence suggests that Chaucer was moving towards fragments with at least two tellers and two tales, and ‘dialectically presenting in each fragment one valence - an issue, an opinion, an attitude, or a theme - and at least one counter or alternative valence’ (p 123). The form of CT as a whole is purposefully inconclusive and Fragment VII is the most striking example: there is a variety of genres; there are complex relationships between tale and teller; moral and generic considerations are

The Tales Together / 199

raised by juxtaposition of tales. MkT is purposefully incomplete, precisely because it is ‘conclusive with a vengeance’ (pp 97, 134). Then follows NPT, ‘whose greatest virtue is, by contrast, the inconclusiveness of its form and the joy that inconclusiveness produces’ (p 134). Morality and form are ‘shifting and inconclusive’ (p 135), even down to our uncertainty about the date, 3 May or 1 April (p 136). NPT provides an analogue to the inconclusiveness of CT as a whole. [BM, DS] 688 Rowland, Beryl, ed. Essays on Chaucerian Irony. With an essay on irony, by Beryl Rowland. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1985. Contains Birney 613, 614, 828 and ‘Is Chaucer’s Irony a Modern Discovery?,’ pp 36–53. [PG] 689 Pearsall, D.A. The Canterbury Tales. Unwin Critical Library. London, Boston, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1985. The cancellation of NPT endlink (VII.3447–62) and the re-use of some of its material in the Host’s words to the Monk (e.g., MkP VII.1945) suggest that the development and integration of Fragment VII was undertaken during the mature phase of the composition of CT. The Ellesmere version of NPT demonstrates that manuscript’s extensive and sensible editing to improve grammar and syntax, clear up irregularities and inconsistencies, and regularize the metre on a ten-syllable pattern. MkT is a conventional ‘fall of princes,’ relying on Boethius’s images of fickle Fortune rather than on his rational dismissal of them, which would imply that there is really no such thing as tragedy. It remains a catalogue, with both the old and the modern examples distanced from historical reality, that of Ugolino alone being treated imaginatively - there Chaucer omits the horror in Dante’s account and settles for pathos. The tale should nevertheless be taken seriously: it is not told to make fun of the Monk, though the frame structure allows Chaucer’s literary views to be expressed. It is not told badly: there is some awkward writing, e.g., VII.2279–94 (Zenobia) and VII.2503–18 (Nero), but also some lively writing, e.g., VII.2556–8 (Holofernes). In the frame, the interruption of the Knight, whose own handling of tragedy has been more sophisticated, enables Chaucer to suggest, dramatically, the limitations of the catalogue method and the conceptual naiveté of Fortune tragedy. Again, MkT and NPT, one of several bonded pairs of tales, may be contrasted through their structural juxtaposition, though not through some confrontation between their tellers in which the Nun’s Priest satirizes the Monk (pp 49, 230). MS evidence suggests that MkT provoked different reactions in audiences. After the three tales appearing most frequently in fifteenth-century anthologies, MkT is one of six to appear in two anthologies; but in Bibliothèque Nationale MS fonds anglais 39, made for Jean d’Angoulême, brother of Charles

200 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

d’Orléans, and probably reflecting his tastes, MkT is pared to three tragedies and Jean’s marginal comment reads valde dolorosa. NPT is perhaps the best and ‘most “inimitably” Chaucerian of the Tales’ (p 230). Its principal pleasure is the ‘comical juxtaposition of the simplicities of beast-fable with mass of circumstance . . . derived from some of Chaucer’s favourite encyclopaedic rag-bags’ (p 231). The tale is distinguished by its ‘consistent, witty and generous observation of human nature’ (p 237). NPT is misread if spoken by any voice other than the ‘maturest and wittiest voice of the poet himself’ (p 44). The narrator is absorbed into the telling of the tale and does not realize how funny he appears. The person who narrates the fall of Chauntecleer ‘is not Chaucer with his tongue in his cheek, ironically, but someone who is really serious in his desire to tell his story well’ (p 232). There are some parallels between the narrator and Chauntecleer. Chauntecleer’s moralising and exemplum-telling are very much to the point, but Chauntecleer takes no notice of what he says. ‘Chauntecleer’s great advance in wisdom is to learn that language is a form of trickery, and how to use it’ (p 238). Although the moral and allegorical interpretation of the tale has contributed significantly to its understanding, there is no little nugget of moral edification hidden in it. The dictum that everything which is written is done so for instruction is a playful warning against ideological appropriation. •Review by R.W. Hanning, SAC 9 (1987), 249–53. Pearsall’s ‘good ear for play with generic conventions almost always commands respect’ (p 252). •Review by Helen Cooper, MÆ 56 (1987), 325–6. Pearsall believes that the overall design of CT allows the individual stories maximum autonomy. ‘The richness of the book lies both in its meticulous attention to detail and in its eye for the significant’ (p 326). [PG, DS] 690 Aers, David. Chaucer. Harvester New Readings. Brighton: Harvester, 1986. In MkP VII.1943–62, the Host is hostile to nonconformism, exhibiting the stereotyped marks of male egoism and aggression, and piously sentimental, without any of his maker’s ‘critical imagination’ (p 50). NPT is one of Chaucer’s most exuberant rhetorical displays, playing over a wide range of literary forms and culminating in a satirical treatment of that ‘moralising exegesis’ (p 8) which is one of the dominant modes of late medieval culture. The argument over the meaning of Chauntecleer’s dream contrasts the materialist reading of Pertelote with Chauntecleer’s appeal to the authority of ‘olde bookes.’ The argument is finally dismissed by the male, his sexual assertiveness paralleling his desire to dominate the female in debate. The tale’s ending focusses the problems of interpretation on its readers and the joke is against those who feel the need to abstract an authoritative moral. •Review by J.D. Burnley, RES, ns 38 (1987), 539–40. The discussion of gender relations from the perspective of modern sexual politics can be misleading:

The Tales Together / 201

‘powerless to comprehend and respond to disorders, past and present’ (pp 139–40). NPT ‘sports with, realizes and then discards the ultimate complexities of late fourteenth century thought, and at last advocates rural simplicity’ (p 141). Its social and cultural conservatism is not dull, however, but redeemed and legitimized by the brilliance of its comedy. The morality of the tale’s ending urges a rejection of the ‘chaff’ of contemporary literary culture in favour of the ‘fruit’ of the widow’s simple, yet peaceful, life.

The Tales Together / 201 a

the foolish and pretentious Chauntecleer is ‘a poor basis on which to erect the earnest condemnation of male tyranny’ (p 539). [PG, DS] 691 Benson, C. David. Chaucer’s Drama of Style. Poetic Variety and Contrast in the Canterbury Tales. Chapel Hill, NC, and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. Critical complaints of a discrepancy between the Monk of GP and of MkT assume the existence of a ‘realistic character consistency’ which was not a literary virtue in the Middle Ages (p 9). It is possible to take an ironic view and see MkT as deliberately bad, but in this case the dramatic principle is being used to support modern prejudices (p 14). Where NPT concentrates on ‘solaas,’ MkT concentrates on ‘sentence’ (p 31); but good ‘sentence’ must still reach its audience, and MkT only bores (p 24). Review by James Dean, MP 86 (1988—89), 77–9. The book will serve as an important corrective to the excesses of dramatic readings of CT. Review by Elaine Tuttle Hansen, JEGP 87 (1988), 101–4. The book offers ‘close and skillful counter-readings of several tales’ (p 101), but although it attacks the dramatic theory, it relies in the long run on importing an authority from outside the text: ‘an unproblematized author, the historically real and psychologically consistent “Chaucer”’ (p 103). [DS, PG] 692 Boitani, Piero, and Jill Mann, eds. The Cambridge Chaucer Companion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Rpt 1987, 1988. Contains Frank 764 and Spearing 1044. [PG] 693 Ellis, Roger. Patterns of Religious Narrative in the Canterbury Tales. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1986. Contains chapters on both MkT and NPT. The Introduction argues that the religious tales may properly be approached as separate contributions to the meaning of the whole work, and that the narrative voice of each is established by cooperation between the author and the fictional narrator. The Monk is one of several pilgrims to propose a double performance, here a sequence of tragedies followed by a saint’s life (MkP VII.1970–7), but his audience becomes impatient with the first part of his performance and prevents this scheme from being carried out. On the one hand, his ideas are interestingly diverse: he postulates three interacting causes of tragedy - God, Fortune and man - and presents three groups of figures - Old Testament, pagan, and medieval Christian - as affected by these causes in different ways. On the other hand, however, his narrative is flat: he focuses not on the ideas but on bookish matters; there is no thematic arrangement - the stories are merely told in the order in which they come to mind (pp 198–9); and they are recounted with little feeling for pace or sense of direction. This becomes particularly clear when they are compared with Boccaccio’s originals, as the stories of Samson and Zenobia show. Amongst the religious tales discussed,

. .

201 b / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

MkT represents one investigation of the relevance of narrative skills to didactic success. Most religious narratives have an emblematic structure, whose linear development takes the form of a test. The widow and her lifestyle in NPT are embematic of widowed poverty - for example, the simple house is a wellestablished emblem of humility; the soot which discolours its walls could be read as sin - although this is not a fixed quantity like Grisilde’s patience. The widow functions as a norm, which the story will temporarily disrupt. Chantecleer’s lifestyle, paralleled in many ways to the Monk’s, is the emblem of all that the widow’s lifestyle opposes. Chantecleer’s story should function like a rake’s progress whose ‘tragic end can be averted only by self-knowledge and repentance’ (p 274), but Chauntecleer’s escape undercuts this. No precedent exists in religious literature for the sinner to save himself, rather than following the established route of repentance and restoration to grace. The beast fable structure does not support an unambiguous religious interpretation; it suggests the necessary co-existence of the spiritual and natural realms. Whereas MkT regularly sees God as the heavenly auctor of human tragedy, the Nun’s Priest is unwilling to relate God directly to the events of the story. Chauntecleer’s escape is ascribed to Fortune rather than God, third in the Monk’s triad of tragic causes. Although the narrator urges the audience to find a moral in the story, he makes no attempt to guide them. His commentary fails to generate a coherently argued understanding of the events of the tale. Review by H.L. Spencer. MÆ 57 (1988), 106–7. Ellis is ‘hard pressed’ to justify the inclusion of MkT as ‘religious’ (p 106). The book’s strength lies in its close study of particulars, but MkT seems to have inspired Ellis less than NPT. [PG, DS] 694 Haas, Renate. ‘Chaucer’s Use of the Lament for the Dead.’ In Wasserman and Blanch 698. Pp 23–37. The Monk seems to echo the traditional idea of tragedy as luctus carmen by adding ‘in syngyng’ to his Boethian definition of tragedy (MkT VII.2762); in Lydgate’s view tragedy is characterized by laments. The tragic laments in MkT are answered by the deliberately overblown lament for Chauntecleer in NPT. [DS] 695 Knight, Stephen. Geoffrey Chaucer. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Chaucer’s works express the social strains and conflicts of his time. In MkT, the old tradition of monastic history is exposed ‘in its most naïve and reductive form,’ as blame for the disasters that befall the great is placed variously on Fortune, the treachery of others, or personal sin. MkT dismisses ‘old-style scholarship’ as ‘powerless to comprehend and respond to disorders, past and present’ (pp 139–40). NPT ‘sports with, realizes and then discards the

.

The Tales Together / 201 c

ultimate complexities of late fourteenth century thought, and at last advocates rural simplicity’ (p 141). Its social and cultural conservatism is not dull, however, but redeemed and legitimized by the brilliance of its comedy. The morality of the tale’s ending urges a rejection of the ‘chaff’ of contemporary literary culture in favour of the ‘fruit’ of the widow’s simple, yet peaceful, life. Review by N.R. Havely, MÆ 57 (1988), 309–10. The concern with sociohistorical context lends edge to the discussion, although some historical details and interpretations are questionable. [PG, DS] 696 Mehl, Dieter. Geoffrey Chaucer. An Introduction to his Narrative Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Trans. and rev, by author, of Geoffrey Chaucer: Eine Einführung in seine erzählenden Dichtungen. Grundlagen der Anglistik und Amerikanistik 7. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, [1973]. MkT is not particularly in keeping with the Monk’s portrait in GP. The Knight interrupts because he is depressed by the insistent reminders of the inconstancy of Fortune, whereas the Host merely gives vent to his boredom. NPT is characteristic of the experimental diversity of forms in CT. It contains elements of sermon, moral exemplum, beast fable and mock heroic, but corresponds to none of these exactly. It is a synthesis of ‘best sentence’ and ‘moost solas.’ Such morals as the warning against flatterers and blindness provide solid edification; and entertainment is produced by the discrepancy between the realistic background of the farmyard and the rhetorical embellishments of amplification and digression. Chaucer may be making a literary joke about the propensity of preachers to find significance in every minor detail: however, NPT should not be considered a parody or satire but a product of a distinct persona who raises fundamental questions about the uses of fable and the legitimacy of interpretation. [GC, DS] 697 Rogers, William E. Upon the Ways: The Structure of The Canterbury Tales. English Literary Studies 36. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria Press, 1986. The Monk attempts to transmute suffering into art but fails: it is difficult to find a philosophical or literary pattern amongst the tragedies. The most insightful comment on NPT is still Donaldson’s 866 that the point of the tale is found in the rhetorical elaboration of its telling. The tale reveals the inadequacy of rhetoric, of language, to deal with the problem of evil in the tales of the preceding fragment. NPT seriously calls into question the whole literary enterprise, questioning whether words are real or unreal. Many of the issues which loom large in Troilus and Criseyde are treated comically in NPT, including the poet’s responsibility for what he writes. [DS, PG] 698 Wasserman, Julian N., and Robert J. Blanch, eds. Chaucer in the Eighties. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986. Contains Haas 694, and Kamowski 766.

.

201 d / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Bishop, Ian. The Narrative Art of the Canterbury Tales. A Critical Study of the Major Poems. London and Melbourne: Dent, 1987. The exempla of MkT inspire Chauntecleer’s in NPT. The story of Croesus, abbreviated from RR, is significant because it depicts dreams ambiguously. The Host interrupts, ‘not because he thinks his performance is incompetent, but because he maintains that human kind cannot bear too much unrelieved gloom’ (p 85). MkT shows indifference to the rewards of vice and virtue alike, as the stories of Lucifer, Zenobia, Ugolino, and Nero show; only the first part of the Boethian view of Providence is presented. The story of Ugolino differs from Dante mainly in presenting a scene not knowable to the outside world through an omniscient narrator, and in the invention of the child’s speech at VII.2431–38. Every medieval schoolboy would have expected a fable to yield a moral and it is important not to dismiss too lightly the learning and seriousness of NPT. It is the most ‘textueel’ of all the tales and can be revealingly analysed within the framework of the Seven Liberal Arts. Rhetoric, in particular, occupies a central place in the tale. The tale, however, contains many traps and ambushes for the unwary interpreter. Review by J.D. Burnley, RES n.s. 41 (1990), 240–1. The book is ‘not a learned treatise . . . but it is pleasant reading in congenial material, and offers fresh perceptions’ (p 241). [DS, PG] 700 Blamires, Alcuin. The Canterbury Tales. The Critics Debate Series. London: Macmillan, 1987. The ambiguity of interactions between pilgrims or tales is apparent in MkT, which may be a retort to the Host for joking about the Monk’s virility, or an attempt to match the Knight’s philosophical tragedy. NPT is dealt with in terms of source study, literary conventions, medieval intellectual contexts, social and political historicism, and dramatic or psychological readings. NPT burlesques the conventions of narrative edification; its ‘wisdom’ is too complex and subtle for trite moral formulae. [DS, PG] 701 Howard, Donald. Chaucer and the Medieval World. New York: Dutton; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987. The two historical Peters were known personally in Chaucer’s society: in 1363 Peter of Cyprus, in England to urge a crusade, was entertained by John of Gaunt; in 1371 John of Gaunt married Constance, daughter of Peter of Spain (‘the Cruel’), whose kingdom had been restored to him through the military intervention of the Black Prince in 1367, and Philippa Chaucer was an attendant of the queen. The MkT stories were originally intended as a straightforward ‘collection’ (p 438), but Chaucer later ‘capitalized on the fact that they would be boring if told one after another’ (p 446). Jakke Straw led the slaughter of the Flemings in the Vintry, the world of Chaucer’s childhood. NPT gives the other tales of Fragment VII a unity in retrospect. It was written

699

.

The Tales Together / 201 e

in Chaucer’s later years, although not later than 1397 when Chaucer turned to more sombre topics. Its narrator is an almost faceless figure because a strong personality for the narrator would intervene in a tale whose spirit is so much Chaucer’s own. The whole of the tale is told with a playful view of rhetoric; much of its humour derives from the sudden transitions between intricate arguments and highstyle to barnyard noises and actions. NPT is ‘one of the great masterpieces of satiric and parodic writing’ (p 440), even poking fun at CT itself in sly references to the other tales. Most attempts at finding a moral make their authors sound like Chauntecleer. [DS, PG] 702 Lindahl, Carl. Earnest Games: Folkloric Patterns in the Canterbury Tales. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987. Chaucer ‘reshapes literature into festival’ (p 45), and in festival ‘the more extravagant the rhetoric, the sillier its object is made to seem’ - compare the Host’s mock praise of gentil clerics like the Monk (MkP VII.1924–64) with his less subtle derision of the Parson and the Pardoner. His jest about the celibate state of the Monk (MkP VII.1945) illustrates the point that most insults in CT have to do with trade affiliations. The Knight’s criticism of MkT is urbane and deferential, but the Host translates his words to another realm of discourse. The Knight expresses a dislike of pious excess. The Monk does not enjoy the story-telling game, but his attitudes are not generally shared by the pilgrim characters, any more than they would be by real pilgrims, who, as travellers, were the ‘archetypal’ story-tellers (p 39). In folk tales, magic and miracles are especially common on the pilgrim’s road, for example the magical dream telling of a friend’s death in the exemplum related by Chauntecleer. [DS, PG] 703 Stone, Brian. Chaucer. Penguin Masterstudies. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987. Rpt in Penguin Critical Guides, 1989. Contains an outline of MkP-MkT-NPP-NPT-endlink. The stories of MkT ‘illustrate the impossibility of frustrating fate, but do not deal with the religious solution to such a problem,’ this failure corresponding to the Monk’s own failure in religious observation described in GP. By the time Chaucer wrote CT, the fox had become a popular and humanized villain of beast epics and fables, many of which were pointed with religious moralization. The idealized portrait of the widow in NPT may symbolize the Church, and her yard the world. The central joke of the tale is that a ‘ludicrous cockerel’ should represent ‘humanity’s complex aspirations’ (p 72). Chauntecleer, the Adam of the story, regains his paradise through wit and cunning rather than virtue. The transitions between the high classical mode and domestic farce are one of the narrative accomplishments of the tale. The endlink, genuine though meant to be cancelled, effectively rounds off Fragment VII, in which the Host’s interventions are always surprising and amusing. [PG, DS]

201 f / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

704

705

706

707

Williams, David. The Canterbury Tales: A Literary Pilgrimage. Twayne’s Masterwork Studies 4. Boston: Hall, 1987. MkT is ‘sententious and boring,’ and may represent vengeance on the Host for his ‘unmasking’ of the Monk (p 36). It ‘has depressed the company by its theme and bored them thoroughly by its technique’ (p 88). The ‘meaning’ of NPT is not to be found in the doctrine of original sin, nor is it an allegory of the Fall. NPT reflects back on the whole of CT in its theory of fiction and its revelations about the function of poetic language in expressing truth. [PG, DS] Hussey, S.S. ‘Chaucer’s Host.’ In Medieval English Studies Presented to George Kane. Ed. Edward Donald Kennedy, Ronald Waldron and Joseph S. Wittig. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 1988. Pp 153–61. The Host of GP is not only ‘semely’ but ‘myrie,’ and looks particularly for mirth in stories. Bored by the tragedies of MkT, he suggests a hunting story from the Monk. The Nun’s Priest is praised for a ‘murie’ story in the endlink. When Melibee was given to Chaucer the pilgrim - perhaps originally intended for the Man of Law - a new link with MkT had to be written; the extra lines in the link develop a one-sided picture of the domineering wife. The remark about the ‘tredefowel’ in the endlink better fits the manly monk. [PG] Jager, Eric. ‘Croesus and Chauntecleer: The Royal Road to Dreams.’ MLQ 49 (1988), 3-18. In his account of Croesus, the Monk omits the debate between Croesus and his daughter about the interpretation of dreams which is found in his source, Jean de Meun’s RR, thereby suppressing the link between literalistic reading and death. In MkT, Croesus’s pride still occasions his downfall, but because it attracts the notice of Fortune rather than because it leads to his moral or intellectual blindness: the cause of his fall is external and cosmic rather than personal and psychological, making the account more appropriate to the generic context of tragedy. Thus, pace Hemingway 605 and Watson 634, Jager argues that the subsequent reference to Croesus in NPT is a response to rather than an echo of the MkT passage. There are many parallels between Chauntecleer and Croesus, in terms of nobility, wealth, sensuality and luxurious lifestyle, although Chauntecleer differs from Croesus in being genuinely alarmed by his dream. Instead of seeing Croesus as a victim of Fortune, the Nun’s Priest portrays him as the victim of his own rationalization. [DS, PG] Kendrick, Laura. Chaucerian Play: Comedy and Control in the Canterbury Tales. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1988. The MkT tragedies provoke rather than assuage anxiety because they are too brief to allow us to identify with the sufferer or to experience ‘wish-fulfilling detours’ such as escape from death (pp 51–2). The Knight interrupts because MkT satisfies only one imperative of fiction, to imitate public morality, not the other, to satisfy individual desires. The tragedies are a response to the Host’s

The Tales Together / 201 g

joke, antipathetic to the Host and to play, their implicit lesson being man’s powerlessness to control his life. From the narrator’s point of view, NPT is an example of ‘abreactive play that satisfies a desire for control, frustrated in reality’ (p. 36), a fiction of power over females. The tale satisfies the victory of eros and enterprise, a comic answer to the Monk’s pessimistic view of destiny. [DS, PG] 708 Koff, Leonard Michael. Chaucer and the Art of Storytelling. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1988. For the Knight who interrupts, ‘a story is good if it reinforces the socially positive,’ and MkT is ‘a great discomfort to the body social because it implies the futility of renown’ (p 85). Although most readers are more sympathetic to the Knight than to the Monk, the Knight’s response does not imply Chaucer’s own. NPT examines the problem of the efficacy and value of both texts (the written word) and revelation (the words of God through dreams). Chauntecleer misreads and then disregards his own words, although his use of words to the fox finally saves him. Chauntecleer is Chaucer’s ‘most profound and blatant hermeneutist, not a parody of the real thing’ (p 104). The narrator’s leave-taking at the end of NPT invites the reader to do comically what he is later asked to do seriously at the conclusion of the Parson’s Tale. [PG, DS] 709 North, J.D. Chaucer’s Universe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Chaucer delighted in astronomical schemes; the most sympathetic pilgrims tell astronomical tales; and the best tales contain the clearest traces of astronomical allegory. MkT does not distinguish between cases of sin, original sin, and adversity brought about by no personal fault. The only day that makes astronomical sense for Chauntecleer’s adventure in NPT is 3 May 1392. There is a simple parallel between Chauntecleer and the Sun, backed up by many comparisons, such as the ‘burned gold’ (VII.2864) of Chauntecleer’s colour. Pertelote and her six sisters are associated with the seven stars of the Pleiades, commonly known in the Middle Ages as a hen, or hens. The fox is most likely Saturn. The highly specific time references in NPT are absent from all sources. Appendix 7 (pp 541–2) discusses the connections between Chauntecleer and the Nun’s Priest; appendix 9 (pp 545–8) provides a horoscope for Pertelote. [PG, DS] 710 Reed, Thomas L. Jr. ‘Nebuchadnezzar and Chauntecleer: Chaucer’s Fortunate Fowl.’ NM 89 (1988), 44–56. It has long been argued that NPT ‘corrects’ MkT in more than mood. MkT presents only the dark side of human experience; the narrator does not correlate his heroes’ falls to any notion of personal responsibility; nor can he envision the possibility of any ‘redemptive reversal’ (p 45) in their fortunes, or the possibility of learning from experience. The ‘tragedy’ of Chauntecleer derives, on the other hand, from a flaw in his character, his pride, demonstrat-

201 h / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

ing the operation in the world of a system of providential justice, and he clearly changes for the better as a result of his fall. The Monk’s tale of Nebuchadnezzar, unique in his compendium for offering a story of reform through self-knowledge, provides both a narrative and thematic source for NPT. As punishment for his pride, Nebuchadnezzar is reduced to the condition of a beast, but one who also shows, in his eagle feathers and sharp nails, the characteristics of a bird. [PG] 711 Brown, Emerson, Jr. ‘Fragment VII of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the “Mental Climate of the Fourteenth Century”.’ In Traditions and Innovations: Essays on British Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Ed. David G. Allen and Robert A. White. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1990. Pp 50–8. Fragment VII is marked by ‘the relatively low intrinsic quality of most of the tales . . . and the unsurpassed quality of the links that join them together and of the last tale of the group, the Nun’s Priest’s’ (p 51). Chaucer’s references to the great intellectual debates of the fourteenth century are often disappointing, using them as material for revealing the intellectual or moral condition of his characters. David Knowles has drawn attention to the tendency of fourteenth-century culture to take ideas to extremes. With the exception of NPT, all the tales of Fragment VII ‘turn dark in their implications about art and morality’ (p 53). The tendency to extremism is reflected in the tendency of flawed narrators to produce tales which are themselves morally flawed. In MkT, literature is pushed to the extreme: the Monk’s view of tragedy is unrelieved by Boethian philosophy or the Greek heroic view of human dignity. NPT, on the other hand, is the most thoroughly Boethian work Chaucer ever wrote. It rescues storytelling from the extremes of Fragment VII: ‘mirth and doctrine blend to form an indissoluble whole’ (p 55). [PG] 712 D’Agata D’Ottavi, Stefania. ‘Specularità e Parodia: La Mise en Abyme in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”.’ In Il Racconto allo Specchio: Mise en abyme e tradizione narrativa. A cura di Donatello Izzo. Rome: Nuova Arnica Editrice, 1990. Pp 37–66. The widespread use in medieval literature of the mirror as image and as metaphor is particularly well-suited to represent such fundamental ideas in contemporary culture as contrast and difference, especially as it lends itself to a notion of difference within a context of similarity, continuity and tradition. (Although the image in the mirror duplicates the real world, it has only a relationship of similarity to it, it is not identical with it.) An analogous phenomenon is the increasing popularity of texts that contain stories within stories, collections of exempla or framed narratives for instance, which illustrate well the poststructuralist concept of mise en abyme. Not only do individual tales of CT reflect and parallel each other, they can provide images in

The Tales Together / 201 i

little of the themes and structure of the whole work. NPT contains within itself several stories en abyme, stories within the main narrative, and their effect is always to enrich and complicate issues of structure and meaning. NPT has relationships with all the tales of Fragment VII, but especially with MkT; it is both its mirror image and comic reversal. Although both tales share the tragic mode and echo each other in many details of plot and character, NPT presents a multiplicity of narrative voices, characters, themes and structures in contrast to the univocality of narrator, the singleness of characterization in each story and the simplicity of theme of MkT. The complexity and multiplicity of meaning in NPT is an image of the complexity of CT as a whole. [PG] 713 Ganim, John M. Chaucerian Theatricality. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. A Bakhtinian reading, designed to update Chaucer criticism. NPT ‘throws itself into the obsessive human dialectic of certainty and uncertainty’ (p 98). It formulates an ‘anti-summa’ (p 99), taking up all the philosophical and literary concerns of CT. The discussion of poetics in MkP reads differently depending on whether we see the interrupter as the Host or the Knight. MkT reasserts the Monk’s monkishness; in his art, history, and fable are one. The Knight’s interruption suggests that the Monk’s strained seriousness is flawed philosophically, leaving out ‘the Boethian distance from Fortune that makes the difference between philosophy and pessimism’ (p 102). NPT satirizes pretensions about human order by parodying rhetoric, the linguistic counterpart to that order, but also concerns itself with rhetoric ‘as a series of conventions about communication’ (p 102). The central irony of the Knight’s remarks to the Monk is that the Nun’s Priest tells the sort of tale that the Knight asks for, but in doing so he questions the basis, not just of MkT, but of KnT as well. NPT is the true Monk’s last tale. Review by Laura Kendrick, JEGP 91 (1992), 222-3. In discovering a ‘Chaucer for the nineties’, we discover ourselves in Ganim’s Bakhtinian reading. ‘To imagine that Chaucer should be deliberately . . . engaged in disrupting the “certainty” of “official” . . . culture through his art is a fascinating reflection of our own desires’ (p 223). [PG] 714 Knapp, Peggy. Chaucer and the Social Contest. New York and London: Routledge, 1990. An analysis of the contest within CT between tales and pilgrims in the context of the wider social contest and change of fourteenth-century England. Outriders like Daun Piers not only dealt with feudal lords but behaved like lords themselves. In a similar way, MkT ‘enacts a subtle kind of competition’ (p 47) with KnT. The Monk stresses the admonitory aspect of Boethius but offers little of his consoling poetry. MkT deploys all the usual armoury of

.

201 j / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

715

716

717

authority, including aristocracy, patriarchy and antiquity. NPT, on the other hand, is the most comically egalitarian of the ‘dialogic’ CT. NPT is in dialogue with nearly all the other CT. After the interruption to MkT, it falls to the Nun’s Priest to work out the correct balance of delight and instruction in the context of the ancient debate about the truth value of fictional narratives. The difficulty is that the Nun’s Priest provides too many morals in his tale ‘to keep balanced on the narrow perch of his cock and hen’ (p 86). The tale is ‘ultimately ironic about the efficacy of storytelling for inspiring Christian morality’ (p 90). [PG] Hill, John M. Chaucerian Belief: the Poetics of Reverence and Delight. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991. Chapter 8, pp 127—50 consists of a comparison between MkT and NPT. The paired tales of Fragment 7, including MkT and NPT are ‘companion’ tales rather than ‘quitting’ tales. Both MkT and NPT continue the exploration of the theme of Prudence established in Melibee. NPT contains genuine morality as well as folly. Although the reader responds to the tale’s mock-heroic quality, the Nun’s Priest himself appears not to, but ‘takes it literally, as plot and action’ (p 145). [PG] Kang, Du-Hyoung. ‘The Problem of Tragedy in The Canterbury Tales.’ English Language and Literature [Seoul] 37 (1991), 825–41. CT does not present a single or an orthodox view of tragedy, and many of the tales question the presence of a transcendental design in the universe. The problem with MkT is whether it contains any kind of moral message: punishment is meted out to virtuous and sinful alike; the deaths of Ugolino’s children seem especially cruel, yet fail to provoke any emotional response from the Monk. The story of Croesus, involving the theme of the relationship between man’s free will and predestination, links MkT and NPT. Various theological doctrines about predestination are presented in NPT, but none is given precedence over others, and the controversy is satirized. The main focus of NPT is the richness of human experience. [PG] Neuse, Richard. Chaucer’s Dante: Allegory and Epic Theatre in the Canterbury Tales. Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1991. The argument of the book is that CT is modeled on The Divine Comedy. MkT, like the Comedy, contains ‘an unorthodox, though not . . . heterodox, notion of history’ (p 142). The Monk uses the rhetoric of Fortune to counter the moralistic, grand-design theory of history to be found in more orthodox works like Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium and to move closer to Dante’s stress on individuals and on moral responsibility. In the tale of Ugolino, the Monk ‘replaces Dante’s demonically obsessed, mysterious count with a strangely abstracted, self-contained character’ (p 157). The Monk’s greater

The Tales Together / 201 k

718

719

concern with the incomprehension of the children underlines the theme of deus absconditus, the God whose face is hidden. The Monk’s idea of a ‘tragic’ Lucifer should be taken seriously. Lucifer is the ‘originator, with his fall, of history as a series of catastrophes in the course of which human beings nonetheless continue in their attempts to establish their collective autonomy’ (p 194). NPT is a ‘comedy of verbalism’ (p 89), in which the boundaries between the verbal and the real are blurred and questioned, and it performs a commentary on the whole tale-telling game of CT. The tale does not reject allegory, but keeps it ‘dependent on the primary, literal level’ (p 92). [PG] Astell, Ann W. ‘Chaucer’s “Literature Group” and the Medieval Causes of Books.’ ELH 59 (1992), 269–87. Fragment VII is structured according to Aristotle’s four causes of books: causa finalis, causa efficiens, causa materialis, and causa formalis. MkT calls attention to the problems of the causa materialis: it is ‘mere substance without style; content without form; the raw, undeveloped materia of art’ (p 278). In an analagous fashion, the Monk’s tragedies focus only on losses that Boethius associates with the body, not the soul. NPT focuses on the formal causation absent in MkT, dramatising ‘the “modus poeticus” in its pure form, classically understood as a concealment of truth under fiction’ (p 279). This concealing veil is often seductive, sometimes keeping the truth hidden, and the tale offers little hope of an ‘heroic resistance to poetic images’ (p 281). NPT remains ‘elusive and teasing, undisclosed and undiscoverable, flattering and frustrating our ability to interpret’ (p 281). The tale also breaks the four-fold frame of Aristotelian causes, insisting on the reader’s responsibility for what he or she learns from books. [PG] Woods, Marjorie Curry. ‘In a Nutshell: Verba and Sententia and Matter and Form in Medieval Composition Theory.’ In The Uses of Manuscripts in Literary Studies. Essays in Memory of Judson Boyce Allen. Ed. Charlotte Cook Morse, Penelope Reed Doob, and Marjorie Curry Woods. Studies in Medieval Culture, XXXI. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992. Pp 19–39. ‘Taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille’ (NPT.VII 3443), the kernel theory of poetry, an idea inherited from late classical thought, was crystalized in the hierarchy of subjects in the medieval educational system in which ‘the study of words formed the basis of, but was then superceded by, the study of thoughts’ (p 20). There is increasing evidence, however, that sophistication at the literal level was prized and sought, and it is important to distinguish the rhetorical from the philosophical traditions of commentary: Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova, widely used in schools, in fact contains both. MkT is a parody of school exercises in abbreviatio - rather than generating con-

201 l / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

ciseness, it generates prolixity and formlessness - and NPT parodies school exercises in amplificatio. [PG] 720 Scanlon, Larry. Narrative, Authority, and Power: the Medieval Exemplum and the Chaucerian Tradition. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. A study of some major literary texts in the context of the two main strands of the exemplum tradition: the sermon exemplum and the public exemplum of the Mirror of Princes. MkT is a miniature exemplum collection, and its miniaturization foregrounds ‘the compression already built into the genre, making the tale as much an analysis of the genre as an instance of it’ (p 215). The Monk’s ecclesiastical status leaves no direct mark on his narrative. The Knight’s interruption affirms the lay community’s ultimate control of textual authority. One of the greatest ironies of NPT is that it provides the kind of story the Knight wanted from the Monk. The crucial opposition in the tale is ‘between the exemplary and the fabulous rather than the allegorical and the ironic’ (p 232). [PG] 721 Astell, Ann W. Chaucer and the Universe of Learning. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1996. Pp 190–6 repeat the argument of 718. [PG] 722 Rigby, S.H. Chaucer in Context. Society, Allegory and Gender. Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: St Martin’s Press, 1996. Examines the debate between ‘Robertsonian’ and ‘Donaldsonian’ interpretations of medieval literature in ch 3, ‘Allegorical versus humanist Chaucer,’ pp 78–115, using NPT as the main example. The articles of Dahlberg 452 and Donovan 843, and the book of Huppé 882 are critically reviewed. There is no necessary reason why allegorical readings should be counterposed to dramatic ones: a knowledge of the allegorical symbolism of the cock enlarges a reading of the tale in terms of the relationship between the narrator - often seen like Chauntecleer - and the other pilgrims. The target of the satire of NPT is the gloomy MkT which precedes it. The tragedies of MkT are, from the perspective of the spiritual and eternal, ultimately as trivial as the affairs of a barnyard cock. Allen’s 940 fivefold classification of the ways in which literal and spiritual meanings can combine in medieval literary texts is endorsed. [PG] 722a Jensen, Emily. ‘“Winkers” and “Janglers”: Teller/Listener/Reader Response in the Monk’s Tale, the Link, and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ ChauR 32 (1997), 183–95. MkT and NPT need to be read together to avoid facile distinctions between one tale as a grab-bag of tedious stories and the other as one of Chaucer’s most finished and sophisticated tales. The link is crucial to understanding the tales. The Knight objects to MkT because it is monotonous, but modern readers have tended to criticize the tale for lacking a single unifying prin-

The Tales Together / 201 m

ciple. The underlying thematic progression in the stories is, however, the treatment of the concepts of Fortune and tragedy: the Monk explores ‘the nature of tragedy in a Christian context by examining the way pagan Fortune applies to pagan figures and seeing the extent to which that concept may be applied to Christian stories’ (p 185). Abstracting a single meaning from a range of particulars, although an essential trait of skilled reading, can blind us, however, to the uniqueness of the individual story. This is analogous to the cock and fox in NPT, who close their eyes when they should remain open and open their mouths when they should keep them shut. The Nun’s Priest brilliantly mocks this need to abstract a single generalized meaning from particulars and the need to provide a generalized moral that captures the essence of Chauntecleer’s story. The multiple morals the story provides undercut each other. The real morality of the tale is that we should not adhere determinedly (‘Al wilfully’[VII.4622]) to one moral. [PG] 722b Beidler, Peter G., ed. Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1998). Contains Sharp 778d and Thomas 1076. [PG] 722c Davenport, W.A. Chaucer and his English Contemporaries: Prologue and Tale in The Canterbury Tales. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1998. MkP is not identified as a ‘prologue’ in the Ellesmere MS. Fragment VII shows Chaucer’s development of prologues as a ‘form of running commentary, interestingly weaving the tales and their reception into a continuous sequence’ (p 42). The individual stories of MkT vary greatly in length: the story of Zenobia is more than half the length of PrT while some others are only one stanza long. Chauntecleer’s speech to Pertelote (VII.2970ff.) is the longest verse speech given to any character in Canterbury Tales. The narrator of NPT has no character beyond ‘this sweete preest.’ The tale changes from narrative with dialogue to speech with commentary, and much of the narrator’s contribution is rhetorical discourse. [PG] 722d Finlayson, John. ‘The “Povre Widwe” in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale and Boccaccio’s Decameron.’ Neuphilologische 99 (1998), 269–73. The picture of the widow’s simple life and diet does not only contrast with the magnificence of Chauntecleer but recalls satirically the ascetic life that clergy, such as the Monk, should live. Although depictions of priestly self-indulgence are fundamental to medieval anti-clericalism generally, some of the closest parallels to Chaucer’s corrupt clergy are found in Boccaccio’s Decameron (see Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (Cambridge, 1973)). The story of Rinaldo (day seven, story three) in particular has several elements that relate closely to the picture of the poor widow, such as the contrast between the corrupt life of the clergy and the ideal of a simple life, founded upon a meagre diet and abstinence. [PG]

201 n / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

McGerr, Rosemarie P. Chaucer’s Open Books: Resistance to Closure in Medieval Discourse. Gainseville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1998. NPT revises the ‘single-voiced discourse’ (p 149) of MkT and its rejection of fiction, an echo of the relationship between the Parson’s Prologue and Tale and the Retractions. Fragment VII contains ‘Chaucer’s most ironic portrayal of himself as author’ (p 151). The innovation in citing Romans 15:4 lies in extending the parallel with the Bible to the entire structure and meaning of CT. Although CT can never claim the Bible’s authority, it ‘suggests that the word of God does not inhere in a single book of the Bible or in the voice of a single commentator’ (p 151). [PG] 722f Condren, Edward I. Chaucer and the Energy of Creation: the Design and Organization of the Canterbury Tales. Gainesville, Florida: University of Florida Press, 1999. Gaylord’s claim 639 that fragment VII makes a serious attempt to identify the craft of literature has by now received general acceptance, but no two critics agree about what these literary perceptions might be. In calling for a merry tale from the Monk, the Host mistakes the Monk’s external form for the man within. The Monk’s actual tale overcompensates, but the narrator is not confident in the tragic mode. The Monk’s definition of tragedy does not accord with other usages by Chaucer (for example in NPT), nor does it accurately describe all the stories he tells. In the story of Croesus, the Monk recasts his definition of tragedy, locating it ‘in the dynamic between some central figure’s self-consciousness and a Fortune able to respond with a moral lesson’ (p 232). The tale of Ugolino shows the pull being exerted to move the Monk away from his de casibus form. The interruptions by Knight and Host focus in different ways on the relationship between form and matter in story-telling. NPT contains ‘the political, social, and theological struggles that define much of fourteenth-century culture’ (pp 236–7), yet the everyday barnyard skirmish that is central to the plot would pass unnoticed were it not for the narrator’s brillant dilation. The hero of the tale is vellum and ink. [PG] 722g Gruenler, Curtis. ‘Desire, Violence and the Passion in Fragment VII of The Canterbury Tales: a Girardian Reading.’ Renascence 52 (1999), 35–56. Fragment VII of CT addresses the theme of human violence as well as the more commonly noticed issues of genre and interpretation. René Girard has argued that the Gospels oppose those myths of human culture that are founded on violence by telling the story of Christ’s suffering from the perspective of the innocent victim. The ‘sentence’ of all the tales in the fragment rests on an understanding of Christ’s Passion as the key to healing violence in the human world. The first three tales of the fragment show the tendencies to mythologize violence. MkT and NPT ’explore the potential for discerning literary responses to violence through the modes of tragedy and comedy’ (p 38). 722e

The Tales Together / 201 o

Depending upon the text, there are two alternatives to accepting the suffering of the tragedies of MkT: accepting the heaviness of tragedy in small doses, as does the Knight; or rejecting suffering as contamination, as does the Host. The tales all illustrate the part played by rivalry in bringing about human suffering and ruin, especially the ‘transcendent rivalry’ (p 52) against God or Fortune. Comedy surprises tragedy in NPT, but although the proud tricks his way out of a catastrophe, the morals of pride and self-knowledge should not be disregarded. The simile used to describe the barnyard commotion, ‘it semed as that hevene sholde falle’ (VII.3401) reminds us that ‘apocalypticism is the most violent discourse of all’ (p 54). [PG] 722h Brown, Peter. A Companion to Chaucer. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Chaucer emphasizes the Latin encyclopaedist lineage of MkT in his rubric, but the tale is not a systematic imitation of Boccaccio’s treatise, De casibus. Although the Monk’s interruption of the tale is couched in broad language, it offers a complex critique of the Monk’s performance. Elsewhere, for example in ClT, there is a recognition that ‘the humanist encyclopaedic impulse … is considered surplus to current requirements’ (p 226). Pertelote’s speech about dreams (VII.2923-39) and her prescription of laxatives (VII.2942-66) sound much like a parody of Bartholomeus’s De proprietatibus rerum. NPT is a ‘prime example of Chaucer’s ability to speak through traditional forms’ (p 370). At the risk of sounding absurd, Chauntecleer does develop self-insight and self-reflexiveness by the end of the tale: ‘what Chauntecleer has at the end of his experience is experience’ (p 371). [PG] 722i Phillips, Helen. An Introduction to the Canterbury Tales: Reading, Fiction, Context. Houndmills Mcmillan, 2000. An introduction to CT, with chapters on each of the tales. MkT is a version in miniature of the whole of CT, but focused on the single theme of the fall of great men. Although the medieval concept of tragedy belongs to a religious worldview, the Monk’s focus is on this world: ‘the stories are well told, enlivened with rhetorical variety, and have plenty of interest of their own’ (p 181). There are many allusions to man’s contemporary matters of concern, but Chaucer omits crucial information in the Modern Instances. NPT is clearly a tale with multiple meanings, many looking back to MkT, and it is also ‘a rhetorical tour de force’ (p 186). The tale raises questions to do with both textual reception and with interpretation. There is no need to be a thoroughgoing Robertsonian to accept that NPT demonstrates an important Christian truth, ‘that a fall into sin is caused by mental blindness born of his own worldliness and sensuality as much as by the devil‘ (p 190). [PG]

b The Monk’s Tale For a work that includes references to contemporary history, relatively little purely historical research has been done on the tale, although in the 1980s there has been renewed interest in the historical context of Chaucer’s Monk and in Chaucer’s view of monasticism. The only other area of major historical study is the handful of articles on the two Peters in the tale, including the long article by Savage 733. When the writing of scholarly articles on the tale began properly in the 1920s, one of the commonest topics was the relationship of the tale to the tradition of thought about fortune, tragedy and Boethius. More recent work has tended to stress the problems and contradictions of the Monk’s view of fortune. The literary context of the tale has always been of interest. This study has frequently been linked to the question of Chaucer’s knowledge of Italy and Italian influence in general upon his work. Because of the widely admired Ugolino story, comparison with Dante has been a regular theme in commentary on the tale, although Chaucer has usually fared the worse in the comparison. The relationship of the Monk to his tale has always been an issue. Later work has emphasized the differences between the Monk of the Prologue and the Monk of the Tale, although many writers, particularly New Critics, have seen this contrast as deliberate irony on Chaucer’s part. Another aspect of the tendency during the last forty years to read the tale ironically can be seen in the number of articles that have sought to interpret MkT in terms of its relationship with other tales or with other narrators. Before the 1980s, there was relatively little stylistic criticism on MkT, with the exception of studies of rhetoric. Manly’s 1926 article 607 argues that Chaucer gradually freed himself from the constraints of formal rhetoric and moved towards a style based upon the observation of life. With the growth of interest in all aspects of literary theory since the late 1960s, these questions have acquired new moment. To this generation of critics, contrast and incompleteness in MkT have been noticed and praised rather than unity and coherence (see Sklute 687 and Benson 691). Boenig 778 questions whether MkT is actually a fragment at all. Wallace 778c analyses the tale’s alignment with Boccaccio’s views and distancing from the cultural project of Petrarch. The colloquium held in 1998 (778g, 778h, 778i, 778j, 778k, 778l, 778n) is evidence of renewed interest in the tale. 723 Pollard, A.W. ‘Geoffrey Chaucer.’ In A History of English Literature. Ed. John Buchan, with an Introduction by Sir Henry Newbolt. London, Edinburgh, New York: Nelson, 1923. Pp 1–16.

Monk’s Tale / 203

724

725

726

727

Chaucer could never have been a tragedian, like his Monk, for he knows nothing of moral or spiritual tragedies, but only of the material ones that Fortune can bring about. The deep sense of tears in human life is constantly with him, as in the anguish of Ugolino over his children. [RW] Liebermann, F. ‘Zu Chaucers Monk’s tale.’ Archiv 148 (1925), 96–7. Delachenal in Hist. de Charles VI, 3, 1916, explains that Oliver de Mauny, from Armorika, the relative of Bertrand Du Guesclin, the hero from Brittany, is meant in MkT VII.2387–90. [RW] Patch, Howard Rollin. ‘Chaucer and Lady Fortune.’ MLR 22 (1927), 377–88. When the Goddess Fortuna was taken over from Roman culture, she was the only alternative to a belief in a rational God, though there were three points of view regarding her: the romantic, the rationalist, and that which personified Aristotle’s causa per accidens. Chaucer’s considerations of Fortuna are both casual and systematic, but in MkT he seems to revert to the pagan idea, showing the ‘slipery deceiptes of the wavering lady’ (pp 385–6), as in the later Mirror for Magistrates. The Monk’s succession of pathetic episodes shows the pagan goddess covering her face against both the unjust and the just. The Monk is a prime sentimentalist, who ‘knows how to squeeze the juice even out of pathos and to feel the respectable luxury of piety’ (p 386). Chaucer may have set about translating Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium seriously, because it was edifying, but later transformed it so that the Monk ‘in giving forth the tragedies as monotonously as the tolling of his chapel bell’ (p 387) shows his character. [RW] Luke, H.C. ‘Visitors from the East to the Plantagenet and Lancastrian Kings.’ The Nineteenth Century 108 (1930), 760–9. King Peter I of Cyprus visited Edward III of England in 1364, seeking aid for the last Crusade. Chaucer’s judgment of him in MkT is kindly, and not wholly undeserved. [RW] Braddy, Haldeen. ‘The Two Petros in the “Monkes Tale”.’ PMLA 50 (1935), 69–80. The MSS show three stages in the arrangement of the Modern Instances: 1) in the middle and with the shorter NPP; 2) in the middle and with the expanded Prologue, ‘no doubt attributable to Chaucer’ (p 71); 3) at the end, and with the expanded Prologue following, ‘the result of scribal arrangement’ (p 71). Order (3) is followed by Ellesmere and 9 other MSS designated Class I (see Manly-Rickert 97). Thus the Modern Instances were written ‘as a part of the fabric’ of MkT, and ‘the chronology of this group of stories carries . . . the date of the tale as a whole’ (p 72). Both the Peters (Peter of Spain and Peter of Cyprus) died in 1369, and Chaucer wrote their stories soon after. Chaucer’s favourable view of Peter of Spain (closer to Ayala of Spain than to Froissart) may have come from Sir Guichard d’Angle, whose close relationship with

204 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

John of Gaunt would account for Chaucer’s censure of the assassins. Chaucer draws on Machaut’s La Prise d’Alexandrie, dated about 1369, for the story of Peter of Cyprus; both contain the same historical inaccuracies. Thus since the Ugolino stanzas suggest a date of about 1374, the composition of MkT appears to belong to 1374–5. •Review by Dorothy Everett, YWES 16 (1935), 110–1. The ingenious argument has to depend on a number of hypotheses, and can hardly be regarded as settling the date problem. [RW] 728 Farnham, Willard. The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1936. MkT is principally dealt with on pp 129–36. The decline of Greek tragedy leads to the development of the concept of Fortune. MkT is ‘a dreary assembly of tragical stories . . ., drearier than Boccaccio’s’ (p 44). But it is not merely immature work, nor do the Knight and the Host represent Chaucer’s opinions and literary criticism; rather it illustrates contempt of the world. Although MkT is to the taste of the Middle Ages, Chaucer is peculiarly unfitted to write an encyclopaedic de casibus. He adds nothing important to Boccaccio’s conception of tragedy: there is no vision framework, no strict chronological order, and the choice of stories is not dictated by Boccaccio. Chaucer does not give the Monk the larger perception of the Fall, nor does he expand the story of Lucifer and Adam, any more than the stories of Bernabò or Peter of Cyprus. The Lucifer and Adam stories may have been late additions hastily written as a formal opening for the literal-minded Monk who has changed since GP. Chaucer’s amused boredom is suggested by the lack of imaginative variety in the tragedies, though the Monk accepts the central theory of tragedy as a manifestation of man’s powerlessness in an irrational world, and indeed is truer to the formula than Boccaccio himself. The punishment of Lucifer (VII.2003–5), where Fortune has no power, is, for the Monk, not tragic, but extratragic, whereas in the other stories Fortune overthrows innocent and wicked alike. The very brief moral at the end of the story of Hercules (VII.2135–9) is as far as the Monk goes in fixing human responsibility for tragedy, and he emphasizes the eminence of many of his subjects to stress that great mundane power is no security. The story of Ugolino, however, is little better than a sentimental tragedy and Dante’s Ugolino is infinitely more tragic. The Monk leaves him innocent, to fit his main thesis that the world is ‘a realm of causeless misfortune’ (p 136). . •Review by Percy Simpson, MÆ 7 (1938), 138–40. The treatment of MkT is disputable. Farnham’s conjecture that the Lucifer and Adam stanzas may have been late additions because of the change of tone really confirms that Chaucer was still at an early experimental stage of Anel. The book is not easy reading. [RW]

Monk’s Tale / 205

729 Jones, Claude. ‘The Monk’s Tale, A Mediaeval Sermon.’ MLN 52 (1937), 570– 2. The usual elements of the medieval sermon as described by Owst (Preaching in Medieval England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926) are present in MkT, but not in the usual order. The ‘theme’ is given in the definition of tragedy (MkP VII.1975–7), the protheme follows (VII.1984–90), then comes the full restatement of the theme (MkT VII.1991–8), and there are sixteen [sic] ‘exemplaria.’ In VII.2761–6, the Monk gives ‘a complete redaction of his definition of tragedy, and his warning against Fortune’(p 571). Thus, although interrupted, the Monk has completed the sermon. [RW] 730 Pratt, Robert A. ‘Chaucer and the Visconti Libraries.’ ELH 6 (1939), 191–9. Chaucer’s visits to Italy in 1373 and 1378 should be differentiated in literary significance. Most of CT that show Italian influence date from after 1378, but the story of Griselda and most of the Monk’s tragedies are often placed in the interval 1373–8. In 1373, Chaucer was in Genoa and Florence, where Dante’s Divina Commedia was popular, and on his return, he used portions of the poem. In 1378, he visited Milan, ruled by the brothers Visconti: Bernabò, called by Chaucer ‘God of delit, and scourge of Lumbardye’ (MkT VII.2400), and Galeazzo II. Bernabò’s library was destroyed in 1385, when he was overthrown, but more information is available about his brother’s library at Pavia, an inventory of which was made in 1426. From this, it seems that Chaucer may have been able to obtain the bulk of his Italian material from Lombardy. He was in Lombardy for perhaps a month and a half, and since the Visconti wanted to ingratiate themselves with the English court, it is possible that he had access to the Visconti libraries. [RW] 731 Schlauch, Margaret. ‘Chaucer’s Doctrine of Kings and Tyrants.’ Spec 20 (1945), 133–56. Passing reference is made to Nero and Bernabò Visconti in a study of medieval theory of kingship and tyranny. [PG] 732 Braddy, Haldeen. ‘Two Chaucer Notes.’ MLN 62 (1947), 173–9. Chaucer’s account of Peter of Cyprus brutally murdered in his bed follows Machaut’s La Prise d’Alexandrie. He used this presentation because the murder complemented the other stories of brutal murder in the contemporary tragedies of MkT. Braddy conjectures a ‘reference to some high personage precariously situated at the English court’ in emphasizing murder as the motive of the Modern Instances. [PG] 733 Savage, Henry. ‘Chaucer and the “Pitous Deeth” of “Petro, Glorie of Spayne”.’ Spec 24 (1949), 357–75. The story of Peter of Spain reflects the Monk’s persona of the ‘modern man,’ balanced against the pomposity revealed in the other tragedies. The source of the story is a mystery. Bryan and Dempster 441 believe that Chaucer was

206 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

734

735

736

737

dependent on ‘word of mouth,’ since no written source has been discovered other than brief accounts by chroniclers. Savage believes that Chaucer had not seen Froissart’s account (attributed 1369–73). Savage suggests a date of composition of the story not long after Peter was murdered (Thursday, 23 March 1369), possibly in 1371, the year of the betrothal and marriage of Lancaster to Constance of Castile: the freshness and relevance of the story would have faded if it had been written too long afterwards. Could Chaucer have heard the story of Peter from Constance herself? from Lancaster? from members of Constance’s household, which included several Spaniards? from Philippa Chaucer, who received a pension of 10 pounds a year in August 1372, and who was in attendance on Constance until 1382? Savage suggests the eye-witness, Don Fernando de Castro, frequently mentioned by Ayala, present in England in the early months of 1375. Gaunt’s Register records a gift to him of 100 marks. [PG] Malone, Kemp. ‘Harry Bailly and Godelief.’ ES 31 (1950), 209–15. Although a real Harry Bailly kept an inn at Southwark in the late fourteenth century, Chaucer’s pilgrims are fictitious and have no reality outside of the text in which they appear. Harry Bailly’s wife in Chaucer is a stock character. His impudence is also a feature of literary comedy, the reversal of the real-life subservience of host to guests. [PG] Socola, Edward M. ‘Chaucer’s Development of Fortune in the Monk’s Tale.’ JEGP 49 (1950), 159–71. The comments on Fortune in various tragedies represent alterations by Chaucer of his sources and form a developing conception of what fortune is. The tragedies fall into three successive groups: those in which Fortune is not mentioned or plays no part (Lucifer, Adam, and Samson); those in which Fortune appears as an abstraction (Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar-Belshazzar, Zenobia, Peter of Spain, Peter of Cyprus, Bernabò, and Ugolino); those in which Fortune is a personal and individualized being (Nero, Holofernes, Antiochus, Caesar, and Croesus). [PG] Braddy, Haldeen. ‘Chaucer’s Don Pedro and the Purpose of the Monk’s Tale.’ MLQ 13 (1952), 3–5. Rejects the notion of a Spanish informant for the story of Peter of Spain (see Savage 733) in favour of Guichard d’Angle, one of the English nobles who fought for Peter at the battle of Najera in 1367, and who suggested to Gaunt marriage with Constance, Peter’s eldest daughter. Braddy also dismisses Savage’s theory about the stanzas being a kind of occasional poem, written at the time of Constance’s appearance at the English court. [PG] Robertson, D.W., Jr. ‘Chaucerian Tragedy.’ ELH 19 (1952), 1–37. The definition of tragedy that Chaucer follows in MkT is based on Boethius. The story of Lucifer is not a true tragedy since ‘Fortune may noon angel dere’

Monk’s Tale / 207

(MkT VII.2001) but a necessary basis for the stories which follow, since ‘without the influence of Satan, no man would abandon reason and subject himself to Fortune’ (p 9). Adam’s story is the first of the true tragedies and all tragic protagonists in the Christian sense follow Adam’s footsteps. The tragedy of Nebuchadnezzar illustrates that the tragic protagonist may still be saved after his fall. The story of Zenobia illustrates how a tragic protagonist can elicit sympathy. The bulk of the article discusses TC. [PG] 738 Pace, George B. ‘Adam’s Hell.’ PMLA 78 (1963), 25–35. Although Christ’s descent to Hell was an article in the Apostle’s Creed from at least the eighth century, there was disagreement as to how Adam was treated there. Pace distinguishes between a ‘mild’ and a ‘severe’ view. The mild view is associated with Limbo, Aquinas’s term. The word is not common in English before the fourteenth century, but is frequently cited, even in popular forms like the Mystery plays, in the fifteenth. Chaucer does not use the term, but he was presumably familiar with it, at the least from the Divine Comedy. The tradition which underlies MkT is the severe one, the most appropriate for a tragedy, in which Adam must suffer. In this tradition, Adam is depicted shackled and tormented. The severe view is a feature of the earlier Middle Ages, traceable back to Old English literature. [PG] 739 Oruch, Jack B. ‘Chaucer’s Worldly Monk.’ Crit 8 (1966), 280–8. Although the tragedies of MkT conform to contemporary taste, the Monk fails to shape them either to preach contempt of the world or to warn sinners against trust in Fortune. The concept of Fortune in the de casibus genre existed as distinct clerical and secular traditions; the Monk follows the latter. In the clerical, Boethian tradition, Man has free will and gains freedom and tranquillity through love of God, since Fortune is an instrument of God and cannot affect the virtuous man; the Monk’s Fortune is whimsical and unpleasant and nowhere properly treated as God’s agent; rather, the Monk sees it as a perverse element in a hostile Nature. Only four of the tragedies can be assigned to the clerical tradition in which the subject must take moral responsibility for his fall, and even here Fortune is not God’s agent. The Monk thus fails to distinguish between virtue and vice, and so seems to fall back on the advocacy of a dignified hedonism rather than contempt of the world. The advice the other pilgrims might draw from the tale is to avoid the wiles of women and positions of great authority. There is little to fear from Fortune in keeping a middle way in a minor clerical post such as that of outrider monk. [JAS] 740 Dickins, Bruce. ‘The Nine Unworthies.’ In Medieval Literature and Civilisation. Essays in Memory of Norman Garmonsway. Ed. D.A. Pearsall and R.A Waldron. London: Athlone, 1969. Pp 228–32. A list of the Nine Unworthies found on a pastedown of a late fifteenth-

208 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

century MS includes Bernabò Visconti (MkT VII.2399–2406). Lionel, Duke of Clarence, in whose service Chaucer had once been, married a niece of Bernabò. [JAS] 741 Taylor, Estelle W. ‘Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale: An Apology.’ CLAJ 13 (1969), 172– 82. In an extensive summary of earlier criticism, Taylor rejects both those opinions which accept the Knight-Monk views of the tragedies, and those which assume the function of the Tale is to divulge the character of the teller. The relationship between the Monk and his tale is logically appropriate. The Tale allows Chaucer to introduce another genre into CT; the space devoted to generic definition both in the headlink and within the Tale helps maintain unity of theme and purpose, and variety is gained through the choice of Fortune’s victims. [JAS] 742 Fry, Donald K. ‘The Ending of the Monk’s Tale.’ JEGP 71 (1972), 355–68. Chaucer makes a historical connection between the character of the Knight and one of the Monk’s contemporary tragic examples, King Peter of Cyprus; Peter’s military feats were familiar to the English court. The Ellesmere MS order, which locates the Modern Instances at the end of the Monk’s tragedies, does represent Chaucer’s final order. There are three textual variables involved: some MSS place these tragedies at the end, and some in the middle; in some MSS the Monk is interrupted by the Knight, in others by the Host; some manuscripts lack NPP VII.2771–90. These variables occur in six combinations. Fry concludes that Chaucer originally placed the Modern Instances medially and did not include the two Peters, which were added after he decided to switch the interruption from Host to Knight. The manuscripts with final placement are more authoritative, and can be shown to incorporate some of Chaucer’s own revisions; the interruption by the Knight is thus a later revision. The Knight neither interrupts the Monk out of boredom nor shows naive literary judgment in interrupting, but it is both philosophically appropriate to break off the Monk’s inadequate representation of fortune and dramatically appropriate because the account of the fall of his former lord, Peter of Cyprus, would make him feel the applicability of the idea of Fortune’s wheel to his own situation in life. Finally, Harry Bailly does more than second the Knight’s objection: he provides an important statement about art. Taking issue with Gaylord 639, Fry suggests that Harry’s argument is that the Monk’s tales fail to balance instruction and delight, and hence fail effectively to communicate their sentence. [JAS] 743 Ebner, Dean. ‘Chaucer’s Precarious Knight.’ In Imagination and the Spirit.

Monk’s Tale / 209

744

745

746

747

Essays in Literature and the Christian Faith presented to Clyde S. Kilby. Ed. Charles A. Huttar. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1973. Pp 87–100. The Knight interrupts MkT because of his personality and philosophical views. As a man successfully ‘engaged in the active life of seeking glory, power, fame, and profit,’ he would be unsettled by the Monk’s depiction of a world controlled by Fortune’s wheel, in which the human condition appears absurd, since he himself occupied a high place on that wheel and would have nowhere to go but down. He thus prefers the comic mode with its return to prosperity. See also Farnham 728, Kaske 562, Malone 559. [JAS] Doob, Penelope. Nebuchadnezzar’s Children: Conventions of Madness in Middle English Literature. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974. MkT provides a ‘pedestrian and highly traditional account’ (p 80) of Nebuchadnezzar’s story, following the Vulgate closely in the details of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness, but with clear echoes also of medieval commentaries, especially Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica or a commentary derived from it, in such details as ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s pride, his emulation of God, and his penitence’ (p 81). •Review by Linda Ehrsam Voigts, JEGP 74 (1975), 228–31. The book explores well the conventions of madness in the literature of fourteenth- and fifteenthcentury England, but the view that madness was always viewed as a function of sin is too narrow. •Review by A.V.C. Schmidt, RES ns 27 (1976), 198–200. The book is uneven in quality, ‘now brilliant, now banal’ (p 198). The term ‘madness’ is used too loosely, and it is easy to forget that madness can often be a metaphor ‘both for suffering and for the sin it purges’ (Doob quoted without page reference p 198). [PG] Schless, Howard. ‘Transformations: Chaucer’s Use of Italian.’ In Brewer 654. Pp 220–3. Chaucer’s shift of emphasis in the Ugolino story from terror to sentimental description simplifies the story to the point of melodrama. As such, it reflects the sentimentality and affective piety of the art of the period; Chaucer attempted to correct the dangers of such melodramatic emotion by attributing ‘the burden of excess’ to his narrators. See also Spencer 435. [JAS] Shepherd, Geoffrey. ‘Religion and Philosophy in Chaucer.’ In Brewer 654. Pp 272–3. The shape of most medieval stories is usually illustrated by reference to the Boethian wheel of Fortune. In MkT, the series of such stories, dominated by a simple recurrent pattern, results in tedium. The Augustinian model Chaucer uses elsewhere assumes real causality rather than arbitrary sequence. [JAS] Lepley, Douglas Lee. ‘The Monk’s Boethian Tale.’ ChauR 12 (1977–8), 162– 70.

210 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

MkT is a philosophically sound Boethian tale, drawing on Consolation of Philosophy bks II–IV to illustrate the lesson that felicity lies not in the material rewards of the world governed by Fortune, but in perfected spiritual existence. The Boethian view that the true good lies with a benevolent, omnipotent God is expressed in the tragedy of Nebuchadnezzar. The Monk’s sympathy for the characters he depicts is also Boethian, in that it shows compassion for those who have doomed themselves to suffering by pursuing the false good of this world. [JAS] 748 McAlpine, Monica E. The Genre of Troilus and Criseyde. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1978. MkT is discussed on pp 102–15. The deficiencies in MkT lie not just with the Monk and his handling of his chosen genre, but with the concept of de casibus tragedy itself, as it is measured against the context of Boethian and Christian philosophy. The Monk’s ‘tragedyes’ represent an erroneous interpretation of human experience, especially in their omission of human choice, and function to suggest how genuine tragedy would be structured. This erroneous interpretation is introduced with the Monk’s definition of tragedy, since it is based on a faulty conception of Fortune, to which are linked further misconceptions about pride as a fatal flaw and the irrevocability of the individual’s fall. Such notions are theologically incompatible with those of human free will and of the redemptive power of Christ’s death. The universe conceived by the Monk is a closed system in which Man fails without any hope of growth; the Monk’s worship of power is undermined by the demonstrated limitations of human power, contrasting with the tyrannical power of Fortune or of a tyrant God. The limitations of such a notion of tragedy are also seen in the re-definition of MkT VII.2761–4, which suggests that tragedy can only lament but not teach, and in the Knight’s interruption, which (despite its own tendency to escapism) brings in an aspect of reality excluded from the Monk’s tragedies that man can overcome obstacles and control his environment. Genuine tragedy would focus on the deeds of men, not Fortune, and on inner spiritual change rather than on material change; it would represent Man as simultaneously fated and free, and would explore the interplay of character and action, rather than resorting to some fatal flaw; and it would confront the problem of judgment. [JAS] . •Review by Stephen A. Barney, Spec 54 (1979), 599–601. The book’s good readings and local insights are its strength, rather than its theorizing, and the MkT chapter is too long. Its main limitations are the assumption that Chaucer always wrote perfectly, and its antihistoricist treatments of love and religion. . •Review by Robert S. Haller, SAC 2 (1980), 172–9. The book is praised for its reading of Chaucer’s generic intentions and its cogent analysis of Boethius’

Monk’s Tale / 211

749

750

751

752

emphasis on human choice. The influence of scholarly work dealing with the Consolatio between the time of Boethius and that of Chaucer is not considered; there is a tendency to read against the text; and the book fails to take into account non-philosophic definitions of tragedy, and to recognize that for the fourteenth century the primary reference for the term tragedy was the writers of epics, not Boccaccio. •Review by Gerald Morgan, MLR 75 (1980), 619–20, and by A.C. Spearing, RES, ns 30 (1979), 458–9. Both reviewers criticize the book for its assumption that the narrator of TC is everywhere distinguishable from the poet. Morgan finds the arguments ‘marred by special pleading’ and shaped by McAlpine’s own interpretations; Spearing finds the ‘theoretical programme . . . utterly unconvincing’ and many of the readings improbable. There is little evidence that Chaucer had the profound interest in genres McAlpine attributes to him. Both reviewers prefer humane, unpretentious historicist/empiricist readings. Whitbread, L. ‘Six Chaucer Notes.’ NM 79 (1978), 41–3. The reference in MkT VII.2661 - ‘Thy sys Fortune hath turned into aas’ - is primarily to the figure of dice or hazard, the six turning face down to show the one, but Chaucer may also be referring to the moralizing tradition whereby Alexander, the would-be conqueror, ends up with only six feet of earth. See also Simms 655. [JAS] Baron, F. Xavier. ‘Children and Violence in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.’ Journal of Psychohistory 7 (1979), 77–103. The Ugolino story is a paradigm for six tales - MLT, ClT, PhT, PrT, Mel and MkT - which form a group of ‘children’s tales.’ Because the brutalization of the children in them evokes strong emotional responses without explaining the existence of such evil, these tales tend toward despair, though they also suggest that compassionate love and a sense of the universality of human suffering are the greatest consolations for the senseless cruelty the innocent must bear. [JAS] Edbury, P.W. ‘The Murder of King Peter I of Cyprus.’ JMH 6 (1980), 219–33. The news of the murder in January 1369 of King Peter I of Cyprus must have been widely reported and much discussed, since only half a generation later Chaucer makes his worldly and tedious Monk ‘include a few lines [MkT VII.2391–8] on Peter’s death in his catalogue of hackneyed exempla illustrating the mutability of fortune’ (p 219). [RW] Hardman, Phillipa. ‘Chaucer’s Tyrants of Lombardy.’ RES 31 (1980), 172–8. The setting of ClT and MerT in Lombardy suggests the ‘strong imaginative potential’ which the tyrants of Lombardy seem to have exerted over Chaucer. In the three tragedies of great contemporary figures in MkT, Chaucer treats Peter of Spain and Peter of Cyprus with great sympathy, but Bernabò Visconti

212 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

with none at all. Walter and January both share characteristics with Bernabò Visconti. [RW] 753 Jones, Terry. Chaucer’s Knight. London: Eyre Methuen, 1980. Pp 217–22. A controversial but widely read iconoclastic analysis. Peter of Cyprus’s campaigns (see Edbury 751) were motivated by commercial rather than crusading considerations, and Peter’s murder by one of his ‘owene liges’ (MkT VII.2394) epitomizes the antagonism between the old aristocratic knights and the new race of adventurers such as Chaucer’s Knight. The stanza about Peter of Cyprus is ironic in its apparent praise and the term ‘chivalrie’ (VII.2395) has its strictly technical sense of ‘mounted military exploits.’ The Knight’s unceremonious interruption of the Monk is not only a breach of good manners, but it is also contrary to the Knight’s own undertaking, and is not expressing the feelings of the other pilgrims and Chaucer’s own audience. The Host had requested the Monk to ‘quite’ KnT, which has raised some highly contentious points on the subject of tyranny, and when the Monk does so, his reply is in unequivocally political and provocative terms. Easing into his subject via safe examples of the downfall of individuals, dressed up as ‘tragedies,’ the Monk homes in on the downfall of mighty and powerful rulers (only a few years after the Peasants’ Revolt), and especially the tricky subject of how to get rid of a tyrant ruler. The Monk’s slant on the Nero episode contrasts with that of Mirk: in the Monk’s account the people’s revolt is clearly regarded as a rightful act. Though for Gower the Peasants’ Revolt boded ill for the future, Chaucer presents a revolt of the common people as totally justified. All the Modern Instances must have cut the Knight to the quick. In the case of Peter the Cruel of Spain, and Peter of Cyprus, who is overtly connected with the Knight by the reference to Alexandria, the Monk is blatantly ironic. With Bernabò Visconti, the Monk focuses on the Italian tyrant as the typical employer of mercenaries; with the pitiable death of Ugolino, the Monk presents the ultimate image of the evil of tyranny. The uncomfortable relevance of the Monk’s remarks to the Knight’s career causes the latter to interrupt. The Modern Instances should be in final position, as in the Hengwrt and Ellesmere MSS. MkT illustrates the debasement of modern chivalry and asserts the right of the people to bring down tyrants. The Monk also asserts the Boethian view of the folly of seeking human happiness in worldly power and glory. See also Braddy 727, 732, 736, Lepley 747, Strange 569, Whittock 645. . •Review by G.A. Lester, MÆ 52 (1983), 122–5. The book, despite its new look, argues that Chaucer is an ironist, but irony is ‘as difficult to prove as it is to refute.’ The plain meaning of the approbation of GP is simply ignored, and a close analysis of the military evidence, especially that concerning Peter of

Monk’s Tale / 213

Cyprus’s victory at Alexandria (the only campaign which makes even a moderately serious case against the Knight) shows it to be very uneven. Jones has misunderstood the world of the tournament. . •Review by David Aers, SAC 4 (1982), 169–75. To Jones’ evidence that Chaucer’s contemporaries approved of Christian mercenaries should be added the late thirteenth-century tract by William of Tripoli, De statu saracenorum. However, Jones pre-supposes Chaucer’s hostility to the mercenaries and their ethos. His reading of KnT assumes that the tale reflects the fictional teller, but with MkT he ignores the fictional teller of GP, and identifies the Tale’s perspectives with Chaucer himself. [RW] 754 Stugrin, Michael. ‘Ricardian Poetics and Late Medieval Cultural Pluriformity: The Significance of Pathos in the Canterbury Tales.’ ChauR 15 (1980–1), 155–67. The heterogeneous group of pathetic tales (including the Ugolino tale in MkT) lends itself to obvious moralization, tapping a vast Christian and classical tradition, and poses a sober outlook on earthly life. Chaucer’s pathetic voice relates him to the Ricardian poetic movement (see Middleton 581), in contrast to the ironic and comic tales, for pathos in all aspects of medieval culture is the result of ‘a growing homocentricity in the relationship between God and man’ (p 163). See also Burrow 649, Gaylord 639. [RW] 755 Davenant, John. ‘Chaucer’s View of the Proper Treatment of Women.’ Maledicta 5 (1981), 153–61. The Host’s description of Goodelief (MkP VII.1897–1901) evinces a characteristic link between sexuality and physical violence in Chaucer’s poetry, and so suggests that women’s unhealthy sensual ambitions and animal instincts need to be physically subdued. [RW] 756 Gardner, John. ‘Signs, Symbols, and Cancellations.’ In Hermann and Burke 671. Pp 195–207. A deconstructive reading that points to the anti-logocentrism of the period, and how Chaucer reflects the lack of certainty posed by earlier thinkers. ‘Historical’ criticism has difficulties with Chaucer’s ‘tone’ and his comedy, and should take account of both the fourteenth-century intellectual’s esteem for early Christian writers and the real historical situation. ‘Poetic cancellation’ should be of increasing concern, as when MkT, for the most part doctrinally sound, is cancelled by the Knight because it is sententious and boring. The problem is, what do we do with the obviously serious and aesthetically successful works that Chaucer cancels, as when the Knight breaks off MkT, or CYT cancels SNT. There were new doubts current in Chaucer’s time, and although Chaucer is no nominalist, he avoids dogmatism, allowing all opinions to get speaking time. Poetry, even Chaucer’s, can never quite grasp the whole truth, in this infinitely various, infinitely mysterious universe.

214 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale .

757

758

759

760

•Review by Ian Bishop, RES ns 35 (1984), 357–9. The book launches ‘a spirited attack upon some cherished positions’ of the ‘Robertsonian’ school of interpretation (p 359). [RW] Owen, Charles A. Jr. ‘A Certain Nombre of Conclusiouns: The Nature and Nurture of Children in Chaucer.’ ChauR 16 (1981–2), 60–75. Chaucer’s concern for children appears in several works: e.g., Virginia in PhT is contrasted with the strange early maiden years of MkT’s Zenobia, and Seneca’s tutelage can keep young Nero virtuous only for a certain time (MkT VII.2499–2502); thus Nero raises the mystery of human responsibility for evil and that of human freedom. Children play important roles in only two stories: the Ugolino story from MkT, and PrT. In a contrast of Chaucer’s version with Dante’s (MkT VII.2431–8) is Chaucer’s longest single contribution to the story, and Chaucer reorders and revises the narrative to increase the pathos that permeates his work, with the children more fully realized. [RW] Rudat, Wolfgang. ‘Chaucer’s Spring of Comedy: The Merchant’s Tale and Other “Games” with Augustinian Theology.’ AnM 21 (1981), 111–20. The Monk defines postlapsarian sex as unclean, and contrasts it with what seems prelapsarian sex (MkT VII.2007–9), the union between God and Earth which begets Adam ‘with Goddes owene fynger’ in a ‘centrifugal vector of allusion’ (p 119). Whereas the Monk’s adaptation of Genesis may be ‘game,’ it is addressing the fundamental religious question of the creation of man; it seems also to provide a humorous psychoanalysis of the Monk, who has to cope with the plight of celibacy, and gives away his springtime sexual urges. [RW] Larner, John. ‘Chaucer’s Italy.’ In Boitani 680. Pp 7–32. Changes in Italian culture and vernacular literature between Dante’s time and Petrarch’s and Salutati’s include the lessening of internal factionalism (as symbolized by the murder of Ugolino and his grown kinsmen (not children) at Pisa in 1288), and the growth of external conflicts. Yet in Milan, the authoritarian control exercised by Bernabò Visconti (whose equestrian statue Chaucer might have seen) from 1378 until his murder in 1385 was still violent and aggressive. The fate of both historical figures is recalled in Chaucer’s MkT. See also Pratt 730 and 346. [RW] Mann, Jill. ‘Parents and Children in the Canterbury Tales.’ In Boitani and Torti 681. Pp 165–83. The parent-child relationship, a central motif in CT through which to explore the relation between power and love (and man’s relation to God) is dealt with in MkT, MLT, PhT, PrT, ClT. The most moving presentation of the father-child relationship is the Ugolino story in MkT (see Boitani 494), and Chaucer’s changes to Dante increase the pathos, for example by expanding the threeyear-old son’s ‘give us this day our daily bread’ prayer to a whole stanza to

Monk’s Tale / 215

761

762

763

764

emphasize our sense of the father’s helplessness. The children’s appeal to their father to eat their flesh rather than his own (MkT VII.2449–54) intertextually relates back more clearly than in Dante to Job’s response to the death of his children, with the strange inversion that the children in their Joblike resignation accept their own re-absorption into their father. Though Chaucer omits any suggestion that Ugolino ate the bodies of his children, the potential horror that God is the pagan god Saturn, who devoured his own children in a reversal of the Eucharist, is suggested. See also Brewer 684. [RW] Reiss, Edmund. ‘Biblical Parody: Chaucer’s “Distortions” of Scripture.’ In Chaucer and Scriptural Tradition. Ed. David Lyle Jeffrey. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1984. Pp 47–61. Chaucer’s relatively extensive ‘misapplication’ of scriptural references in MkT is discussed on pp 56–7. The Adam stanza is ironically joined to that on Lucifer, so that Adam is denied grace. The moral of Samson’s tragedy is not (like the others) about fortune, but about not confiding in one’s wife. The paired account of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar ends without reference to the latter’s profanation of the sacred vessels. The story of Holofernes ends not with a moral, but with the statement of Judith’s secretiveness. The story of Antiochus ignores the king’s final repentance and focuses on his disgusting end. The Monk’s distortions invariably fail to reveal what is most meaningful in the biblical examples. [DS] Taggie, Benjamin F. ‘John of Gaunt, Geoffrey Chaucer and “O Noble, O Worthy Petro, Glorie of Spayne”.’ FCS 10 (1984), 195–228. Chaucer’s depiction of Peter of Spain in MkT and BD suggests that John of Gaunt was Chaucer’s patron. Peter’s atrocities were better publicized than those of his contemporaries, and he was held in low regard in England as elsewhere. Chaucer’s unique presentation of him in a favourable light was intended to flatter John of Gaunt and his wife, Peter’s daughter. [DS] Elliott, Ralph W.V. ‘Chaucer’s Clerical Voices.’ In Kratzmann and Simpson 768. Pp 146–55. The stanzaic clerical tales, solemn and full of pathos, are, as previously suggested by Russell, distinct as a group from the non-stanzaic clerical tales with their fable or fabliau contents. The Monk most nearly approaches the narrative voices of the two nuns in his account of Ugolino. The Knight is prompted to interrupt MkT by its ‘monotony of misery’ (p 154). [DS] Frank, Robert Worth, Jr. ‘The Canterbury Tales 3: Pathos.’ In Boitani and Mann 692. Pp 143–58. The main appeal of MkT tragedies was as history in an accessible form, and the chief value of history was exemplary. The Knight stops the Monk, not because the stories are dull, but because he finds their sadness disturbing. In

216 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

765

766

767

768

769

the story of Ugolino increased focus on the innocent children heightens the pathos. [DS] Haas, Renate. ‘Chaucer’s Tragödienkonzept im europäischen Rahmen.’ Zusammenhänge, Einflüsse, Wirkungen. Ed. Joerg O. Fichte, Karl Heinz Göller, Bernhard Schimmelpfennig. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1986. Pp 451– 65. Chaucer shared early humanist conceptions of tragedy with writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio, and a new interpretation of MkT is needed to take account of this. See Haas 769. Not seen. Ref Lorrayne Y. Baird-Lange et al. ‘An Annotated Bibliography 1985.’ SAC 9 (1987), 323. [DS] Kamowski, William. ‘Varieties of Response to Melibee and the Clerk’s Tale.’ In Wasserman and Blanch 698. Pp 193–207. MkT, like Th, ‘is too literary. The Monk’s overtly conscious effort to appear learned overwhelms his subject matter’ (p 196). [DS] Knight, Stephen. ‘Chaucer’s Religious Canterbury Tales.’ Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature. In Kratzmann and Simpson 768. Pp 156– 66. On MS evidence, MkT, like the other tales based on religious material, had a substantial audience in the fifteenth century. The tales of Fragment VII tend to reject art as a medium of social analysis and turn for a solution towards religion, though the full authority of religion is deferred until the last tales in favour of ‘intellectual ground-clearing’ (p 164): eg, the Monk is interrupted, his tragedies being found unsubtle, irrelevant, and repetitive. [DS] Kratzmann, Gregory, and James Simpson, eds. Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature. Essays in Honour of G.H. Russell. Cambridge: Brewer, 1986. Contains Elliott 763, Kelly 535, Knight 767. Haas, Renate. ‘Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale: An Ingenious Criticism of Early Humanist Conceptions of Tragedy.’ HumLov 36 (1987), 44–70. In the fourteenth century, there was a revival of interest in Senecan tragedy in English and Italian writers such as Nicholas Trevet, Mussato, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Lydgate. The epic notion of tragedy and comedy held by Dante is distinguished as ‘traditional’ (p 51), but the new understanding is itself seen to have shifted focus across a range of issues such as metre, dramatic versus narrative form, rhetoric (especially in laments), exemplary function, and the role of Fortune, in this last particularly coinciding with the views of Boethius. Overall, however, there developed ‘a special sensibility towards Seneca’s Stoic determinism, underlying his grand Fortune metaphors, and towards his powerful heroes’ (p 54). Chaucer was apparently the first to recognize the affinities of Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium with contemporary concepts of tragedy.

Monk’s Tale / 217

770

771

772

773

Although Chaucer may have written a sequence of tragedies as a straightforward experiment earlier on, MkT itself (like TC) is critical of contemporary notions of tragedy. The Monk’s philosophical confusion, evidenced in his repeated inability to distinguish Fortune from God or explain their relationship, undermines tragedy’s potential for teaching. The failure is made explicit in the criticism offered by the Knight and the Host, judges from either end of the intellectual spectrum. It is even greater if, in addition, the tragedies have proceeded from a mind affected by the sin of acedia (see Berndt 575). And, lest criticism appear directed only at the composition of a ‘small mind’ (p 65), allusions to Petrarch as the Monk’s model confirm Chaucer’s dissatisfaction with the whole notion of tragedy as he knew it. [DS] . •Review by John J. McGavin and David Mills, YWES 68 (1987), 191. This is a ‘major scholarly contribution to our understanding of this critically unpopular tale’ (p 191). Wayne, Valerie. ‘Zenobia in Medieval and Renaissance Literature.’ In Ambiguous Realities. Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Ed. Carole Levin and Jeanie Watson. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987. Pp 48–65. In MkT, Zenobia ‘appears in an unambiguous female role only after she has been defeated and publicly shamed’ (p 51). The Monk is little concerned with Zenobia’s chastity. [DS] Seymour, M.C. ‘Chaucer’s Early Poem De Casibus Virorum Illustrium.’ ChauR 24(1989–90), 163–5. On the basis of MSS differences and structural peculiarities, it can be hypothesized that MkT once existed as an independent poem with the title De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, (which title is found in some MSS), and deserves to be treated as such. It was composed at an early date after Chaucer’s first visit to Italy in 1372–3 and before his translation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy c. 1380. It was subsequently inserted into CT in an essentially unrevised state. Consequently, all interpretations of MkT as a dramatic extension of the Canterbury pilgrimage are ‘null and void’ (p 164). [PG] Braeger, Peter C. ‘The Portrayals of Fortune in the Tales of the Monk’s Tale (Abstract).’ In Rebels and Rivals: the Contestive Spirit in ‘The Canterbury Tales.’ Ed. Susanna Greer Fein, David Raybin, and Peter C. Braeger. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1991. Pp 223–6. Although the word ‘Fortune’ appears more than thirty times in MkT, it is never described in the same way twice, nor placed in the same verbal context. [PG] Gittes, Katharine S. Framing the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer and the Medieval Frame Narrative Tradition. Contributions to the Study of World Literature, no 41. New York, Westport, CT, London: Greenwood, 1991.

218 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

MkT illustrates that incompleteness ‘is an almost inevitable element in a frame narrative’ (p 110) and that such tale collections usually appear to be arranged arbitrarily. The uncertainty of the intended number of stories and the evidence that suggests that the Modern Instances were later additions supports Robinson’s suggestion that Chaucer conceived of MkT as an indefinitely extensible series of stories. [PG] 774 Wetherbee, Winthrop. ‘The Context of the Monk’s Tale.’ In Language and Style in English Literature: Essays in Honour of Michio Masui. Ed. Michio Kawai. Hiroshima: The English Research Institute of Hiroshima, 1991. Pp 159–77. Both schools of critical opinion of MkT - that which argues for the tale’s essential seriousness and that which sees it as parodic, demonstrating the Monk’s worldliness - are founded on a selective use of individual stories as evidence. MkT is ‘highly experimental’ (p 161), drawing on a range of stories whose character is inherently tragic, but then dissipating their tragic power with ‘arbitrary moralism, the pathos of popular religious literature, or the optimism and idealism of chivalric romance’ (p 161). The relationship between the individual stories and their sources is an important part of the meaning of MkT. The Monk’s insistence that tragedy can do nothing more than bewail the operations of Fortune is at odds with the richness of conflicting perspectives in his sources, and his narration attenuates ‘their tragic force and rob[s] them of . . . [their] moral and historical complexity’ (p 167). The use of the word ‘carf’ in one of the concluding lines of the tale of Ugolino, ‘From heigh estaat Fortune awey hym carf’ (MkT VII.2457), epitomizes the manner in which the Monk has stripped away the historical and moral context of Dante’s version. The final effect of the Monk’s bungling efforts is ironically to remind us of the moral and imaginative richness inherent in the tragic mode. [PG] 775 Ramanzani, Jahan. ‘Chaucer’s Monk: the Poetics of Abbreviation, Aggression, and Tragedy.’ ChauR 27 (1992–3), 260–76. Alone of the pilgrims, the Monk discusses genre and metre at length, and his tale forgrounds its own rhetoricity. The focus of his rhetoric is abbreviation, thereby complementing the focus on amplification in NPT. As such, MkT reverses the basic pattern of CT, providing ‘a disturbing and crowded miniaturization of the tales of which they form a part’ (p 260). The basis of the Monk’s rhetoric is a reflex of his particular psychology. He demonstrates the collecting, miniaturising and enclosing obsessions of anal-eroticism: his narrative method proceeds in a circular fashion from definition to exemplification; his rhyme-scheme is ‘the most closed and claustrophobic verbal pattern in Chaucer’ (p 262); and he is fond of all kinds of lexical and phonemic repetition. Beneath his patient exterior, the Monk betrays the aggression which

Monk’s Tale / 219

776

777

778

778a

often accompanies anal-eroticism, manifesting itself in an aggression towards the audience and a gloating over the power and wealth of his heroes. Many of the Monk’s de casibus tragedies are taken up by other pilgrims, by which Chaucer finally reveals the inadequacy of the Monk’s view of tragedy. [PG] Zatta, Jane Dick. ‘Chaucer’s Monk: a Mighty Hunter Before the Lord.’ ChauR 29 (1994), 111–33. In MkT, Chaucer uses the conventions of de casibus tragedy to comment obliquely on some of the political controversies of the last years of King Richard’s rule: the maintenance of a luxurious and extravagant court, the cost of foreign wars, and the role of the clergy in secular administration. This is underlined by the way that the Monk departs from the conventions of de casibus tragedy in several ways: he fails to note the vices of his heroes; he has no philosophical framework which would allow him to draw appropriate morals from their downfall; all his heroes are stock examples of tyrants. Moreover, three of the four contemporary tyrants included in the tale (the Modern Instances) had associations with the English court. Although it is impossible to decide whether MkT refers to specific historical events, complaints about the cost of maintaining Richard’s court escalated in the last years of his reign and this could suggest a late date for the tale. The Monk himself, in his worldly lifestyle and in his associations with Nimrod, linked by Augustine to the origins of tyranny, in the text ‘that seith that hunters ben nat hooly men’ (GP I.178), is an example of the monastic estate’s abdication of its traditional role of advising the monarchy. ‘The Monk’s tales of misgovernment are the right ones for English policy-makers in the last fifteen years of the fourteenth century, but . . . Chaucer’s Monk is unable to see their meaning’ (p 124). [PG] Astell, Ann W. Chaucer and the Universe of Learning. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1996 Pp 190–6 repeat the argument of 718. [PG] Boenig, Robert. ‘Is The Monk’s Tale a Fragment?’ N&Q 241 (1996), 261–4. The Knight does not interrupt the Monk in the middle of MkT but at its conclusion. The last stanza of the tale shifts from the specific to the general and it echoes the diction and sentiments of the first stanza. This technique of closure can be found in other fourteenth-century poems, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for example, and is analogous to the circular structure of the musical lai, associated particularly with Guillaume de Machaut. [PG] Laskaya, Anna. Chaucer’s Approach to Gender in the Canterbury Tales. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995. Although MkT includes tales of heroic achievement, its purpose is not to praise heroism in the epic manner but to teach us to avoid the sins of pride. Instead of fame, MkT urges the reader to seek spiritual and inner wealth. The

220 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

tales re-read epic material from a medieval Christian and Boethian perspective. [PG] 778b Grudin, Michaela Paasche. Chaucer and the Politics of Discourse. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1996. Chapter 7, pp 135–48, is entitled ‘The Monk’s Tale and Chaucer’s Idea of the Listener.’ Chaucer’s interest in the listener is evident in NPP where Knight and Host make contradictory comments about the nature of tragedy. MkT is, however, neither the piece of ‘hevynesse’ (VII.2769) that the Knight believes it to be, nor does it generate the boredom that the Host finds. On the contrary, it is ‘more variegated, rhetorically and otherwise, than most anything else in the Canterbury Tales’ (p 138). The Knight’s comments offer a narrower definition of tragedy than the Monk, a specifically material fall from great wealth and ease. The Host is less moderate than the Knight and less rational in his opinions. [PG] 778c Wallace, David. Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. For late fourteenth-century English readers, MkT added a contemporary significance to the de casibus genre. Chaucer’s major sources are his immediate Italian humanist antecedents, Petrarch and Boccaccio, but ‘he aligns himself with Boccaccian revisionism and against a Petrarchan cultural project that proves congenial to despotic ideology’ (p 300). Although it is Petrarch’s name, not Boccaccio’s, that appears in MkT, Boccaccio’s influence is everywhere the more significant. Chaucer follows Boccaccio rather than Petrarch in concentrating on the fall rather than the lives of great men, and he follows Boccaccio in interrogating ‘the vertical space that sets vires illustres apart from, or ovaer, the rest of humanity’ (p 311). Critical studies of MkT’s affiliations with Italian humanism have concentrated on literary sources to the exclusion of political contexts, but Chaucer’s most significant departure from Petrarch’s model was the decision, following Boccaccio again, to include the modern instances. This decision to write an open-ended de casibus history ‘entails endless textual destabilization’ (p 314). News of the death of Bernabò Visconti in 1385 was recorded by many chroniclers, poets and other commentators in England, but it is significant that Chaucer accords Bernabò only one stanza, a move that ‘denies the uniqueness of Bernabò’s physical presence’ (p 329). Chaucer’s last words of him, ‘But why, ne how, noot I that thou were slawe’ (VII.2406), are uncannily prescient of the many thousands of lines written on the death of Richard II in 1399. [PG] 778d Sharp, Michael D. ‘Reading Chaucer’s ‘Manly man’: The Trouble with Masculinity in the Monk’s Prologue and Tale.’ In 722c Masculinities in Chaucer. Although the GP portrait of the Monk leaves unanswered many questions about his manliness, MkP investigates the Monk’s manhood and explores

Monk’s Tale / 221

778e

778f

778g

778h

manliness as a cultural ideal. Marriage has compromised the Host’s masculinity, and he sees the Monk’s manly beauty as evidence of sexuality thwarted by the religious life. The Monk ignores the personal and offensive claims about him that the Host makes, and his tale becomes ‘a critique of worldly masculinities as appropriate social ideals’ (p 179). The Monk’s initial tragedies deal negatively with ‘two of secular manhood’s defining elements: heterosexual love and procreation’ (p 179). In the tale of Zenobia, the Monk shows a respect for marital chastity but denies the lasting importance of military accomplishments. [PG] Wenzel, Siegfried. ‘Why the Monk?’ In Words and Works: Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature in Honour of Fred C. Robinson. Ed. Peter S. Baker and Nicholas Howe. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. Pp. 261–70. There is no need to follow the popular, ‘dramatic’ explanation of the relationship between the Monk and his tale. The Monk’s monastic library would have been full of encyclopaedias and collections of exempla like MkT, and monks in England were important chroniclers and historians. Sermon collections often warn against trusting Fortune, but monastic collections are distinguished by their citation of contemporary cases as illustrations. [PG] Kim, Jung-Ai. ‘The Monk’s Tale: Chaucerian Tragedy.’ Medieval English Studies 7(1999), 93–123. In Korean. Not seen. [PG] Astell, Ann W. ‘The Monk’s Tragical “Seint Edward”.’ Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), 399–405. Saint Edward is only mentioned here in the whole of CT. Richard II had a special devotion to Edward the Confessor, but the Monk’s reference here is ambiguous, designed to evoke the memory of Edward II, whose cause for canonization was actively supported by Richard. Richard adopted many of Edward II’s methods of government, and the ‘Wonderful Parliament’ of 1386 threatened Richard by asserting its right to depose an unruly king. All four of the Monk’s Modern Instances were assassinated, but the Monk focuses attention on the pitiful nature of their deaths and the ambition of their murderers rather than their tyrannical acts. The Knight’s interruption forces the audience to supply other modern instances of the assassination of tyrannical rulers, perhaps even Richard himself. [PG] Cooper, Helen. ‘Responding to the Monk.’ Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), 425–33. (A response to the papers on MkT presented at the Colloquium on the Monk’s Tale, Eleventh Congress of the New Chaucer Society, Paris, July 17–20 1998; see 778g, 778j, 778k, 778l, 778m, and 778o.) Contributors to the Collo-

222 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

quium differ in the degree of dependence they find of MkT on the larger framework of CT. Although MkT was twice copied independently of the pilgrimage frame in the fifteenth century, both mss find an alternative context by placing it alongside Lydgate’s Fall of Princes. The literary afterlife of MkT shows the importance of its themes: Lydgate’s work was universally admired until the mid-sixteenth century. The universal aspect of the appeal of the tales and their themes is an argument against particular ‘topical’ interpretations derived from contemporary history. Pace Neuse 778o, MkT is an example of the kind of story collection that Chaucer is not writing in CT at large. Chaucer introduced the idea of genre as the key to both writing and interpretation. [PG] 778i Fradenburg, L.O. Aranye. ‘Return to The Monk’s Tale.’ Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), 435–40. (Another response to the Colloquium on MkT.) New criticism of MkT shows that it is more central to the poetics of CT than was formerly thought. [PG] 778j Jones, Terry. ‘The Monk’s Tale.’ Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), 387– 97. A growing number of critics believe that MkT is not ‘a complete and utter disaster’ (p 387). It is a strong reply to KnT. The Knight is not a philosopher or a perfect gentle man, but a military professional who has been employed for money by despots and tyrants (see Jones 753), and his tale is an examination of the nature of despotism. MkT embodies a critique of the pursuit of fame and power. The Monk quits the Knight especially in the tales of Peter of Cyprus and Bernabò Visconti. [PG] 778k Kelly, Henry Ansgar. ‘The Evolution of The Monk’s Tale: Tragical to Farcical.’ Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), 407–14. MkT is important for two reasons: it resurrects the genre of tragedy, and it shows Chaucer revising and rearranging material in greater detail than anywhere else in his work. The ‘minibiographies’ (p 407) of MkT were not only Chaucer’s first attempt at writing tragedy but the first attempt by any author in a European vernacular. Boccaccio did not call his cautionary tales ‘tragedies’ and neither did anyone else, apart from Chaucer. Chaucer derived his idea of tragedy from the characterization of Fortune in Boethius, but he got the idea of a ‘series’ of tragedies from Boccaccio. Chaucer did not see Boccaccio’s work until after his second trip to Italy in 1378, and he wrote the bulk of MkT in the early 1380s, while writing or after finishing Boece, and before he embarked upon Troilus and Criseyde, although the tragedy of Bernabò could only have been written in 1386 or later, after Troilus was finished. The collection of tragedies was assigned to the Monk late in the composition of CT. There is a more detailed reaction to MkT from the pilgrims than to any other tale. [PG]

Monk’s Tale / 223

Knight, Stephen. ‘My lord, the Monk.’ Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), 381–6. The connection between the Monk of GP and his tale has often seemed obscure, but the focal concern of both is with the theme of ‘lordship.’ The luxurious interests of the Monk of GP show him to be a ‘bogus knight’ (p 383), and the themes of the tale are a projection of his aspiration to knighthood. The issue of social status is strongly present in the first few tales, and as a whole the tales are about great people, often ‘lordly’ in only the secular sense: ‘Lucifer is not so much a fallen angel as a disgraced baron’ (p 384). The final interruption by the Knight reminds us of the inappropriateness of the Monk’s assumption of lordship. [PG] 778m Neuse, Richard. ‘The Monk’s De Casibus: the Boccaccio Case Reopened.’ In The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: New Essays on an Old Question. Ed. Leonard Michael Koff and Brenda Deen Schildgen. Madison and Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000. Pp. 247–77. MkT is a ‘miniature imitation of Boccaccio’s vast tract’ (p 247). Boccaccio’s Latin work resembles the Decameron in many ways as well: it is not a simple historical account, but is characterized by ‘a sublime freedom in mingling fact and fiction, and by a rhetorical playfulness and satiric incongruity’ (p 247). The worldly Monk of GP is the ironic double of Boccaccio himself, a writer who makes regular use of a multiplicity of personae. Both MkT and De casibus seek to demystify and demythologize their stories, but both re-mythologize their stories with the figure of Fortune. Both narrators assume the reader’s familiarity with earlier versions of the stories, but Boccaccio is never as explicit as Chaucer about his source texts. The Monk’s changes to the story of Ugolino to ‘allow the reader to see [Ugolino] as other than a moral grotesque’ (p 253). De casibus and MkT display a common interest in the newly emergent form of tragedy, combining influences of both medieval and classical authors. Both works, following Dante’s Inferno, blur the boundary between myth and history, and delineate a space where their subjects’ stories can unfold unhampered by the intervention of superior powers. Although there is no example in CT of the detailed concern with politics and historical events that Boccaccio shows in a story like Walter, Duke of Athens, there is a gesture in MkT towards emerging related issues of politics. The question put into the mouth of the Monk in GP - ‘how shal the world be served?’ (I.187) - acquires added significance in this light, and MkT raises metaphysical questions about the governance of the world and its history. [PG] 778n ––. ‘They Had Their World as in Their Time: the Monk’s ‘Little Narratives’.’ Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), 415–23. MkT is a ‘somewhat disconcerting mixture of a kind of world chronicle and 778l

224 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

literary fiction’ (p 415). The Monk is not ‘a frivolous character or a fraud but a serious-minded humanist with a bent toward postmodernism avant la lettre’’ (p 416). He breaks with the chronological order of his stories as part of an agenda to disrupt the grand narratives of biblical-Christian history. The tale elides the distinction between literary fiction and history, and subverts traditional ideas of historiography. There is no real chronological order of the casus, and they display a variety of contradictory historical paradigms so that the ‘façade of universal history dissolves’ (p 416), and the tale reveals itself as a series of ‘little narratives,’ to use Lyotard’s term. The Monk’s way of life, aligning himself with the ‘newe world,’ fits the postmodern well. Fortune is a slippery figure embodying wildly different meanings, ‘guarding against the establishment of a single ‘world order’ and preserving multiplicity and singularity’ (p 420). As a series of tales, MkT mirrors the larger poem, and the refusal of thematic unity parallels the collection as a whole. [PG]

b

The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

More than any other tale, NPT has raised issues of reading, understanding, and interpretation. Indeed, many critics have seen ‘interpretation’ as the tale’s main theme. A whole generation of studies celebrated the ‘ambivalence’ of NPT, put forward most influentially by Muscatine 857. For him the one constant in the tale is its multiplicity of perspective. Many commentators have drawn attention to the tale’s hybridity of form, and an accompanying focus on the problems of the tale’s meaning has made it especially attractive in the last twenty years to literary theorists. This modern and postmodern preference for uncertainty and ambivalence found its strongest opposition in the many attempts in the 1950s and afterwards to read NPT as allegory rather than irony: Huppé and Robertson 876 borrow the words ‘fruyt’ and ‘chaf’ from the end of NPT for the title of their book, although there is no direct discussion in it of the tale. There are many partial allegorical readings of NPT as well, some in combination with an ironic and dramatic perspective. Many of these kinds of interpretation turn on the significance of Chauntecleer. Holbrook 848 and Adams and Levy 889 and 903 read him as a figure of Adam, and his encounter with the fox as an allegory of the Fall. Baird 1006 and 1022 extends this in her discussion of the gallus-deus, the cock as Christ. The opposition to patristic readings of medieval texts, especially of the more universalising kind, was led by E. Talbot Donaldson. For Donaldson 866 and 947, the ‘point’ of the tale lies in its absurd rhetorical elaboration. The injunction in the final lines of the tale to separate its fruit from its chaff can only be taken ironically. This ironic mode of reading has been helped in great part by the growing understanding of the importance of rhetoric. Although for Manly 607, NPT satirizes the whole apparatus of medieval rhetoric, he sees the development of Chaucer’s career not as a rejection of rhetoric as a whole, but in a more discriminating and dramatically appropriate use of it. The tale is often cited in support of general claims about Chaucer’s abilities as a writer of narrative, especially shorter narrative. Most studies of the style of NPT have stressed its ‘mixed’ nature. For Muscatine 896, Chaucer’s style is both protean and constant. The commonest intellectual and theological contexts for NPT have been found in such areas as dream theory, astrology and astronomy, medicine, anti-feminism, determinism, and in social histories of the lives of the poor in the Middle Ages and in the Peasants’ Revolt. The debate about free will and

226 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

779

780

781

782

predestination that the Nun’s Priest raises himself has been the subject of a great deal of commentary. The satiric spirit in which these weighty matters are discussed is often pointed out. In the early part of the twentieth century there were some notable attempts to find real life parallels to the characters and events of NPT, but NPT has more often been cited in studies that allude to fourteenth-century social life more generally, especially the life of the poor. Ewald, Wilhelm. Der Humor in Chaucers Canterbury Tales. Studien zur englischen Philologie 45. Halle: Niemeyer, 1911. A work of definition and classification. NPT is cited frequently, eg as exemplifying the situation comedy of the Satyr-play (NPT VII.3383ff). NPT’s mockery of philosophy and scholarship, especially in dream interpretation, depends for its comedy on the incongruity inherent in the beast fable with its talking beasts. Thus NPT is included among the comedies of marriage: Chauntecleer and Pertelote represent a truly happy marriage, but there is comedy in their endowment with ‘all the characteristics of a true gentleman and a matronly dame.’ In NPT VII.3263, Chaucer evades a direct attack on the frailties and vices of women. •Review by R.K. Root, ESt 45 (1912), 443–5, criticizes the failure to consider CT in relation to the rest of Chaucer’s work and for the lack of definition of what is peculiar to Chaucer’s humour as distinct from that of his contemporaries. [JS] Dodd, William George. Courtly Love in Chaucer and Gower. Harvard Studies in English 1. Boston and London: Ginn, 1913. Rpt Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1959. Ch 1, ‘The System of Courtly Love,’ rpt in Schoeck 627. Vol 2, pp 1–15. The brief analysis of NPT (pp 246–7) locates the comedy in the incongruity of describing a hen in terms of the perfect courtly lady, and in Pertelote’s transference of the qualities of the courtly lover to her spouse, leading to the illogical demand that a husband should be ‘secree’ and ‘not a boaster of favours received.’ [JS] Lawrence, William Witherle. ‘The Marriage Group in the Canterbury Tales.’ MP 11 (1913/14), 247–58. Argues (as does Tupper 782) for an extension of Kittredge’s marriage-group 549 by fitting it into a broader context: the debate over ‘maistrye.’ Mel is ‘a prose counterpart’ to WBT and a preparation both for it and for NPT, in which the Nun’s Priest may be motivated to take up the challenge of Mel by resentment at being a man in the service of a woman. WBT should be placed immediately after NPT. See also Kenyon 606 and Severs 832. [JS] Tupper, Frederick. ‘Saint Venus and the Canterbury Pilgrims.’ Nation 97 (1913), 354–6.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 227

783

784

785

786

787

788

Venus, as the reigning star of pilgrimages, is ‘sovereign’ over the travellers during their journey: the unity of CT consists in Chaucer’s portrayal of the many manifestations - chivalric, churlish, secular and religious - of this ruling passion. From this perspective, the marriage group should be extended. WBP should follow immediately upon NPT, which shows complete subordination of the fable of the Cock and Fox to the mock-romantic theme of the uxoriousness of Chaunticleer, the servant of Venus. See also Kenyon 606, Lawrence 781, Moore 259, and Severs 832. [JS] Koch, John. ‘Neuere Chaucer-Literatur.’ ESt 48 (1914), 251–81. A review article which deals with four works, those relevant being Koch’s own A Detailed Comparison of the Eight Manuscripts 257, which is merely mentioned; Emerson’s Poems of Chaucer 41 which is submitted to extensive textual criticism; and Meyer’s Die Characterzeichnung bei Chaucer 550, which is praised for its conception, but not for its execution. [JS] Benham, Allen Rogers. English Literature from Widsith to the Death of Chaucer: a Source Book. Yale University Press, 1916. Rpt New York: Phaeton, 1968. Chaucer is treated on pp 605–13, with some brief references to NPT. [JS] Eberhard, Oscar. Der Bauernaufstand vom Jahre 1381 in der englischen Poesie. Anglistische Forschungen 50. Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1916. A survey of literary treatments of the Peasants’ Revolt from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century, identifying, in particular, depths of concern and direction of sympathy in a given work or author. Gower’s interest may be contrasted with Chaucer’s virtual silence. The one clear reference is the comic comparison of the pursuit of the fox in NPT VII.3393–7 to the mob attacks on Flemish artisans. [JS] Horsch, Hedvig. Chaucer als Kritiker. Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1916. Although Chaucer frequently refers to literary practices and to other authors, when this exceeds the merely conventional, it is usually a means of advancing the subject matter. For example, in the debate between Pertelote and Chauntecleer, no point is being made about any particular authority, but rather about the whole nature of argument over the meaning of dreams (p 69). [JS] Emerson, Oliver Farrar. ‘Chaucer’s “Opie of Thebes Fyn”.’ MP 17 (1919), 287– 91. Rpt in Emerson 809. Pp 312–19. There is evidence in NPT of Chaucer’s knowledge of medical matters: the widow’s freedom from disease and the reason for it; Pertelote’s diagnosis of the probable cause of Chauntecleer’s bad dreams and the elaborate description of remedies. [BM] Grimm, Florence M. Astronomical Lore in Chaucer. University of Nebraska

228 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

789

790

791

792

793

Studies in Language, Literature, and Criticism 2. Lincoln, NE, 1919. Rpt New York: AMS Press, 1970. Ch 2, ‘Chaucer’s Scientific Knowledge’ (pp 9–12), notes that most of his writings contain references to the movements and relative positions of the heavenly bodies, and to their influence on human affairs. Ch 4, ‘Chaucer’s Astronomy’ (pp 27–51), argues that in his poetry references to astronomy usually take one of two forms: ‘references showing the time of day or season of the year at which the events narrated are supposed to take place; and figurative allusions for purposes of illustration or comparison’ (p 28). In NPT the references are used comically, as even Chauntecleer can tell the time from the sun’s altitude (NPT VII.3191–9). We also learn (NPT VII.2853–8) that he ‘knew each ascension of the equilnoctial [sic] and crew at each; that is, he crew every hour, as 15 of the equinoctial correspond to an hour’ (p 33). [BM] Huxley, Aldous. ‘Chaucer.’ London Mercury 2 (1920), 170–89. Rpt in his On the Margin: Notes and Essays. London: Chatto & Windus, 1923, pp 203–29; New York: Doran, 1923, pp 194–218. Rpt London: Chatto & Windus, 1948; Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1948, pp 203–29. Rpt in EIC 15 (1965), 6–21. A wide-ranging account of Chaucer as a genial and tolerant poet: whereas Langland responds in ‘righteous indignation’ (p 180) to the abuses of his time, ‘Chaucer looks on and smiles’ (p 181). Chaucer’s response to the Peasants’ Revolt is one brief comic reference in NPT. [BM] Jack, Adolphus Alfred. A Commentary on the Poetry of Chaucer & Spenser. Glasgow: Maclehose & Jackson, 1920; London: Macmillan, 1920. Rpt Darby, PA: Folcroft, 1974. NPT is discussed briefly on pp 114–6. It was written very late in Chaucer’s career. ‘In the story there is nothing; the matter is in the burlesque grandiloquence’ (pp 114–5). [BM] Cox, Sidney Hayes. ‘Chaucer’s Cheerful Cynicism.’ MLN 36 (1921), 475–81. Instead of taking on the role of moral reformer and leader, Chaucer became ‘a benevolent and cheerful cynic’ (p 476). It is not surprising that he did not challenge the prevailing ideology since he was financially dependent on those in power. [BM] Curry, Walter Clyde. ‘Chaucer’s Science and Art.’ Texas Review 7 (1923), 307– 22. Includes an abridgement of 794. Chaucer’s knowledge of dream theory may have come from a number of authorities, (medical experts, natural philosophers, astrologers, theologians), and not solely from ‘the over-emphasized Macrobius’ (p 312), but in his poems he is interested in dreams as an artist and not as philosopher or astrologer or scientist or theologian. In NPT, the discussion of dreams functions primarily as an expression of the temperaments of Chauntecleer and Pertelote. [BM] Bensusan, S.L. ‘The Bee in Literature.’ Quarterly Review 241 (1924), 270–92.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 229

The honey bee has been mentioned by philosophers and poets from classical to modern times. In English tradition, Chaucer begins ‘the stream of reference’ (p 278), and NPT VII.3392 indicates that ‘Chaucer had evidently watched the outpouring of the swarm; it is a sight that may well inspire a poet’ (p 278). [BM] 794 Curry, Walter Clyde. ‘Chauntecleer and Pertelote on Dreams.’ ESt 58 (1924), 24–68. Chaucer’s comments on dreams are not necessarily based entirely on Macrobius, who lists five types of dreams, three prophetic (somnium, visio, oraculum) and two meaningless (insomnium and phantasma [or visum]). Chaucer had access to other theories which, if differing in emphasis, essentially agree. The problem with these theories, explored in NPT, is how to determine ‘precisely the nature of any present dream that has not already been proved true or false by the event’ (p 44). When Pertelote and Chauntecleer consider Chauntecleer’s dream, each follows ‘his temperamental and characteristic way of looking at things’ (p 44): one is ‘by nature practical of mind and unimaginative’ (p 44); the other is ‘imaginative and pompously self-conscious’ and ‘would like to pass as a philosopher and a deep student of the occult’ (p 44). Pertelote claims that the dream is a somnium naturale, caused by a maladjustment of cholers: she is supported by the authorities who claim that an excess of red or black choler causes a dreamer to see red and black things respectively (see NPT VII.2926–36). Chauntecleer, however, asserts that his dream is a somnium coeleste, a true and prophetic vision. His character compels him to assert that his dream is an ‘avisioun’ (NPT VII.3123), and to associate himself with ‘famous men, illustrious warriors, mighty kings of nations, prophets, seers’ (p 52); it is also in character that in his egotism he ignores his own argument. He is unaware of the arguments about foreknowledge and necessity, and the distinction between simple and conditional necessity: ‘if his mind had been less obsessed with the idea of his own importance, the fulfilment of even so true an “avisioun” as his might have been avoided by the mere expedient of remaining upon the beams’ (p 54). See also 801. [BM] 795 Hotson, J. Leslie. ‘Colfox Vs. Chauntecleer.’ PMLA 39 (1924), 762–81. Rpt in Wagenknecht 865. Pp 98–116. NPT is not just a satire on human frailty but a political allegory. Instead of the red Renart of his sources, Chaucer makes his fox a ‘col-fox’ (NPT VII.3215), a ‘reddish-yellow beast . . . tipped with black at both ends’ (p 765). ‘Col-fox’ alludes to Nicholas Colfox who, at the instigation of Thomas Mowbray (and ultimately of Richard II), took part in the treacherous murder of the Duke of Gloucester at Calais in 1397. This explains why the colfox is compared to famous traitors (NPT VII.3227–9), and explains the long exemplum (NPT VII.2984–3062) about a murder committed in a foreign town, and its moral,

230 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

796

797

798

799

‘Mordre wol out’ (NPT VII.3057). The fox’s colours allude to Mowbray, whose badge of office as Earl Marshal was a ‘golden truncheon tipped with black at both ends’ (p 775). The conflict between the fox and Chauntecleer alludes to the quarrel and threatened duel between Mowbray and Henry Bolingbroke (whose coat of arms is echoed in the heraldic description of Chauntecleer) in September 1398. The quarrel arose from defamatory comments about the king made by Mowbray to Henry, just as in NPT ‘the fox was tricked and defeated by talking at the wrong time’ (p 776). This suggests that NPT was composed soon after the abortive duel, probably in October or November 1398. The fox’s name ‘daun Russell’ (NPT VII.3334) alludes to Sir John Russel, one of Richard’s hated minions. These allegorical significances are not sustained systematically throughout NPT. Chaucer was not aiming for ‘a weary parallelism’ (p 780), and the allusions are ‘fugitive’ and ‘deft’ (p 781): Chaucer, it would seem, changed the month of the abortive duel from September to April (or May), and the day from Monday to Friday, in order to ‘mask his batteries’ (p 780). [BM] •E.V. Gordon, YWES 5 (1924), considered the interpretation ‘entirely gratuitous’ and ‘the coincidences . . . so farfetched as to be of no significance’ (p 85). This is no doubt the prevailing view, although the 1959 reprint indicates that the theory continues to have some allure. Lawrence, C.E. ‘The Personality of Geoffrey Chaucer.’ Quarterly Review 242 (1924), 315–33. Chaucer loved birds and studied them closely. He was able to sympathize with their troubles, and is ‘openly on the side of Chanticlere’ (p 323) when the cock is being carried off by the fox. [BM] Wells, Whitney Hastings. ‘Chaucer as a Literary Critic.’ MLN 39 (1924), 255– 68. Chaucer’s comments on his own works, and on those of classical writers and his contemporaries, offer hints about his ideas regarding narrative technique and style. In NPT VII.3347–52 there is a sly hit at Geoffrey de Vinsauf. [BM] Coulton, G[eorge] G[ordon]. The Medieval Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925. Rpt as Medieval Village, Manor, and Monastery. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960. Provides background information about the living conditions of people comparable in status to the widow of NPT. In NPT, the peasants remain sketchy background figures while ‘the real human beings are the animals’ (p 232). [BM] Iijima, Ikuzo. Langland and Chaucer: A Study of the Two Types of Genius in English Poetry. Boston: Four Seas Company, 1925. Rpt New York: AMS Press, 1975. Langland’s sensibility ‘lent itself most willingly to the lulls and pangs of hope and despair’ of the Anglo-Saxons; Chaucer ‘represents more the lucid ener-

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 231

800

801

802

803

804

getic practical race of the latinized Celts’ (p 120). Ch 2, on Chaucer (pp 81– 121), contrasts the ugly society depicted by Langland with Chaucer’s seemingly genial and festive society. NPT demonstrates Chaucer’s harmony of subject matter and rhythm or style. [BM] Woolf, Virginia. ‘The Pastons and Chaucer.’ In The Common Reader. London: Hogarth Press, 1925; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925. Pp 13–38. Reprint in part in Sullivan 938. Pp 17–22. Reprint in part (excluding NPT allusion) in Burrow 646. Pp 125–6. Chaucer does not reject the real world as ‘unpoetic,’ and regards even a ‘farmyard, with its straw, its dung, its cocks and hens,’ (p 29) as appropriate subject matter for his poetry. [BM] Curry, Walter Clyde. Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences. New York, London: Oxford University Press, 1926. Rev and enlarged edn, New York: Barnes & Noble, 1960; London: Allen & Unwin, 1960. Ch 9 (1960 edn) reprint in part in Sullivan 938. Pp 115–22. Ch 8, ‘Mediaeval Dream-Lore’ (pp 195–218), and Ch 9, ‘Chauntecleer and Pertelote on Dreams’ (pp 219–40), are taken from 794, divided into the two chapters, with some minor changes, and with the Latin passages translated. [BM] Tupper, Frederick. Types of Society in Medieval Literature. New York: Holt, 1926. Rpt New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1968. The misogyny of ‘Mulier est hominis confusio’ (NPT VII.3164) and of NPT VII.3256–9 is typical of the age, although some commentators (as does the Nun’s Priest in NPT VII.3265–6) list the anti-feminist platitudes along with ‘vehement disclaimers for any personal responsibility for the stock charges’ (p 123). Chaucer’s negative images of women are balanced by positive ones: Mel advocates obedience to the will of women, even if this is ‘rebutted by the Monk’s and Priest’s examples of the deadliness of woman’s advice’ (p 156). The limiting of the Marriage Group to four tales has obscured the recurrence of questions about matrimony, sexual sovereignty, women’s counsels and so on, throughout CT: e.g., Chauntecleer with his seven wives ‘is the true precursor of the Wife of Bath and her five husbands’ (p 157). [BM] Baldwin, Charles Sears. ‘Cicero on Parnassus.’ PMLA 42 (1927), 106–12. An earlier, simpler, version of the arguments developed in 806. Although Chaucer does not abandon entirely the taste of his time for amplification, he is averse to ‘prolixitee.’ NPT is a satire on Geoffrey de Vinsauf and the kind of late medieval poetics developed in the Latin manuals. [JG] Berkelman, Robert G. ‘Chaucer and Masefield.’ EJ 16 (1927), 698–705. Although the body of Masefield’s poem ‘Reynard’ is similar to the chase in NPT, it is the opening of the poem, with its vivid description of the characters, which is the ‘reincarnation of Chaucer’ (p 700). Another of Masefield’s po-

232 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

805

806

807

808

809

810

811

ems, ‘The Widow in Bye Street,’ about a poor widow, recalls the opening of NPT. [JG] Perry, Mary Agnes. ‘Chaucer’s Use of Proverbs.’ [Seattle:] University of Washington, 1927. Dir D.D. Griffith. In NPT, there are 32 lines of sententiae and 36 lines of exempla. Authors are frequently quoted. Examples of proverbs are NPP VII.2801–2, NPT VII.2922, and VII.3234. Proverbs used as endings or summaries are exemplified by NPT VII.3433–5 and NPT VII.3443. See also Whiting 207. [JG] Baldwin, Charles Sears. Medieval Rhetoric to 1400. New York: Macmillan, 1928. Rpt Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1959. Chapter 10, section D, ‘The History of Medieval Verse Narrative in Chaucer,’ pp 280–95, sees prolixity as Chaucer’s ‘bête noir.’ He pillories Geoffrey de Vinsauf, not merely because the Nova Poetria is an Ovidian nightmare, but because its aim is to stall composition by the use of ‘colours.’ In an important note, Baldwin further argues that ‘the reference to romance which follows the Nun’s Priest’s sarcastic dilation of truisms suggests that here, too, as well as in the direct reference to Geoffrey, Chaucer was glancing at the rhetorication of narrative’ (p 294, n 39). There is a ‘Synoptic Index,’ with discussions on ‘Sources,’ ‘Fields,’ ‘Components,’ and ‘Medieval Poetic’ (pp 303–6). [JG] Bennett, H.S. England from Chaucer to Caxton. London: Methuen, 1928. An assembly of extracts from literature describing social history to counterbalance ‘drum and trumpet history’ (p v). The description of the widow’s cottage (NPT VII.2821–50) is included in the section on ‘Village Life.’ [JG] Ker, W.P. Form and Style in Poetry: Lectures and Notes. Ed R.W. Chambers. London: Macmillan, 1928. ‘No great poet was ever so happy in following established conventions. None is quicker in reaction against the solemnities’ (pp 52–3). A later note on Henryson makes the point that his fables resemble NPT in theme and go some way to make up the one of the great deficiencies of early English literature - the want of Reynard the Fox. [JG] Emerson, Oliver Farrar. Chaucer Essays and Studies. Western Reserve University Press, 1929. Reprints of 318 and 787. [JG] Evans, Joan. ‘Chaucer and the Decorative Arts.’ RES 1930, 408–12. Chaucer’s detailed decorative backgrounds are ‘less the creation of untrammelled fancy and more closely based on things seen than is always realized’ (p 408). Cited by Mrozkowski 860. [JG] Patch, Howard Rollin. ‘Chauceriana.’ Englische Studien 65 (1930–1), 351–9. Corrects Manly’s claim that Chaucer nowhere else mentions the Peasants’ Revolt than NPT VII.3394. Carleton Brown’s reference to TC 4.181–4 is another sufficiently definite allusion. In the same line, ‘he’ means ‘that famous, or notorious,’ as Manly says, but further instances in Old English suggest

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 233

812

813

814

815

816

817

that ‘the idiom therefore grew from the appositive use, with no further meaning than that of definition’ (p 355). [JG] Baldwin, Charles Sears. Three Medieval Centuries of Literature in England 1100–1400. 1932. Rpt New York: Phaeton, 1968. The Chaucer section is on pp 203–25. Two of Chaucer’s schoolbooks, including Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s Nova Poetria at NPT VII.3347, are recalled in CT. Chaucer learned from Boccaccio the superiority of the longer line to the French octosyllabic for narrative. Chaucer had an extraordinarily sensitive ear and experimented with verse form. Within any given metre of his mature work, there are many ‘variations of stress and pause, tempo and substitution, [that] . . . avoid monotony without weakening the pattern’ (pp 208–9). [JG] Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. Chaucer. London: Faber; New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1932 Chaucer always confesses a literary pleasure which may well conceal his literary power. He likes nothing better than to tell the reader to read other writers’ books, as, for example, when the Nun’s Priest refers the company to the numerous works dealing with women. [JG] Getty, Agnes K. ‘The Medieval-Modern Conflict in Chaucer’s Poetry.’ PMLA 47 (1932), 385–402. Devices of enumeration, detailed description and digressions interweave with economy of expression in NPT. For example, when Pertelote quotes Cato, Chauntecleer runs scholarly rings around her and her lone authority, at the same time trying to convince us that ‘I gabbe nat’ (NPT VII.3066). Chaucer repeats, through Chauntecleer, the opinion that men may arrive at conclusions through their own experience. See Birney 828. [JG] Robin, P. Ansell. Animal Lore in English Literature. London: Murray, 1932. Fables written in imitation of Aesop were widely read in the Middle Ages by monastic students and often rewritten in the form of ‘edifying stories or unedifying fabliaux’ (p 16). NPT is expanded from the fable of Marie de France. [JG] Housman, A.E. The Name and Nature of Poetry. Leslie Stephen Lecture for 1933. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933. Dryden’s translations from Chaucer epitomize ‘sham poetry’ (p 17). Chaucer is most at home in a work like NPT, but Dryden’s improvements, expansions and the ‘modern art of fortifying’ demonstrate ‘an obtuseness which could mistake this impure verbiage for a correct and splendid diction’ (p 26). For a contrary view, see Frost 852, Spector 855, and Mudrick 625. [JG] De Sélincourt, Aubrey. Oxford Lectures on Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934. Lecture 2, pp 24–49, ranges widely over Chaucer’s writing. He had a genius for using unpromising material and the lifelike story of the highly-strung

234 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

818

819

820

821

822

imaginative man married to the practical wife is evolved from a farmyard story of a cock and a hen. Chaucer is reticent about political issues; the Peasants’ Revolt, which threatened the very throne, is only recalled by the hubbub in the farmyard. [JG] Hinnant, Charles H. ‘The Framing-Tale.’ MLN 49 (1934), 68–80. In assigning appropriate genres to certain tellers, Chaucer introduced an entirely new principle into the art of framing tales. There is no animal fable in the Decameron. (Chauntecleer’s exempla or MkT are not considered as themselves framed tales within a larger frame.) [JG] Lowes, John Livingstone. Geoffrey Chaucer. Lectures Delivered in 1932 on the William J. Cooper Foundation in Swarthmore College. 1934. Rpt 1944, 1949, 1956, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961. American edn, Geoffrey Chaucer and the Development of his Genius. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934. Rpt Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1958. American edition not seen. Despite Chauntecleer’s astronomical erudition, he is naively superstitious, unlike Pertelote. She is one of the great characters of CT. Her prescription of ‘digestyves of wormes’ (NPT VII.2961–2) can be found also in De Medica Materia of Dioscorides. Chaucer had at least dipped into Bradwardine’s huge work on predestination, and, because Chaucer’s father and Bradwardine had both accompanied Edward III to Germany in 1338, there may have been a personal interest as well. Chaucer had also read the twelfth-century Speculum Stultorum of Nigel Wirecker. Although unfinished, CT is an organic whole, essentially dramatic in nature. Chaucer’s openings to his tales are usually good, and the opening of NPT is especially effective. See also Paffard 858, Aiken 436, Thomas 517. [JG] Sedgwick, H.D. Dan Chaucer. Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1934. NPT VII.3375–92 shows ‘the accuracy of a Van Eyck and the pictorial power of a Breughel’ (p 119). Chaucer has an intimate knowledge of men and women of every rank and station. [JG] Smith, Roland M. ‘Two Chaucer Notes . . . 2. Unlucky Days in the Chaucer Tradition.’ MLN 51 (1936), 314–17. Note 2, pp 316–17, cites an Anglo-Saxon list in which 3 May is unlucky. [JG] Bennett, H.S. Life on the English Manor: a Study of Peasant Conditions 1150–1400. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937. There are few proper historical records of the medieval poor and we are forced to piece together a picture of their lives from materials that were never meant to serve such a purpose. The description of the widow’s cottage (NPT VII.2821–48) is used in the section on ‘Everyday Life,’ chapter IX. In discussing the food of the poor, Bennett emphasizes that chickens were everywhere and that it is constantly surprising how many eggs a peasant has to produce at given seasons of the year. [JG]

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 235

823 Whitmore, Mary E [Sister]. Medieval English Domestic Life and Amusements in the Works of Chaucer. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1937. Rpt New York: Cooper Square, 1962. The widow’s cottage is compared to the Reeve’s and the one mentioned in the Clerk’s Tale. Like the Reeve’s cottage, the widow’s is surrounded by trees. The ‘stikkes’ (NPT VII.2848) of the yard were probably wattles and the ditch may have been the remains of some kind of moat. Generally, Chaucer is not much concerned with the type of garden known as the ‘herbary,’ but it is suggested that the widow had at least a bed of herbs in her yard. [JG] 824 Crosby, Ruth. ‘Chaucer and the Custom of Oral Delivery.’ Spec 13 (1938), 413– 22. Chaucer wrote primarily for a listening audience. His character sketches use descriptive phrases from popular romances as well as formulae from such writers as Geoffrey de Vinsauf. Examples cited from NPT include comon similes connected with white (VII 2863), ‘joye and bliss’ (VII 3066, VII.3166), and stock fillers and expletives like ‘blood and bones’ (VII 3427). [JG] 825 Greiner, F.J. ‘Form and Sources of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Catholic Educational Review 36 (1938), 213–18. An introductory study covering various details such as form and genre, satire, sources, and the fable tradition. NPT ‘frolics among the learned’ (p 214), its burlesque style lightening its homiletic material. [PG] 826 Bronson, Bertrand, H. ‘Chaucer’s Art in Relation to his Audience.’ In B.H. Bronson, J.R. Caldwell, J.M. Cline, Gordon Mackenzie, J.F. Ross, Five Studies in Literature. University of California Publications in English. Vol 8. no. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press; London: Cambridge University Press, 1940. Pp 1–53. The vividness of Chaucer’s characterization of the pilgrims is due in part to the natural overemphasis of the good story-teller. One of the best passages of humorous extravagance is the pursuit of the fox in NPT. The conditions of direct delivery to a listening audience mitigate Chaucer’s silence on contemporary political issues. [JG] 827 Shelly, Percy Van Dyke. The Living Chaucer. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1940. Rpt Russell and Russell, 1968. NPT is not a fabliau but a fable in the mock-heroic style and is one of the masterpieces of realism and humour. It is full of references to medieval physiology, medicine, the philosophy of dreams, classical story and biblical lore. Chaucer’s way of making the tale seem a reflection of the lively mind of its narrator is particularly skilful. Chaucer is a poet of the heart and soul, and this is especially demonstrated by NPT. [JG] 828 Birney, Earle. ‘Two Worlds of Geoffrey Chaucer.’ Manitoba Arts Review 2 (1941). Rpt Rowland 688. Pp 3–16.

236 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

829

830

831

832

833

Chaucer, neither feudal nor modern, but a strange synthesis of the two, lived in two worlds. His habit of presenting both sides of a philosophical argument and then, as Erasmus does later, sliding away from a verdict, is an aspect of feudal rhetoric. Much of Chaucer’s apparent impartiality was either an inability to make up his mind or a fear of revealing that he had. Chaucer could have learnt ‘satiric sublety’ (p 11) from the saga of Reynard amongst others. [JG] Levy, H.L. ‘As myn auctor seyeth.’ MÆ 12 (1943), 25–39. NPT, like HF, separates truth from fable, and the object of the tale is to establish the boundary between knowledge and poetic imagination. All the learning in the tale is there for the sake of parody, to reveal ‘Chaucer’s recognition of the intrinsic rights of the imagination’ (p 38). There is a harmony between tale and teller and, although the tale was never meant as a sermon, a ‘moralitee’ is, nevertheless, drawn at the end. [JG] Long, E. Hudson. Chaucer as Master of the Short Story. Delaware Notes, 16th series. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1943. Measures Chaucer’s abilities as a writer of the short story against modern criteria. The narrative of NPT unfolds naturally and the dialogue is delightful. Chaucer may have invented the art of misquotation, used so successfully by O. Henry. The lengthy digressions spoil the immediacy and the dreams interfere with the plot. Chaucer’s tales, however, are perfect examples of the short story which challenge those of the best contemporary writers. [JG] Speirs, John. ‘Chaucer (III), The Canterbury Tales (II).’ Scrutiny 12 (1943), 35–57. NPT and MerT are the best of CT. Only a reluctance to admit that a tale about a cock and hen could have more than trivial meaning has hindered recognition of NPT as a profound poem about human nature. The central theme is the vanity which goes before a fall. NPT is a parody of the tragic stories of MkT. Through the parody of medieval rhetoric, the fox becomes identified with ‘the great historical betrayers’ (p 42). There is a superb mock-heroic climax. [JG] Severs, J. Burke. ‘Chaucer’s Originality in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ SP 43 (1946), 22–41. One of the main differences between NPT and Le Roman de Renart is Chaucer’s new emphasis upon the ill effect of women’s counsel. Chaucer has reversed the attitudes to dreams of his main characters; NPT thus becomes part of the literature of antifeminism. The tale can thereby be linked with the concerns of other tales in the ‘marriage group.’ WBT should follow directly after NPT. See also Lawrence 781 and 839. For a contrary account of the source of dream attitudes, see Pratt 497. [JG] Bennett, H.S. Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century. Oxford History of English Literature. Vol 2, Part 1. Gen. eds Bonamy Dobrée and F.P. Wilson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1947.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 237

834

835

836

837

838

839

Combines social history in I. ‘Chaucer and his Age’ and II. ‘Religion’ with a consideration of Chaucer’s life and works in III. Chaucer tells us almost nothing of the London of his day apart from the brief reference in NPT to the rising in 1381 against the Flemings dwelling in the city. NPT deals with problems of predestination and free will, very much alive in Chaucer’s day. Although Dryden’s remark that ‘here is God’s plenty’ is still the predominant impression left with the reader, certain sides of life and whole sections of the community are not present in Chaucer’s work. The life of poor women, for instance, is only represented, and in a picturesque way, by the widow in NPT. Chaucer’s ‘directness of imagery’ can be compared with ‘an equally direct appeal gained by [his] use of proverbs’ (pp 78–9). [JG] Baugh, Albert C[roll], ed. A Literary History of England. New York: Appleton; London: Routledge, 1948. An encyclopaedic survey; ch 16, pp 258–63, covers CT. CT is read in a dramatic way. The discussion of marriage extends into those tales not normally included in the ‘So-called Marriage Group’ (p 261). NPT is a ‘truly magnificent beast fable’ (p 262). [JG] Boone, Lalia Phipps. ‘Chauntecleer and Partlet Identified.’ MLN 64 (1949), 78–81. The crenellated comb and burned gold plumage of the description of Chauntecleer are typical of the Golden Spangled Hamburg breed. [JG] Brett-James, Norman G. Introducing Chaucer. London: Harrap, 1949. Chaucer’s characters live too really to be mere types. The elaborate country house of the Franklin can be contrasted with the widow’s sooty cottage. [JG] Moore, Arthur K. ‘Chaucer’s Lost Songs.’ JEGP 48 (1949), 196–208. Testimony from various sources suggests that a considerable number of Chaucer’s songs and/or lyrics have been lost. It is hard to say how much of Chaucer’s extant verse could be regarded as song by fourteenth-century standards. NPT VII.2879, ‘My lief is faren in londe,’ is one of the cases where a snatch of song is quoted. [JG] Anderson, George K. Old and Middle English Literature from the Beginnings to 1485. History of English Literature, vol 1. Gen. Ed. Hardin Craig. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950. Rpt New York: Collier Books, 1962. The satire of NPT is light-hearted, and makes its effects today ‘largely through the domestic bumblings of the stuffy husband Chauntecleer, and the sauciness of his sprightly favorite wife’ (p 250). There is a sectionalized bibliography, pp 273–309. [JG] Lawrence, W.W. Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1950. Rpt through 1964. The pages on NPT summarize, with some changes and additions, a part of 781. The ‘graceful and amusing tale of Chanticlere and Pertelote brings forth

238 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

840

841

842

843

844

some of the most acid of all the comments on the woman question’ (p 134). The Nun’s Priest is a man under the thumb of a woman far above him in social and ecclesiastical rank. The message of the tale is that a man who follows the advice of his wife will come to grief. On the three priests of GP I.164, Lawrence shifts his position slightly. While still emphatic that the number is not absurd, he believes that their reduction to one is most likely explained by forgetfulness on Chaucer’s part. [JG] Thomas, Mary Edith. Medieval Skepticism and Chaucer. New York: WilliamFrederick, 1950. In the debate about dreams, it is Pertelote who takes the side of contemporary learned opinion. It is possible that Chaucer was consciously utilizing the theories of such writers as Vincent of Beauvais, Bartholomeus Anglicus, Robert Holkot, the astrologer Haly, and Arnoldus de Villa Nova. Pertelote’s prescription of a laxative for Chauntecleer’s melancholy indicates Chaucer’s familiarity with the general medical practice of his time. [JG] Baugh, Albert C[roll]. ‘Fifty Years of Chaucer Scholarship.’ Spec 26 (1951), 659–72. A summary which excludes studies of Chaucer’s life and the chronology of his works. The most significant achievements have come from American scholars. The theme of marriage (see Kittredge 604) was quickly extended by others to include Mel and NPT, but it is doubtful whether Chaucer consciously intended a marriage group. [JG] Dempster, Germaine. ‘A Period in the Development of the Canterbury Tales Marriage Group and of Blocks B2 and C.’ PMLA 68 (1953), 1142–59. Chaucer may have intended to relate NPT to the Marriage Group. This is reflected in the cancellation of the endlink and the probability of a link between NPT and the Wife of Bath’s Prologue. Pearsall 689, however, argues that the Wife of Bath’s remarks follow on only weakly from NPT and that the MSS offer no support for a connection between Fragments VII and III. [JG] Donovan, Mortimer J. ‘The Moralite of the Nun’s Priest’s Sermon.’ JEGP (1953), 498–508. Studies of Chaucer’s sources have failed to note the pointed religious significance of the priest’s warning against reccheleshed. NPT VII.3426–40 re-affirm the poem’s intention as sermon. Chauntecleer is a fallen soul, subsequently saved when proved alert, and the fox is a heretic. Several specific components of Donovan’s allegorical reading are endorsed by Dahlberg 452, but are repudiated in Donaldson 866. For further support, see Steadman 864. [JG] Malone, Kemp. ‘The Works of Chaucer.’ In Literary Masterpieces of the Western World. Ed Francis H. Horn. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1953. Rpt Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1968. Pp 107–25. A collection of essays which have their origins in adult education lectures.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 239

845

846

847

848

849

850

NPT VII.3375–3401 illustrates how Chaucer piles up his material and uses exaggeration. [JG] Owen, Charles A., Jr. ‘The Crucial Passages in Five of the Canterbury Tales: a Study in Irony and Symbol.’ JEGP 52 (1953), 294–311. Rpt in Wagenknecht 865. Rpt in Critical Essays on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Ed. Malcolm Andrew. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991. Examines the ironies implicit in NPT VII.3157–70. Chauntecleer employs the same techniques of deception on Pertelote as will be employed on him later by the fox, but while he alone can appreciate the victory he has over his wife, his defeat will be marked with a universal clamour. Although Chauntecleer wins the battle of argument with Pertelote, he forgets the warning dream that occasioned the argument. The contrast between Chauntecleer and the widow reverses the social hierarchy between the Priest and his mistress. In criticizing women, the Priest betrays the inner conflict of a misogynist employed by a woman. The Host’s reaction to the tale contains a double irony: he not only fails to see the misogyny but imagines the Priest to be a prodigious treader of hens. [JG] Williams, Arnold. ‘Chaucer and the Friars.’ Speculum 28 (1953), 499–513. Rpt in Schoeck and Taylor 627, pp 63–83. Supports Dahlberg’s argument 452 that the fox in NPT is a friar. Friars are commonly regarded as arch deceivers: William of St Amour says that ‘the friars are the deceivers of whom Paul . . . speaks’ (p 501). [JG] Brewer, D.S. ‘The Ideal of Feminine Beauty in Medieval Literature, especially “Harley Lyrics,” Chaucer, and Some Elizabethans.’ MLR 49 (1954), 41–64. The rhetorical joke of NPT is based on the kind of firm grasp of literary tradition which always makes parody and burlesque possible. [JG] Holbrook, David. ‘The Nonne Preestes Tale.’ In The Age of Chaucer. Pelican Guide to English Literature, vol 1. Ed Boris Ford. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1954. Pp 118–28. Rpt 1982. Takes Speirs’s view 831, that NPT is concerned with central truths about human nature and moral disorder, as its point of departure. The contrast between the widow and the cock is between simplicity and goodness, on the one hand, and pride on the other. NPT is an exemplum, with Chauntecleer as a self-deceiving Adam, vulnerable to temptation. [JG] Mossé, Fernand. ‘Chaucer et le “Métier” de l’Écrivain.’ Études Anglaises 7 (1954), 395–401. Briefly discusses Chaucer’s attitude to rhetoric and questions whether Chaucer speaks ironically in NPT. [JG] Baldwin, Ralph. The Unity of the Canterbury Tales. Anglistica, 5. Ed. Torsten Dahl, Kemp Malone, Geoffrey Tillotson. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1955. From initial arguments that ‘the “significance” then of the work of art is the

240 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

851

852

853

854

855

significance of the form of that work of art’ (p 11), Baldwin concludes that ‘CT is not a whole, not an achieved work of art, but rather a truncated and aborted congeries of tales’ (p 15). Chaucer cunningly manipulates the medieval sermon in CT; the Nun’s Priest delivers a sermon extract, but closes with ‘an earnest reminder that is for the most part overlooked’ (p 88). [JG] Everett, Dorothy. Essays on Middle English Literature. Ed Patricia Kean. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955. ‘Some Reflections on Chaucer’s “Art Poetical”,’ originally delivered as Gollancz Lecture in 1950, rpt pp 149–74. A reply by inference to Manly 607 and Donaldson 866. NPT affords examples of almost all the rhetorical devices of amplification, used exactly as the rhetoricians intended. The joke is, however, not against rhetoric per se (which would entail Chaucer rejecting much of his own poetry) but against its misapplication to the world of the farmyard. ‘Chaucer often makes fun of things for which he had a serious regard’ (p 174). [JG] Frost, William. Dryden and the Art of Translation. Yale Studies in English, vol 128. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955. Although Dryden’s translations were widely criticized by the Romantics, several twentieth-century scholars have praised ‘The Cock and the Fox.’ In part II, ‘The Theory of Translation,’ Frost discusses Dryden’s aesthetic premisses; in part III, ‘Dryden’s Methods: Local Effects,’ he considers some drastic expansions, in which Dryden adds whole lines, such as the additions to the widow’s bower and hall at the opening of NPT. In part IV, ‘Dryden as Translator: Larger Problems,’ Dryden’s translations of Homer and Juvenal, ‘gross mock heroic,’ are contrasted with parts of his Virgil and Chaucer, ‘elevated mock heroic.’ [JG] Pantin, W.A. The English Church in the Fourteenth Century. Birkbeck Lectures for 1948. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955. Rpt Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching, 5. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1980. NPT suggests that fourteenth-century laymen were worried by the controversies surrounding the doctrines of free will and foreknowledge raised at this time by such men as Bradwardine and Buckingham. See Pratt 497. [JG] Harrison, Thomas P. They Tell of Birds: Chaucer Spenser Milton Drayton. Austin: University of Texas, 1956. The Chaucer section is on pp 32–53. Chaucer’s descriptions of birds compare well with the lifeless lists of Alanus, Neckham, Bartholomeus Anglicus and Rom. NPT is Chaucer’s most ambitious attempt to apply bird nature to human nature. What distinguishes his later from his earlier work is the ‘growing use of swift simile to depict character for its own sake. The objective artist thus supplants the moralist’ (p 49). [JG] Spector, R.D. ‘Dryden’s Translation of Chaucer: A Problem in Neo-Classical Diction.’ N&Q 201 (1956), 23–6.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 241

In his selections from Chaucer, Dryden intended to show Chaucer’s superiority to Boccaccio and Ovid, but Chaucer’s weakest point, according to neoclassical standards, was his diction. The chief obstacle is the lack of a high style in Chaucer’s work. When Dryden’s translation tries to render Chaucer’s humour, dependent on a low style and the parodic use of a high style, his translation falls flat. His humorous effects are achieved by other means. See also Frost 852, Housman 816, and Mudrick 625. [JG] 856 Leff, Gordon. Bradwardine and the Pelagians: a Study of his ‘De causa Dei’ and its Opponents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957. Bradwardine’s reputation can be gauged in part from Chaucer’s allusion to him in NPT, where he is coupled with St Augustine. Bradwardine disputed with the ‘modern Pelagians’ (Ockham, Buckingham, and Holcot) about the emphasis they laid on free will and their seeming disregard for God’s grace. For Bradwardine, contingency and necessity do not contradict and their relationship can be expressed in the paradox that God necessitates free will. There are two kinds of necessity. The first kind, ‘true necessity,’ is constituted by God, who alone, uncaused, remains outside it. This corresponds to the ‘symple necessitee’ of NPT VII.3245. The second kind, concomitant necessity, is a relative liberty subject to God’s decree. This corresponds to the ‘necessitee condicioneel’ of NPT VII.3250. While his ‘Pelagian’ opponents believed that ‘an action by the human will . . . is worthy of reward’ (p 222), Bradwardine held ‘that merit de congruo, as potential merit does not really exist’ and that ‘merit de condigno, as a supernatural virtue, comes from God alone . . . incited and aided by God’s grace’ (p 78). [JG] 857 Muscatine, Charles. Chaucer and the French Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957. A discussion of NPT, notable for its multiple readings and imaginative juxtapositions, widely admired by a generation of critics. NPT epitomizes CT and fittingly serves to cap all of Chaucer’s poetry. ‘The tale will betray with laughter any too-solemn scrutiny of its naked argument’ (p 238). There is scarcely a Chaucerian topic that is not included, often in parodic form, somewhere within the tale. The one constancy is the shifting of focus and the multiplicity of perspective: it is both feminist and anti-feminist; it is tragic, but ends happily. NPT is ‘supremely Chaucerian in its poise before an overwhelming question, “What is this world?”’ (p 243), and we respect the conservative conclusion because the question has been ‘so superbly well confronted’ (p 243). . •Review by J.A. Burrow, Essays in Criticism 10 (1960), 202–7. There is a great deal of detail and illuminating criticism in the book, although Muscatine’s two stylistic traditions, the courtly and the bourgeois, appear to do less and less as the book progresses. . •Review by J.A.W. Bennett, RES n.s. 12 (1961), 70. Although self-consciously

242 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

858

859

860

861

modern, for example in its search for multiple meanings, Muscatine rightly minimizes Chaucer’s own modernity. Its considerable critical virtues are often ‘smothered in academic fustian.’ •Review by Derek Pearsall in New Variorum edition of NPT 180 pp 67–8. [JG, PG] Paffard, M.K. ‘Pertelote’s Prescription.’ N&Q 202 (1957), 370. The worms that Pertelote prescribes may have their origin in another veterninary practice, used as a cure for colic in horses. [JG] Slaughter, Eugene Edward. Virtue According to Love in Chaucer. New York: Bookman, 1957. A wide-ranging study of the patristic debate on love and virtue. NPT combines the conventions of courtly love with religio-philosophical notions. Chauntecleer rejects the warning in the dream because of his wife’s counsel and disparagement of his person. Among the list of virtues for a husband, NPT lists hardiness (VII.2914), wisdom (VII.2914, VII.2972), largesse (VII.2914), and secrecy (VII.2915). For a wife, the virtues listed are beauty (VII.2870, VII.2885), courtesy (VII.2874), discretion (VII.2871), debonairtee (VII.2871), and affability (VII.2872). Vices and sins in a husband are cowardice (VII.2911), stinginess (VII.2915), folly (VII.2915), and boasting (VII.2917); whereas the vices and sins of a wife are not enumerated. The Host’s remarks about celibacy and marriage of the clergy in the endlink are ‘reminiscent of the natural theories of love which are not inconsistent with the religio-philosophical point of view’ (p 213). [JG] Mroczkowski, Przemyslaw. ‘Medieval Art and Aesthetics in the Canterbury Tales.’ Spec 33 (1958), 204–21. Only Sisam’s edition of NPT 69 gives appropriate attention to medieval art and aesthetics, and this is limited to one scene. Changes in religious art were concurrent with the development of philosophy. A special quality in the work of medieval illuminators is the addition of a comic motif to the border or bottom of a page or hidden in the tangle of the main ornament. In NPT, the richness of artistic elements is ‘packed into the diminutive frame . . . of a farmyard tragedy,’ suggestive of the art of illuminators ‘who could make their tiny masterpieces contain so many colors, details, and even stories’ (p 212). In the pursuit, the galloping fox had already been treated often by manuscript illuminators. [JG] Hitt, Ralph E. ‘Chauntecleer as Mock-Hero of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Mississippi Quarterly 12 (1959), 75–85. Pace Severs 832 and Lumiansky 561, Chauntecleer is the main object of attention in a mock-heroic ridiculing of the vanity of man. Most other commentators have seen only the general nature of the mock-heroic in the tale, but in Chauntecleer’s ‘braggadoccio’ character, Chaucer has illustrated al-

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 243

862

863

864

865

866

most every feature from the paraphernalia of eighteenth-century burlesque poetry. [JG] McKisack, May. The Fourteenth Century: 1307–99. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959. Little is known about the condition of the mass of the peasantry and some must have lived on the margin of subsistence. The widow of NPT can be juxtaposed with Langland’s picture of the poor man’s wife in Piers Plowman C passus 20, ll 77–83. [JG] Steadman, John H. ‘Chauntecleer and Medieval Natural History.’ Isis 50 (1959), 236–44. The physical and behavioural attributes of Chauntecleer and Pertelote, although exaggerated to the point of absurdity, are firmly grounded in medieval natural history: uxoriousness, regal pride and choleric temperament are characteristic traits of gallus domesticus. Orthodox scientific doctrine on this point can be gathered from the work of writers such as Aristotle, Pliny, Bartolomeus Anglicus, Albertus Magnus, Vincent of Beauvais, Alexander Neckham and Conrad of Megenburg. ‘Chaucer’s mock-heroic treatment of Chauntecleer and his household was rooted not merely in the tradition of the beast-epic, but also in a conventional picture of domestic cock as prince and warrior’ (p 241). [JG] ––. ‘Flattery and the Moralitas of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ MÆ 28 (1959), 172– 9. In most medieval treatments of the story of the cock and the fox, the theme of flattery is implicit; NPT is distinctive in its explicit, reiterated warnings against flattery. The Nun’s Priest emphasizes ‘false flatour,’ ‘losengeour,’ and the reference introduced to ‘Ecclesiaste of flaterye’ (NPT VII.3329). If the last allusion was to a group of texts in Ecclesiasticus, it may lend support to Donovan’s reading 843 of the fox as a heretic. [JG] Wagenknecht, Edward. Chaucer: Modern Essays in Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Includes Hotson 795, Kittredge 549, and Owen 845. Donaldson, E. Talbot. ‘Patristic Exegesis in the Criticism of Medieval Literature: The Opposition.’ In Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature. Selected Papers from the English Institute 1958–9. Ed. Dorothy Bethurum. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. Pp 1—26. Rpt in his Speaking of Chaucer. London: Athlone Press, University of London; New York: Norton, 1970. Pp 134–53. The influence of patristic exegesis on Middle English poetry was slight, and it is doubtful whether the Church Fathers did devise rules for poets. Criticizing three examples of exegetical criticism, he finds Donovan 843 a failure with regard to both sensus and sententia for NPT, and argues that ‘no simple

244 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

867

868

869

870

formula explains the reader’s delight in the poem, which has so little plot and such enormous dilation’ (p 16). Not only is Donovan demonstrably inaccurate about matters such as the nature of the fox, the role of Pertelote, and the fact that ‘as wys God helpe me’ (NPT VII.3408) is not a prayer but an oath, he fails to see that NPT’s point is not in its small narrative anecdote but in the rhetorical elaboration of the telling. See also Donaldson 121. [JS] Howard, Donald R. ‘The Conclusion of the Marriage Group: Chaucer and the Human Condition.’ MP 57 (1960), 223–32. Howard urges a position between the extremes of those who followed Kittredge 549 in seeing Chaucer as ‘a thinker disposed chiefly towards secular notions’ and the pan-allegorists of the 1950s. The marriage group, arranged as in Pratt’s order 266, might have been intended to be completed by either PhT or SNT, tales which take up the theme of perfection as virginity or chaste marriage: a theme introduced by the Wife of Bath, but not as obviously developed as the theme of mastery, regarded as being concluded in FranT. See also Baker 271. [JS] Manning, Stephen. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Morality and the Medieval Attitude Toward Fables.’ JEGP 59 (1960), 403–16. Pearsall 180 (p 69) stresses the importance of Manning’s argument that the Nun’s Priest’s morality must be interpreted ‘in light of medieval poetic theory and the controversy, primarily moral, over the fable’ (p 404). While all authors might be required to defend themselves against charges of lying in fables, much of the opposition to fables came from moralists, particularly concerned about preachers who used fables at the expense of Holy Scripture. See, for example, the Parson’s rejection of fable. The Nun’s Priest’s invitation to take a moral (unspecified and ambiguously abundant) is an attempt to justify himself to any listeners who might feel the telling of a fable to be scandalous, and that, through this, ‘Chaucer is poking fun at those who felt that a poem had to have some moral to justify its existence’ (p 416). See also Allen 480. [JS] Maveety, Stanley R. ‘An Approach to the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ CLAJ 4 (1960), 132–7. Extra-narrative passages, such as Chauntecleer’s display of learning and the mock-heroic commentary on the action, are the essence of Chaucer’s intention, not obstructions to the narrative. Comparison with Marie de France’s ‘Cock and Fox’ will bring out the nature of the realistic and the unrealistic elements in NPT. See also Fish 456. [JS] McCall, John P. ‘Chaucer’s May 3.’ MLN 76 (1961), 201–5. The date of 3 May occurs in TC, KnT, and NPT VII.3187ff. Far from being cast down on this day, Venus is especially powerful. This may be attributable to

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 245

Chaucer’s knowledge that Ovid had assigned to 3 May the notoriously libidinous feast of Flora. [JS] 871 Robertson, D.W., Jr. A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1962. Rpt 1970. A massive and controversial study of medieval aesthetic values; the consummation of several articles in which Robertson urged that medieval texts should be read historically, the salient features of their difference from modern literature being their intention to recommend the love of God (caritas) as supremely important, and a corresponding method in which action and description were governed by reference not to physical reality but to the intelligible world of concepts defined by the Church Fathers. Modern aesthetics, with its demand for tensions to reflect a view of ‘dynamically interacting polarities,’ should be contrasted with ‘the medieval world with its quiet [but non-reconcilable] hierarchies’ (p 51). Chaucer’s ‘characterization’ is determined by neither social nor psychological ‘realism,’ but by the need to make concepts manifest (p 249). Being at once animal and human, Chauntecleer and the fox are medieval ‘grotesques,’ but, because of the conventional use of these figures, their story is that of ‘a priest who falls into the clutches of a friar but escapes just in time when he discovers the essential weakness of the friar’s evil nature’ (pp 251–2). As for action, the need to read the tale allegorically to reach the ‘fruit’ of its action is constant, even when not directly urged on the hearer as in NPT. See also Huppé and Robertson 876. References to Robertson in criticism are frequent. For two substantial reviews, one sympathetic, one hostile, see R.E. Kaske, ELH 30 (1963), 175–92, and Francis Lee Utley, ‘Robertsonianism Redivivus,’ RomP 19 (1965), 250– 60; rpt as ‘Chaucer and Patristic Exegesis’ in Chaucer’s Mind and Art, ed. A.C. Cawley. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, pp 69–85. See further Donaldson 866, Pearsall 180. [JS] 872 Beck, Richard J. ‘Educational Expectation and Rhetorical Result in The Canterbury Tales.’ ES 44 (1963), 241–53. The creative Chaucer must have abhorred the stultifying use of rhetorical colours advocated in Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova. The mature Chaucer continued to use rhetoric, but ‘dramatically rather than ornamentally’ (p 244). Combining Manly’s ‘Table of Rhetorical Percentages’ (in 607) with the ‘Hypothesis of Tale Movement,’ Beck argues that, beyond the five categories of rhetorical relationship between tale and teller that ‘we might reasonably expect,’ there is a sixth, ironically set up, group of ClT and FranT. The Nun’s Priest, ‘an unfulfilled intellectual writhing beneath the jurisdiction of that affected and rather empty-headed socialite, the Prioress’ (p 247), presumably falls into Beck’s category of a well-educated teller of an eloquently told tale;

246 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

873

874

875

876

but he is also involved in that re-allocation of tales (ie ‘tale movement’) which Beck sees as producing, in dramatic terms, ‘rhetorical inconsistency.’ No discussions later than 1935 are referred to. [JS] Brewer, Derek S. Chaucer in His Time. London: Nelson, 1963. Rpt 1964, 1965. Pbk, London: Longman, 1973. A general sketch of the culture of Chaucer’s times with Chaucer’s life and works used as a focus, but not directly discussed. NPT is cited in relation to the Peasants’ Revolt; peasant life as exemplified by the widow; times of rising and the opening of city gates; and, through NPT VII.3211–3, Arthurian myth in French romance and fourteenth-century English culture. . •Review by R.T. Davies, N&Q 209 (1964), 195–6. This book is the definitive replacement for Coulton’s Chaucer and His England. [JS] Clemen, Wolfgang. Chaucer’s Early Poetry. Trans. C.A.M. Sym. London: Methuen, 1963. Trans. of Chaucers Frühe Dichtung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963. Pertelote and Chauntecleer’s discussion of dreams is an instance of Chaucer’s readiness to popularize knowledge through the charm of book-learning transmitted through ‘brisk, vigorous lines which often appear so spontaneously to reflect . . . actual observation’ (p 11). The sources of the rhetoric of NPT, as distinct from its plot, can be located in PF. [JS] Craik, T.W. The Comic Tales of Chaucer. London: Methuen, 1963; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1964. A discussion of ten tales, defined as comic because their ‘direct and distinct purpose . . . is to raise merriment’ (p xi). The essential comedy of NPT lies not in the simple reversal of situation plot, nor in the mock-heroic style in itself, but in the continuity established by that style with MkT, so that ‘in applying the full dignity of tragedy to the fate of Chauntecleer [NPT] becomes burlesque of the highest order’ (p 74). Both allegorical-moral readings, e.g., Holbrook 848, and the search for the teller as revealed in the tale are rejected, citing Sisam’s view 69 in support of the opinion that ‘in reading the tale one is nowhere conscious of the Nun’s Priest’s personality and everywhere conscious of Chaucer’s’ (p 81n). Nevill Coghill’s criticism, N&Q 209 (1964), 196–7, of Craik’s neglect of recent scholarship is mostly illustrated from NPT. [JS] Huppé, Bernard F, and D.W. Robertson, Jr. Fruyt and Chaf: Studies in Chaucer’s Allegories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963. Although there is no direct discussion of NPT, to which NPT VII.3441–3 stand as an epigraph, Ch 1, ‘An Approach to Medieval Poetry’ (pp 3–31), in exploring the elaborations of the figure of the husk and the kernel originally established in Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana, provides an accessible

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 247

877

878

879

880

statement of the bases of exegetical reading, and is often cited in discussions of NPT which are influenced by (or opposed to) that approach. [JS] Payne, Robert O. The Key of Remembrance: A Study of Chaucer’s Poetics. New Haven and London: Yale University Press for the University of Cincinnati, 1963. Rpt Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1977. Seeks a meaning for Chaucer’s poetry ‘derived from the art of poetry rather than from its historical or psychological context’ (p 2). Chaucer’s practice puts him within an Horatian-Medieval Christian-Renaissance Rationalist view of rhetoric and poetic as ‘alternative terms for the ordered use of compelling language (eloquence) in ethical demonstration’ (p 22). Ch 5 treats LGW and CT as related experiments in a tales-in-framework solution to ‘the problem of [making] various and apparently irreconcilable values and perspectives . . . cohere in a single demonstration’ (p 147). Not only does NPT mix styles, and bring together the kinds of love - divine, courtly and animal - that the serious tales keep separate, but ‘it re-organizes and revitalizes almost exactly the same set of paradoxes out of which Chaucer had built the flawed and partial structures’ of PF and HF (discussed in Chs 3 and 4 as attempting synthesis through a structure of experience-books-dream). ‘But what ultimate complication - or resolution - of these inescapable insolubles Chaucer might have achieved by their juxtaposition within the frame [of CT] . . . remains impossible to guess’ (p 163). [JS] Rowland, Beryl. ‘Chaucer and the Unnatural History of Animals.’ MS 25 (1963), 367–72. Chaucer drew on material from learned ‘pseudo-scientific’ accounts, called here ‘unnatural history,’ but, more commonly, he drew on conventional ideas already part of popular tradition, even when referring to fabulous creatures such as the mermaid and her song in NPT VII.3270. His interest is in the world of nature as reflecting human motives and behaviour: reference to popular tradition makes the use of an animal as ‘a miniature exemplum’ (p 372) more immediately effective. [JS] Brindley, D.J. ‘The Mixed Style of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ ESA 7 (1964), 148– 56. NPT captures not only life’s variety and vitality, but its unpredictability. The realism of the widow’s representation of humility and truth is contrasted with the parody of aristocratic dignity in the Chauntecleer passages, and with the ‘graver rhetoric of the didactic style, which takes the form of either philosophical reasoning, bookish allusion or illustration’ (p 150). NPT owes its popularity to the fact that the moralist is subservient to the humorist. [JS] Dumanoski, Dianne. ‘A Muse’s Eye View of Chaucer.’ VJ (1964), 50–6. Discussion of NPT unduly privileges narrative skill over poetic artistry. Because the Nun’s Priest is educated, he is able, while maintaining the serious

248 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

moral intent of fable, to s upply the Latinate terms and learned references that turn fable into mock epic. He is also able to create comic characterization for Chauntecleer and Pertelote by manipulating syntactical structures and levels of diction. [JS] 881 Hawkins, Sherman. ‘Chaucer’s Prioress and the Sacrifice of Praise.’ JEGP 63 (1964), 599–624. PrT can be defended as an act of praise, on the theme of ‘praise as a means of grace or mercy’ (p 624), told by one who has not put away childish things. NPT parodies the tale, told by one who is ‘too wise to scold except in parable or pun’ (p 623). In her inability to recognize danger, the Prioress is identified not only with Pertelote, but also with little St Kenelm. [JS] 882 Huppé, Bernard F. A Reading of the Canterbury Tales. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1964. Rev 1967. Dramatized and allegorical readings are combined by showing that the dramatic interplay of the pilgrims suggests a doctrinal truth dependent on Augustine’s allegorical theory of literature. A selection of tales and of pilgrims is discussed on the basis of the opposition of caritas and cupiditas, the ‘Two Realities.’ NPT illustrates ‘The Way of Eve with Adam’ in Ch 4, ‘Of woe that is in marriage’ (pp 91–186). Discussion of NPT is limited to ‘its function in the interlocking dramatic motif of the marriage debate’ (p 175). The Nun’s Priest intends to correct the Wife of Bath by a tale which will ‘place “desray” in marriage in the perspective of a scriptural view of God’s order’ (p 176). Chauntecleer’s self-importance is also a mocking portrayal of the Host and subverts the virtue of his ‘sentence’: just as Chauntecleer’s triumph through reason in the dream debate is subverted by the distraction of desire and as he betrays himself to the devil-fox through yielding to flattery. The apostrophe to Venus (NPT VII.3342–6) makes the point that ‘Friday, particularly Friday, May 3rd, is a fatal day for those who have enslaved themselves to Fate by following their own desires’ (pp 181–2). Falling like Adam, Chauntecleer escapes only because the grace of God is available to him when he uses his reason. The troubled marriages of the other tales in the group are thus finally traced to a relationship to Adam and Eve and the ‘true reality’ is recognized in ClT and MLT. . •Review by A.C. Spearing, MÆ 36 (1967), 195–9. The readings of particular tales are not as radical as one might expect. Huppé’s main failure is in his response to Chaucer’s poetry: ‘it is not the case that meanings are enclosed in poems like nuts in their shells’ (p 199). [JS, PG] 883 Joselyn, Sister M., O.S.B. ‘Aspects of Form in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ CE 25 (1964), 566–71. A structuralist analysis applying the five-fold lexicon of forms from Kenneth Burke’s Counter-Statement (2nd edition, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953) to the rhetoric of NPT. 1) Syllogistic progression (the orderly

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 249

sequence of narrative) is enriched by peripety or reversal, exemplified by a final outcome in which Pertelote’s weaker reasoning turns out more valid and the ‘fortuitous ending’ comes close to reversing all ratiocination; 2) Qualitative progression, whereby ‘we are put into a state of mind which another state of mind can appropriately follow.’ The principle of contrast-plus-association is invoked for examples such as the shift from the domestic to the mock-courtly; 3) Repetitive form is exemplified by the technical aspect of the rhymed couplet and by the pervasively comic principle whereby the ‘dark and thoughtful’ exempla used by Chauntecleer to rebut Pertelote’s dismissal of dreams are also experienced in context as comic; 4) Conventional form: the fulfilment of at least six kinds of ‘categorical expectations’ - tale, frame-story, beast epic, exemplum, allegory, sermon - is a chief source of NPT’s variety; 5) Minor or incidental forms are enumerated in a scheme recalling traditional figures of medieval rhetoric, devices of amplification, abbreviation and ornamentation. [JS] 884 Spearing, A.C. Criticism and Medieval Poetry. London: Edward Arnold, 1964. 2nd edn 1972. Pp 100–8 rpt as ‘Criseyde’s Dream’ in Burrow 646. Pp 265–73. The development of techniques for the detailed analysis of literary texture has been the greatest advance in method made by literary criticism in the twentieth century. In a discussion of the effects of oral delivery, the pursuit scene in NPT exemplifies Chaucer’s use of alliterative technique to achieve an effect of comic violence. NPT VII.3347–51 are a parodic allusion witnessing to Chaucer’s familiarity with Geoffrey de Vinsauf and the ars poetica (p 47). Chauntecleer’s dream is discussed in relation to Criseyde’s in TC in order to argue that the meaning of dreams remains doubtful in spite of - perhaps even because of - elaborate medieval theories of interpretation. The 2nd edition adds a chapter on ClT and makes some textual revisions, especially to update critical references; e.g., discussion of Chaucer and the rhetoricians acknowledges, but does not concede to, Murphy’s doubts 462 as to Chaucer’s direct knowledge of Geoffrey. [JS] 885 Elliott, R.W.V. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and The Pardoner’s Tale. Notes on English Literature. Oxford: Basil Blackwell; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965. This introduction for students discusses NPT (pp 7–39) under story, characters, style, ‘The Moralitee,’ and narrative art. The medieval beast fable is reshaped to a rarely successful combination of ‘lust and lore’ by the shifting of the narrative emphasis from Chauntecleer’s fate to his dream; by the elaboration of the characters; and by the mock-heroic style. [JS] 886 Henning, Standish. ‘Chauntecleer and Taurus.’ ELN 3 (1965), 1–4. Taurus, the zodiacal sign presiding over Chauntecleer’s adventure, governs the neck and throat. A wider ‘throat motif’ can be traced in NPT and connected to further points, found in Bartholomeus, that Taurus, which disposes

250 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

887

888

889

890

men towards vanity, is in the house of Venus, which disposes towards voluptuousness. The astrological compulsion on Chauntecleer is great, and yet it is a man’s duty to control his destiny when he can. See also Wood 924. [JS] Sharma, Govind Narayan. ‘Dreams in Chaucer.’ Indian Journal of English Studies 6 (1965), 1–18. Dreams are less effective in Chaucer when used as a framing device than when they are introduced into the body of the work and become part of the characterization and narrative management, especially through dramatic irony. Chaucer’s knowledge of medieval dream lore is seen to best advantage in NPT: here the Macrobian and the medical traditions are embodied in the debate between Pertelote and Chauntecleer. Sharma accepts the evidence of Curry 794 and Lowes 819 for Pertelote’s general expertise in medical theory, but argues that her diagnosis is inadequate and that Chaucer is satirizing people who stick too determinedly to their opinions. However, while Chauntecleer’s respect for dreams may be closer to Chaucer’s own attitude, his demonstration of the failure of intelligence takes the problem of dreams into the larger philosophical problem of free will. NPT parallels the story of the Fall: ‘Adam acted by free choice; so does Chauntecleer’ (p 14). [JS] Ackerman, Robert W. Backgrounds to Medieval English Literature. New York: Random House, 1966. A broad knowledge of the Boethian discussion of free will and of simple and conditional necessity is required in order to appreciate the mock-heroic passage, NPT VII.3240–50. NPT is also mentioned in relation to rhetorical theory (pp 129–30) and allegorical reading (pp 136–42). An appendix discusses critical approaches. Each section has a reading list and there is a final selective bibliography (pp 155–61). [JS] Adams, George R., and Bernard S. Levy. ‘Good and Bad Fridays and May 3 in Chaucer.’ ELN 3 (1966), 245–8. From scattered references in Robinson 116 to KnT I.1539 and I.1462ff and NPT VII.3190, there ought to be ‘a connection between Venus, Friday, May 3rd, the May festival season, and the Invention of the Cross’ (p 246). There is a conjunction of symbols that indicate that Chauntecleer, as a figure of Adam, created and fallen on a Friday, succumbs to a woman because of ‘al his pryde’ (NPT VII.3191), the sin of Adam, and in plain sight of the sun repeats the loss of Eden on a day dedicated to Venus and Christ. See also Levy and Adams 903. [JS] Brewer, D.S., ed. Chaucer and Chaucerians: Critical Studies in Middle English Literature. London: Nelson; University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1966. Contains Brewer 891, Coghill 893, Fox 468, and Muscatine 896. •Review by Rossell Hope Robbins, Archiv 205 (1969), 67–8. This volume

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 251

891

892

893

894

‘makes a major contribution to building a reasoned, objective, analytical interpretation of Chaucer in literary and historical perspective.’ [JS] ––. ‘The Relationship of Chaucer to the English and European Traditions.’ In Brewer 890. Pp 1–38. Chaucer learned from the Europeans to claim a high status for literature, and, despite the half-mocking reference to Geoffrey of Vinsauf in NPT, written fairly late in life, associated this with the importance of rhetoric in defining an art of writing. [JS] Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale: Notes, Translations and Text. Coles Notes. London, Toronto: Coles, 1966, 1968. A Middle English text (editor or edition unspecified) of NPP, NPT and endlink on pp 35–67, with a facing-page translation into verse couplets. The introduction covers such details as Chaucer’s life, CT, the sources of NPT, language and versification. There is a commentary on the tale on pp 22–33, notes and a glossary at the end. [PG] Coghill, Nevill. ‘Chaucer’s Narrative Art in The Canterbury Tales.’ In Brewer 890. Pp 114–39. Chaucer’s skills meet the expectations both of medieval rhetoric and of ideas derived from Wordsworth and Coleridge; but there are non-modern aspects to his art, e.g., his use of simile and metaphor. NPT VII.3441–3 illustrate the point that Chaucer ‘lived in the hey-day of the exemplum’ (p 119), although ‘the sharp bone of a moral idea . . . is continually fleshed with the more-thanmoral interest of the actual world’ (p 120). See also Pearsall 180, who discusses ‘This Chauntecler’ (VII.3331) in terms of Coghill’s theory of the Pos sessive Demonstrative as a factor in Chaucer’s relationship with his audience. [JS] MacDonald, Donald. ‘Proverbs, Sententiae, and Exempla in Chaucer’s Comic Tales: The Function of Comic Misapplication.’ Spec 41 (1966), 453–65. The distinctive treatment of ‘the comic potentialities that Chaucer recognized in monitory elements’ (p 453) depends on the general respect for their authority, which allows him to gain comic effects by misapplication. While Pertelote’s citation of Cato fits MacDonald’s model, NPT is a special case because the over-riding comic effect is a raising of the basic fabular incongruity of speaking beasts to the level of the mock heroic by a display of erudition and rhetorical mastery. ‘Chauntecleer not only pronounces a sententia in Latin but at the same time gives an even more impressive demonstration of his mastery of the scholarly tongue by slyly mistranslating the tag’ (p 464). The Nun’s Priest’s own monition about fruit and chaff is a conventionally approved rhetorical ending, ‘although the deliberately ambiguous application of the proverb contains latent but powerful suggestions for both the sentence of the tale and the character of the nun’s priest’ (p 464). See also Lenaghan 000. [JS]

252 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

895 Markman, Alan. ‘The Concern of Chaucer’s Poetry.’ AnM 7 (1966), 90–103. Summarizes Baugh’s 841 review of Chaucerian studies, surveys new developments, especially historical criticism, and proposes that Chaucer’s works constitute a single fiction concerned with what it means to love. The two models of love, earthly and heavenly, ‘are not the conflicting forces of an allegory’ (p 98), even when the gulf is great between them, as it is in terms of mutability. In presenting his one fiction of the diversity of love, Chaucer sustains his narrative ‘by a linear and temporal series of contrasts,’ so that joy and woe follow one another: e.g., ‘the frugal, well-ordered hut of the widow is opposed to Chauntecleer’s disorderly, sensual barnyard’ (p 102). [JS] 896 Muscatine, Charles. ‘The Canterbury Tales: Style of the Man and Style of the Work.’ In Brewer 890. Pp 88–113. As a stylist, Chaucer is both protean, ‘transgressing decorum and even genres in the interests of meaning’, and constant, with ‘a peculiarly Chaucerian personality in style and language, an array of favourite stylistic devices’ (p 88). The latter characteristics contribute to an air of insouciance and naturalness. These include a certain carelessness of ‘more remote correspondences,’ as when GP is not adjusted to fit later developments in the conception of the Nun’s Priest (p 90); a language ‘never out of sight of the familiar,’ even when rhetorical, courtly or learned; a lack of distinction ‘between belles-lettres and didactic art’ (p 93); and skill in both dramatic and lyrical verse. All of these sustain the ‘mixed style,’ the interplay of the conventional and the realistic, which characterizes CT. NPT, ‘in its kaleidoscopic shifts of perspective, exposing a dozen important subjects to the humour of comparison,’ exemplifies Chaucer’s basic method. [JS] 897 Pérez, Martìn M. a Jesùs. ‘El tono de voz en The Nun’s Priest’s Tale de Chaucer.’ FMod 6 (1966), 323–7. Tone of voice contributes to the picture of Pertelote’s wifely combination of concern and impatience and Chauntecleer’s combination of anxiety and selfimportance. [JS] 898 Wilson, William S. ‘Days and Months in Chaucer’s Poems.’ AN&Q 4 (1966), 83–4. Dante’s Vita Nuova, dated the ninth day of the ninth month, influenced similar symmetrical dating in the works of Guillaume de Machaut and Chaucer, so that the latter, counting from March as the first month, dates HF the tenth day of the tenth month and uses May 3rd in TC and NPT as the third day of the third month. [JS] 899 Boyd, Beverly. Chaucer and the Liturgy. Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1967. NPT VII.2851–2 and VII.3110–21 are mentioned as references, respectively, to the Temporale of the ecclesiastical calendar and to legends of the saints. [JS]

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 253

900 Grose, M.W. Chaucer. Literature in Perspective. London: Evans Brothers; New York: Arco, 1967. Rpt 1969. NPT is classed as a folk tale and praised for its comedy; the incongruity of its mock heroics is not, however, an attack on either rhetoric or learning in themselves. The pursuit is ‘low farce,’ terminated by ‘a moral and the usual prayer’ (p 149). [JS] 901 Hieatt, Constance B. The Realism of Dream Visions: The Poetic Exploitation of the Dream-Experience in Chaucer and His Contemporaries. De Proprietatibus Litterarum, Series Practica 2. The Hague and Paris: Mouton; New York: Humanities, 1967. Middle English dream visions, with their characteristic features of ‘what contemporary psychology calls “dream-work” . . . blending, fusing and double meaning,’ were particularly appropriate vehicles for fourteenth-century allegory, itself a matter of ‘multifold and shifting meanings’ (p 13). NPT is Chaucer’s best known discussion of dreams but its debate is inconclusive: while Pertelote’s diagnosis is ‘in full accord with medieval medicine, she differs from accepted theories in allowing for no alternatives. Chauntecleer’s indignant rejoinder is just as intolerant’ (p 41). In deciding whether Chaucer wanted us to reach a serious conclusion about dreams we are not helped by narrative outcome or the detailing of the dream, which has been modified from the ‘entirely allegorical’ dreams of Chaucer’s putative sources towards a ‘more specific, lifelike dream’ (p 42). Reviewing critical opinions of Chaucer as believer or sceptic, Hieatt concludes that he ‘was, quite deliberately, being as confusing as possible about a subject he found fascinating, amusing, and unresolved’ (p 44). In turning to modern dream theory, Hieatt appeared to reviewers as antiRobertsonian: see YWES 48 (1967), 88. [JS] 902 Hussey, Maurice. Chaucer’s World: A Pictorial Companion. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1967. The maps and the photographs of architecture and art, including the Ellesmere portraits, comprise a pictorial companion to Hussey, Spearing and Winny 635 and the Cambridge Selected Tales. There are sections on medieval England, the pilgrim route, Canterbury, and the calendar and the zodiac. Ch 17 treats the Nun’s Priest as a character introduced in the course of the storytelling, rather than in GP. The discrepancy between textual description and the Ellesmere illustration is noted. NPT is illustrated with representations of peasant life, animal illuminations in general, and with representations of the folklore stories of Reynard the fox. •P.M. Vermeer, ES 50 (1969), 607–8, notes that the opinion on p 57, that NPT ‘“has little bearing upon the priest’s tasks” . . . is a complete reversal of Mr

254 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Hussey’s opinion as found in his edition of the tale [143] in the Cambridge series.’ [JS] 903 Levy, Bernard S., and George R. Adams. ‘Chauntecleer’s Paradise Lost and Regained.’ MS 29 (1967), 178–92. Chauntecleer is an Adam-figure re-enacting the Fall. One way of supporting this, by an exegetical reading of Friday 3 May, was argued by Adams and Levy 889. This article presents a more comprehensively exegetical reading and develops the latter part of the ‘Old Adam-New Adam pattern’ discerned in the plot. In the pursuit scene, ‘the chaos of the chase is both Apocalyptic and a reflection of the disorder in God’s universe when Adam wilfully, under the plotting of Satan, turned up-so-doun . . . the natural order of marriage and directly disobeyed a divine commandment’ (p 187). In addition, the beam on which Chauntecleer and Pertelote perch is a figure of both the forbidden Tree of Paradise and the Cross, the latter becoming the sole significance for the tree to which Chauntecleer escapes to safety and repentance at NPT VII.3417. The widow is ‘actually a trinity’ when considered with her two daughters: ‘Her whole menage is in threes . . . But significantly, she has only one ram, which, despite its comically prosaic name, “Malle,” is nevertheless a traditional symbol of Christ’ (p 187). Pearsall 180, p 60, describes this article as a demonstration of ‘the excesses of the “Robertsonian” approach,’ adding that ‘the ram is actually a ewe, but it hardly seems to matter.’ See also Loomis 636. [JS] 904 Miner, Earl. ‘Chaucer in Dryden’s Fables.’ In Studies in Criticism and Aesthetics, 1660–1800: Essays in Honor of Samuel Holt Monk. Ed. Howard Anderson and John S. Shea. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1967. Pp 58–72. Dryden’s alterations to his Chaucerian poems can be defined ‘in terms of the historia, fabula and argumentum of classical narrative . . . The Cock and the Fox gives added increments of history, beast fable and argumentum both philosophical and satiric’ (p 71). The additions that make Chanticleer recognizably a monarch increase the gaiety of the tale. Dryden maintains a closer fusion of barnyard and court and argues against ideas of predestination, whereas Chaucer appears to endorse the belief that man has no true free will. [JS] 905 Owen, Charles A. Jr. ‘The Problem of Free Will in Chaucer’s Narratives.’ PQ 46 (1967), 433–56. The apparent contradiction between man’s free will and God’s foreknowledge was an aesthetic as well as a philosophical issue for Chaucer, who increasingly strove towards a sense of ‘freedom of the creature’ as part of his creation of an illusion of reality (p 433). The establishment of the pilgrimcharacters, with narratorial authority equal to that of the pilgrim-narrator,

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 255

906

907

908

909

910

911

freed Chaucer to ‘experiment with form . . . combine conventions . . . juxtapose contrasting genres, with an assurance based on the transfer of responsibility’ (p 450). Of the three performances without a portrait, only NPT provides ‘a story whose inherent value is paramount. Even here, the digression that ends up attributing to the cock the narrator’s misogyny stimulates speculation and causes regret that Chaucer did not live to give us a portrait of the Nun’s Priest.’ The question of the free will of his chickens ‘receives a decisive answer at the end of the tale when Chauntecleer shows that even a barnyard pedant can learn from experience’ (p 451), so that character is not immutable fate. [JS] Serraillier, Ian. Chaucer and His World. London: Lutterworth, 1967; New York: Walck, 1968. A popular discussion, amply illustrated, of Chaucer’s society. There are brief references to the widow’s house, the Peasants’ Revolt, and the church organ to which Chauntecleer’s singing is compared. [PG, JS] Weidhorn, Manfred. ‘The Anxiety Dream from Homer to Milton.’ SP 64 (1967), 65–82. Reviews earlier theory, including medieval medical theories of such dreams as symptomatic of disturbances of the humours. The educated medieval person was likely to treat an anxiety dream as Pertelote does, ‘as a cryptic diagnosis which required immediate prescription and regimen’ (p 67). See also Sharma 887. [JS] Braddy, Haldeen. ‘The French Influence on Chaucer.’ In Rowland 1968/1979 643. Pp 123–38/ 143–59. Chaucer had no single French period that began and ended with his minor works, but was influenced throughout his career by narrative incidents from one French author or another. Eight tales, including NPT, show marked indebtedness. [JS] Brewer, D.S. ‘Class Distinction in Chaucer.’ Spec 43 (1968), 290–305. An examination of the distinction between gentils and churls. Although Chaucer gives the word gentil an aura of moral approbation and an appealing warmth, he also often uses it mockingly or ironically. This does not, however, invalidate the distinction between gentil and churl. Chauntecleer is one of the characters incongruously described as gentil. [JS] Bright, J.C., and P.M. Birch. Four Essays on Chaucer. Australian High School English. Sydney and Brisbane: William Brooks, 1968. NPT is a classic example of a tale developed from the beast fable with its satiric portrayal of human follies in animal form. [JS] Hieatt, Constance B. ‘The Subject of the Mock-Debate between the Owl and the Nightingale.’ SN 40 (1968), 155–60. The Owl and the Nightingale should be understood in the same way as the

256 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

912

913

914

915

debate on dreams in NPT. The ‘simultaneously human and bird-like characteristics of the disputants’ reflect on ‘the absurdity, irrationality, and rationalizing of mankind.’ While there is parody of the form of argument, the parody is a means to satirize human behaviour (p 159). [JS] Hinnant, Charles H. ‘Dryden’s Gallic Rooster.’ SP 65 (1968), 647–56. Dryden emphasized the regality and the sexual proclivities of Chaucer’s Chauntecleer to make his Chanticleer a satirical portrait of Louis XIV of France. [JS] Jordan, Robert M. ‘Chaucerian Narrative.’ In Rowland 1968/1979 643. Pp 85– 102/ 95–116. Recent work on Chaucerian narrative has associated it with ‘mode of presentation rather than with genre’ (p 85) and developed interests in rhetoric, stylistics, and poetics. An historicism of mode, rather than of subject matter and vocabulary, is exemplified by Clemen 874, Muscatine 857 and Payne 877. The revised edition, in its brief extension and in the additions to the bibliography, continues its interest in contributions to ‘the theory of Chaucer as a writer of fiction in a non-realist mode . . . a maker and breaker of illusion’ (p 110). [JS] Lawlor, John. Chaucer. London: Hutchinson University Library, 1968. While there are some instances of close congruence of teller and tale, and of dramatization through an ‘engineered situation’ (p 115), dramatic congruence is unimportant in three of the best tales, PrT, FranT and NPT. In NPT, all the learning, the authorities of the debates on free will and on dreams, merely provide an ambiance to a story that shows that ‘if you keep your head there is always a chance: men can learn from experience - at least not to make the same mistake twice.’ [JS] Miller, Robert P. ‘Allegory in The Canterbury Tales.’ In Rowland 1968/1979 643. Pp 268–90/ 326–51. Exegetical criticism is a relatively late development in Chaucerian studies, arising from the dominant conviction in the 1950s that ‘Christian allusion and the concerns of the Church were organically relevant to Chaucer’s art’ (p 327). This trend can be seen in the treatments of NPT by Owen 845, Donovan 843, and Dahlberg 452. Huppé 882 provides ‘the best extended expression of this critical approach’ (p 328). Allegory was not so much a rigid system of formal composition as a habit of mind distinguished by reference to the system of ‘meanings’ developed and conventionalized by clerical authority. Chaucer’s literate pilgrims, even if not clerical, usually employ language consistent with the system, and allegorical explication is called for in cases such as NPT where ‘moralite’ is an explicit issue. The brief extension in the rev edn notes further contributions to allegorical criticism and rejects the attacks made on it by Howard 659 and David 658. [JS]

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 257

916 Olson, Clair C. ‘Chaucer and Fourteenth-Century Society.’ In Rowland 1968/ 1979 643. Pp 20–37. A survey of scholarship on this topic, which argues for its utility in enabling us to set Chaucer’s work in perspective. This essay is not found in the revised edition of Rowland 643. [JS] 917 Payne, Robert O. ‘Chaucer and the Art of Rhetoric.’ In Rowland 1968/1979 643. Pp 38–57/ 42–64. A review of modern studies of rhetoric as an element of medieval poetic practice which traces the fluctuations and oppositions in the general evaluation of the aesthetic worth of the rhetorical poetic. The material and the bibliography are updated briefly in the rev edn. See also Payne 877. [JS] 918 Ramsey, Vance. ‘Modes of Irony in The Canterbury Tales.’ In Rowland 1968/ 1979 643. Pp 291–312/ 352–79. Concern with irony is a particular preoccupation of twentieth-century criticism. Irony is ‘deliberately developed cases of opposition, or at least countercurrents, operating on the use of a word, or in larger elements of a work, including its form and the narrator’s manner’ (p 292). Kenneth Burke’s ideas of interaction without negation and of a perspective of perspectives, where no single one is precisely right or wrong (A Grammar of Motives, New York, 1945, p 512) is also relevant. He describes five often inter-active categories: verbal, structural, dramatic and philosophical irony, and irony of manner. Structural irony is seen in the relationship of the tales to each other, and in the relationship of elements, including style, within a tale. Muscatine 857, who defined this notion of irony in relation to TC, is cited as identifying it in the ‘aura at once . . . cosmic and . . . comic’ of NPT (p 238), which Ramsey considers perhaps Chaucer’s ‘most finished use’ of structural irony in conjunction with the other modes (p 301). In the revised edition Ramsey briefly notes the critical tendency to find irony pervasive in Chaucer and some reactive warnings against using it as ‘a universal solvent.’ The bibliography is updated accordingly. [JS] 919 Robertson, D.W., Jr. Chaucer’s London. New Dimensions in History. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1968. The reference to the Peasants’ Revolt at NPT VII.3394–7 probably expresses disapproval rather than mere indifference. As claimed in the Preface, the final chapter on London as an intellectual centre ‘breaks new ground’ (p ix); here NPT VII.3236–45 are quoted in a discussion of Bradwardine’s contribution to the debate on free will and necessity. [JS] 920 Rowland, Beryl. ‘Chaucer’s Imagery.’ In Rowland 1968/1979 643. Pp 103–22/ 117–42. The modern meaning of imagery differs from the tropes and figures of the rhetoricians. Modern study of Chaucer’s imagery begins in the 1950s with

258 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

921

922

923

924

Muscatine 857 and the ‘new and enlightened historicism’ of Robertson 871. Several passages from NPT are discussed. ‘Chauntecleer’s smug mistranslation’ (NPT VII.3165–6) has ironic symbolic value (p 111); contemporary allusion to Jack Straw (NPT VII.3394) is a particularization rare in Chaucer’s more general imagery; Chauntecleer’s comb (NPT VII.2859) is suggested more vividly by the use of simile: more complex effects of incongruity and extended reference occur with the widow’s dancing (NPT VII.2840) and with the uproar of the hens (NPT VII.3355–61) when the fox grabs Chauntecleer. ‘The figurative language is, for the most part, traditional, but the effect transcends the essential forms’ (p 119). The revised edition reviews briefly the dramatically increased literature on imagery. [JS] ––. ‘“A Sheep That Highte Malle” (NPT, VII, 2831).’ ELN 6 (1968), 84–7. Uses medieval agricultural lore to elaborate briefly the proposition that ‘mention of this sheep is one of those details which enforce the contrast between plain living and high’(p 85). [JS] Steadman, John H. ‘“Courtly Love” as a Problem of Style.’ In Chaucer und seine Zeit: Symposion für Walter F. Schirmer. Ed. Arno Esch. Buchreihe der Anglia Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 14. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968. Pp 1–33. Although courtly love is a myth as a ‘system,’ it has validity as a rhetorical concept: under the principle of decorum, love ‘is courtly if conducted by curiales and in a manner befitting curiales’ (p 26). Love ‘Hereos,’ however, presents special problems since the medical tradition particularly associates it with the nobility, while the ethical tradition sees it contrary to true nobility, against reason, a mistaking of one’s summum bonum: ‘and perhaps it is in this light that we must interpret Chauntecleer’s mistranslation of “Mulier est hominis confusio”’ (NPT VII.3164). [JS] Wimsatt, James. Chaucer and the French Love Poets: The Literary Background of The Book of the Duchess. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1968. The current of French love narrative continued to flow through Chaucer’s work, ‘augmented and mixed with other influences, but never lost’ (p 151). NPT uses the love machinery of the dits amoureux and its elaborate description like that of Blanche. [JS] Wood, Chauncey. ‘Chaucer and Astrology.’ In Rowland 1968/ 1979 643. Pp 176–91/ 202–20. Curry‘s view 801 of the futility of attempting to determine Chaucer’s personal attitude to astrology cannot be accepted, unless we are prepared to abandon attempts to interpret many passages. Many annotations of astrological references fail to analyze the poetic function of an astrological image; Henning 886 on NPT is an attractive exception. In the revised edition, the bibliography and survey of criticism are updated. [JS]

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 259

925 Elliott, R.W.V. ‘Chaucer’s Reading.’ In Chaucer’s Mind and Art. Ed. A.C. Cawley. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1969; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1970. Pp 46–68. There is a close connection between Chaucer’s interests in dreams and in books. One aspect of that connection, Chaucer’s interest in the value of dreams as a source of knowledge, is taken up in NPT when Chauntecleer calls on the authority of ‘olde bokes’ while Pertelote takes an empirical medical line. But in NPT ‘no curtain of sleep’ divides the real and imaginary worlds: ‘Life and learning, books and experience, have become one . . . And if we look in vain for the naïve other self in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” it is because of all the pilgrims the Nun’s Priest answers most clearly to our impression of the genuine Geoffrey Chaucer’ (pp 67–8). [JS] 926 Hoy, Michael and Michael Stevens. Chaucer’s Major Tales. London: Norton Bailey, 1969. The chapter on NPT by Michael Hoy, combining close analysis of poetic texture with literary theory and recent medieval scholarship, is on pp 133–62. The discussion of rhetorical techniques looks both backwards to Geoffrey de Vinsauf and sideways to Northrop Frye; discussion of the mock heroic and of the amplification of beast fable by the language of sermon exempla is combined with analysis of characterization. ‘I kan noon harm of no womman divyne’ (NPT VII.3266) is so out-of-character for the Nun’s Priest that we ‘must be aware of a third personality, that of Chaucer himself, present in the narrative’ (p 145). Allegorical readings are raised in discussing the fox, but Hoy prefers to read the work as that of ‘the total ironist’ who ‘refuses to make it clear even that he is being ironic’ (p 162) and hence invites ‘an individual response’ to the searching questions raised by the work. [JS] 927 Kauffman, Corinne E. ‘Dame Pertelote’s Parlous Parle.’ ChauR 4 (1969), 41–8. Pertelote’s advice to Chauntecleer to take herbs for his indisposition is a satire on women. Herbal treatises demonstrate that Pertelote goes beyond her competence: some herbs would not have been available in May, some are dangerous, and the mixture would have been so caustic as to cause a painful death if administered. ‘Man is everywhere beset by terror’(p 48), as is Chauntecleer on his own perch. [GC] 928 North, J.D. ‘Kalenderes Enlumyned Ben They: Some Astronomical Themes in Chaucer.’ RES ns 20 (1969), 129–54; 257–83; 418–44. Rpt Selected Offprints 9. Oxford: Museum of the History of Science, 1969. More than twenty precise dates can be deduced from a dozen of Chaucer’s works because of his habit of referring the action of a work to planetary configurations within a few years of the time of composition. NPT is discussed pp 418–22. Assuming Chaucer’s use of Nicholas of Lynn’s Calendar, it can be concluded from lines NPT VII.3187–99 and VII.3342–6 that the date of the action is Friday 3 May 1392. There is ‘an extraordinary symmetry of

260 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

929

930

931

932

maleficent and beneficent planets’ (p 420): the resultant astrological uncertainty opens the way for Fortune’s intervention (NPT VII.3403–4), an intervention related to Chauntecleer’s identification with the Sun - whose house, Leo, is entering its ascendancy. He further identifies the fox with Saturn, and Pertelote and the other hens with Gallina and the Pleiades. See also Manzalaoui 968 and Eade 1031. For a dissenting view (without discussion of NPT), see Hamilton M. Smyser, ‘A View of Chaucer’s Astronomy,’ Spec 45 (1970), 359– 73. [JS] Rand, George I. ‘The Date of Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ AN&Q 7 (1969), 149–50. The reference at NPT VII.3123–4 to Macrobius, rather than to Cicero, as the author of Somnium Scipionis may indicate an initial date for NPT before PF, where the attribution is made correctly. It is unlikely either that the PF passage is a late interpolation or that Chaucer put deliberate ‘error’ into the mouth of Chauntecleer for humorous effect. Most probably the reference was simply allowed to stand in the revisions that brought NPT to its final polished state. For an opposite point of view, see Pearsall 180, p 194. [JS] Salter, Elizabeth. ‘Medieval Poetry and the Visual Arts.’ E&S ns 22 (1969), 16– 32. Cites Robertson 871 and Muscatine 857 as showing how concepts of Gothic art and architecture can increase understanding of Chaucer’s character-creation, setting and structure. Reference to ‘the isolating tendencies’ of Gothic figurative art may illuminate occasions when the dramatic illusion of contact between characters is absent from Chaucer’s art. Robertson’s insistence that realism was essentially alien to the artistic expression of the period should be rejected, however. There was a coexistence, sometimes uneasy, of ‘realism’ and ‘formalism’: eg, in NPT the portrait of Chauntecleer is, like French courtly painting, ‘an art of hard, brilliant substance and formal stance,’ but involvement of the characters in action leads to a shift to naturalism, in which ‘the edgy, amorous relationship of Chanticleer and Pertelote is portrayed in rounded, human terms’ (p 19). [JS] Hieatt, Constance B. ‘The Moral of The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ SN 42 (1970), 3– 8. The diversity of morals in NPT does not indicate a parody of rhetoric or of moralising: one moral warns against flattery; three focus on Fortune and free will and foreknowledge; and two on Eve’s culpability. Chauntecleer’s dream is an unambiguous warning: his fault lies not only in his exercise of free will in leaving his perch, but also in not recognizing the danger of the fox despite the foreknowledge he has been granted, and in his listening to what he wants to hear (as Adam and Eve did). [GC] Joseph, Gerhard. ‘Chaucerian “game”-”earnest” and the “argument of herbergage” in The Canterbury Tales.’ ChauR 5 (1970), 83–96. The distinction between ‘game’ and ‘earnest’ relates to different concepts of

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 261

933

934

935

936

937

‘herbergage’ (space). In the serious tales such as KnT, human space is a Boethian prison from which there is no escape until death. Conversely, in the comic MilT and RvT the little rooms are places of pleasure ‘from which we have no desire to escape’ (p 90). NPT opposes two ‘herbergages,’ the confined cottage of the widow and the unconstrained farmyard. [GC] Meredith, Peter. ‘Chauntecleer and the Mermaids.’ Neophil 54 (1970), 81–3. Conventional ideas about mermaids show that NPT VII.3269–72 ironically parallel Chauntecleer’s situation. Mermaids sang their victims to sleep so that they could seize and devour them, and Chauntecleer almost ‘becomes his own mermaid’ (p 82). The simile is ‘a tragi-comic anticipation of Chauntecleer’s fate’ (p 82). [GC] Nist, John. ‘Chaucer’s Apostrophic Mode in The Canterbury Tales.’ TSL 15 (1970), 85–98. NPT is a mock epic in which a pedantic priest uses a series of apostrophes (NPT VII.3050–1, VII.3226–35, VII.3338–54) culminating, in VII.3369–74, in a ‘magnificent climax of apostrophic burlesque’ (p 97). [GC] Richardson, Janette. Blameth Nat Me: A Study of Imagery in Chaucer’s Fabliaux. Studies in English Literature 58. The Hague: Mouton, 1970. NPT VII.3270–87 suggest that Chaucer was aware of the ironic relevance of his animal images. Physiologus has interpretations of sirens which are ‘ironically apt’ since their song incurs the danger of death and, allegorically, they represent the hypocrite and the devil. Thus the reference ‘underscore[s] the theme of pride’ (p 99). [GC] Scheps, Walter. ‘Chaucer’s Anti-Fable: Reductio Ad Absurdum in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ LeedsSE ns 4 (1970), 1–10. NPT is Chaucer’s ‘destruction’ of the beast fable: he recognized its inadequacy to represent ‘even the most circumscribed aspects of human experience’ (p 9). The traditional elements of fabula and moralitas are subverted by the Nun’s Priest. Whereas ‘the typical fable depends for its effect [on] the simultaneous illusions of rationality and consistency’ (p 1), the Nun’s Priest does his best to dispel them. The mock-heroic style constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of the fable: it denies the audience’s ‘voluntary acquiescence to the dictates of the fable’ (p 6). The admonition to separate the fruit and the chaff and find the moral is ironic, as NPT’s contradictory morals make this impossible. In his treatment of the moral the Nun’s Priest is most destructive: the moral that Chauntecleer and Russell have learned - to obey their natural instincts - may be applicable to animals generically, but is useless for human beings who are defined individually. [GC] Schrader, Richard J. ‘Chauntecleer, the Mermaid, and Daun Burnel.’ ChauR 4 (1970), 284–90. NPT VII.3269–72 echoes the medieval confusion of mermaids with sirens. The allusion is ironic since it is not the beauty of their singing that threatens

262 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

938

939

940

941

942

Chauntecleer but his own fine voice and his pride in it. The reference to ‘Daun Burnel the Asse’ (NPT VII.3312–21) is also ironic: the point in Speculum Stultorum is that the cock succeeds by not listening to his wife. [GC] Sullivan, Sheila, Ed. Critics on Chaucer. London: Allen & Unwin, 1970; Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1970. A selection that includes excerpts from Curry 801, Woolf 800, and Ruggiers 637. [JS] Wood, Chauncey. Chaucer and the Country of the Stars: Poetical Uses of Astrological Imagery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970. NPT counters the ‘heavy-handed, destinal tone’ (p 23–4) of MkT and rejects its emphasis on the power of Fortune. Chauntecleer succeeds by clever use of reason and will. NPT VII.3157–66 are similar to Mars 57–63 because both Chauntecleer and Mars ‘are portrayed first using their reason and then abusing it because of feminine attractiveness’ (p 153). Chauntecleer’s time-telling technique ‘By nature’ (NPT VII.2855) may satirize the Host’s intellectual technique in MLT II.1–17. [GC] Allen, Judson Boyce. The Friar as Critic: Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1971. After summarizing his argument in Allen 480, Allen adds that ‘Chauntecleer is a failure . . . as a preacher. He does everything wrong . . . and yet he escapes . . . he is the darling of that Fortune who has tried repeatedly to warn His Royal Stupidness’ (p 128). . •Review by Basil Cottle, JEGP 71 (1972), 116–18. Professor Allen’s Latinity, his prose style, his massive scholarship, his clear classifications, and his sparkling confidence in his own system of thought, are alike compelling’ (p 116). [GC, PG] Anderson, Judith H. ‘“Nat worth a boterflye”: Muiopotmos and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ JMRS 1 (1971), 89–106. In Muiopotmos, Spenser ‘varies Chaucer’s rhetoric in relation to the themes of fortune and free will’ (p 89). Chauntecleer’s problem lies in wilful blindness and pride. In NPT, man is ‘essentially free, the responsible agent for his own actions’ (p 94). NPT VII.3438–46 ‘imply that if men were not willfully blind to meaning, as Chauntecleer was, then, perhaps, they might accord with the good-will of God’ (p 91). [GC] Hussey, S.S. Chaucer: An Introduction. London: Methuen, l971. NPT derives from sermon literature, but the beast fable that provides the exemplum for the moral point is elaborated by rhetorical means into mock heroic. Exegetical interpretations are rejected because, although NPT hints at an allegorical interpretation, its ‘sentence’ is simple: ‘be on guard, avoid flattery’ (p 178). The rhetorical elaboration is solely for fun. See also Robertson 871, Muscatine 857, p 242. [GC]

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 263

943 Josipovici, Gabriel. The World and the Book: A Study of Modern Fiction. London: Macmillan, 1971. The Nun’s Priest strives to impress as a narrator but his use of rhetoric is incompetent. The rhetoric is overdone to remind the audience that the tales ‘are essentially stories, told by people, not things which have “really happened”’ (p 86). We are thus made aware that the fiction is subjective and fallible, and the notion that art is a game is made explicit. [GC] 944 Murtaugh, Daniel. ‘Women and Geoffrey Chaucer.’ ELH 38 (1971), 473–92. NPT VII.3163–6 provide a starting point for a discussion of love, anti-feminism and the marriage debate. [GC] 945 Rowland, Beryl. Blind Beasts: Chaucer’s Animal World. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1971. The allusion to mermaids (properly sirens) in NPT VII.3270 is ironic since Chauntecleer himself succumbs to flattery, and it suggests that his sin is concupiscence. NPT’s moral, to be wary of flattery and deceit, is aimed at the Monk who neglects his spiritual duties. The sheep’s name, Malle, contrasts the widow’s simplicity with Pertelote’s Gallic elegance. [GC] 946 Strohm, Paul. ‘Some Generic Distinctions in the Canterbury Tales.’ MP 68 (1971), 321–8. Storie is generally used respectfully by Chaucer: it connotes authority and antiquity. This adds to the joke in the reference to Lancelot (NPT VII.3211– 12). [GC] 947 Donaldson, E. Talbot. ‘Chaucer and the Elusion of Clarity.’ E&S ns 25 (1972), 23–44. NPT VII.3251–66 are the epitome of Chaucer’s elusion of (illusion of, and, at the same time, evasion of) clarity because the ‘diaphanously clear statements [are] utterly destructive of one another’s meaning’ (pp 42–3). [GC] 948 Fisher, John H. ‘Chaucer’s Last Revision of the “Canterbury Tales”.’ MLR 67 (1972), 241–51. NPP shows a full development of the rhetorical sophistication towards which the whole of Fragment VII was tending. The attitude to the teller is important to the tale told. The reference to the Nun’s Priest’s ‘poor furnishings’ and ‘forced gaiety’ suggests his tale ‘is a humorous revenge . . . for his servile situation in a convent of nuns’ (p 246). [GC] 949 Gillmeister, Heiner. Discrecioun: Chaucer und die Via Regia. Studien zur englischen Literatur, 8. Bonn: Grundmann, 1972. The fox’s talk of discrecioun recalls Ch 64 of the Benedictine Rule, which was read out at the election of abbots. The cock is a negative exemplar of discrecioun and a parody of a monk, given to gluttony and lechery rather than moderation and prudence. There is a specific reference to William of Colchester, elected Abbot of Westminster in 1386 against the wishes of Richard II. The Ellesmere MS represents a revision undertaken by Chaucer as a

264 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

950

951

952

953

954

condition of his residence in Westminster Abbey from 1399 while William was abbot: the Nun’s Priest, originally the womanising monk, whose vices match Chauntecleer’s, was turned into a separate character to distance him from the Benedictines, and the endlink which referred to the Monk was removed. This study contains numerous references to NPT, particularly at pp 100–115 and 120–61. [GC] Kellogg, Alfred L., with Robert C. Cox. ‘Chaucer’s May 3 and its Contexts. ‘ In Chaucer, Langland, Arthur: Essays in Middle English Literature. By Alfred L. Kellogg. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1972. Pp 155–98. May 3 is alluded to in TC, KnT and NPT VII.3187–90. Whether using it seriously or parodically, Chaucer used this date to convey the idea of ill fortune or tragic fortune. This may be because on this date in 1360 Chaucer witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Brétigny which ‘marked the beginnings of ever-increasing chaos within England itself’ (pp 160–1). In NPT, Chauntecleer’s capture has tragic implications, one of them being the date, doubly unlucky because May 3 is a Friday. However, the outcome is happy and fulfils the Knight’s request for a tale ‘contrarie’ to MkT in that Fortune brings the hero to ‘prosperitee.’ [GC] Anderson, J.J. ‘The Climax of Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Critical Survey 6 (1973), 3–7. NPT mocks the heroics of MkT and ridicules the moralising of fables. In the climax, the tension between rhetoric (the devices based on Geoffrey of Vinsauf) and realism becomes more intense as the heroic and animal worlds pull against each other. Though realism triumphs in the chase scene (see the reference to Jack Straw), rhetoric is not seriously mocked, for it enhances Chaucer’s antifable. [GC] Bergner, Heinz. ‘The Fox and the Wolf und die Gattung des Tierepos in der mittelenglischen Literatur.’ GRM 54 (1973), 268–85. Argues against the assumption made by both Mossé 449 and R.M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England, 2nd edition, London, 1970, p 124, that Middle English literature contained a large stock of beast epics. Chaucer does not derive names from Roman de Renart: his fox is named Russell not Renart, and his hen is Pertelote not Pinte. [GC] Eliason, Norman E. ‘Chaucer the Love Poet.’ In Chaucer the Love Poet. Ed. Jerome Mitchell and William Provost. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1973. Pp 9–26. Chaucer’s mistranslation of ‘Mulier est hominis confusio’ (at NPT VII.3166) is ‘not only a little joke and a stinging jab at masculine arrogance’ but also expresses ‘the simple but profound truth that woman is the source of all man’s bliss as well as his confusion’ (p 19). [GC] Friedman, John Block. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale: The Preacher and the Mermaid’s Song.’ ChauR 7 (1973), 250–66.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 265

955 956

957

958

959

NPT reflects the professional interests of a preacher. It is an exemplum whose text is mulier est hominis confusio (NPT VII.3164): this is illustrated when Chauntecleer, having let his reason be subdued by sensual passion for Pertelote during their debate, mistranslates the Latin. The Nun’s Priest’s criticism of women stems both from medieval clerical misogyny and from his personal situation as inferior to the Prioress. The mermaid simile (NPT VII.3269– 70), combining lust and flattery, is a figure of those weaknesses which cause Chauntecleer’s downfall. Only when his reason is reasserted does he regain the henyard paradise. The Christian ideal of womankind is the poor widow with her ‘humility, abstinence, simplicity and . . . denial of sexuality’ (p 266), in contrast to the excesses of Pertelote and the Prioress. [GC] Frost, William. ‘What is a Canterbury Tale?’ WHR 27 (1973), 39–59. Various contradictory interpretations of NPT are mentioned. [GC] Kaske, R.E. ‘Chaucer’s Marriage Group.’ In Chaucer the Love Poet. Ed. Jerome Mitchell and William Provost. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1973. Pp 45–65. Notes Lawrence’s 781 suggestion that NPT provides an introduction to the marriage group: its irreverent view of female wisdom and its amassing of authorities leads directly to the Wife of Bath’s outburst at the beginning of her prologue. [GC] Knight, Stephen. Rymyng Craftily: Meaning in Chaucer’s Poetry. Sydney and London: Angus and Robertson, 1973. Ch 5, on NPT (pp 206–35), is an amplification of Knight 652. [GC] Kohl, Stephan. Wissenschaft und Dichtung bei Chaucer: dargestellt hauptsächlich am Beispiel der Medizin. Studien zur Anglistik. Frankfurt: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1973. There are several references to NPT, particularly at pp 148–56. Whereas Chauntecleer correctly sees his dream as prophetic (Macrobius’s somnia), Pertelote denies divine influence and ascribes the dream solely to physiological causes, an imbalance of humours (Macrobius’s insomnis). Her advice is dangerous to her husband’s physical health because of the strong remedies she advocates, and to his moral well-being, because, like Eve, she chooses false, purely worldly knowledge. [JE] Myers, D.E. ‘Focus and “Moralite” in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ ChauR 7 (1973), 210–20. A tagmemic analysis. There are three ‘overlapping hierarchies’ (p 211) in NPT: the story of the cock and fox, the narrator’s rhetorical elaboration of that story, and the whole tale seen as a unit of CT. The first level is summed up by the morals about keeping one’s eyes open and mouth shut. The second level emphasizes the courtliness of the birds and is characterized by high style, and its moral is one for rulers: ‘Lo, swich it is for to be recchelees / And necgligent, and trust on flaterye’ (NPT VII.3436–7). The third level links to the

266 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

960

961

962

963

964

theme of Providence and Fortune in KnT and MkT. Here the Nun’s Priest unconsciously betrays himself for, allegorically, Chauntecleer represents prelates and hence the Nun’s Priest himself. Just as Chauntecleer shows a lack of understanding in the debate on dreams, so the Nun’s Priest misinterprets the fable because of his anti-feminist bias. [GC] Rowland, Beryl. Animals with Human Faces: A Guide to Animal Symbolism. [Knoxville]: University of Tennessee Press, l973. Dreaming of apes (NPT VII.3092) signifies misfortune or sickness; the fox with the outstretched tail (NPT VII.3275) denotes fraud. [GC] Uhlig, Claus. Chaucer und die Armut: Zum Prinzip der kontextuellen Wahrheit in den ‘Canterbury Tales’. Abhandlung der geistes-und sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse 14. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1973. The poor widow is neither a reflection of social reality nor an implicit criticism of figures outside NPT: her function, as an exemplar of moderatio, is to ironize the pomp and excess of the courtly Chauntecleer. [JE] Boulger, James D. ‘Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ In Literary Studies: Essays in Memory of Francis A. Drumm. Ed. John H. Dorenkamp. Worcester, MA: College of the Holy Cross, 1974. Pp 13–32. NPT’s humour exists on three levels: moral, intellectual and dramatic. The tale’s morality lies in its treatment of pride, the elevation of worldly things above God. Because it also emphasizes intellectual vanity, the moral and intellectual levels intersect. The Nun’s Priest’s questions cast doubt on the underpinnings, worldly and philosophical, of the medieval world. Although sceptical of the Thomist compromise of ‘moderate realism,’ he asserts his belief in traditional morality and the goodness of Providence. Humour mitigates the ‘potential sting’ (p 16) of the moral level and enables the Nun’s Priest to question the Church’s official intellectual constructs with an ‘indirect’ and ‘conciliatory strategy’ (p 26). Humour also functions in the dramatic development of the Nun’s Priest as a ‘man of merriment and humour’ (p 28). [GC] Brewer, Derek. ‘Gothic Chaucer.’ In Brewer 654. Pp 1–32. Much of Chaucer’s comedy lies in the interplay of various official and unofficial cultures. In NPT, there is ‘an ambivalent humour over objects of serious speculation’ (p 21). Chauntecleer’s mistranslation (NPT VII.3163–6) epitomizes the contrast between Latin and vernacular cultures. [GC] Crampton, Georgia Ronan. The Condition of Creatures: Suffering and Action in Chaucer and Spenser. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974. Like KnT, NPT deals with the problems of necessity versus free will, but, owing to the narrator’s incompetence, does not conclude the philosophical question. [GC]

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 267

965 Diekstra, F.N.M. Chaucer’s Quizzical Mode of Exemplification. Nijmegen, Neth.: Dekker and Van de Vegt, 1974. NPT is an example of the way in which Chaucer ‘undermines the seriousness of his own labours’ (p 5). [GC] 966 Kealy, J. Kieran. ‘Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale, VII. 3160–71.’ Expl 33:2 (1974), #12. Chauntecleer’s mistranslation of the Latin tag, mulier est hominis confusio (NPT VII.3164), is ironic, demonstrating that it is not reason that makes Chauntecleer leave the safety of the ‘narwe perche’ but his own lustful desire to ‘ryde’ his mistress. [GC] 967 Kolve, V.A. ‘Chaucer and the Visual Arts.’ In Brewer 654. Pp 290–320. The real morality of NPT is not in formulaic morals - keep your mouth shut, keep your eyes open - but in the fictional chaff which ‘seeks to alter our habitual gestures of self-regard and self-aggrandizement’ (p 316). [GC] 968 Manzalaoui, M. ‘Chaucer and Science.’ In Brewer 654. Pp 224–61. Astrological detail accords well with an interpretation of NPT as parody. Chaucer parodies romance conventions (NPT VII.2859–75, VII.3160–1) and scientific methods of reckoning time. Chauntecleer is ‘old-fashioned’ and believes in the premonitory nature of dreams, whereas Pertelote inclines to medical theory and is more scientific and modern. Chaucer takes neither side and the tone is light-hearted. See also North 928, p 418ff. [GC] 969 Zacharias, Richard. ‘Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale, B2 4552–63.’ Expl 32 (1974), 60. The comparison of Pertelote to Hasdrubal’s wife (NPT VII.3362–3) exaggerates her humanity. [GC] 970 Elbow, Peter. Oppositions in Chaucer. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1975. The chapter on NPT (pp 95–113) is part of a larger argument, pursued throughout the book, on the nature of dialectic. Traditional oppositions perceived in NPT - between male and female, experience and authority, dream and reality are transcended by Chaucer’s vision of a dimension that accommodates seemingly contrary points of view. Oppositions that seem irreconcilable become coexistent sub-sets of a larger truth that absorbs rather than synthesizes opposites. Elbow is less concerned with Chaucer per se than with the quasimystical mode of thought which he discerns in Chaucer’s works. NPT is also discussed at pp 151–3; the coverage includes points of general critical interest apart from the overall argument on oppositions. . •Review by Colin Wilcockson, MÆ 48 (1979), 146–8. The book might have worked better as a study of irony; the search for opposites frequently overstrains the argument, especially in the chapter on NPT. [CW, PG] 971 Gallick, Susan. ‘A Look at Chaucer and his Preachers.’ Spec 50 (1975), 456–76.

268 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

972

973

974

975

NPT is a significant though indirect instance of sermonizing, embodying attributes of the medieval sermon without actually being or containing a sermon. Chauntecleer is a preacher who loses his theme in rhetorical amplification, finally imposing a moral that is not at all clear. Ultimately, NPT ‘does not spoof the formal art of preaching or particular pilgrims as much as it does the tendency of the entire age to sound like its preachers - even a cock in a fable’ (p 476). [CW] Scheps, Walter. ‘“Up Roos Oure Hoost, and Was Oure Aller Cok”: Harry Bailly’s Tale-telling Competition.’ ChauR 10 (1975), 113–28. A discussion of the role of the Host in CT as a whole, which briefly discusses his response to NPT. The Host’s favourable response supports that of most readers of Chaucer. The cock is a common symbol for the Christian priest, and Harry Bailly praises the Nun’s Priest in terms which emphasize the identification of Priest and cock. [CW] Shallers, A. Paul. ‘The “Nun’s Priest’s Tale”: An Ironic Exemplum.’ ELH 42 (1975), 319–37. A brief survey of NPT’s moral significance. There is an ironic interplay between idealistic and naturalistic styles. NPT demonstrates a multiform complexity. The Nun’s Priest does not so much refute the gloomy Monk’s ‘image of fallen man living in a fallen world’ (p 333) as qualify it. In the end, ‘“folye” . . . never quite yields to “moralite” despite the Priest’s closing injunction’ (p 334). [CW] Brodie’s Notes on Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. London and Sydney: Pan, 1976. A Middle English text with prose summary on facing pages is on pp 20–59. The introduction briefly discusses Chaucer’s life and works and the origin of the characters of NPT. Following the text, there are sections on Chaucer’s grammar, pronunciation and versification; explanatory notes; a list of words liable to be mistranslated; some general discussion questions; and a glossary. [PG] Gallacher, Patrick. ‘Food, Laxatives, and Catharsis in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Spec 51 (1976), 49–68. Purgation and catharsis are complementary in classical thought: Plato’s Timaeus links diet with spiritual well-being; Aristotle adapts this connection to a discussion of literature in his Poetics; and sundry medieval writers add a theological dimension. There is a pervasive interplay between the physical and the spiritual in NPT. Characters in NPT are examined in relation to their attitudes: the poor widow is the model of dietary virtue, but lacks ‘the vision that is eventually associated with food in the story’ (p 59); Pertelote knows much about purgation, but has no sense of a spiritual dimension; Chauntecleer understands transcendent meaning, but ignores the moral of his own exempla.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 269

The Nun’s Priest himself, in dismissing his tale, ‘reminds us of the quarrel between Pertelote, who refutes vision with laxatives, and Chauntecleer, who neglects vision in favour of breakfast’ (p 65). In the scheme of CT, NPT may be seen as a cathartic antidote to the Monk’s excesses in his lugubrious recital of woe. [CW] 976 Justman, Stewart. ‘Medieval Monism and Abuse of Authority in Chaucer.’ ChauR 11 (1976), 95–111. To be convincing, authorities need to be consistent with each other, but Chaucer’s authorities are far from being unified and, moreover, emphasize the disunity of the world. Authority may also be abused by an appeal to primal emotions rather than to rationality: Daun Russell in NPT ‘knows that the mention of paternal authority will exercise conjuring power over Chauntecleer (B2 4491–4511; VII.3301–21)’ (pp 98–9). The Nun’s Priest’s claim, following St Paul, that all is for our doctrine (VII.3441–2), is demonstrably false in its context. [CW] 977 Notes on Chaucer’s The Nonne Preestes Tale. Methuen Notes. Study-aid Series. London: Methuen, 1976. A prose translation bowdlerized and abbreviated, retaining verse lines, with significant Middle English words as side-glosses. NPP is on pp 16–17; NPT 17–33 (with the lines containing the digression on predestination summarized); there is no endlink. The notes cover such topics as Chaucer’s life and times; his works; his use of language. There is a plot summary and brief critical discussion; a list of typical examination questions; and a biographical note. [PG] 978 Payne, F. Anne. ‘Foreknowledge and Free Will: Three Theories in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ ChauR 10 (1976), 201–19. In NPT, Chaucer satirizes three theoretical constructs of the relationship between divine foreknowledge and human free will. The first theory, signalled when the Nun’s Priest as narrator speaks of ‘symple necessitee’ (NPT VII.3245), corresponds with Bradwardine’s anti-Pelagian view that free will is an illusion. The second theory, Augustine’s, takes the coexistence of free will and foreknowledge as ‘a paradox which must be accepted by faith’ (p 203). The third, given most attention in Chaucer’s satire, derives from Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy: this theory supposes ‘that there is no compulsion in God’s foreknowledge except in terms of conditional necessity’ (p 203). What attracts the Nun’s Priest’s satirical attention is a threefold preposterousness in the Boethian argument. Ultimately, the proverbial and logical formulations which the Nun’s Priest satirizes are aspects of the useless human effort to predict and codify the outcome that can be consistently expected from particular human choices. In opposition to these theories, the Nun’s Priest has a view of life as ‘a continual stream of chaotic facts and

270 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

979

980

981

982

983

incidents,’ the chaotic being forever subjected to a human impulse ‘to organize and explain’ (p 218). [CW] Wenzel, Siegfried. ‘Chaucer and the Language of Contemporary Preaching.’ SP 73 (1976), 138–61. NPT is mentioned only in the first paragraph of this essay on preaching and the ars praedicandi tradition. However, Wenzel takes account of Friedman 954 and Petersen 390 on NPT. [CW] Gallick, Susan. ‘Styles of Usage in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ ChauR 11 (1977), 232–47. In NPT Chaucer parodies the ‘phantom doctrine’, inherited from the ancient world, of three levels of style - high, middle, and low - by violating the most basic rules that govern them. A better taxonomy would identify four styles: ‘intimate, conversational, didactic and literary’ (p 233). The styles are out of control in the animal speakers, but not in the Nun’s Priest himself when he speaks through them, using Chauntecleer’s rhetorical outburst on murder for a subtly ironic attack on the Prioress and her tale. But when the Nun’s Priest leaves his animal characters behind and launches into his own ‘frozen, literary, highly poetic style’ (p 239), he too loses his train of thought. Rhetoric may tell us more about what people are like than about the truth of what they think. [CW] Robertson, D.W., Jr. ‘Some Disputed Chaucerian Terminology.’ Spec 52 (1977), 571–81. Discusses the social role and status of the ‘povre wydwe’ as daya, or dairy assistant, and notes that one of her duties was to separate the chaff, which the Priest tells us to disregard, from the grain. [CW] Gardner, John. The Poetry of Chaucer. Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977. The description of the widow ‘is built of carefully balanced ironies, lines which slyly mock both the rich and the poor, the high and the low’ (p 311). This ironic dialectic is continued in the Nun’s Priest’s identification of Chauntecleer, as rooster, with everything noble he can think of. This irony is supported in poetic style by ‘a perfect marriage of the two styles of life, epic and mundane’ (p 314). NPT points to a stylistic as well as thematic compromise. [CW] Bolton, W.F. ‘Structural Meaning in The Pardoner’s Tale and The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Language and Style 11 (1978), 201–11. The meaning of Chaucer’s tales is to some extent encoded within their form. NPT comprises two discrete portions, each with its own patterning, different from the other but symmetrical within itself. The structure of the second portion takes ‘Woman in general as a polemic subject; and hence NPT appears to be a covert document in the querelle des femmes’ (p 209), or anti-

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 271

984

985

986

987

feminist tradition. The untitled Epilogue of some MSS is an authentic part of NPT: Chaucer’s constructional system is characteristically symmetrical, and ‘the Epilogue is roughly symmetrical with that portion of the Prologue that refers to the Priest’ (p 206). [CW] Boyd, Beverly. ‘Chauntecleer and the Eagle.’ ESA 21 (1978), 65–9. From the eagle in the early HF to the cock in the late NPT, Chaucer’s technique matured. In HF we are told about a great many things which are also germane to NPT, but the latter shows them to us. In NPT, Chaucer uses a range of formal rhetorical figures to comic effect, not in order to mock rhetoric in itself but its misuse or misapplication. Chauntecleer demonstrates that ‘we are willing to deceive ourselves with words’ (p 67). NPT is not an allegory of the Fall, since Chauntecleer is not the primal Adam any more than the fox is a simple devil-figure, but what we do see is that ‘those who confess and repent can find their way back into a state of grace’ (p 68). NPT is directed against human folly, eg, the ‘airs and graces’ (p 69) of the Prioress. [CW] Peck, Russell A. ‘Chaucer and the Nominalist Questions.’ Spec 53 (1978), 745– 60. There are two passing references to NPT (pp 748–9 and 758) in this essay on ontology and epistemology. [CW] Bishop, Ian. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the Liberal Arts.’ RES ns 30 (1979), 257–67. The Seven Liberal Arts play a significant part in NPT and, of these, dialectic is the most important for an understanding of Chaucer’s intentions. Part of dialectic was the marshalling of auctoures, and Chaucer demonstrates his own familiarity with authorities such as Augustine, Boethius, and Bradwardine before allowing the debate between Chauntecleer and Pertelote to make fun of the process. Pertelote can only draw upon ‘the paltry Dionysius Cato,’ whereas Chauntecleer counters with ‘oon of the gretteste auctour [NPT VII.2984]’ (p 264). Another part of dialectic was the art of making telling and apt distinctions, which Pertelote fails to do in dismissing all dreams, whereas Chauntecleer distinguishes carefully between different kinds - accurately, as it turns out. Chauntecleer’s descent from logic into lust, placing himself in danger from the fox, is marked by a descent from the tree to the ground. [CW] Bloomfield, Morton W. ‘The Wisdom of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ In Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives: Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner C.S.C. Ed. Edward Vasta and Zacharias P. Thundy. Notre Dame, IN, and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979. Pp 70–82. In its mingling of the two realms of the animal and the human, NPT approaches the grotesque without entering that ‘alienated and distorted’ world (p 71). Chaucer’s Chauntecleer is a more sympathetic character than Henryson’s in his The Taill of Schir Chantecleir and the Foxe. There are five respects in

272 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

which the style is a parody of the epic and the epic manner. These centre upon the dreams, the changes in pace (especially in the pursuit sequence), the parodies of epic apostrophes and set pieces, the catalogues of comparable heroes, and the barnyard situation which ‘makes the parody of epic language inevitable’ (p 78). ‘The charm of the NPT is transformed into profound wisdom without losing its attractiveness’ (p 79). [CW] 988 Brewer, Derek. ‘Chaucer: What is The Nun’s Priest’s Tale Really About?,’ Trames: Travaux et Memoires de l’Universite de Limoges U.E.R. Des Lettres Modernes et Science Humaines, Collection Anglais, Vol 2, April 1979, pp 9– 25. The rich diversity of opinion as to what NPT is ‘about’ is the mark of great literature. It is a ‘traditional’ work, namely a narrative familiar to readers from other versions. Such works are a composite of familiar story and specific unique telling. Although the events of the narrative may change in particulars, they are governed by a common set of ideas, related to an inner ‘point,’ which constitutes the ‘idea of the story.’ The inner points in the ancient Aesopian fable of the fox and the crow, which is undoubtedly the source of the story, are mostly to do with flattery. The deepest or innermost point is the idea of ‘reversal concerning involuntary interchange’ (p 12). By the twelfth century, the story of the cock and the fox had developed and the motif of the chase been added. The chase itself became the nucleus of another cluster of symbols, many of them related to other such themes as transience, change, quest, and conflict. The later versions (which Chaucer probably knew), by Marie de France and in the Roman de Renard, enrich the story, although without pushing it in the direction of allegory. The latter version adds the farmyard setting and the characterization of the cock’s wife. Chaucer preserves and develops the essential features of earlier tellings, elaborating the story according to traditional method and in the learned style: ‘the method is metonymical and so relies on association, not organic overall development’ (p 19). The ‘point’ of NPT is essentially about reversals and the ‘moral’ of the tale - different from a modern ‘morality’ - is derived from it: it is the ‘traditional conclusion’ (p 22) about keeping one’s mouth shut and avoiding flattery. [PG] 989 Brody, Saul Nathaniel. ‘Truth and Fiction in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ ChauR 14 (1979), 33–47. Rpt in Modern Critical Views. Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1985. Pp 111–22. NPT shows that apparent contrarieties are not necessarily in conflict: it is ‘both absurd and serious, realistic and unrealistic, fictive and true’ (p 33). The seriousness of fiction is its central theme. The truth of fiction is reinforced in the relevance of apparent digression. There is danger in ignoring one’s own exempla derived from literature: both the Monk in real life and Chauntecleer

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 273

990

991

992

993

in the narrative make this mistake. The interpenetration of literature and life is signalled by Chaucer’s pointed allusion to the Lancelot story being read by Paolo and Francesca in Dante’s Inferno 5. Connections between life and art are especially relevant on a pilgrimage whose unifying activity is storytelling. The answer to the perennial question of the ‘moralite’ of NPT may be encoded within the tale’s ambiguity: ‘the very presence of besetting ambiguity in the tale may indicate that if the work does contain a moral, that moral has to do with ambiguity itself . . . particularly with the ambiguity surrounding what is true and not true in the tale’ (p 41). [CW] Cullen, Dolores L. ‘Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Expl 38:1 (1979), 11. ‘Pertelote’(‘Pinte’ in Chaucer’s source), derived from Old French, signifies ‘one who confuses someone’s lot or fate.’ Her suggestion that Chauntecleer ‘taak som laxatyf’ (NPT VII.2943) is right. ‘On the basis of augury . . . improve the condition of a bird’s entrails and you improve the course of destiny!’ [CW, BM] McCall, John P. Chaucer Among the Gods: The Poetics of Classical Myth. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979. Chaucer’s ways of treating classical mythology are rich and various. Myth is often adduced only to be subtly called into question. There is a brief discussion of NPT (pp 140–3) contrasting the treatment of myth in WBP and WBT. NPT brings great thoughts to nothing by inconclusiveness: indeed, ‘every serious moral in NPT ends in evaporation or contradiction’ (p 143). [CW] Ashworth, C.V. Notes on Chaucer’s ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ London: Methuen, 1980. A study-guide for examination preparation. NPT is ‘a fable directed against vanity, pride, flattery and complacency’ (p 33); these themes are developed in the commentary, with detailed attention to mock-heroic elements. NPT embodies something of the Nun’s Priest’s frustration at being ‘servant’ to a community of women (hence Chauntecleer’s firm rejection of Pertelote’s arguments), and something of the priest’s sexual desires. NPT VII.3450–1 contain the ‘apparently broad suggestion that some of the women who surround the Priest may well be his mistresses’ (p 33). [BM] Crépin, André. ‘“Sustres and paramours”: sexe et domination dans les Contes de Cantorbéry.’ Caliban 17 (1980), 3–21. Although Chaucer is not concerned greatly in CT with issues of political power, in most of the tales he does address the issue of the power relations between men and women. The lordly Chauntecleer, surrounded by seven wives who are his sisters, is a figure of male vanity and pride. There is a potential analogy between Chauntecleer and the Nun’s Priest (emphasized in the endlink), for the priest is surrounded by his ‘sisters,’ the nuns, and there are medieval equations between the cock and a priest, both positive (the good priest who proclaims the victory of light over dark, and nourishes his

274 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

people with the grain of revealed truth) and negative (the common charges of clerical lasciviousness). However, the Nun’s Priest presents the poor widow’s frugality as his ideal, and his tale warns that temptation must be resisted. Although Chauntecleer believes he is the dominant partner, in reality Pertelote’s charms overcome his reason. While some theological attitudes supported the commonly held negative attitude towards women, others (eg, the analogy between marriage and the union of Christ and His Church, or the spiritual interpretation of the Song of Songs) pointed to the equality of men and women, and this is reflected in canon law. There should be no ‘réification’ of sex (as there is in the fabliau tradition, and in Chauntecleer’s rampant sexuality) or ‘déification’ of it (as there is in the courtly love tradition, echoed in the Nun’s Priest’s descriptions of Chauntecleer and Pertelote). The Nun’s Priest points to the appropriate Christian attitudes towards marriage and sexuality, as Chaucer does in works such as FrT and in the moral ideals of his poem Truth. [BM] 994 Garbáty, Thomas J. ‘And Gladly Teche the Tales of Caunterbury.’ In Approaches to Teaching Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Ed. Joseph Gibaldi. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1980. Pp 46–56. NPT is a good text with which to end a course on CT: it brings together many of Chaucer’s major themes, and, after a number of tales depicting darker aspects of human existence, ‘confirms, yet again, that for Chaucer the sun always rises’ (p 53). [BM] 995 Hoeber, Daniel R. ‘Chaucer’s Friday Knight.’ ChauN 2 (1980), 8–10. The changeability of Chauntecleer’s fortunes on a Friday (NPT VII.3341) is evidence against Lowes (‘Chaucer’s Friday,’ MLR 9 (1914), 94) that in KnT I.1534–9 Friday is ‘gereful’ or ‘changeable’ only in that it differs from other days. Rather, Friday (the day of the fickle goddess Venus, and of the Fall) is characterized by reversals of fortune within its own twenty-four hours. [BM] 996 Howard, Donald R. ‘The Idea of a Chaucer Course.’ In Approaches to Teaching Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Ed. Joseph Gibaldi. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1980. Pp 57–62. NPT should come as close as possible to the end of any Chaucer course, not merely because it is the most Chaucerian in spirit of CT, but because it is the hardest tale to teach. In order to understand the wit, students must control a vast amount of background material, but the danger is that the wit will be lost in the explanation. The teacher must engage students with the mind of Chaucer, especially at such crucial moments as the end of NPT, ‘when we grasp with special clarity Chaucer’s unique sanity - his impatience with cant and hypocrisy and with the posturings of seriousness, his sad tolerance for human orneriness, his humorous view of the world and of himself, his tragic and comic sense of life’ (p 62). [BM]

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 275

997 Jordan, Robert M. ‘Romantic Unity, High Seriousness, and Chaucerian Fiction.’ Rev 2 (1980), 49–69. Reviews Burlin’s Chaucerian Fiction 660, which offers an evolutionary view of Chaucer’s development through poetic, philosophic, and psychological fictions. Jordan notes that, despite the book’s subject, Burlin’s methodology is not structuralist. Burlin’s Romantic orientation produces an ‘impatience with the rhetorical aspects of Chaucer’s art’ (p 54). This may suit the earlier, heavily rhetorical ‘poetic fictions,’ but leads to undervaluation of the rhetorical aspects of the later work. Burlin’s theoretical concern with the process of fiction making is not helped by his perpetuation of the roadside drama tradition and of the notion of the tales as expressions of their tellers’ personalities. Burlin discusses NPT last, but Jordan sees this as an ‘honor . . . reluctantly bestowed’ (p 66). In any account of NPT, there is not much room to discuss the personality of the teller, and the text demands discussion of the use of rhetoric. [BM] 998 Justman, Stewart. ‘Literal and Symbolic in the Canterbury Tales.’ ChauR 14 (1980), 199–214. The symbolic or anagogical way of perceiving reality was attacked in the late medieval period by writers such as William of Ockham. CT is part of this attack, for it challenges the symbolic way of perceiving the world, and abounds ‘with mock signs, false exemplifications, allegory that fails’ (p 199). NPT is the most extreme example: in order ‘to mock words - that is, symbols - the Nun’s Priest uses words in abundance’ (p 207); and in the onomatopoeia of ‘chukketh’ (NPT VII.3182) and ‘Cok! cok!’ (NPT VII.3277) words stand for nothing. Similarly, Chauntecleer’s dream is literal. The Nun’s Priest invites us to make of his tale whatever we wish, abnegating his own authority as narrator. NPT ‘really concerns the authenticity of the commonplace, the chaff, and of the literalist perception’ (p 208). [BM] 999 Knight, Stephen. ‘Chaucer and the Sociology of Literature.’ SAC 2 (1980), 15– 51. Relates the work of French sociological theorists such as Pierre Macherey and Jacques Lacan to Chaucerian texts. NPT VII.3393–7 provide an example, in their reference to the labouring classes, of one of the major ‘absences’ (Macherey’s term) which the text must confront. In Fragment VII ‘genres, world-views, social ideologies are set in conflict’ (p 36), yet the reference to the Peasants’ Revolt occurs in a ‘sanitized context’ (p 27); and NPT as a whole resolves the conflicts of genre, world view, and social ideology. NPT is ‘essentially quietist’ (p 27) and ‘so full of reference, wit, and seductive skill that its ultimately naturalizing and disarming stasis predicts the passivist triumphs of bourgeois relativist art’ (p 36). [BM]

276 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

1000 Milosh, Joseph E., Jr. ‘Reason and Mysticism in Fantasy and Science Fiction.’ In Young Adult Literature: Background and Criticism. Ed. Millicent Lenz and Ramona M. Mahood. Chicago: American Library Association, 1980. Pp 433–40. Chauntecleer’s vision is a kind of intuitive or felt knowledge, and to it he applies reason by means of an extended debate (although he finally ignores both kinds of knowledge). Modern science fiction and fantasy often use these two modes of knowing (or approaches to truth); young readers might be encouraged to see the underlying similarities between different genres from different periods. [BM] 1001 Pazdziora, Marian. ‘The Sapiential Aspect of “The Canterbury Tales”.’ KN 27 (1980), 413–26. The sapiential material (proverbs, sententious remarks, maxims) in CT is didactic, for the medieval audience expected literature to offer instruction as well as to entertain. Four main thematic groupings are offered, and NPT figures in two of them. Under ‘God, Destiny and Fortune,’ the Nun’s Priest expresses the view that ‘Fortune governs over us,’ although we find elsewhere in Chaucer’s works ‘the opinion that it is possible to extricate ourselves from her dominance’ (p 417). Under ‘Love and Marriage,’ NPT presents the situation of ‘husband subjugated to his wife, an invitation to trouble and disaster’ (p 418) as part of the marriage debate. [BM] 1002 Pearsall, D.A. ‘Chaucer, the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, and the Modern Reader.’ DQR 10 (1980), 164–74. NPT is used to test and evaluate some modern critical approaches to Chaucer. The moral-allegorical or exegetical approach (as in Donovan 843, Dahlberg 452, Robertson 871, Gallacher 975, and Levy/Adams 903) is a product of the modern ‘long[ing] for certainty’ (p 166). Chaucer ‘becomes the spokesman of the Augustinian doctrine of Charity and Cupidity, and . . . is made the servant of modern conservative neo-Christian orthodoxy’ (p 166). The ‘dramatic’ school (Broes 563, Engelhardt 577), which sees the tales primarily as reflections of the teller’s personality, is also attacked, especially in the case of NPT, since Chaucer has given little information about the teller’s character, and cancelled the NPT endlink (which some critics nevertheless use). The function of the moralitas (NPT VII.3440–3) is to direct us back into NPT, into narrative reality. NPT itself is the answer to much modern criticism: in it Chaucer ‘is criticizing all that kind of pedantry, and bookishness which averts its gaze from the complexities, the mess, of reality, and resorts instead to universalizing moral platitude’ (p 174). See also 1012. [BM] 1003 Rogers, William E. ‘The Raven and the Writing Desk: The Theoretical Limits of Patristic Criticism.’ ChauR 14 (1980), 260–77. Although it is difficult to define the theoretical limits of patristic criticism, it

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 277

must be done. A distinction should be drawn between ‘analytic’ and ‘causal’ explanations. An analytic explanation begins with a proposition about the text, and tests it against the evidence of the text; it is logically valid until some part of the text reveals an inconsistency. But in itself an analytic explanation can make no other claims to validity: e.g., it cannot prove that the author intended this interpretation. A causal explanation goes beyond the evidence of the text itself. This is the methodology of patristic exegesis, for its advocates assume that the author’s intention is the proper standard of interpretation, and (although this is not always articulated) that the pre-existing exegetical tradition caused the author’s conception of the work: therefore ‘any meaningful explanation of a work must always be causal’ (p 265). Patristic critics often use analytical explanations, proving, eg, that a text is consistent with the doctrine of charity. But this should not be taken for a causal argument. Thus Donaldson’s attack 866 on Donovan’s allegorical reading 843 of NPT can be framed in these theoretical terms: the fact that details of the text can be explained by reference to the exegetical tradition does not prove that the tale is an allegory; moreover, the ‘reading of the tale in allegorical terms is an analytical explanation, and the explanatory power of that interpretation ultimately cannot be used to argue that the tale is an allegory’ (p 269). Patristic critics often seek not merely coherence in a work but a particular kind of coherence (e.g., the doctrinal message of caritas), and then proceed to the evaluative judgement that the work is good because it has been proved doctrinally coherent. The methodology is always a matter of one-way traffic: the literary work is claimed to reproduce ‘pre-existing sententia in terms of pre-existing symbols’ (p 276), but it is never considered that the literary work might expand, comment on, or question the sententia or the symbols. [BM] 1004 Rowland, Beryl. ‘Dryden Refurbishes Chaucer’s Barnyard.’ Archiv 217 (1980), 349–55. Dryden omits lawriol, ellebor, and gaitrys beryis (NPT VII.2963–5) from the list of Pertelote’s purgative herbs because he knew that they were either dangerous or useless as medicines. He favours verisimilitude over satire, for in NPT Pertelote’s dangerous and useless drugs are ‘evidently intended . . . as a further illustration of the way in which mulier was hominis confusio’ (p 354). [BM] 1005 Spackman, Anna. Geoffrey Chaucer: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. York Notes. Beirut: York Press, 1980; London: Longman, 1980. Part 1 (pp 5–13) of this introduction for students discusses Chaucer’s life and historical background. Part 2 (pp 15–54) opens with a general summary of NPT, followed by detailed summaries divided into sections, with notes and word-lists. Part 3, ‘Commentary’ (pp55–78), discusses sources, characterization and content, and style. Possible sources and analogues are described; but it is Chaucer’s ‘adaptations and additions which create a new and unique

278 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

1006

1007

1008

1009

version of a traditional story’ (p 59). The account of characterization emphasizes Chaucer’s skill in combining the avian and human aspects of Pertelote and Chauntecleer. NPT’s use of rhetorical devices is ‘in part, a literary joke,’ perpetrated in a spirit of ‘affectionate playfulness’ (p 75) rather than for the purpose of satirizing rhetoric. At the end of NPT the decision about what is ‘fruyt’ and what ‘chaf’ is left to the reader. [BM] Baird, Lorrayne Y. ‘Priapus Gallinaceus: The Role of the Cock in Fertility and Eroticism in Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages.’ SIcon 7–8 (1981–2), 81–111. As a fertility symbol, the cock was sometimes incorporated into Christian iconography: the ‘fertility values . . . were quite in keeping with the command in Genesis 1:22 - Crescite, et multiplicamini - which, in turn, was allegorized into a command to increase in spiritual fruit’ (pp 81–2). The cock could also be symbol of the preacher - ‘As praedicator, or preacher, he guards his flock, uncovers for them the grani puri (kernels of truth), awakens them from spiritual sloth and slumber, announces to them the coming of Christ’ (p 97) - and a symbol of Christ. The last issue is pursued in 1022, for which this study (though it makes no reference to NPT) is an essential prolegomenon. [BM] Coleman, Janet. English Literature in History, 1350–1400: Medieval Readers and Writers. London: Hutchinson; New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. In the fourteenth century, theological issues became available to an audience wider than professional theologians. NPT VII.3234–51 illustrate the spread of the free will versus determinism controversy; there is discussion of the theology of Holcot and Bradwardine. [BM] Dello Buono, Carmen Joseph, ed. Rare Early Essays on Geoffrey Chaucer. Darby, PA: Norwood Editions, 1981. Includes Frank Jewett Maher, Introduction to his The Prologue from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, 1899, which includes commentary on the description of Chauntecleer (pp 148–9). [BM] Diekstra, Frans. ‘The Language of Equivocation: Some Chaucerian Techniques.’ DQR 11 (1981), 267–77. Although Chauntecleer presents himself as a dedicated student of dream psychology, NPT VII.3151–6 reduce his ‘pretensions to the size of the child that does not take its cod-liver oil’ (p 268). The joke in NPT VII.3162–6 cleverly combines the courtly-love and the antifeminist. The plethora of answers to the question of who is to blame for Chauntecleer’s downfall shows how Chaucer builds ‘a large superstructure on a very tiny basis’ and so ‘can freely and as it were irresponsibly explore a variety of contingent issues which give the poem its chaotic hilariousness and its pseudo-philosophical perspective’ (p 274). [BM]

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 279

1010 Knight, Stephen. ‘Form, Content and Context in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ In Studies in Chaucer. Ed. G.A. Wilkes and A.P. Riemer. Sydney Studies in English. Sydney: Department of English, University of Sydney, 1981. Pp 64– 85. Critics who read NPT as a serious moral tale usually ignore its form and style; those who pay attention to its witty and parodic form and style usually overlook its meaning. In the first part of NPT (VII.2821–3186), the widow’s simple lifestyle provides a potential moral contrast to the extravagance of Chauntecleer’s world, but as the mock-heroic mode develops, we are not entirely sure about the direction of the poem’s ironies. In the first part of NPT, the ironies are enacted in the descriptions and in the speeches. A change occurs in the second part of NPT, for now we are very much aware of the narrator’s voice, as the ironies are created primarily by means of his intrusive comments. But the narrator proves unreliable and ‘nervously self-conscious’ (p 76); his comments ‘build up the accretion of sombre inappropriateness that creates the effect of a farmyard being weighed down with weighty moralizing’ (p 76). The result is a split between the narrative and the narrator’s commentary; and the commentary becomes the butt of the irony. In the pursuit scene (NPT VII.3375–3401) the narrative becomes dominant, overriding the brief succeeding ‘sentence’ (NPT VII.3402–4). At the end we are invited ‘to see the windy intellectualizing as chaff and to accept the simple orals of the cock and fox as fruitful’ (p 82). For all its stylistic flourishes and wit, NPT finally embraces the value of ‘humble simplicity’ (p 84), making it a secular equivalent of ParsT and Ret. [BM] 1011 Payne, F. Anne. Chaucer and Menippean Satire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981. Menippean satire can be differentiated from other kinds in that it ‘questions . . . not deviations from an ideal standard, but the possibility of ideal standards’ (p 5). The genre ‘reminds us continually mof the presence of alternatives . . . the uncertainty of any final answers’ (p 11). Ch 6, pp 159–80, on NPT, emphasizes the ways the views of Augustine, Boethius, and Bradwardine on foreknowledge and free will are satirized. The satire in NPT produces ‘an insistenceon life’s cacophony, on the independent existence of events and matter which simply elude all consistent theoretical explanations’ (p 179). Ch 7, pp 181–206, qualifies the account in Ch 6. In the usual Menippean satire, as in Lucian, under the satirical violence ‘there is kindness and a sense of joy in the brilliant potential of the human mind’ (p 202). In satiric vein, the Nun’s Priest alludes to the ways in which man neutralizes or evades the thought of death - by medicine and science, philosophy, the perception of beauty, ideals of heroism. The fox symbolizes another kind of death: the death of the mind, particularly that death which results from the imposition of control by means

280 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

of language (whether this be the flattering words of a fox or the mastering Dame Philosophy). Within NPT, Chauntecleer finally triumphs over the fox, but in the outer frame it is the Nun’s Priest’s audience which is the potential victim. His satiric thrusts, though we laugh at and with them, are ultimately destructive; they all lead to nothingness. This beguilingly attractive voice is really the voice of a devil, who has demonstrated that ‘all creative human effort is meaningless’ (p 204). The Nun’s Priest refers not to ‘our lord’ but to ‘my lord’ (NPT VII.3445), ‘the devil’s address to his master, Satan’ (p 205). •Review by Russell A. Peck, SAC 5 (1983), 187, welcomed this as ‘an important book’; other reviewers praised the theoretical work on Menippean satire and much of the analysis of the Consolation. The application of the tradition to Chaucer’s works was not so warmly received, especially the account of NPT. •Review by Cecily Clark, ES 64 (1983), 189, argued that the discussion of NPT ‘shows the relentlessly doctrinaire approach ending, as all too often, by “making earnest of game,”’ and David Staines, SN 55 (1983), 207, described it as ‘an original and unconvincing interpretation.’ [BM] 1012 Pearsall, D.A. ‘Chaucer and the Modern Reader: A Question of Approach.’ DQR 11 (1981), 258–66. A consideration of some critical evaluations of Chaucer, including the approaches of New Criticism and Robertsonian exegesis. The relativistic approaches of some schools of criticism are questioned: while admitting the problem of relativity, there is some higher principle of criticism in Chaucer, which was fascinated by the way in which what we read becomes what we are, and how what we are shapes what we read. By exploding the genre of beast-fable, NPT compels us to question our ways of perception, and to see the way language, especially in its heightened form as rhetoric, both mediates our sense of reality and defends us against it. See also 1002. [BM] 1013 Rollinson, Philip. Classical Theories of Allegory and Christian Culture. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press; London: Harvester, 1981. Many attempts to interpret medieval and renaissance texts allegorically have been based on incomplete understandings of classical, medieval, and Renaissance theories of interpretation. Allegorical interpretation must consider both meaning and the way meaning is expressed. The Roberstonian school of allegorical interpretation is meaning-orientated (and approaches texts with an expectation of a particular kind of meaning); the other aspect of allegorical interpretation, allegory as ‘expression of content or means of conveying it’ (p x), is largely ignored. But it is also ignored by those who attack that school. Donaldson 866 rejects Donovan’s interpretation 843 of the ‘poor widow as the Church, the fox as the Devil, and Chauntecleer as the alert Christian or priest’ (p x), describing it as allegorical; but his own content-based interpre-

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 281

1014

1015

1016

1017

tation of Chauntecleer as an Everyman figure is logically just as allegorical. [BM] Schauber, Ellen, and Ellen Spolsky. ‘Stalking a Generative Poetics.’ NLH 12 (1981), 397–413. A model for a generative poetics, with interrelated systems of linguistic, communicative, and literary competence. Each system has ‘well-formedness’ and ‘preference’ rules (p 401). A ‘well-formedness rule’ dictates: ‘Every text is read according to the genre which governs its interpretation’ (p 401). At the level of literary competence, preference rules allow, e.g., stronger interpretations to be chosen over weaker ones. NPT appears to belong to the beastfable genre, but is told in the rhetorical style which belongs to the epic genre. The moral appropriate to the beast-fable genre is comically at odds with the level of language: ‘Preferring one genre determination over another would result in a weak interpretation, but transforming the data to a new genre . . . which subsumes both, namely mock-heroic, will resolve the conflict by providing a strong and satisfying interpretation’ (p 411). [BM] Allen, Judson Boyce. The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle Ages: A Decorum of Convenient Distinction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982. NPT VII.3211–13 are mentioned briefly (pp 256–7) within a wider discussion of the kinds of distinctions the medieval mind made between fact and fiction, history and fable, and so on. Chaucer’s ironies are complex, but at one level the text means that both beast fable and romance are false. Yet in other contexts medieval commentators blur our clear-cut distinctions between fact and fiction, history and fable. Texts are valued for their ethical significance: a ‘fact’ may be disbelieved, or not credited, because it has no ethical value; a ‘fiction’ may be regarded as true precisely because of its ethical value. [BM] Clark, George. ‘Chaucer’s Third and Fourth of May.’ RUO 52 (1982), 257–65. Lunaria or ‘moon-books’ generally present the third day of a lunar month, NPT VII.3187–90, as unpropitious. [BM] Frese, Dolores Warwick. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale: Chaucer’s Identified Master Piece?’ ChauR 16 (1982), 330–43. One function of the witty use of personal names in NPT may be to alert the reader to the presence of Chaucer’s own name within the text. The names of the widow’s dogs involve some ‘hyper-rhetorical spoofing’ (p 334): ‘Colle’ perhaps alludes to the rhetorician Mino da Colle; ‘Talbot’ to the aristocratic Talbot family whose coat of arms bore the emblem of hunting dogs and who shared this heraldic insignia with the Colleville family; ‘Gerland’ to the rhetorician John of Garland. The allusion to Geoffrey of Vinsauf and his lament for Richard I, while satirical, may also be self-referential, an allusion to Geoffrey Chaucer and his king Richard II. The embedding of authors’ names in texts by means of anagrams has a long tradition: it was used by Chaucer’s contempo-

282 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

raries Jean Froissart and Guillaume de Machaut. It is interesting that the one name which Chaucer retained from his sources is Chauntecleer: ‘by supplying “Ge” for “Geffrey” . . . the name CHAUnteCleER engenders the epithet “(ge)ntele Chaucer”’ (p 336). This anagrammatic signature suggests that ‘Chaucer is . . . pointing to himself in some specialized way as author and endorser of the wit and wisdom’ (p 335) of NPT. Frese finally offers the tentative suggestion that ‘Pertelote’ encodes ‘the name of Chaucer’s own wife, P[hillipa] Roet’ (p 338). [BM] 1018 Pearsall, D.A. ‘Postscript: Changing Perceptives.’ In Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition. New Pelican Guide to English Literature 1, part 1. Rev edn. Ed. Boris Ford. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982. Pp 97– 102. In this postscript to Speirs’s survey in the 1st edition, Pearsall notes the contribution of New Criticism to the study of medieval literature, especially Muscatine 857, where, in his finest work (e.g., his analyses of MerT and NPT), he opened up ‘completely new horizons in the understanding of a poet who was seen as deeply serious, deeply committed to a vision of life in which the contingent and transcendental, the ridiculous and the sublime, the human and the non-human, warred irreconcilably but could be harmonized momentarily in the artifice of style’ (p 98). [BM] 1019 Taylor, P.B. ‘Chaucer’s Cosyn to the Dede.’ Spec 57 (1982), 315–27. CT offers various points of view ‘without overt advocacy of any linguistic theory’ (p 318), so that it is difficult to tell if Chaucer supports the nominalist or realist view of language. However, ‘nominalist views on language are found more often in comic and satiric contexts than in serious ones, and considerations of linguistic realism occur in serious contexts’ (p 3 –18). Certainly, Chaucer shows that words can misconstrue truth, and that the ideal of ‘linguistic realism in which intent informs deeds through the ministry of words’ (p 325) is often ‘sullied by the practice of the real world’ (p 325): ‘Chauntecleer’s song is as diverted from nature by his lust and his sloth . . . as his rendering of a Latin epigram is diverted from truth’ (p 325). Yet Chaucer finally affirms linguistic realism: ‘His echo of Saint Paul in “al that is writen is writen for oure doctrine” is an expression of confidence in words that are ordered in an attempt to communicate a moral truth’ (p 327). [BM] 1020 Wentersdorf, Karl P. ‘Symbol and Meaning in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ NMS 26 (1982), 29–46. Many iconographical details highlight Chauntecleer’s ‘venereal inclinations’ and ‘uxoriousness’ (p 31): the reference to Friday (NPT VII.3341), the day ‘dominated by the fickle goddess Venus’ (p 31); the 3 May date (NPT VII.3187– 90); the reference to Taurus (NPT VII.3194); the flowers and singing birds (NPT VII.3201–2); the mermaid (NPT VII.3270); the butterfly (NPT VII.3274);

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 283

and Chauntecleer’s musical skill (NPT VII.3293–4). While some of these potentially possess both favourable and unfavourable meanings, in NPT they are exclusively pejorative, serving ‘to underscore the literal references to Chauntecleer’s lasciviousness’ (p 38). Their effect is to emphasize the role of lechery in bringing Chauntecleer to the verge of disaster. Since the crowing cock was a traditional symbol for a preaching cleric, the satirical portrait of Chauntecleer may be a reflection of the Monk, who is similarly associated with indulgent sensuality. The moralitas of NPT ‘may well be directed primarily against sensuality, especially the scandal of clerical immorality’ (p 42). [BM] 1021 Zanoni, Mary-Louise. ‘Divine Order and Human Freedom in Chaucer’s Poetry and Philosophical Tradition.’ DAI 42 (1982), 5115A. Cornell University Dissertation, 1982. NPT’s presentation of the themes of free will and determinism is complex because of the subtleties of the Nun’s Priest’s characterization and the tale’s relation to the framework narrative. In contrast to orthodox scholastic insistence upon the cooperation of divine foreknowledge and human free will, however, the Nun’s Priest’s determinism is revealed as an erroneous position which undermines his reliability as a preacher. [BM] 1022 Baird, Lorrayne Y. ‘Christus Gallinaceus: a Chaucerian Enigma; or The Cock as Symbol of Christ in the Middle Ages.’ SIcon 9 (1983), 19–30. The cock had various symbolic roles and divine connections in pagan cults, some of which were adapted to Christian iconography, where it appears as symbol of victory and of vigilance. The Nativity, Peter’s Denial, and the Resurrection were said to have occurred at cock-crow and the cock, like Christ, was associated with the sun. Eventually the gallus-deus became associated with Christ. The association appears in hymns and in Christian art: Baird describes a MS with ‘at top left an illumination of Judas Hanged, disembowelling himself with a knife. At the bas-de-page right is a small sketch of a cock threatened by a fox. Like Chaucer, the illuminator probably viewed the fox as a type of Judas (the “newe Scariot”) and the cock . . . as a type of Christ’ (p 24). The association persisted in popular tradition - eg, the miracle story of the resurrected cock - but was suppressed in learned tradition because of the cock’s erotic and phallic associations. The popular tradition also persisted in language: ‘the word “cock” was often used, especially in blasphemous oaths, as a euphemism for “God” as Christ’ (p 26). In the traditions on which Chaucer drew ‘there is ample precedent for his Christus gallinaceus - this soteric cock enigmatically and grotesquely fused with that vainglorious priapic barnyard champion [Chauntecleer]’ (p 26). [BM] 1023 Brewer, Derek. ‘Arithmetic and the Mentality of Chaucer.’ In Boitani and Torti 681. Pp 155–64. Rpt as ‘Chaucer and Arithmetic.’ In Medieval Studies Con-

284 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

ference: Aachen 1983. Bamberger Beiträge zur englischen Sprachwissenschaft 15. Ed. Wolf-Dietrich Bald and Horst Weinstock. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 1984. Pp 111–19. Chaucer’s interest in arithmetic is an aspect of his mentality which has been almost totally overlooked. One association is with astronomy, references to which occur throughout CT: eg, the expert astronomical knowledge (NPT VII.2855–7) that enables Chauntecleer to know precisely when to crow. Although this example is ‘a joke,’ it is nevertheless ‘significant of how widely cast are the astronomical references, how deeply they are set in the texture of the poems, and how arithmetical they are’ (p 159). [BM] 1024 Flavin, Louise. ‘The Similar Dramatic Function of Prophetic Dreams: Eve’s Dream Compared to Chauntecleer’s.’ MiltonQ 17 (1983), 132–8. There are similarities between Chaucer’s use of dreams in NPT and Milton’s in Paradise Lost; it is possible that Milton was influenced by NPT. Chauntecleer and Eve have prophetic dreams, and both ignore their import. These decisions make them both vulnerable; indeed both succumb to the temptation of flattery. Moreover, Chauntecleer and Adam have similar weaknesses: Chauntecleer ignores the import of his dream when he responds with passion to Pertelote’s beauty; Adam’s judgement in fully assessing the import of Eve’s dream is blurred by his love for her. Adam’s words to Raphael (Book 8, 546–50) about Eve’s ‘loveliness’ echo Chauntecleer’s words on Pertelote’s ‘beautee’ (NPT VII.3160–71). [BM] 1025 Knapp, Robert S. ‘Penance, Irony, and Chaucer’s Retraction.’ In Assays: Critical Approaches to Medieval and Renaissance Texts. 2 vols. Ed. Peggy A. Knapp. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983. 2: 45–68. Some of the pilgrims, including the Nun’s Priest, practise irony; as readers we are often uncertain about the direction of the text’s ironies. Confronting a challenge like the Nun’s Priest’s, hunting for fruit in the chicken yard seems altogether too earnest, yet to ignore tropological and anagogical resonances in Chauntecleer’s escape from the fox is to allow ourselves ‘to be victimized by a game of letters’ (p 59). [BM] 1026 Ames, Ruth M. ‘Corn and Shrimps: Chaucer’s Mockery of Religious Controversy.’ In The Late Middle Ages. Ed. Peter Cocozzella. Acta 8 (1984 for 1981). The Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton. Pp 71–88. Chaucer associated with both Lollards and anti-Lollards, for the issues that separated them were not as sharply divisive as is often argued. In his poetry, theological arguments tend to come from characters such as the Host and the Shipman who are hardly sophisticated disputants. The allusions to the debate about clerical celibacy in MkP and NPT endlink come from the Host, and are reduced to burlesque. The subject of predestination, while not specifi-

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 285

cally associated with Lollardy, was hotly disputed in the schools, but in TC and NPT the issue is treated comically. [BM] 1027 ––. God’s Plenty: Chaucer’s Christian Humanism. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1984. Chaucer’s writings give us a picture of ‘an enlightened fourteenth-century gentleman who held dogma without being dogmatic, of a moral artist whose milieu was ironic humor, of a Catholic who did not find the justification of faith easy, but who believed that God so loved the world’ (p 2). In MkP and NPT endlink, Chaucer appears to be mocking the controversy about clerical celibacy: although he does not make his own view clear, ‘surely if he had favored a married clergy, he could have found a more respectable spokesman than the Host’ (p 39). The Nun’s Priest ‘grumbles at his dependence’ on the Prioress, ‘but is a little afraid of her’ (p 51): he ‘takes revenge . . . with a deliberate mistranslation of a Latin phrase’ (p 51). He is knowledgeable, and there are no criticisms of his morality, but compared with the ideal Parson he is a mediocre priest: in the same place the Parson ‘would have rebuked the head of the convent herself for her fine clothes and pet dogs’ (pp 51–2). Ch 8, ‘The Problem of Evil,’ pp 227–52, mentions NPT in the context of disputes about free will and determinism, disputes which were often presented in a parodic spirit. This is the tone of NPT, for while the Nun’s Priest is ‘a moderate determinist’ (p 242), his tale shows that it was Chauntecleer’s susceptibility to flattery rather than destiny which caused his misfortune: ‘In its humorous way, the tale expresses the ordinary man’s unphilosophical acceptance of the inexplicable working of destiny, according to which, necessity or not, a man is responsible for his deeds’ (p 243). [BM] 1028 Andreas, James R. ‘The Rhetoric of Chaucerian Comedy: The Aristotelian Legacy.’ Comparatist 8 (1984), 56–66. A study of the characters, themes, and rhetorical devices in CT in the light of the Aristotelian theory of comedy from which some medieval works were derived. The Tractatus Coislinianus (first century B.C.) deals with the therapeutic or cathartic effect of festive comedy. NPT performs just such a function after the tragic heaviness of MkT: it is a joyful comedy which ‘like Pertelote’s powerful cathartic, will purge “both colere and malencolye”’ (p 66). NPT therefore fits the ‘growing consensus of the pilgrims’ that the function of the pilgrimage is ‘to evoke the spirit of “game,” “pleye,” “joye,” “solas,” . . . all properties associated with the risus paschalis, the paschal laughter that combines Christian joy and hope with the ancient patterns of festive release’ (p 66). [BM] 1029 Boitani, Piero, and Anna Torti, ed. Medieval and Pseudo-Medieval Literature: The J.A.W. Bennett Memorial Lectures, Perugia, 1982–1983. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1984; Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1984. Contains Mehl 529 and Pearsall 1035.

286 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

1030 Delasanta, Rodney K. ‘Pilgrims in the Blean.’ ChauN 6 (1984), 1–2. NPT VII.3411 is one of a number of instances in Chaucer where a forest or wood has the symbolic significance of ‘an impedimental setting to spiritual fulfillment’ (p 2). [BM] 1031 Eade, J.C. The Forgotten Sky: A Guide to Astrology in English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984. Parts 1 and 2 explain pre-Newtonian astronomy and astrology in detail. Part 3 (pp 100–221) discusses literary texts from the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries that contain complex references to astronomy and astrology. NPT VII.3187–99 are discussed on pp 134–7. Chauntecleer’s accuracy is confirmed by Nicholas of Lynn’s Kalendarium 504. North’s claim 928 that in 1392 the eighth hour of Friday belonged to Venus is rejected: it in fact belonged to Saturn. Following North’s suggestion that the year referred to is 1392, Eade draws up a horoscope for the date, concluding that astrology plays no important part in NPT; in ‘the unfolding of the narrative it is solely the sun and the ascensions that claim attention’ (p 137). . •Review by G.L’E. Turner, MÆ 50 (1986), 137–8.‘A useful addition to the reference shelf’ (p 138), although the index is inadequate. The ‘sleuthing’ in the section dealing with the literary texts is well explained. [BM, PG] 1032 Galván-Reula, J.F. ‘The Modernity of the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale”: Narrator, Theme and Ending.’ Lore&L 10 (1984), 63–9. Modern literary theorists often draw a distinction ‘between the genres of the past, defined by a firm set of rules, and the modern genres, which are unstable’ (p 63). Yet those features which point to the instability of modern genres - a non-fixed narrator rather than an omniscient narrator; thematic ambiguity; an open ending - are also evident in ‘classical’ works of the past. NPT begins with the persona of Chaucer the pilgrim, shifts to the Nun’s Priest, gives the speeches of Pertelote and Chauntecleer (whose long monologue in NPT VII.2970–3171 includes speeches of characters within his story), includes the Nun’s Priest’s denial of responsibility for his own words (VII.3265– 6) and confession of possible unreliability (VII.2880–1). Critical responses to NPT reveal a plethora of possible themes: ‘a mock-heroic poem, a study of dreams, a reflection of the antifeminist current of the age, a game with rhetorics, a parody of courtly love’ (p 67) and many others. The conclusion to NPT is ambiguous and open-ended. [BM] 1033 Gillmeister, Heiner. Chaucer’s Conversion: Allegorical Thought in Medieval Literature. Aspekte der englischen Geistes- und Kulturgeschichte 2. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1984. A development of 949. In a sermon, Wyclif named the reporter ‘colstanus,’ a possible version of ‘colchestanus.’ Pearsall 180 p 65 describes the speculations of 949 as ‘preposterous.’ [BM] 1034 Minnis, A.J. Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 287

in the Later Middle Ages. London: Scolar, 1984. 2nd edn Aldershot: Wildwood House; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. Commentary of specific relevance to NPT is a reworking of material in 511. [BM] 1035 Pearsall, Derek. ‘Epidemic Irony in Modern Approaches to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.’ In Boitani and Torti 1029. Pp 79–90. Chaucerian criticism is suffering from an epidemic of supposed irony. The reading of some critics of the dramatic school of the Nun’s Priest’s ‘I kan noon harm of no womman divyne’ (NPT VII.3266) as a hurried disclaimer in response to the Prioress’s reaction to his comments about women is relatively harmless ‘fantasizing.’ (See eg, Owen 845, Lumiansky 560, Broes 563 and Besserman 366.) It is more culpable when, to support such a reading, the verb divyne is made an adjective, ‘vowed to religion,’ a meaning which it has never had. The extreme is when all the words in the line are explicated for possible multiple meanings, and when these are located in multiple syntactic structures: ‘A greater misconception of the way poetic language - indeed language itself - works one could hardly imagine’ (p 80). Pearsall also casts scorn on the ingenious attempts to explain the confusion about the number of pilgrims by the ‘indubitably scribal’ (p 81) ‘and preestes thre’ of GP I.164. The epidemic may in part be explained by the development of New Criticism, and in part by the unprecedented expansion in the professional study of literature. Irony rests on ‘a community of shared values’ (p 84), on an agreement between author and reader: it does not involve imposing external ideologies into the text. To make matters more complex, there is in many of Chaucer’s asides and throughout NPT ‘a “de-stabilising” irony’ (p 89). This is a kind of irony which ‘makes us unsure that we have really got the point, disturbs our equanimity, makes us determine to work harder to catch up with this elusive writer whose tongue is never far from his cheek’ (p 89). [BM] 1036 Pettitt, Thomas. ‘“Here Comes I, Jack Straw:” English Folk Drama and Social Revolt.’ Folklore 95 (1984), 3–20. A study of the use of the language of festival in incidents of social revolt. In his late sixteenth-century Anatomie of Abuses, Stubbes describes how the Lords of Misrule at festival time gathered bands of companions to guard them, and provided them with ‘liueries’: he describes these bands of liveried men as ‘rowtes.’ After the 381 Peasants’ Revolt, some of the leaders were accused of forming similar bands of liveried men, and in a Scarborough record these bands are described as ‘rowtes.’ The reference to ‘Jakke Straw and his meynee’ (NPT VII.3394) is probably ‘to be taken as referring to this festival organization of the Lord with his retinue of liveried followers’ (p10) rather than to the kind of ‘subversive secret society’ suggested by Simms 655. [BM]

288 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

1037 Shaw, Judith Davis. ‘Lust and Lore In Gower and Chaucer.’ ChauR 19 (1984), 110–22. Whereas Gower trusts to the wisdom and books of the past as moral correctives, in CT there is a loss of moral certainty, and doubts about the moral value of edifying tales and art in general, because of the characters’ eagerness ‘to mold authority to [their] own ends’ (p 113). The extreme example of this is the Nun’s Priest’s ‘Taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille’ (NPT VII.3443), which ‘is a challenge to the game rather than an invitation to discover sound doctrine. Far from being transcendent, truth here has become a needle in a haystack’ (p 113). [BM] 1038 Werthamer, Cynthia C. Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Barron’s Educational Series. New York: Barron’s, 1984. A guide to CT aimed at upper level secondary students. A section on NPT (pp 81–95) summarizes the plot and surveys the standard critical issues. Alternative readings are offered for consideration, but the commentary implies a didactic reading: Chauntecleer’s ‘sins of pride and self-satisfaction are solved by self-knowledge’, and the widow’s ‘way of life provides a hint of ideal human, Christian behavior that leads to self-restraint and contentment’ (p 91). [BM] 1039 Johnson, Lynn Staley. ‘“To Make In Some Comedye”: Chauntecleer, Son Of Troy.’ ChauR 19 (1985), 225–44. Although NPT should be interpreted within the context of CT, it also illuminates Troilus and Criseyde. Pertelote and Criseyde share certain traits characteristic of Eve. There are three references to the fall of Troy in NPT, forming the sequence of Andromache’s dream of Hector’s death, Sinon’s treachery, and the killing of Priam, a sequence which would have suggested to Chaucer’s audience the blindness and irrationality that led to the fall of Troy. Chauntecleer and Troilus are similar characters: both are servants of Venus, both are inspired by the experience of love to assume a martial air, and both have bad dreams, to which both give a fatalistic credence. For much of the tale, Chauntecleer is a true son of Troy, shying away from the lesson of the dream and feeling that there is little he can do to avert his fate. Yet whereas Troilus’s end is tragic, NPT is a comedy. Although Chauntecleer’s final vantage point in the tree recalls Troilus’s vision of the earth from the eighth sphere, Chauntecleer has escaped death (and his tragic destiny) by the exercise of his wits, and has learned from his experience. The tale suggests that comedy, unlike tragedy, traces a movement away from the dominion of Fortune and her wheel. [PG] 1040 Travis, Peter W. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale as Grammar-School Primer.’ SAC 1 (1985), 81–91. NPT contains many references to the grammar-school arts of the trivium and

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 289

its most basic texts: Aesop’s fables and Cato’s distichs. NPT would also have served as a potent reminder of school debates, in particular the sophismata, where no determination is expected and where students argue on either side of almost any issue. Two of the major early techniques of literary education, the progymnastic exercises and grammar, are recollected and parodied in NPT. The progymnasmata progressed from one category of rhetoric to another and the exercises produced a ‘crazy quilt’ (p 87) of styles, genres and modes similar to the reader’s experience of NPT. Grammar itself brought together the allied activities of learning the rules of Latin and studying literature. A major work of literature was expected to include a number of grammatical cruces. NPT asks a number of questions central to the study of grammar: the nature of language itself, the nature of literary language, and the nature of literary interpretation. [PG] 1041 Chamberlain, David. ‘Musical Signs and Symbols in Chaucer: Convention and Originality.’ In Hermann and Burke 671. Pp 43–80. A study of Chaucer’s use of conventional and original musical signs and symbols. Boethius distinguishes between modesta and lascivia music, one rational and serving Philosophy, the other irrational and serving Fortune. In NPT VII.329–3, the ‘musyk’ of ‘Boece’ alludes to the true music, but ironically signals that Chauntecleer’s music is all ‘feelynge’ (VII.3293) and lascivia. Scriptural tradition distinguishes music which serves the Lord from that which serves the appetites. The description of Chauntecleer’s voice as ‘murier than the murie orgon / On messe-dayes that in the chirche gon’ (VII.2851–2) suggests the ideal; the erotic song he and Pertelote sing (VII.2877–9) shows their distance from that ideal. Chaucer’s most original and elaborate combination of musical signs is in VII.3267–3321. The fox’s references to the ‘aungel’ (VII.3292), ‘Boece’ (VII.3294), and ‘seinte charitee’ (VII.3320) are used as flattery, but are signs of the ideal which Chauntecleer eschews. The reference to ‘mermayde’ song (VII.3270) highlights Chauntecleer’s folly, as does the fox’s flattering reference to Chauntecleer’s father (VII.3301–11) - an ironic allusion to Adam, the father of all men, who trusted feeling rather than reason. The reference to the cock in ‘Daun Burnel the Asse’ (VII.3312) is ironic: in that tale the cock ‘did not sing when he should have sung, and Chauntecleer ought to follow his example by not singing’ (p 70). There is more subtle irony in that the cock in ‘Daun Burnel’ plays ‘the role of a cantor of the Mass’ (p 70): this is part of a pattern of signs suggesting that NPT ‘is an allegory about the clergy’ (p 70). [BM] 1042 Harwood, Britton J. ‘Signs and/as Origin: Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Style 20 (1986), 189–202. Rpt. Chaucer: the Canterbury Tales. Ed. Steve Ellis, London and New York: Longman, 1998. Pp. 209–24. The story of the cock and the fox exemplifies the unreliable and paradoxical

290 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

relationship of signs to their referents. The sequence of events - singing with eyes closed, then a self-defeating prophecy - is common to four of the versions of the story of the cock and the fox including NPT, but Chaucer’s distinctive contribution is to see that these two events are essentially the same. When the cock sings with his eyes shut, whatever he is referring to has disappeared; on the other hand, because the word ‘cock’ passes through the fox’s throat, the thing it signifies does not. A similar point can be seen in Chaucer’s alteration to the plot of his sources elsewhere in the text. Because it is the cock, not the hen, who argues that his dream is prophetic of his death, his eventual fearlessness must be brought about by something other than the nature of his arguments about dreams. A way of explaining this may lie in the tendency of language to conceal the very thing it tries to explain. ‘The differences that make meaning possible begin with the discrepancy between objective exteriority and the word. Both designating and constituting an origin that has always already disappeared, the word, or trace, synthesizes an irreducible heterogeneity’ (p 195). Chauntecleer’s attempt to describe the fox of his dream in words serves only to dispossess him of the fox itself. [PG] 1043 Reiss, Edmund. ‘Chaucer’s Fiction and Linguistic Self-Consciousness in the Late Middle Ages.’ In Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction. Ed. Leigh A. Arathoon. Rochester, MI: Solaris, 1986. Pp 97–119. By including an allusion to Bradwardine, the Nun’s Priest ensures that the issue of man’s free will will be placed in the context of God’s absolute power. Although the Nun’s Priest disproves the Monk’s assertion that there is no remedy for man’s fall, does the happy ending call up the Redemption, offered by the Crucifixion, and disprove Bradwardine’s view that man cannot effect anything himself? It is easier to affirm the need to separate ‘fruyt’ from ‘chaf’ than to demonstrate which is which. The final three lines of the tale suggest that it is only God who can make man good and save him. The ‘Lord’ referred to in ‘As seith my lord’ (NPT VII.3445) could refer back to Bradwardine, a reading supported by the Ellesmere MS marginal note identifying the ‘lord’ with ‘Dominus archipiscopus Cantuariensis.’ It is actually Fortune who is responsible for Chauntecleer’s escape, viewed by Bradwardine as an expression of God’s will. The providential order, which has been denied in MkT, is here asserted. [PG] 1044 Spearing, A.C. ‘The Canterbury Tales IV: Exemplum and Fable.’ In Boitani and Mann 692. Pp 159–77. NPT is a parody of exemplary tragedy. Although the sermon exemplum type of story is appropriate for a priest, the beast fable of NPT becomes a mock exemplum as well as a mock tragedy. Chauntecleer’s first two exempla are typical of the genre: unnamed characters, detailed description, building the narrative towards a predetermined, perhaps divinely ordained, climax. The conclusions of the exempla are quite contrary to Chauntecleer’s original

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 291

purpose in telling them. The multiplicity and contradictions of allegorical interpretations of NPT tell against them. [PG] 1045 Travis, Peter W. ‘Learning to Behold the Fox: Poetics and Epistemology in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ In Poetry and Epistemology: Turning Points in the History of Poetic Knowledge. Ed. Roland Hagenbuchle and Laura Akandera. Regensburg: Pustet, 1986. Pp 30–45. One of the things that makes NPT so resistant to literary interpretation is that it is ‘pure parody, and nothing else’ (p 30). It offers not only a mock summation of western literature, including a mock summation of Chaucer’s own literary works, but also a parody of grammar school literary exercises (see Travis 1051). [PG] 1046 Dor, Juliette. ‘Reversals in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’. In Multiple Worlds, Multiple Words: Essays in Honour of Irène Simon. Ed. Hena Maes-Jelinek, Pierre Michel and Paulette Michel-Michot. Liège: English Department, University of Liège, 1987. Pp 69–77. Chauntecleer stands before the female world of NPT as a male lover before a court of love. Although he is first portrayed as the perfect lover, we later see that this is not his true nature and is only a mask. NPT charts a series of changes and reversals between these two extremes. This same kind of ambivalence can be found as well in the characterization of Pertelote and in the narrator himself. [PG] 1046a Jordan, Robert M. Chaucer’s Poetics and the Modern Reader. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1987. The Nun’s Priest is a shadowy figure, and his tale is a ‘farrago of voices’ (p 136), amply demonstrating key aspects of his poetics in which ‘the principle of encyclopaedic inclusiveness overrides considerations of inner, organic cohesion’ (p 137). The presence of rhetoric is nowhere more overt in Chaucer’s work than in NPT. The rhetorical overkill of Chauntecleer’s response to Pertelote’s advice about dreams is followed by the exemplum of the two men and the dung cart, delivered in ‘the unostentatious, almost neutral voice Chaucer reserves for telling stories’ (p 140). The conclusion of the story is followed by a righteous commentary ‘delivered in the voice of pulpit oratory’ (p 141). Chauntecleer’s personality is ‘fragmented among the colliding discourses that Chaucer attributes to him’ (p 142). The proliferation and opposition of narrative voices ‘inevitably depreciates depth of illusion in favor of brilliance of surface’ (p 142) and ‘the text is conspicuously surface-oriented’ (p 147). [PG] 1047 Manning, Stephen. ‘Fabular Jangling and Poetic Vision in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ South Atlantic Review 52 (1987), 3–16. NPT is one of Chaucer’s ‘busiest tales’ (p 3), distinguished by constant verbal activity and ‘jangling’ from all of the characters, from the narrator, and

292 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

from the poet himself. This jangling often confuses understanding of the true nature of things. The narrator differs most markedly from the poet in the question of the tale’s meaning. The narrator takes seriously the search for meaning in the fable, but his provision of so many possible morals at the tale’s end shows that he too is part of the poet’s burlesque. The real significance of the tale is in the manner of its telling. Chaucer not only laughs at the characters and the narrator, but at his own jangling as a poet. [PG] 1048 Hieatt, Constance B. ‘The Dreams of Troilus, Criseyde, and Chauntecleer: Chaucer’s Manipulation of the Categories of Macrobius Et Al.’ English Studies in Canada 14 (1988), 400–14. Almost all dreams in literature before Chaucer are predictive and prophetic, i.e., somnium coeleste. In Chaucer, however, most statements about dreams seem to suggest that they are more likely to be somnium animale, dreams with psychological causes. Before the truth of Chauntecleer’s dream is demonstrated, the argument between the psychological and the divine origin of dreams is carefully balanced. [PG] 1049 Peters, F.J.J. ‘Chaucer’s Time in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ SN 60 (1988), 167–70. Most critics reject the phrase ‘syn March bigan’ (NPT VII.3190), (in all major editions except Riverside which has ‘syn March was gon’), because it appears to conflict with the previous few lines, which say that the month of March has already passed. The normal dating of the events of NPT is, thus, the end of March plus thirty-two days, giving 3 May, a date significant for being the day on which Palamon escapes in KnT. An alternative explanation, which allows ‘syn March bigan’ to stand, is to calculate the date in relation to the frame-story of the pilgrimage. If thirty-two days are calculated from 18 March, the date traditionally associated with the creation of man, we have 19 April, placing the telling of NPT on the day after the reference to 18 April in Man of Law’s Prologue (II, 5–6). [PG] 1050 Suhamy, Henri. ‘Sagesse mondaine et conscience religieuse dans The Nonnes Preestes Tales [sic].’ Mythes, Croyances et Religions dans le Monde AngloSaxon 6 (1988), 117–23. There are two original and unexpected contributions by Chaucer to the story of the cock and the fox: the story is recounted by a priest and it contains a long discussion of the prophetic nature of dreams. The religious dimension of the tale is neither superficial nor at odds with other kinds of wisdom. Chauntecleer in fact displays piety when he takes seriously the warning in the dream. Christians have good reason to fear death; there is no moral incompatibility between saving one’s life and saving one’s soul. Intelligence is a Christian virtue and wickedness is a near relation of foolishness. Chauntecleer is saved because he learns from his mistakes. The Nun’s Priest

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 293

does not preach contemptus mundi; on the contrary he celebrates the world as the work of a divine artisan. [PG] 1051 Travis, Peter W. ‘Chaucer’s Trivial Fox Chase and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.’ JMRS 18 (1988), 195–220. NPT foregrounds in a parodic way the basics of medieval linguistic and literary education. Many medieval commentators glossed the opening chapter of Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae, the most revered grammar of the Middle Ages, in which four classes of vox are distinguished, from noises not resolvable into distinct phonetic units to articulate speech and literary language. Chaucer prefers to follow the ‘art of linguistic regression, following words, lexemes and phonemes backwards into the realm of sounds that ultimately have no apparent meaning’ (p 201). Chaucer compresses many grammatical concerns into the pursuit of the fox in NPT. The passage contains all of Priscian’s categories of vox and also parodies the widespread use medieval logicians made of the phrase homo currit. The intrusion of the Peasants’ Revolt into the fox chase, reminding us that peasants were axiomatically equated with animals in the Middle Ages, reinforces the confusion of human and animal sound. [PG] 1052 Scanlon, Larry. ‘The Authority of Fable: Allegory and Irony in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Exemplaria 1 (1989), 43–68. Rpt. in Critical Essays on Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Thomas C. Stillinger. New York and London: G.K. Hall, 1998. Pp. 173–94. Since the 1950s, NPT has been viewed, not just as the quintessential Chaucerian text, but as the tale which focusses the question: should Chaucer be read allegorically or ironically? Yet, whatever the answer, both views have shared the assumptions that the terms are mutually exclusive and that allegory must be univocal. In fact, allegory and irony in the tale are closely connected, as deconstructive accounts of allegory in general, such as Paul De Man’s ‘The Rhetoric of Temporality,’ point out. In De Man’s view, allegory and irony are both signs which refer to previous signs: ‘irony subverts an anterior sign by subverting it . . . allegory reiterates an anterior sign, but only by acknowledging the temporal distance separating the two’ (p 44). NPT is a story about the ‘authority of utterance’ (p 55), an authority for the most part embodied in patriarchal and monarchical form in Chauntecleer, but subjected to two assaults, by Pertelote and by the fox. [PG] 1053 Strohm, Paul. Social Chaucer. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1989. An interpretation of Chaucer’s work in the context of late medieval social relations. The reference to the Peasants’ Revolt at NPT VII.3394–6 shows Chaucer’s ability to deal with charged political events in ways that prevent the audience drawing conclusions about his intentions. NPT is the most consciously ‘aesthetic’ of Chaucer’s works, creating a ‘literary supersatura-

294 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

tion’ (p 165) that serves to detach historical references from their social implications. ‘Chaucer’s reference evokes the rising reassuringly, in a way that lessens its risk’ (p 165). The historicity of NPT is formal rather than allusional, in its ‘socially charged assumption that diverse levels of argumentative style . . . can inhabit the same literary space’ (p 166). [PG] 1054 Ganim, John M. ‘Chaucer and the Noise of the People.’ Exemplaria 2 (1990), 71–88. Recent studies of Chaucer’s politics have given us a Chaucer more deeply involved in fourteenth-century political and religious controversy than was formerly supposed. Ganim focuses on four passages in Chaucer’s work that draw an ‘analogy . . . between social disruption and what might be stylistically identified as popular voices, and which result in narrative crises of one sort or another’ (pp 71–2). The reference to the Peasants’ Revolt in NPT associates revolt with pure noise in an ironic, even festive way, and the scene may be analogous to the ‘Dionysian parade of the Roman de Fauvel or the ritual of charivari’ (p 77). Chauntecleer’s script for the fox - ‘Turneth agayn, ye proude cherles alle! / A verray pestilence upon yow falle!’ (NPT VII.3409–10) - conflates the Revolt with the Black Death, the two great social cataclysms of fourteenth-century England. Furthermore, the apocalyptic simile for the rough music of the farmyard chase - ‘It semed as that the hevene sholde falle’ (NPT VII.3401) - links this barnyard revolution to the ‘terrifying apocalyptic appeals of the anarchic peasant rebellions’ (p 79) chronicled in Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millennium. [PG] 1055 Benson, C. David. ‘Chaucer as Revolutionary.’ In Selected Essays. International Conference on Representing Revolution, 1989. Ed. John Micheal [sic] Crafton. Carrollton: West Georgia College International Conference, 1991. Pp 10–20. Chaucer was living in London during the Peasants’ Revolt, ‘possibly the most threatening and radical popular uprising’ (p 10) in England’s history, in the employ of John of Gaunt, whose Savoy palace was destroyed by the mob. Yet Chaucer says almost nothing about the Revolt itself or the social conditions that produced it. Peasants in Chaucer’s poetry are usually either ‘stereotypes of venality’ (p 12), like the Reeve, or ‘sentimental genre portraits,’ such as the widow at the beginning of NPT. Chaucer’s sole reference to the Revolt, the comparison of the noise of the chase to ‘Jakke Straw and his meynee’ (NPT VII.3394), has the effect of turning the Revolt into farce. Chaucer’s true revolutionary force is as a writer, in the transformation of English literature. [PG] 1056 Mann, Jill. Geoffrey Chaucer. Feminist Readings. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1991. The relationship between Chauntecleer and Pertelote is the most original and

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 295

witty dramatization in CT of traditional gender roles within the context of marriage. The gulf between animal and human acts to remind us of the cultural constructedness of many forms of ‘natural’ behaviour: the chickens thrust masculine and feminine stereotypes upon each other. The ‘bland coexistence of the Latin tag [Mulier est hominis confusio] and its contradictory English gloss is rather a comic reflection of the comfortable cohabitation of such polarised views of women in conventional male ideology’ (pp 190–1). When Chauntecleer takes alarm at the sight of his natural enemy the fox, all the lengthy argument about dreams and predestination is rendered superfluous and, by implication, ‘the theories that blame women for the disasters that befall men’ (p 192). [PG] 1057 Kordecki, Lesley. ‘Let Me “telle yow what I mente”: The Glossa Ordinaria and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Exemplaria 4 (1992), 365–85. Medieval literature was influenced by the Glossa ordinaria and other exegetical commentaries, not only in terms of content, but in terms of form as well, in the ‘dichotomous arrangement’ (p 365), visible on the page, of text and accompanying interpretive glosses or commentary. Dante’s Vita Nuova is an obvious example. This practice encourages the reader to look for a text’s meaning in pluralistic terms, in the dialectical interaction of text, commentary and reader. Taken as a whole, ‘the Glossa denies closure and enhances indeterminancy’ (p 376). In NPT, Chaucer produces both narrative and interpretation simultaneously. Particular glossing procedures in NPT take several forms: the provision of global morals, interpretations taken from other versions of the story, references to other texts. [PG] 1058 Pizzorno, Patrizia Grimaldi. ‘Chauntecleer’s Bad Latin.’ Exemplaria 4 (1992), 387–409. NPT, MkT and SNT ‘form a trilogy united by the common themes of marriage and sexuality, and the decline of the Church’ (p 387). Whereas MkT presents a bleak picture of the influence of women on men, NPT ‘proves that concupiscence does not necessarily bring man to ruin and that the intelligent man can avoid tragedy’ (p 388). A feature of the Nun’s Priest’s ‘sermon’ is its linguistic dexterity, in particular its use of the Latin etymological tradition, epitomized in the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville. Isidore employed the form of etymological derivation known as composita, based on the theory that names are compounded of both Greek and Latin elements. Thus, for example, Chauntecleer’s rendition of confusio (NPT VII.3164) as ‘joye and all his blyss’ (NPT VII.3166) is not a mistranslation, but a parodic etymologica composita, derived from con (OF ‘woman’s genitalia’) and foison (OF ‘extreme abundance’). [PG] 1059 Astell, Ann W. ‘The Peasants’ Revolt: Cock-crow in Gower and Chaucer.’

296 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Essays in Medieval Studies: Proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association 10 (1993), 53–64. Although both Chaucer and Gower responded to the tumultuous events of the Peasants’ Revolt in the linked forms of beast-fable and dream-vision, NPT and Vox clamantis have never been systematically compared, despite their marked structural similarities and their use of the cock as an image of the poet. Both works discuss the prophetic nature of dreams. In Gower’s dream of the revolt, he sees criminals who have been transformed into dog-like, ravening foxes, and he employs a series of classical allusions and similes to describe the events. Gower stresses the link between ‘political misfortune and personal and collective wrongdoing,’ whereas Chaucer stresses ‘the correlative principle that fortune helps those who help themselves’ (p 57). Gower’s vision concludes with a celestial voice commanding him to write down what he has seen, and the voice falls silent with the crowing of the cock. Chantecleer, on the other hand, decides eventually to deny the truth of his vision and to forget what he has seen. [PG] 1060 Trigg, Stephanie. ‘Singing Clearly: Chaucer, Dryden, and a Rooster’s Discourse.’ Exemplaria 5 (1993), 365–86. NPT is widely regarded as Chaucer’s masterpiece, sometimes because its narrator seems to speak with Chaucer’s own voice, despite the fact that the endlink contains a portrait of the Prioress’s chaplain at variance with the ‘ironic, amused, and sexually passive’ (p 369) voice that we usually assume to be Chaucer’s signature. In his translations of Chaucer, Dryden understands this Chaucerian voice in a different way. His praise for Chaucer is balanced with a criticism of his rhetorical excess and linguistic deficiencies. Dryden removes the three tales he translates from the frame narrative of the Canterbury pilgrimage, and Chaucer’s authorial voice ‘is effectively scattered and silenced in the body of Dryden’s text’ (p 375). The narrative voice of ‘The Cock and the Fox’ is ‘correspondingly more straightforward - and less benign - than in Chaucer’s version’ (p 375). He places sexuality more firmly in the foreground of the narrative and draws a stronger link between Chauntecleer’s sexual prowess and his authority as husband. At the tale’s end, Dryden makes mild irony of its protestations to plainness, ‘but there is little other indication of the tortuous closure of Chaucer’s tale’ (p 378). [PG] 1061 Brown, Peter. Chaucer at Work: the Making of the Canterbury Tales. London and New York: Longman, 1994. An introduction to CT, aimed at undergraduates and senior school students, with discussion points and select bibliography. Chapter 8, pp 164–77, deals with NPT, and includes an extended comparison of Chaucer’s text and Geoffrey de Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova and a discussion of the moral of the tale. Chaucer’s texts support a wide range of meanings, and Chaucer has a ‘preference for debate at the expense of resolution’ (p 164). [PG]

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 297

Fehrenbacher, Richard W. ‘“A Yeerd Enclosed Al Aboute”: Literature and History in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.” ChauR 29 (1994), 134–48. The scant attention paid to the mention of Jakke Straw in NPT VII.3794–6 can be explained by the ahistorical bent of much modern Chaucer criticism. Although the tale itself, however, seeks to escape the historical by ‘seeking refuge in the realm of the literary’ (p 135) - a movement paralleled in the evolving narrative of CT as a whole, away from social criticism of the early tales towards the final Christian affirmation of the last - ‘the specter of Jack Straw and his meynee muscling their way into the text demonstrates how such attempts fail, and how history, attempt to contain it as one might, cannot be entirely banished from literature.’ (p 135) [PG] 1062a McAlpine, Monica E. ‘The Triumph of Fiction in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ In Art and Context in Late Medieval English Narrative: Essays in Honor of Robert orth Frank, Jr. Ed. Robert R. Edwards, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994. Pp. 79–92. The possibilities for meaning in NPT have been organized around two poles: what Pearsall in the Variorum Chaucer calls the ‘interpretative’ studies of allegorizers and moralizers such as Robertson; and the non-interpretative evaluation of readers who stress the tale’s mock-heroic satire and destruction of the possibilities of significant interpretation such as Donaldson and Muscatine. Although the tale is satirical, it foregrounds seriously the inescapability of interpretation, ‘a complex, dialectical, and open-ended process . . . [that] can involve significant consequences’ (p 82). The human drive to interpret is both ridiculed and validated in NPT, sophistication beyond the normal run of animal fable. The text does not present an allegory of the Fall but is a ‘poetic equivalent’ (p 87) of theological texts that explain the nature of inherited human sinfulness. The narratorial commentary of the Nun’s Priest is another aspect of Chaucer’s thematising of interpretation, and the narration is double-voiced, as has been noted by others such as Lenaghan 564. [PG] 1063 Boitani, Piero. ‘“My Tale is of a Cock” or, The Problems of Literal Interpretation’, in Literature and Religion in the Later Middle Ages. Philological Studies in Honor of Siegfried Wenzel. Ed. Richard G. Newhauser and John A. Alford. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, vol 118. Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1995. Pp 25–42. Deals with the problems of interpretation and literary exegesis in general, especially those which arise out of a conflict between literal and figurative readings of a text, and, in particular, with the complex ironies and layers of meaning of several passages of NPT. ‘Chaucer, in sum, freely accepts the letter as literature, without excluding the morality ... the Nun’s Priest makes us turn away from non-literal exegesis while inviting us to pursue it.’ (p 41) [PG]

1062

298 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

1064 Chapin, Arthur. ‘Morality Ovidized: Sententiousness and the Aphoristic Moment in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ Yale Journal of Criticism 8 (1995), 7–33. Aphorisms have shaped modern consciousness and, since the Renaissance, have been an important catalyst in the convergence of philosophical and literary ways of understanding the world. In its anti-philosophical philosophizing, the aphorist’s art resembles that of Menippean satire, which tests philosophical statements by putting them in situations where they can appear silly or naive. NPT works in a similar way, carnival-like grounding sententious statements in fabliau situations, comically humiliating rhetoric by ‘reducing it to a kind of broken knowledge or aphoristic scatter’ (p. 8). MkT and NPT resemble each other in their lack of a clear moral, but whereas this reflects the ‘toneless apathy’ (p. 14) of the former, in the latter this lack of a clear moral shows how the exemplum has taken on an ‘Ovidian life’ (p. 14) of its own. Although readers are asked three times to search for the fruit of the tale, we ‘discover that the proffered fruit, like an onion, is all integument. Peeling it leaves us with either nothing . . . or an excellent view of clear blue sky’ (p 20). [PG] 1065 Furr, Grover C. ‘Nominalism in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale: A Preliminary Study.’ In Literary Nominalism and the Theory of Rereading Late Medieval Texts: A New Research Paradigm. Ed. Richard J. Utz. Medieval Studies, vol 5. Lewiston, NY; Queenston, Ontario; Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 1995. Pp 135-46. The discussion of free will and determinism by Pertelote and Chauntecleer, the comments of the Nun’s Priest as narrator, including the mention of Thomas Bradwardine, famous for his attack on nominalist philosophers, and the likely allusion to the Commentary on Wisdom, the work of the radical nominalist Robert Holcot, in the animal fable itself (see Pratt 497), show the important influence of nominalist philosophy on Chaucer. Whereas Chauntecleer’s interpretation of his dream is strongly determinist, Pertelote’s views are those of ‘the barnyard equivalent of a fully-fledged nominalist’ (p 141). The Nun’s Priest himself basically comes down on the side of determinism, although the ‘fideism’ of the ending is not entirely unambiguous. In its juxtaposition of a naturalistic style and allegorical ending, NPT provides a literary parallel to the Ockhamist separation of reason and faith. [PG] 1066 Kempton, Daniel. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Festive Doctrine: “al that writen is . . .”’ Assays: Critical Approaches to Medieval and Renaissance Texts 8 (1995), 101–18. The ‘graniform’ model of the literary text, a kernel of truth contained within a shell of lies, with its implication that words may legitimately be used but not enjoyed for their own sake, is the product of an aesthetics of transcendence derived ultimately from St Augustine. From the beginning of NPT, there is a profusion of wise sayings and authoritative doctrines, but they are not har-

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 299

monized, and the ending of the tale contains not one moral but several. What the reader learns from this is not a single doctrinal point; rather, the nonlesson of the tale demonstrates that ‘meaning is not an abstract and stable thing pre-existing (waiting) within the narrative fiction, but something that depends crucially for its formation upon the individual exegete’ (p 107). The Nun’s Priest undermines all authority: even the verse from St Paul himself is misapplied. There are several ‘falls’ in the narrative—Chauntecleer, the Fox, even the Peasants who murder the Flemings will get their come-uppance soon, but none of the falls are tragic. Instead the act of falling itself becomes comic, and is transformed into a feast of language. [PG] 1067 Walker, Lewis. ‘Chaucer in Shakespeare: the Case of The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and Troilus and Cressida.’ The Upstart Crow 15 (1995), 48–60. Most discussions of Shakespeare’s indebtedness to Chaucer have focused on Troilus and Criseyde, but there are important similarities between Shakespeare’s play and NPT. There are three allusions to the Trojan War in NPT. The context of Chauntecleer’s refusal to heed Andromache’s prophetic interpretation of the dream acts as a device of deflation, a trope that is commonly used in Shakespeare’s play. Chauntecleer’s volte-face - ‘to stynte al this’ (VII.3157) - is embedded in Shakespeare’s Trojan council scene, and is especially relevant to the character of Hector. Having won the argument, Hector abandons his case and reverses his position. Chauntecleer’s yard can point to an image of the walled city of Troy, and the fox that breaks into it is compared explicitly to Sinon. The Prologue to Troilus and Cressida, like the voice of the Nun’s Priest in NPT, sustains a tension between high and low styles. [PG] 1068 Thomson, Peter. ‘From Chanticlere to Richard Tarlton: the Cockerel and the Histriones.’ In European Medieval Drama, 1996: Papers from the First International Conference on Aspects of European Medieval Drama, Camerino, 28–30 June 1996. Ed.Sydney Higgins, Camerino: Università degli Studi di Camerino, 1996. Pp. 35–44. There are several allusions in NPT to the physical realities of the performance of medieval plays. The narrative proper begins with Chauntecleer’s descent to the platea of the yard from the locus of the perch. The fox enters the performance space in a very different way: ‘without visibly entering, the fox is suddenly there; like an actor concealed until then among the audience’ (p 37). Chauntecleer’s improvisation in order to escape death recalls Arlecchino. [PG] 1069 Whateley, Edward. ‘Commentary Displacing Text: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the Scholastic Fable Tradition.’ Studies in the Age of Chaucer 18 (1996), 119– 41. NPT is not a random mixture of school rhetorical exercises but ‘a fully ex-

300 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

ploited curricular fable whose unique structure … resembles a fourteenthcentury model for the presentation of fable in the classroom’ (p 121). Scholastic commentaries on Aesop are the most important of these sources. In the Middle Ages, the fable was taught according to the rhetoric of Quintilian and the grammar of Priscian, who recommended progymnasmata, the exercise of memorizing or paraphrasing fable in abbreviated or lengthened versions. Aesop’s fables (and those attributed to him) acquired extensive scholastic commentaries as well. In these, commentary often displaces the text of the fables themselves, and in some manuscripts and books the commentary actually precedes the text. There is often in these commentaries a progression from plot summary to interpretation to fable itself, which strikingly resembles the order of the material in NPT. The use of tales to explicate other tales is common in the scholastic setting. Two-part, mutually exclusive interpretations, such as Chauntecleer and Pertelote’s interpretation of the dream, are found in numerous fable manuscripts and early books. The use of auctoritates, although satirical, was not uncommon in fourteenth and fifteenth-century fable commentaries. When the fable eventually arrives, the multitude of morals displace each other. [PG] 1070 Hum, Sue. ‘Knowledge, Belief, and Lack of Agency: the Dreams of Geoffrey, Troilus, Criseyde, and Chauntecleer.’ Style 31 (1997), 500–22. The dominant medieval paradigm of knowledge emphasizes a passive, humble, and receptive human mind. Knowledge is not a process of uncovering new possibilities for truth, but permits a prior Truth to reign supreme by suppressing conflict and dissent. The barnyard of NPT shows a world in which Chauntecleer’s authoritative knowledge, reinforced by his position in the social and sexual hierarchy, is challenged by Pertelote’s experience and common sense. Chauntecleer demonstrates the difficulty of transforming external knowledge into internal belief. Ultimately, Chauntecleer is saved by the manner in which individual experience augments textual authority, and he is able to learn from an alarming and perilous experience. [PG] 1071 Marino, John B. ‘A Beastly Origin: Journeys from the ‘Oxes Stalle’ in Chaucer’s Poetry.’ Essays in Medieval Studies 13 (1997), 121-–9. Spiritual bondage, often associated with beastliness, is a condition of the life of fallen humanity. The pilgrimage to Canterbury, which can be read as an allegory of the soul’s attempt to escape the confines of the flesh, begins at an inn and stables, and the pilgrimages in NPT and ClT also begin at an ox’s stall. There are interesting verbal parallels between the two Chaucer tales. [PG] 1072 Narkiss, Doron. ‘The Fox, the Cock, and the Priest: Chaucer’s Escape from Fable.’ ChauR 32 (1997), 46–63. Classical fable is an authoritarian form. In CT, Chaucer turns fable into a

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 301

‘fabular tale’ (p 46), a longer form with greater literary possibilities. The features that NPT contains but which are not found in traditional fable include characterization, greater tension in the main action, subsidiary action, and closure ‘other than by a re-positing of the power structure as it was at the beginning’(p 54). Substitution is central to fable––the ability of a fictional story to illustrate a general truth––and repetition can also form part of the mechanism of substitution. NPT contains a multiplicity of fables, but this negates the traditional persuasive function of fable and questions the validity of the moral. Chaucer’s use of the fable foregrounds ‘interchangeability, a propensity for doubling, repetition and substitutions … that opens the fable to interpretation …The fable changes from an authoritative rhetorical form into a form of dialogue between text and audience’ (60). [PG] 1073 Travis, Peter W. ‘Chaucer’s Heliotropes and the Poetics of Metaphor.’ Speculum 72 (1997), 399–427. The origins of many discussions about metaphor can be traced to debates about aesthetics in the Middle Ages, and are well illustrated in the ‘marguerite’ poetry that developed in France from the 1360s to the 1380s. The elaborate use of rhetorical colours in the description of Chauntecleer illustrates several important features of metaphor. First, Chauntecleer’s very ‘chickenness’ (see Boone 835) shows how metaphor ‘draws toward the materiality of its referent’ (p 417). Second, the extravagance of Chauntecleer’s chickenyard, its fabulousness and otherness, ‘exemplifies metaphor’s liminal position wherein the proper and the figural, the domestic and the alien … contend for priority of linguistic place’ (p 417). Third, the manner of Chauntecleer’s description recontextualizes the longlasting debate concerning the superiority or inferiority of the colours of nature to the colours of art. Fourth, Chauntecleer’s ‘narcissistic self-assurance is preeminently a celebration of poetry’s luminescent and self-generating beauty’ (p 417). Fifth, Chauntecleer’s name is cryptogrammatic, and Chaucer has inscribed in it both the notion of singing clearly, the art of great literature, and also his own name (see also Frese 1017). The sixth characteristic of metaphor is Chauntecleer’s affinity with the sun. The final and most important quality of metaphor that Chauntecleer illustrates derives from his humanity, recalling the idea of metaphor as the linking of opposites that underlies ancient theory from Aristotle to Augustine: ‘as a living metaphor, a feathered cluster of compressed analogies, Chauntecleer is a category mistake writ large’ (p 420). [PG] 1074 Warner, Lawrence. ‘Woman is Man’s Babylon: Chaucer’s “Nembrot” and the Tyranny of Enclosure in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ ChauR 32 (1997), 82–107. Chaucer’s sole mention of Nimrod occurs in The Former Age. The medieval view of primeval history connected tyranny, gigantism and transgressive

302 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

sexuality, and Nimrod became the ‘archetypal transgressor sanctioned bonds, both sexual and civic’ (p 85). Much of this is derived from Augustine’s reading of the story of Nimrod, which makes him a giant (not just a strong) hunter against (not before) the Lord. The Tower of Babel, created against the Lord, creates a ‘metaphorics of tyranny that comprises not only governmental oppression but also illicit movement or frustrated penetration, which Genesis had already emphasized in the account of Lot and the men of Sodom’ (p 86). Nimrod’s tyranny became associated with the sodomitical pursuit of ‘delit,’ and the Glossa Ordinaria describes Nimrod’s sin in strongly sexual terms, as wishing to penetrate [voluit penetrare] heaven beyond nature [ultra naturam]. NPT offers, by contrast, a celebration, at least in animal form, of Chauntecleer’s pleasure in sexual ‘delit.’ But Chauntecleer also identifies ‘woman’ as the strongest threat to the barnyard’s masculine, and tyrannical, royal world. The central term confusio, uniformly glossed ‘ruin’ gains its force from its etymological connection with the story of Babel. The Peasants Revolt re-enacts the episode of Babel: the masses go beyond reason, acting and speaking like beasts, and seek to transgress their state of bondage. The English Bible of Wyclif was akin to Pentecost, correcting the effects of Babel. [PG] 1075 Ashton, Gail. Chaucer: the Canterbury Tales. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1998. A practical approach to analyzing the text of CT, aimed at students and general readers. Extensive passages from NPT are used as examples and as topics for analysis. Pertelote’s speech to Chauntecleer analyzing his dream (VII.2908–66) shows the development of a distinct voice. She rambles and repeats herself. Her diction mixes learned and down to earth terms and emphasises the mundane against the fanciful. The entry of the fox into the yard (VII.3215–62) demonstrates a variety of mock-heroic techniques. Despite the Nun’s Priest’s allusion to a hidden moral, his tale remains inconclusive. Lines VII.3157–85 show Chauntecleer as the courtly lover, but the inflated language is undercut by words that remind us that he is also a simple farmyard animal. Sex and love are not separated in the lives of the chickens as they might be in the courtly romance tradition. [PG] 1076 Thomas, Paul R. ‘‘Have ye no mannes herte?’: Chauntecleer as Cock-Man in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.’ In 722c Masculinities in Chaucer. NPT presents a view of masculinity different from any of the other CT. Chauntecleer is ‘supernumerary to the real business of the widow’s household, an unproductive, book-reading, dream-debating lover’ (p 187). He asserts his authority as scholar and interpreter of dreams in order to redress the damage done to his male ego from being called a fearful coward by his wife. In response, Chauntecleer invokes the bookish male world of auctorites. See also 548b. [PG] 1077 Travis, Peter W. ‘Reading Chaucer Ab Ovo: Mock-Exemplum in the Nun’s

Nun’s Priest’s Tale / 303

Priest’s Tale.’ In The Performance of Middle English Culture: Essays on Chaucer and the Drama in Honor of Martin Stevens. Ed. James J. Paxson, Lawrence M. Clopper, Sylvia Tomasch. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998. Pp. 161-81. The commonest approach to the description of the widow at the beginning of NPT has been to see it as an exemplum: of temperance, fortitude, humility, chastity among other virtues. In some readings the widow’s portrait is a visual sign or icon; in others a form of moral injunction. These correspond to the two ways in which Aristotle understood the exemplum to operate. The portrait is, however, a ‘pseudo-quasi-mock-exemplum’ (p 168) ; not a parody of the exemplum itself, but a parody of ‘the generic expectations of a readerly sensibility too intent on finding unitary truth in any piece of literature it reads’ (p 168). Many of the spiritual and moral ideals of the portrait are undercut by context or by the form of words used. For example, the detail of the widow’s attitude to rich foods - ‘hir neded never a deel’ (VII.3631) - could mean either that rich foods did not appeal to her or that, in the narrator’s opinion, she did not deserve them. The widow’s primary virtue is good health, not patience, humility or neighbourly love. [PG] 1078 Alcázar, Jorge. ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale y sus Fuentes a la luz de la sátira menipea.’ Acta Poetica 21 (2000), 197–216. According to Anne Payne 1011, Menippean satire has two characteristics: its dialogical form and the use of textual parody. Bakhtin also points out that the form often opposes different ideological standpoints and embodies these differences in the disputes between characters. Pertelote’s comments on Chauntecleer’s dream, for example, represent the point of view of practical experience. The foundation of NPT is a parody of various philosophical discourses about predestination and the freedom of the individual will. Another of the tensions found throughout CT is that between worldly impulses and the transcendent obligations of religion. The encounter with the fox takes place on a day on which Venus dominates astrologically. Another fundamental opposition is that between the Nun’s Priest and the Parson on the nature of truth and fiction. [PG]

b Index The numbers in this index all refer to individual numbered works in the bibliography, not to page numbers. Numbers in boldface indicate authorship or editorship or translation. Absolon (MilT) 622 academic prologues 511 acedia/accidia 575, 592, 769 Ackerman, Robert W. 888 Adam 55, 60, 80, 121, 124, 165, 175, 248, 253, 254, 282, 288, 295, 422, 441, 443, 592, 628, 634, 703, 728, 735, 737, 738, 758, 761, 848, 882, 887, 889, 903, 931, 984, 1024, 1041 Adams, George R. (with Bernard S. Levy) 889, 903, 1002 (H)Adrian, St. 351, 356 Aers, David 690, 753 Aesop 36, 684, 1069 Aesop’s Fables 187, 815, 988, 1040 aesthetics 871, 905, 917, 1053, 1066 Aiken, Pauline 436, 443 Akandera, Laura 1045 Alanus de Insulis 854 Albertus Magnus 450, 497, 863 Alcázar, Jorge 1078 Alcuin, Versus ad Gallo 520, 525 Aldemar 390 Alderson, William L. 451 Aldine (edition) 2, 4, 5, 56, 80 Alexander the Great 80, 124, 441, 614, 630, 749 Alexandrine 260

Alford, John A. 1063 Alfred the Great 434 Alison (MilT) 550, 622 All England (MSS) group 260 allegory 116, 143, 145, 180, 184, 203, 412, 479, 541, 543, 547, 579, 626, 632, 638, 670, 684, 717, 720, 722, 795, 843, 867, 871, 875, 882, 883, 888, 901, 903, 915, 926, 959, 984, 988, 998, 1002, 1003, 1006, 1013, 1033, 1041, 1044, 1051, 1066 Allen, David G. 711 Allen, Judson Boyce 480, 719, 722, 940, 1015 (with Theresa Anne Moritz) 670 Allen, Mark 244 Alphabetum Narrationum 544 Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Secundi philosophi 411, 466 Ambrus, Victor G. 179 Ames, Ruth M. 1026, 1027 anagram 1017 anal-eroticism 775 Anatomie of Abuses 1036 ‘and preestes thre’ 258, 551, 558, 599, 632, 673, 839, 1035 Anderson, Anne 47, 65 Anderson, George K. 838 Anderson, Howard 904

Index / 305

Anderson, J.J. 637, 951 Anderson, Judith H. 941 Andreas, James R. 1028 Andromache 485, 1039 Anglo-French 426 animals 815, 878, 921, 935, 936, 945, 951, 960, 1056 anticlericalism 522, 550 antifeminism 55, 145, 366, 464, 466, 527, 560, 566, 568, 573, 606, 641, 644, 662, 779, 802, 832, 839, 845, 857, 905, 927, 944, 954, 959, 983, 993, 1009, 1032, 1056 Antiochus 441, 735, 761 antiphrasis 585 apes 960 aphorisms 1064 Apostle’s Creed 738 apostrophe 369, 420, 444, 447, 481, 488, 604, 611, 882, 934, 987 Aquinas, St. Thomas 738 (see also Thomism) Arcite (KnT) 628 Ariosto 389a Aristotle/Aristotelian 435, 511, 532, 598, 718, 725, 863 Poetics 975 Arlecchino 1–68 Arno, Enrico 140 Arnoldus de Villa Nova 840 art(s) 461, 463, 476, 860, 930, 967 Arthur(ian) 535, 873 ‘as wys God helpe me’ 866 Asa Baker’s Dream 508 Ashton, Gail 1075 Ashworth, C.V. 992 Astell, Ann 718, 721, 777, 778g, 1059 astrology 939, 968, 1031, 1078 astronomy 73, 126, 413, 709, 788,

819, 928, 1023, 1031 Auden, W.H. 108 Augustine, St. 407, 430, 592, 758, 776, 856, 882, 978, 986, 1002, 1011, 1066 De Doctrina Christiana 876 authority 455, 458, 512, 526, 539, 606, 669, 690, 714, 786, 814, 946, 975, 986, 1052, 1066 authorship 658, 829, 1034 Ayala 733 Babcock, R.W. 428 Babe 547 Babel 1074 Bacon, Roger, De retardatione accidentum senectutis 460 Bailly, Harry (see Host) Bailly, Henry 322 Baird (-Lange), Lorrayne, Y. 194, 236, 237, 245, 372, 1006, 1022 Baker, Donald C. 7, 174, 175, 271, 278, 287 Bakhtin, Mikhail 713, 1078 Bald, Wolf-Dietrich 1023 Baldini, Attilio 153 Baldwin, Charles Sears 432, 803, 806, 812 Baldwin, Ralph 850 Bamburgh, William Cushing 23 Bannantyne MS 389a Barber, Marjorie 126 Barckley, Sir Richard 528 Barholomeus, Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum 722h Barisone, Ermanno 148 Barking Abbey 558 Barney, Stephen A. 373, 674, 748 Barnouw, A.J. 53, 79, 150, 612 Baron, F. Xavier 750 Bartholomaeus Anglicus 187, 840, 854, 863, 886

306 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Bates, Katherine Lee 39 Bateson, F.W. 212, 235 Bauer, Gero 354 Baugh, Albert C. 134, 228, 430, 834, 841, 895 Baum, Paull F. 343, 344, 624 bawdy 232 Bazire, Joyce 638 Beach, Barbara 226 Beacham, Walton 242 Beadle, Richard 173 beast epic 129, 145, 390, 471, 488, 490, 501, 518, 632, 863, 883, 952 beast fable 69, 248, 390, 396, 453, 493, 501, 509, 514, 569, 584, 635, 650, 669, 682, 689, 693, 696, 779, 818, 834, 885, 904, 910, 926, 936, 942, 1012, 1014, 1015, 1044, 1058 Beastliness 1071 beauty 847 Beck, Richard J. 872 bee 793 Beichner, Paul E. 987 Beidler, Peter G. 722b Bell’s Poets of Great Britain (1782) 2 Bell’s edition (1854–6) 4 Belshazzar 55, 441, 443, 735, 761 Benedictine Rule 949 Benedictines 337 Benham, Allen Rogers 784 Benjámin, László 127 Bennett, H.S. 807, 822, 833 Bennett, J.A.W. 519, 621, 672, 681, 857, 1029 Benson, C. David 691, 1055 Benson, Larry D. 184, 279, 347, 354, 674 Benson, Robert G. 666 Bensusan, S.L. 793 Bergner, Heinz 178, 952

Berkelman, Robert G. 804 Bernabò (Visconti) 8, 85, 111, 203, 219, 264, 417, 422, 441, 601, 614, 647, 684, 728, 730, 731, 735, 740, 752, 753, 759, 778c, 778j Berndt, David E. 575, 769 Bertrand du Guesclin 724 Besserman, Lawrence 246, 366, 1035 Best, Thomas W. 520 Bestiary 514, 543 Bestul, Thomas H. 542 Bethel, J.P. 530 Bethurum, Dorothy 113, 866 Bible/Biblical 10, 19, 246, 448, 458 Birch, P.M. (with J.C. Bright) 910 birds 379, 796, 854, 1020 Birney, Earle 613, 614, 828 Bishop, Ian 699, 756, 986 Black Book of St. Augustine 323 Black Death 1054 Black Prince 684, 701 Blake, N.F. 175, 180, 184, 273, 277, 280, 281, 282, 284, 288, 295, 303, 305c, 306, 367, 375, 490, 682 Blamires, Alcuin 700 Blanch, Robert J. (with Julian N.Wasserman) 698 Blean forest 175, 1030 blocks, see groups Bloom, Harold 989 Bloomfield, Morton W. 348, 651, 674,987 Boas, F. 309 Boas, Guy 66 Boccaccio, Giovanni 10, 19, 74, 240, 307, 315, 385, 393, 406, 412, 422, 424, 428, 534, 587, 612, 623, 642, 661, 693, 728, 765, 812, 855

Index / 307

De Casibus Virorum Illustrium 8, 15, 325, 417, 421, 423, 430, 431, 437, 441, 443, 453, 494, 495, 510, 519, 521, 522, 622, 626, 675, 678, 682, 717, 722h, 725, 769, 778c, 778k, 778m De Claris Mulieribus 52, 417, 421, 441, 494, 495, 522, 622 De Genealogia Deorum 307 Decameron 412 , 523, 675, 772d, 778m, 818 body language 666 Boenig, Robert 548e, 778 Boethius 15, 71, 393, 430, 434, 440, 442, 465, 510, 547a, 548b, 562, 581, 582, 592, 616, 628, 640, 652, 656, 667, 686, 689, 699, 711, 713, 714, 718, 737, 739, 746, 747, 769, 778k, 888, 932, 986, 1011, 1041 Consolation of Philosophy 52, 407, 415, 427, 437, 438, 482, 491, 510, 515, 535, 548, 582, 747, 771, 978, 1011 De Musica 440, 442, 467, 483, 1041 Boitani, Piero 494, 507, 521, 540, 675, 680, 760, 1063 (with Anna Torti) 681, 1029 (with Jill Mann) 692 Bolingbroke, Henry 795 Bolton, W.F. 983 Bomhard, Allan R. 377 Bond, Richmond P. 425, 429 Book, Fredrik 74 Boone, Lalia Phipps 835, 1073 Bordeaux, André 368 Bornstein, Diane 491 Boswell, Jackson Campbell (with Sylvia Wallace Holton) 546

Böttcher, Waltraud 178 Botterill, Steven 537 Boulger, James D. 962 Boussat, Robert 454 Bowden, Betsy 184, 188 Bowden, Muriel 630 Bowers Bege K. 210, 230 Boweyer, John W. 429 Boyd, Beverley 302, 899, 984 Boys, Richard C. 439 Braddy, Haldeen 727, 732, 736, 908 Bradshaw, Henry 278 Bradshaw Shift 7, 32, 42, 88, 116, 149, 165, 250, 266, 270, 274, 278, 285, 287, 289 Bradwardyn/Bradwardine, Thomas 369, 407, 819, 853, 919, 978, 986, 1007, 1011, 1043, 1065 De Causa Dei 515, 856 Sermo Epinicius 515 Braeger, Peter C. 772 Bressie, Ramona 553 Brétigny, treaty of 950 Brett-James, Norman G. 836 Brewer, D(erek).S. 154, 487, 619, 622, 631, 632, 634, 654, 664, 665, 676, 684, 847, 873, 890, 891, 909, 963, 988, 1023 Brewer, Elisabeth 685 Bright, J.C. (with P.M. Birch) 910 Brindley, D.J. 879 Brodies Notes 974 Brody, Saul Nathaniel 989 Broes, Arthur T. 563, 566, 1002, 1035 Bronson, Bertrand 626, 826 Brooke, Stopford A. 664 Brosnahan, Leger 184, 267, 269 Broughton-under-Blean 175

308 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

‘broun’ 376 Brown, Beatrice Daw 215 Brown, Carleton 97, 411, 811 Brown, Emerson, Jr. 711 Brown, Joella Owens 565 Brown, Peter 722h, 1061 Brown, Ursula 118, 218, 622 Brueghel, Pieter 820 Bruges 337 Brusendorff, Aage 260, 426 ‘Brutus Cassius’ 434 Bryan, W.F. (with Germaine Dempster), Sources and Analogues 441, 542, 733 Buchan, John 723 Buckingham 853, 856 Bulgarian 161 Bunn, Olena S. 214 Burchfield, Robert 513 Burke, John J. (with John P. Hermann) 671 Burke, Kenneth 883, 918 burlesque 51, 180, 444, 645, 651, 700, 790, 825, 847, 861, 875, 934, 1026, 1047 Burlin, Robert B. 660, 997 Burne-Jones, Sir Edward 18, 122 Burnel, (Daun) 294, 493, 937, 1041 Burnley, David 378, 588 Burnley, J.D. 690, 699 Burns, Sister Mary Florence 270 Burrell, Arthur 37 Burrow J.A. 147, 382, 646, 649, 677, 857 Burton, Robert, Anatomy of Melancholy 380 Busirus 401, 427, 465, 510 butterfly 663, 673, 941, 1020 ‘by youre name’ 363 Byers, John R. Jr. 351 Caldwell, J.R. 826

Caldwell, Robert A. 265 Camargo, Martin 598 Cambridge sub-group (of MSS) 260 Camden, Carroll 327 Canterbury 32, 278, 902 Canterbury, archbishop of 260 Cardigan Chaucer 300 Cassius 434 Catherine of Aragon 1 Cato 455, 478, 636, 814, 894, 986 Disticha Catonis 426, 539, 1040 Cavanaugh, Susan H. 184 Cawley, A.C. 118, 925 Caxton, William 34, 164, 187, 252, 276, 288, 293, 807 Fables of Aesop 392 Reynard the Fox 490 Cazamian, Louis 98 Cecilia, St. 591 celibacy 1027 Cestre, Charles 62, 98 Chamberlain, David (S.) 483, 1041 Champier, Simphorien, La nef des princes et des batailles de noblesse 466 Chang, Hsiu Ya 142 Channel Islands 338 Chapin, Arthur 1064 charivari 1054 Charles d’Orleans 264 chase scene 185, 347, 361, 390, 461, 463, 476, 485, 518, 528, 636, 785, 826, 860, 884, 900, 903, 951, 987, 988, 1010, 1051 distaff-chase 461, 463 Chaucer, Geoffrey: animals 945 art 967 astrology/astronomy 126, 924, 928, 939

Index / 309

audience 375 authority 975 bawdy 232 Bible 246 birds 379 Boccaccio 240, 412, 417, 422, 430 (see also entries under Boccaccio main heading) Boethius 407, 415, 437 (see also entries under Boethius main heading) career 111 characterisation 871 christian humanism 1027 chronology of works 601 comedy 875, 1028 conventions 145 criticism 77, 404 Dante 240, 413, 417, 423, 435 (see also entries under Dante main heading) decorative arts 810 elusion 947 English 6, 27, 44, 364, 383 Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelum 384 European tradition 128, 891 exemplification 965 fabliaux 935 false ascription to 2 feminism 1056 fiction 660, 997, 1043 fifteenth century 833 followers 107, 158 French tradition 857, 908, 923 Geoffrey de Vinsauf 444 (see also entries under Geoffrey de Vinsauf main heading) Gothic 963 grammar 22, 51, 86, 145, 347, 378, 974

historical present 347, 354 human condition 867 hunting 317 imagery 920, 935, 939 Italy 431 (see also entries under Italy main heading) language 2, 8, 16, 25, 29, 41, 49, 55, 56, 57, 77, 92, 95, 111, 123, 126, 134, 139, 145, 166, 172, 326, 353, 362, 370, 378, 446, 650, 977, 978 life 3, 4, 6, 11, 17, 20, 25, 27, 29, 32, 35, 41, 44, 49, 51, 55, 56, 57, 73, 76, 77, 86, 92, 95, 107, 112, 128, 140, 145, 146, 158, 162, 164, 165, 166, 170, 181, 187, 191, 203, 441, 446, 603, 609, 632, 661, 678, 684, 686, 833, 873, 892, 974, 977, 1005 literary career 92 literary critic 797 literary development 111 liturgy 899 Lollards 1026 London 919 love 953, 956 Lucan 410 maxims 192 Menippean satire 1011 metaphors 192 metre 20, 29, 51, 56, 69, 77, 86, 101, 123, 312, 388 modern reader 1012 music 442, 1041 narrative 893 natural history 878 noise 1054 nominalism 985 oaths 359 obscenity 107 oppositions 970

310 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

originality 143 personality 796 Pillars of Hercules 346 place names 193, 216, 217, 219 poetics 667, 851, 877 politics 1054 preachers 971, 979 pronouns 355, 360 pronunciation 5, 20, 22, 27, 44, 73, 111, 162, 187, 974 proper names 95, 192, 233, 363, 369, 382, 386, 390 prosody 8, 16, 55, 352, 357, 361 proverbs 192, 207 puns 340, 343, 344, 366 reading 925 reading aloud 25 religious belief 107 renaissance views of 657 revolution 1055 rhetoric 123, 432, 917 rhyme 181, 311, 314 rhythm 312 Roman poets 427 Roman de la Rose 402 scansion 73 science 792, 801, 968 sententious expressions 192, 207 signs 1041 similes 192 sociology of literature 999 songs 837 sources 51 style 369, 375, 896 symbols 1041 syntax 116, 375, 377, 378 text 25, 97, 283, 284, 285, 289, 301, 304 times 3, 27, 32, 35, 57, 92, 95, 107, 112, 158, 172, 181, 403,

661, 678, 684, 686, 695, 701, 711, 722, 848, 873, 916, 977, 1005 Trecento 240, 424 value-system 333 Venantius Fortunatus 418 versification 22, 27, 41, 44, 92, 134, 139, 145, 172, 260, 974 vocabulary 331, 378 who’s who 234 word(play) 365, 366 works 25, 29, 49, 51, 55, 56, 57, 77, 86, 95, 164, 165, 170, 181, 191, 369, 382, 414 Boece 415 Book of the Duchess 81, 762, 923 Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue and Tale 175, 594, 756 Canterbury Tales 1, 4, 7, 9, 10, 14, 16, 23, 26, 34, 37, 48, 52, 58, 60, 70, 71, 75, 79, 84, 91, 97, 107, 110, 114, 115, 118, 119, 136, 141, 146, 148, 149, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 165, 166, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 181, 182, 282, 304, 316, 363, 377, 412, 446, 670, 678, 682, 689, 691, 696, 697, 699, 700, 704, 712, 713, 716, 717, 760, 779, 781, 782, 802, 819, 834, 839, 845, 850, 857, 860, 877, 882, 892, 893, 896, 915, 918, 934, 946, 948, 959, 961, 972, 975, 993, 994, 996, 998, 1001, 1019, 1037, 1038, 1056, 1062 Clerk’s Tale 8, 281, 315, 431, 572, 651, 722h, 750, 752, 760, 766, 823, 872, 882, 884, 1071 Complete Works 15, 18, 19, 21, 31, 34, 45, 46, 64, 72,

Index / 311

78, 85, 116, 122, 154, 167, 172, 173, 184, 224 Former Age 1074 Franklin’s Tale 114, 137, 145, 175, 406, 867, 872, 914, 993 General Prologue 6, 13, 22, 25, 28, 29, 54, 71, 73, 77, 81, 87, 92, 93, 94, 121, 126, 129, 135, 139, 145, 153, 156, 157, 187, 289, 315, 551, 553, 554, 558, 559, 562, 565, 566, 572, 575, 576, 586, 589, 592, 594, 620, 632, 633, 659, 662, 696, 705, 728, 896, 902 House of Fame 344, 626, 829, 877, 898 Knight’s Tale 6, 13, 20, 22, 25, 54, 92, 289, 311, 415, 516, 586, 591, 628, 651, 659, 714, 778j, 870, 889, 932, 950, 959, 964, 995, 1049 Legend of Good Women 21, 412, 415, 589, 604, 650, 682, 877 Lyrics 81, 135, 145 Man of Law’s Headlink 512 Man of Law’s Prologue and Tale 33, 114, 146, 248, 261,628, 651, 750, 760, 882, 1049 Manciple’s Prologue and Tale 9, 34, 154, 175 Mars 939 Melibee 46, 110, 114, 155, 315, 572, 605, 617, 639, 660, 670, 682, 705, 715, 750, 766, 781, 802, 841 Merchant’s Tale 145, 281, 572, 586, 616, 752, 758, 831, 1018 Miller’s Prologue and Tale 129, 508, 561, 586, 932

Pardoner’s Tale 46, 54, 87, 126, 129, 137, 145, 153, 259, 472, 508, 885, 983 Parlement of Foules 626, 874, 877, 929 Parson’s Tale 9, 110, 114, 331, 670, 682, 708, 722e, 1010 Physician’s Tale 311, 750, 757, 760, 867 Prioress’s Tale 8, 38, 54, 86, 87, 114, 129, 153, 155, 276, 578, 593, 601, 659, 670, 738g, 750, 757, 760, 914 Reeve’s Tale 331, 508, 561, 932 Retraction 121, 145, 156, 1010, 1025 Romaunt of the Rose 10, 46, 414, 854 Second Nun’s Tale 114, 175, 300, 304, 431, 756, 867, 1058 Shipman’s Tale 146, 259, 561, 572, 58 Squire’s Tale 8, 33, 93, 126, 261, 516, 589 Summoner’s Tale 472 Thopas 8, 54, 86, 106, 284, 382, 399, 670, 766 Troilus and Criseyde 15, 135, 316, 390, 398, 402, 412, 415, 616, 697, 737, 748, 778k, 870, 884, 898, 918, 950, 1026, 1039, 1067 Truth 993 Wife of Bath’s Prologue 84, 261, 606, 782, 842, 956, 991 Wife of Bath’s Tale 54, 114, 129, 134, 145, 146, 259, 266, 271, 281, 472, 605, 606, 781, 991 Chaucer Dictionary 233, 310

312 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Chaucer editors 293 Chaucer Gazeteer (ed. Magoun) 222 Chaucer Glossary (ed. Davis et al.) 238 Chaucer the pilgrim 705, 905, 1032 Chaucer Society 7, 20, 266 Chaucer, Philippa 701, 733, 1017 Chauntecleer 1, 36, 55, 89, 101, 105, 116, 120, 140, 142, 151, 152, 185, 271, 316, 343, 345, 350, 359, 362, 363, 373, 375, 377, 379, 381, 390, 391, 399, 411, 418, 439, 459, 464, 467, 471, 479, 485, 489, 517, 520, 523, 525, 539, 541, 543, 546, 563, 564, 569, 570, 573, 577, 584, 589, 591, 593, 599, 603, 605, 608, 609, 612, 615, 621, 626, 628, 630, 631, 637, 640, 642, 649, 658, 662, 668, 676, 683, 689, 690, 693, 694, 703, 706, 708, 709, 710, 722, 782, 788, 792, 794, 795, 796, 801, 802, 814, 818, 819, 835, 838, 839, 840, 845, 848, 859, 861, 863, 869, 871, 874, 875, 879, 882, 886, 887, 889, 895, 897, 901, 903, 904, 909, 912, 920, 925, 927, 928, 929, 930, 931, 933, 936, 937, 939, 940, 941, 945, 954, 959, 961, 966, 968, 971, 975, 982, 984, 986, 987, 989, 993, 995, 1000, 1009, 1013, 1017, 1019, 1020, 1023, 1024, 1032, 1038, 1039, 1041, 1042, 1046, 1048, 1050, 1059, 1065, 1066, 1068, 1073, 1076 Chester plays 294, 380 Chesterman, Hugh 72 Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith) 813 Chiarini, Cino 128 Child, Clarence Griffin 44 Children 750, 757, 760 Chimaera 457

Chinese 142 Chrétien de Troyes 487, 676 Chevalier de la Charette 537 christian humanism 1027 Church 853 Church Fathers, see Patristic Cicero 433, 450, 497, 803 De Divinatione 36, 489, 609 Somnium Scipionis 489, 929 Cigman, Gloria 660 Clark, Cecily 1011 Clark, George 464, 1016 Clarke, Charles Cowden 3 class distinction 909 classes I and II (MSS) 71 Clemen, Wolfgang 874, 913 Cline, J.M. 826 cock 349, 372, 452, 479, 485, 543, 584, 949, 1006, 1022, 1041, 1058 cock and fox stories 164, 390, 392, 405, 439, 452, 606, 684, 864, 869, 959, 988, 1042, 1050 cock-priest 452, 514, 405, 571, 599, 972, 993, 1013, 1020 Cocozzella, Peter 1026 Coggeshall, John M. 508 Coghill, Nevill 101, 105, 109, 110, 115, 119, 123, 163, 170, 616, 620, 625, 875, 893 Cohn, Norman 1054 ‘cold’ 345 Coleman, Janet 591, 1007 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 893 Coles Editorial Board 678, 892 Colfox, (Nicholas) 795 Colle 317, 347, 1017 ‘colour’ 343, 349 comedy 608, 631, 634, 637, 695, 707, 780, 875, 883, 894, 963, 1028, 1039

Index / 313

Comestor, Peter, Historia Scholastica 592, 744 ‘compleccioun’ 343 computing 542 Concordance to Complete Works of Chaucer (ed. Tatlock and Kennedy) 204, 249 Condren, Edward I. 722f Conrad of Megenburg 863 Constance (MLT) 628 Constance of Castile 665, 701, 733, 736 contemptus mundi 482, 1050 Cook, the 622 Cook, Albert Stanburrough 418 Cook, Daniel 129 Cook, James W. 477 Cooney, Barbara 120 Cooper, Helen 248, 548d, 586, 589, 670, 682, 689, 778h Cooper, William J. (foundation) 819 ‘corpus Madrian’ 116, 328, 334, 351, 356 Correale, Robert M. 503, 542 Corsa, Helen Storm 631 Corson, Hiram 17, 192 Cottle, Basil 116, 561, 624, 647, 940 Coulton, G(eorge) G(ordon), 84, 798, 873 ‘courtes’ 472 courtly love 143, 145, 464, 485, 566, 683, 780, 859, 883, 883, 922, 993, 1009, 1032, 1046 Cowling G(eorge). H. 69, 87, 609 Cox, Catherine 599 Cox, Robert C. (with Alfred L. Kellogg) 950 Cox, Sidney Hayes 791 Coxe, Louis O. 135 Craik, T.W. 875 Crampton, Georgia Ronan 964

Crawford, S.J. 419 Crawford, William R. 194, 227, 237 Crépin, André 368, 993 Crider, Richard 500 Criseyde (TC) 622, 884, 1039, 1048 Croesus 8, 69, 71, 80, 106, 121, 124, 140, 250, 253, 260, 288, 393, 402, 407, 415, 419, 422, 438, 441, 510, 515, 569, 601, 605, 634, 685, 699, 706, 716, 735 Crosby, Ruth 824 Crow, Martin M. 146, 264 Cullen, Dolores L. 990 Cunliffe, R.J. 56 Curry, Walter Clyde 203, 792, 794, 801, 887, 924 cynicism 791 Czech 68, 159 D’Agata D’Ottavi, Stefania 712 Dahlberg, Charles 116, 452, 722, 843, 846, 915, 1002 Damascus 422 Dame Partlet 101 Dame Prudence 351 Damian, Peter, De Divina Omnipotentia 583 Dane, Joseph A. 389 Daniel 313, 441, 497, 500 Daniels, Edgar F. 349 Dante Alighieri 19, 121, 203, 240, 260, 342, 397, 403, 413, 423, 424, 431, 446, 523, 543a, 548d, 548f, 601, 603, 608, 661, 717, 759, 769 Divine Comedy 424, 717, 730, 738 Paolo and Francesca (Inferno 5) 486, 530, 989 Ugolino episode (Inferno 33) 52, 203, 393, 397, 417, 435, 441, 453, 475, 479, 494, 507, 519, 521, 529, 534, 537, 540,

314 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

608, 616, 619, 644, 645, 684, 689, 699, 717, 728, 757, 760, 774 ‘l’alta fantasia’ (Purgatorio 17, Paradiso 33) 497, 530 Peter Damian (Paradiso 21) 583 Vita Nuova 898, 1057 Daphne 427 Dargan, E.P. 392 Darton, F.J. Harvey 32 Da(u)n Piers, see Monk Da(u)n Russell 642, 795 Davenant, John 755 Davenport, W.A. 722c David, Alfred 658, 915 Davies, R.T. 645, 651, 873 Davis, Norman 184, 238, 371, 381 Day, Mabel 81 de casibus theme 482, 562, 623, 659, 689, 728, 739, 748, 771, 775, 776, 1066 Dean, James 691 Dean, Mabel 97 Dean, Nancy 656 De Caluwé-Dor, Juliette 171 (see also Dor) De Guilleville, Guillaume, Le pelerinage de la vie humaine 548a De Man, Paul 1052 De Proprietatibus Rerum 187 De Sélincourt, Aubrey 817 De Weever, Jacqueline 247, 369 Debate between the Body and the Soul 308 deconstruction 1052 decorative Arts 810 Deduit 464 Delachenal 713 Delany, Sheila 526 Delasanta, Rodney K. 570, 1030

Delattre, Floris 98 Dello Buono, Carmen Joseph 1008 Dempster, Germaine 441, 612, 614,842 Sources and Analogues (with W.F. Bryan) 441, 733 Deschamps, Eustace 8, 15 descriptive method 622 design (of CT) 641 Desmoulins, Guyart, Bible Historiale 448 destiny see providence determinism see providence Devil, the 1013 Di Marco (also DiMarco), Vincent 184, 384, 385, 544 dialectic 970, 986, 1057 Diana 427 dice 749 Dickens, Bruce 330 Dickins, Bruce 740 Dieckmann, Emma 440 Diekstra, Frans 509, 965, 1009 diet 568 Dillon, Bert 233 Diomedes 401, 427, 465, 510 Dioscorides, De Medica Materia 819 Dis D’Entendement 452 Dis de Trois Estas du Monde 452 ‘discrecioun’ 949 ‘do’ (periphrastic auxilliary verb) 387 Dobrée, Bonamy 833 Doctour of Physyk 436 Dodd, William George 780 Don John (ShT) 561 Donaldson, E. Talbot 108, 121, 134, 155, 166, 180, 660, 697, 722,

Index / 315

843, 851, 866, 947, 1002, 1013, 1062a Donohue, James J. 125, 130 Donovan, Mortimer J. 116, 441, 722. 843, 864, 866, 915, 1002, 1003, 1013 Doob, Penelope Reed 719, 744 Dor, Juliette (see also De CaluwéDor) 189, 1046 Dorenkamp, John H. 962 Douglas 15 Doyle, A.I. 174, 277, 302 dramatic reading of CT 56, 114, 117, 143, 155, 180, 549, 557, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563, 566, 567, 568, 569, 571, 572, 573, 577, 578, 580, 584, 589, 592, 604, 624, 626, 634, 641, 648, 691, 722, 819, 834, 872, 882, 914, 962, 997, 1002, 1035 Drayton, Michael 854 dreams 36, 123, 350, 390, 419, 436, 455, 489, 497, 500, 508, 517, 526, 532, 548e, 539, 541, 570, 621, 634, 644, 658, 660, 677, 685, 690, 699, 706, 722h, 786, 792, 794, 801, 827, 832, 840, 845, 859, 874, 883, 884, 887, 901, 907, 911, 914, 925, 931, 958, 959, 968, 986, 987, 998, 1009, 1024, 1032, 1039, 1042, 1048, 1050, 1056, 1059, 1065, 1070, 1075, 1078 Drennan, C.M. 86, 106 Dronke, Peter 467, 488 Drumm, Francis A. 962 Dryden, John 1, 154, 425, 505, 618, 625, 670, 816, 833, 852, 855, 904, 912, 1004, 1060 Dumanowski, Dianne 880 Dunbar, William, The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy 335 Duncan-Rose, Caroline 377

Dunn, Charles H. 111 Dutch 53, 79, 150, 265, 395 Dutchman 265 Dutescu, Dan 138 Duxworth, John 264 Eade, J.C. 1031 Eagle (HF) 984 earnest 932 Eberhard, Oscar 785 Ebner, Dean 743 Ecclesiasticus 864 Edbury, P.W. 751 Edmunds, E.W. 603 Edward, St. 554, 555, 597 Edward II 778g Edward III 452, 726, 819 Edward IV 254 Edward the Confessor 778g Edwards, A.S.G. 289 Eisner, Sigmund 495, 504 Egerton, Alix 40 Eight-Text Edition 9, 24, 255 Elbow, Peter 970 Eliason, Norman, E. 363, 650, 953 Eliot, T.S. 521 Ellesmere illustrations 283 Ellesmere MS see Manuscripts Ellesmere order (of CT) 71, 121, 145, 250, 253, 266, 270, 641 Ellesmere scribe 274 Elliott, R(alph).W.V. 359, 364, 365, 763, 885, 925 Ellis, A.J. 5 Ellis, F.S. 18 Ellis, Roger 693 elusion 947 emblem 693 Emerson, Oliver Farrar 41, 314, 318, 783, 787, 809 endlink (of NPT) 7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30, 32,

316 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

33, 35, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 54, 56, 59, 63, 65, 68, 69, 73, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 87, 89, 93, 94, 99, 100, 102, 107, 108, 112, 116, 117, 121, 124, 126, 135, 137, 139, 145, 155, 162, 164, 169, 174, 175, 177, 178, 180, 248, 252, 253, 258, 261, 266, 267, 269, 273, 294, 355, 556, 558, 559, 560, 566, 571, 573, 574, 584, 598, 599, 636, 689, 703, 705, 842, 859, 949, 983, 993, 1002, 1026, 1027, 1060 Engelhardt, George J. 577, 1002 England 400, 448 English 264, 367, 369, 382, 387, 404, 421, 450 English, modern 110, 164, 166 English history 203 epic 717, 778a, 1014 epilogue (see endlink) epistemology 1045 Epistle to Phaedrus 392 Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem 309 Erasmus 828 Esch, Arno 131, 922 Eskimo analogue to NPT 538 ethical poetic 1015 ethos 598 European literature 165 Evans, Joan 810 Eve 319, 931, 958, 1024, 1039 Everett, Dorothy 71, 85, 97, 196, 203, 262, 424, 441, 616, 727, 851 Ewald, Wilhelm 779 Ewen, Edith 43 exegetical reading see Patristics exemplification 965 exemplum 203, 231, 350, 469, 485, 497, 518, 522, 537, 573, 582, 596, 604, 605, 649, 675, 677, 689, 696,

699, 720, 729, 751, 795, 805, 818, 848, 878, 883, 893, 894, 926, 942, 954, 973, 975, 989, 1044, 1077 experience 455, 526 fable 180, 468, 502, 511, 512, 525, 533, 564, 591, 615, 631, 720, 815, 825, 827, 829, 868, 880, 894, 904, 936, 951, 959, 992, 1044, 1047, 1051, 1070, 1072 (see also beast fable) fabliau 815, 827, 935, 993, 1064 Fall, the 145, 254, 319, 591, 606, 628, 634, 651, 728, 882, 887, 903, 984, 995, 1062a, 1066 fall of princes 10, 19, 254, 260 (see also de casibus) False Fox 463 Fansler, Dean Spruill 402 fantasy 1000 Faral, Edmond 420 Farber, Evan Ira 239 Farjeon, Eleanor 80, 124 Farley-Hills, D. 649 Farnham, Willard 614, 728 Feet of Fines 322 Fehrenbacher, Richard W. 1062 Fein, Susanna Greer 772 Ferguson, William 59 feminism 1056 Fernando de Castro, Don 733 Ferrer, Josefina 149 Ferster, Judith 588 Fibonacci 296 Fichte, Joerg O. 667, 765 fiction 997, 1043 fifteenth century 833 figura 479 final-e 357, 378 Finlayson, John 722d Finnish 132 ‘firy’ 457

Index / 317

Fish, Stanley E. 143, 456 Fisher, John H. 171, 172, 189, 244, 301, 374, 948 Fisiak, Jacek 306 Flanders 337, 525 flattery 548a, 864, 988, 1024, 1027 Flavin, Louise 1024 Fleet Choir 105 Fleming/Flemish 193, 265, 337, 395, 785, 833, 1066 Fleming, John V. 583 Flinn, John 459 Flint, W. Russell 48, 70, 80 Flora, feast of 870 Flügel, Ewald 204, 310 Foligno, Cesare 128 folk culture 702, 900, 1036 ‘for therinne is ther nodesport ne game’ 299 Ford, Boris 1018 Förster, Max 421 Fortuna (goddess) 415, 610, 725 fortune 248, 274, 373, 415, 428, 435, 470, 479, 482, 491, 492, 494, 515, 519, 521, 537, 548b, 562, 569, 570, 581, 582, 590, 592, 596, 612, 614, 615, 628, 631, 634, 640, 644, 651, 655, 656, 659, 660, 667, 674, 677, 682, 683, 689, 693, 694, 696, 706, 713, 717, 722a, 723, 728, 729, 735, 739, 743, 748, 751, 769, 772, 774, 778k, 928, 931, 939, 941, 950, 959, 1001, 1039, 1041, 104 wheel of fortune 415, 435, 746, 1039 Foucher, Jean-Pierre 165 ‘fourty degrees and oon’ 258 fox 120, 140, 142, 151, 152, 229, 271, 386, 459, 463, 467, 476, 485, 514, 517, 603, 668, 703, 709, 845, 846, 864, 866, 871, 926, 928, 931, 960,

984, 1011, 1013, 1042, 1045, 1052, 1066 Fox, Alistair 584 Fox, Denton 468 fox and the partridge 123, 525 Fox and the Wolf see Vox and the Wolf Fradenburg, L.O. Aranye 778i Fragments: I. 9, 274 II. 7, 8,14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 37, 49, 274, 296 III. 274, 842IV. 274 V. 274, 296 VI. 7, 24, 55, 114, 253, 266, 274, 296 VII. 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 24, 37, 49, 55, 114, 184, 248, 253, 255, 261, 266, 267, 274, 296, 565, 624, 639, 658, 659, 662, 682, 687, 689, 701, 703, 711, 712, 715, 718, 722c, 722e, 722f, 722g, 767, 768, 842, 948, 999 VIII. 261 frame narrative 773, 818, 877, 883, 887, 1049, 1060 France 400, 404 Frank, Robert Worth, Jr. 764 Franklin, the 836 free will 180, 407, 651, 685, 716, 739, 833, 853, 856, 887, 888, 904, 905, 914, 919, 931, 941, 964, 978, 1007, 1011, 1021, 1027, 1043, 1065 French 62, 165, 189, 315, 367, 382, 400, 404, 441, 446, 448 French influence 329, 374, 908, 923 French tradition 857 French, Robert D[udley] 102, 203 Frese, Dolores Warwick 594, 1017, 1073

318 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Friar, the 319 friars 452, 514, 587, 846, 871, 940 Friday 420, 889, 950, 995, 1020 Friedman, John Block 649, 954, 979 Froissart, Jean 382, 733, 1017 Frost, George L. 334 Frost, William 852, 955 fruit and chaff metaphor 378,512, 719, 871, 876, 894, 936, 981, 998, 1005, 1010, 1037, 1043, 1064, 1066 Fry, Donald K. 742 Frye, Northrup 926 Fulwiler, Lavon 547 Furnivall, Frederick J. 5, 7, 9, 14, 15, 24, 32, 36, 192, 250, 259, 263, 266, 278, 287, 289, 664 Originals and Analogues 542 Furnivall’s Group 52, 55 Furr, Grover C. 1065 Fyler, John M. 501 Galeazzo (Visconti) 730 Gallacher, Patrick 975, 1002 Gallick, Susan 971, 980 Gallina 928 Gallus-Deus 1022 Gallus et Vulpes 520, 525, 684 Galván-Reula, J.F. 1032 game 932 Gamelyn, tale of 35 ‘gan’ 341 Ganim, John M. 713, 1054 Garbáty, Thomas J. 276, 572, 994 Gardner, John 274, 661, 756, 982 Garmonsway, Norman 740 Gaskin, Jocelyne V. 75 Gaufred de Vinsauf see Geoffrey de Vinsauf Gaylord, Alan T. 639, 641, 679, 742 Gelbach, Marie 394 gender 722, 755

generative poetics 1014 Genesis 319, 541, 758 genius 799 genre 509, 564, 641, 645, 741, 748, 775, 778h, 818, 825, 896, 905, 913, 946, 999, 1032, 1044 ‘gentil’ 909 Genylon-Olyver 219 Geoffrey de Vinsauf 123, 187, 266, 294, 340, 343, 369, 432, 441, 462, 604, 635, 644, 797, 803, 824, 884, 891, 926, 951, 1017 De artificio loquendi 268 Documentum de Arte Versificandi 607 Poetria Nova 343, 398, 420, 444, 447, 473, 481, 485, 488, 607, 719, 806, 812, 872, 1061 Lament for death of Richard I 420, 444,447, 473, 505, 1017 Gerald of Wales 489 Expugnatio Hibernica 433 Gerhard, Joseph 932 Gerland 1017 German 55, 63, 131, 152, 160, 177, 178, 348, 393, 404, 441 Germanic 265, 333 Gerould, Gordon Hall 90, 94 gesture 666 Getty, Agnes K. 814 Ghistelles 337 Giaccherini, Enrico 240 Gibbons, R.F. 267 Gill, Eric 75 Gillespie, Vincent 589 Gillmeister, Heiner 949, 1033 Girard, René 722g Gittes, Katharine S. 773 ‘gladly’ 316, 344, 348 Globe Chaucer 7, 10, 19, 26, 30, 51, 72, 126, 204, 603 Glossa Ordinaria 592, 1057

Index / 319

Gloucester, Duke of 638, 795 Glowka, Arthur W. 379 Goble, Warwick 46 Godeleva, St. 337 Godefroi de Leigni 537 Godman, Peter 522 Golden Legend 356 Golden Spangled Hamburg (breed of fowl) 835 Göller, Karl Heinz 765 Goodelief/Godelif/Godleof 322, 323, 351, 734, 755 Gordon, E.V. 795 Gospel 319 Gothic 930, 963 Gower, John 374, 511, 664, 753, 780, 785, 1037 Mirour de l’Omme 601 Vox Clamantis 1059 grammar 378, 1040, 1051 Gray, Douglas 238, 381 Greenwood, James, The Virgin Muse 425 Gregory of Tours 499 Greiner, F.J. 825 Grennen, Joseph E. 136, 460, 469, 629 ‘greyn of Portyngale’ 116 Griffith, Dudley David 194, 201, 208, 218, 227, 237 Grimm, Florence M. 788 Griselde (ClT) 693, 730 Grose, M.W. 900 Grotesque 871, 987 Group A (tales of CT) 159, 641 Group B (tales of CT) 7, 9, 84, 85, 134, 259, 261, 262 Group B2 (tales of CT) 134, 259, 512, 641, 842 Group C (tales of CT) 259, 266, 842 Group D (tales of CT) 134, 259

Group G (tales of CT) 259, 261 Group H (tales of CT) 259 Group I (tales of CT) 259 Group 1 (MSS of MkT) 97 Group 2 (MSS of MkT) 97 Grudin, Michaela Paasche 778b Gruenler, Curtis 722g Guerin, Richard 486 Guichard d’Angle, Sir 727, 736 Guido delle Colonne/de Columnis 15, 313, 314, 346, 391, 393 Haas, Renate 505, 694, 765, 769 Habicht, Werner 666 Hadow, Grace E. 403 Hagel, Günter 178 Hagenbuchle, Roland 1045 Hale, David G. 541 half-line 361 Hall, Joan Krakover 675 Halle, Morris 352, 358 Haller, Robert 748 Hallqvist, Britt G. 151 Hallstrom, Per 74 Halverson, John 162 Haly 840 Hamel, Mary 542 Hamilton, George L. 314 Hamilton, M.P. 432 Hamm, Victor 342 Hammond, Eleanor Prescott 4, 19, 71, 191, 194, 201, 208, 237, 252, 260, 434 Hanna, Ralph, III 180, 186, 305b Hanning, R.W. 689 Hansen, Elaine Tuttle 691 Harbert, Bruce 489 Harley Lyrics 847 Hardman, Phillipa 752 Harry Bailly (see Host) Hasdrubal’s wife 447, 969 Haskell, Ann Sullivan 356

320 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Hargreaves, Henry 367 Harrington, David V. 566 Harris, Sir Nicolas 4 Harrison, Thomas P. 854 ‘harrow’ 338 Hart, J.M. 308 Harting, P.N.U. 71 Harwood, Britton J. 1042 Hatton, Thomas J. 640 Hausmann, Wolf 152 Havely, Nicholas 587, 695 Hawkins, Sherman 881 Hazelton, Richard 455 Heath, Frank H. 19 hedge-breaking 386 Heidrich, Käte 193 ‘heigh ymaginacioun’ 342, 371 Hell 738 Hemingway, Samuel B. 605, 706 Henderson, Arnold Clayton 514 Henning, Standish 886, 924 Henry VIII (and marriage to) Catherine of Aragon 1 Henryson, Robert 180, 808 Moral Fables 474, 484, 506, 529 Taill of Schir Chantecleir and the Foxe 468, 474, 506, 987 Henshaw, Millet 338 Héraucourt, Will 333 ‘herbergage’ 932 Hercules 41, 80, 124, 391, 401, 407, 415, 441, 470, 491, 510, 614, 634, 728, 735 Herford, C.H. 30 heresy 864 Hermann, John P. (with John J. Burke) 671 Herodotus 419 Herold, Christine 596 Herzberg, Max J. 92 Heseltine, Janet E. 262 Hetherington, John R. 272

Heyworth, P.L. 281, 672 Hieatt, Constance 139, 901, 911, 931, 1048 Hill, Frank Ernest 81, 88, 89, 91, 99, 620 Hill, John M. 715 Hinckley, Henry Barrett 316, 395, 557 Hinnant, Charles, H. 818, 912 Hippocrates 395 Hirsch, John C. 670 Histoire de Melibée 315 Historia Augusta 522 historical present 347, 354 historicity 675, 1062 Hitchens, H.L. 100, 620 Hitt, Ralph E. 861 Hoccleve, Thomas 15 La male regle 548a Hoeber, Daniel R. 995 Hoevel, Lambert 160 Hoffman, H. Lawrence 104 Hoffman, Richard L. 465, 470, 478 Holbrook, David 645, 848, 875 Hollander, John 164 Holkot, Robert 36, 180, 393, 433, 489, 532, 840, 856, 1007 Super Sapientiae Salomonis 180, 485, 497, 1065 Holofernes 8, 60, 162, 441, 548, 634, 689, 735, 761 Holton, Sylvia Wallace (with Jackson Campbell Boswell) 546 Homer 852, 907 Honigman, Eleanor K. 215 Hooper, W.H. 18 Hopper, Vincent 103 Horace 877 Horsch, Hedvig 786 Horstein, Mrs 344 Horvath, Richard P. 299

Index / 321

Host, the 38, 71, 85, 116, 143, 175, 180, 203, 253, 260, 262, 279, 284, 322, 328, 334, 351, 355, 356, 360, 378, 393, 412, 522, 556, 559, 561, 564, 566, 569, 571, 572, 573, 574, 576, 581, 587, 588, 598, 601, 615, 618, 624, 631, 639, 645, 651, 652, 660, 662, 663, 667, 670, 673, 679, 683, 689, 690, 696, 699, 703, 705, 713, 734, 742, 753, 755, 769, 845, 859, 882, 939, 972, 1026 Hotson, Leslie J. 203, 623, 632, 638, 795 Housman, A.E. 1, 625, 816 Houwen, L.A J.R. 548a Howard, Donald R. 155, 659, 660, 701, 867, 915, 996 Howard, Edwin Johnston 95, 632 Hoy, Michael (with Michael Stevens) 926 Hugh of St Cher 480 Hulbert, J.R. 441, 557 Hum, Sue 1070 humanism 769 humor 30, 121, 779, 962 Humors, the 73 Hungarian 127 Hunt, Leigh 664 Hunting 318 Huppé, Bernard F. 722, 882, 915 (With D.W. Robertson Jr) 876 Hussey, Maurice 143, 902 (with A.C. Spearing and James Winny) 635, 902 Hussey, S.S. 705, 942 Huttar, Charles A. 743 Huxley, Aldous 789 Hyde, Derek 185 Hydra 457 Hyginus, Fabulae 428 ‘I kan noon harm of no womman divyne’ 366, 1035

Ibis 465 Icelandic 345 iconography 350, 461, 463, 476, 596, 1006, 1020, 1022 Iijima, Ikuzo 799 imagery 920, 935, 939 ‘in principio’ 319, 344 incompleteness 687, 773 inconclusiveness 687 Ingham, Patricia 238 Ingraham, Andrew 25 intertextuality 542 Invention of the Cross 889 Irish 346 irony 155, 411, 480, 517, 522, 529, 539, 559, 560, 564, 566, 573, 584, 592, 604, 613, 614, 615, 616, 628, 637, 661, 673, 676, 683, 688, 713, 714, 720, 753, 761, 845, 849, 918, 926, 933, 935, 945, 961, 973, 982, 1010, 1015, 1026, 1027, 1035, 1041, 1052, 1054, 1063 dramatic irony 612, 887 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae 515, 1058 Italian 67, 128, 133, 153, 313, 315, 391, 417, 431, 446, 745 Italian influence 329, 759 Italy 329, 430, 431 Izzo, Donatello 712 Jack, Adolphus Alfred 790 Jack Straw 655, 665, 701, 920, 951, 1036, 1055, 1062 Jager, Eric 706 jangling 1047 January (MerT) 572, 752 Jean d’Angoulême 689 Jean de Meun 402, 419, 438, 510 Jeanroy, Alfred 325 Jefferson, Bernard L. 407 Jeffrey, David Lyle 761 Jelliffe, Robert Archibald 112

322 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Jenkins, T. Atkinson 325 Jensen, Emily 722a Jerome, St., Epistola adversus Iovinium 447 Job 760 Joerden, Otto 312 ‘John’ 360, 363 John, gospel of 319 John of Garland 1017 John of Gaunt 504, 638, 647, 665, 701, 727, 733, 736, 762, 1055 John of Salisbury 450, 613 John of Wales, Communiloquium 472 Johnson, Dudley R. 448 Johnson, James D. 527, 545 Johnson, Lynn Staley 1039 Johnston, Everett C. 471 Jones Alex I. 296 Jones, Claude 729 Jones, Terry 753, 778j Jordan, Robert M. 641, 645, 660, 913, 997, 1046a Joselyn, Sister M. 883 Joseph, Gerhard 641 Josipovici, Gabriel 943 joy 656 Judas 1022 Judith 441, 761 Judges, Book of 441 Julien, E.C. 165 Julius Caesar 8, 17, 41, 80, 124, 410, 441, 443, 492, 499, 614, 630, 685, 735 Justman, Stewart 976, 998 Juvenal 852 Kaluza, Max 55 Kamowski, William 766 Kane, George 97, 290, 686, 705 Kang, Du-Hyoung 716 Karpf, Fritz 326 Kase, Robert C. 261

Kaske, R.E. 562, 871, 956 Kaufmann, Corinne E. 927 Kawai, Michio 774 Kealy, Kieran J. 966 Kean, P.M. 651, 851 Kee, Kenneth 145 Kelmscott Chaucer 18 facsimile 122, 167 Kellett, E.E. 413 Kellogg, Alfred L. (with Robert C. Cox) 950 Kelly, Douglas 481 Kelly, H.A. 535, 778k Kelly, Kathleen Ann 543 Kempton, Daniel 1066 Kendrick, Laura 707, 713 Kenelm, St. 268, 369, 548e, 593, 881 Kennedy, Arthur 204, 249 Kennedy, Edwin Donald 705 Kennedy, Richard F. 528 Kent 322, 323, 337 Kent, A. 139 Kent, Rockwell, illustrations 90 Kenulfus 217 Kenyon, John S.606 Ker, W.P. 808 Kerkhof, Jelle 353 Kerling Johan 175 Kermode, Frank 164 Keyser, Samuel Jay 352, 357 Kilby, Clyde S. 743 Kim, Jung-Ai 778f King, Francis 156, 157 Kinsley, James 1, 619 Kirby, Thomas A. 210, 230 Kirkpatrick, Robin 523 Kittredge, George Lyman 258, 309, 384, 398, 549, 557, 604, 634, 867 Klene, Jean 668 Klinefelter, Ralph A. 339 Knapp, Peggy 714

Index / 323

Knapp, Robert S. 1025 Knight, Stephen 362, 652, 695, 767, 778l, 957, 999, 1010 Knight, the 175, 203, 262, 279, 284, 393, 412, 559, 562, 564, 569, 583, 586, 591, 601, 609, 615, 631, 637, 648, 650, 662, 670, 673, 676, 679, 683, 689, 696, 702, 707, 708, 713, 720, 742, 743, 748, 753, 756, 763, 764, 769, 778, 950 knighthood 630 Knowles, David 711 Koch, John 41, 52, 55, 63, 200, 257, 257, 415, 416, 550, 783 Koerner, E.F. Konrad 377 Koff, Leonard Michael 708 Kohl, Stephan 958 Kökeritz, Helge 340 Kolinsky, Muriel 355 Kolve, V.A. 187, 967 Könner, Alfred 152 Kordecki, Lesley 1057 Korfmacher, William C. 346 Korten, Hertha 412 Kratzmann, Gregory 506 (with James Simpson) 768 Kuhl, Ernest P. 260, 555 Kuya, Takao 241 KWIC concordance 241, 249 Lacan, Jacques 999 Lai 778 Lamb, Leyton H. 75 Lamb, Lynton 109 lament 447, 473, 505, 694 Lamm, Martin 74 languor 547a Launcelot de Lake, Sir 382, 487, 619, 657, 676, 946, 989 Langdon, Courtney 203 Langland, William 108, 789, 799, 862

Larner, John 759 Laskaya, Anna 778a Latin 52, 123, 315, 315, 319, 325, 404, 405, 416, 426, 432, 441 Laurent de Premierfait 428 Law, Robert Adger 319 Lawler, Lillian B. 346 Lawler, Traugott 669 Lawlor, John 914 Lawrence, C.E. 796 Lawrence, T.B. 105 Lawrence, William Witherle 271, 606, 781, 839, 956 ‘lawriol’ 358 Lawton, David 589 laxatives 460 Lecompte, I.C. 408, 441 Leff, Gordon 856 Legouis, Emile 62, 98 Lehnert, Martin 177 Leicester, H. Marshall Jr. 593 Leitch, L.M. 679 Lenaghan, R.T. 564 Lenz, Millicent 1000 Lepley, Douglas Lee 747 Lester, G.A. 753 Levin, Carole 770 Levy, Bernard S. (with George R. Adams) 889, 903, 1002 Levy, H.L. 829 Lewis, Walker 1067 Lewisham court rolls 322 Leyerle, John 243 liberal arts 986 Liddell, Mark H. 19, 21 Liebermann, F. 724 Limbo 738 Lindahl, Carl 702 Lionel, Duke of Clarence 740 Lipscomb, William, Canterbury Tales of Chaucer 188

324 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

lists 674 liturgy 899 Livre de la Chevalier de la Tour-Landry 469 Llewellyn, R.H. 110 Lock, F.P. 492 Lollards 1026 Lollardy 548d Lollius 424 Lombard(y) 391, 752 London 217, 833 Long, E. Hudson 830 Loomis, Roger Sherman 636 Looten, [le] C[hanoine] 423, 430 lordship 778l Lorris, Guillaume de, and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose 15, 71, 394, 402, 424, 438, 464, 510, 515, 532, 548b, 544, 548, 699, 706 Louis XIV 912 Lounsbury, Thomas R. 21, 203 love 895, 944, 953, 956 (see also courtly love) Lowell, James Robert 664 Lowes, John Livingstone 819, 887 Lucan 492 Pharsalia 410 Lucian 1011 Lucifer 55, 60, 80, 121, 124, 165, 175, 441, 699, 717, 728, 735, 737, 761, 778l Luke, H.C. 726 Lumiansky, R.M. 104, 114, 120, 560, 561, 566, 568, 571, 580, 620, 625, 861, 1035 lunaria 1016 Lydgate, John 15, 32, 260, 291, 313, 391, 421, 428, 611, 694, 769 Fall of Princes 203, 254, 391, 609

Lyly, John Campaspe 335 Lyy, Toivo 132 Macaulay, Margaret 42 Macbeth 66, 446 Macbeth, Lady 66 Maccabees, Book of 15, 441 MacCallum, Mungo 431 MacCraken, Henry Noble 49, 254 MacDonald, Donald 894 Machaut, Guillaume de 15, 374, 778, 898, 1017 La Prise d’Alexandrie 727, 732, 441 Macherey, Pierre 999 Machiavelli, Niccolo, The Prince 423 MacKail, John William 602, 664 Mackaye, Percy 46, 61 Mackenzie, Gordon 826 Maclaine, Allan H. 633 Macrobius 187, 450, 532, 887, 958 commentary on Cicero, Somnium Scipionis 416, 450, 489, 792, 794, 929, 1048 madness 744 Maeonian 385 Maes-Jelinek, Hena 1046 Magoun, Francis P. Jr. 216, 217, 219, 222 Maher, Frank Jewett 1008 Maher, J. Peter 377 Mahoney, John F. 628 Mahood, Ramona M. 1000 ‘maistrye’ 781 Malcomson, A. 140 ‘Malle’ 903, 921, 945 Malone, Kemp 71, 559, 621, 734, 844 Man of Law, the 667 Mandel, Jerome 360 Mandeville, Sir Thomas, Mandeville’s Travels 543

Index / 325

Manly, John Matthews 71, 97, 203, 290, 291, 328, 420, 433, 551, 554, 558, 565, 572, 607, 611, 638, 664, 811, 851, 872 Manly-Rickert Edition 97, 111, 116, 129, 146, 155, 156, 162, 180, 265, 266, 288, 290, 297, 302, 571 Mann, Jill 493, 760, 1056 (with Piero Boitani) 692 Manning, Stephen 868, 1047 Manuscripts 305a, 305b, 305c All England Group 260 British Library Addit. 5140 7, 253, 269 British Library Egerton 2726 24, 260 British Library Egerton 2864 269 British Library Harley 2378 334 British Library Harley 7334 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10,13, 14, 15, 24, 55, 73, 85, 253, 255, 256, 257, 275, 288, 295, 296, 305c, 322 British Library Harley 7335 2, 4, 73, 270, 295 British Library Lansdowne 851 4, 5, 7, 8, 85, 253, 257 British Library Royal 17 D.xv 7 Cambridge Dd. 4.24, 7, 9, 15, 24, 55, 85, 123, 180, 253, 255, 257, 258, 270, 285, 291, 300, 303, 304 Cambridge Gg 4.27, 7, 85, 173, 253, 257, 302 Cambridge Trinity College R.3.19, 183, 254, 305a Cardigan 269, 300, 304 Ellesmere (San Marino, California 26 C 9) 2, 6, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 36, 37, 40, 49, 52, 55, 71, 72, 73,

76, 85, 97, 102, 112, 114, 123, 156, 162, 172, 174, 175, 180, 184, 186, 187, 190, 250, 253, 257, 258, 260, 263, 269, 270, 274, 277, 279, 282, 284, 285, 286, 289, 290, 291, 298, 299, 305b, 306, 313, 388, 689, 722c, 727, 742, 753, 902, 949, 1043 groups of MSS see entries under Manuscripts, types Hengwrt (National Library of Wales Peniarth 392D) 7, 8, 73, 85, 97, 118, 121, 166, 172, 174, 175, 180, 184, 186, 187, 253, 257, 260, 263, 270, 276, 277, 279, 280, 281, 282, 284, 285, 286, 291, 295, 298, 299, 302, 305b, 306, 313, 378, 388, 753 Manchester English 113, 269, 300 Merthyr (fragment) 180, 285, 301 Oxford Bodleian Library Arch. Selden B.14 250 Oxford group (of MSS) 260 Oxford Corpus 198, 7, 8, 85, 253, 257, 288, 295 Paris Bib. Nat. fonds anglais 39, 264, 689 Petworth House 7, 8, 85, 253, 257 Royal 17 Dxv 253 San Marino, California Huntington HM 144, 297 Type A MSS 85, 180, 257, 266, 269, 279, 300, 303, 304 Type B MSS 85, 257, 279, 302 uses in literary study 719 Manzalaoui, M. 968 Map, Walter 486, Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum 346

326 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Marie de Champagne 487 Marie de France 2, 10, 15, 23, 36, 123, 180, 294, 403, 408, 456, 463, 815, 988 Del cok e del gupil 485, 520, 869 Marino, John B. 1071 Markman, Alan 895 marriage (debate, group of tales, theme) 145, 155, 271, 281, 549, 605, 606, 635, 641, 651, 779, 781, 782, 802, 832, 834, 841, 842, 867, 903, 944, 956, 993, 1001, 1056, 1058 Martin, Dorothy 76 Martin, Ernest 524 Martin, Willard E. Jr. 208 Marzec, Marcia Smith 597 masculinity 722b, 778d, 1076 Masefield, John 332 ‘Reynard’ 804 ‘The Widow in Bye Street’ 804 Masui, Michio 774 Mather (Jr), Frank Jewett 20 Mathesius, Vílem 68 Matthieu of Vendôme, Ars Versificatoria 607 Matthews, William (with Constance Woo) 574 Matsuo, Masatsugo 241 Maveety, Stanley R. 869 maxims 192 May (MerT) 550, 572 May 3rd 275, 495, 638, 709, 821, 870, 882, 889, 898, 903, 928, 950, 1016, 1020, 1049 Maynard, Theodore 329 McAlpine, Monica E. 81, 748, 1062 McCall, John P. 870, 991 McCaughrean, Geraldine 179

McCormick, W.S. 19, 262 McDermott, William C. 457 McDonald, Donald 474, 484 McGavin, John J. (with David Mills) 769 McGerr, Rosemarie Potz 184, 722e McGinnis, Wayne D. 578 McIntosh, Helen 97 McKisack, May 862 Mcknight, G.H. 396 McSpadden, J. Walker 35 medicine 143, 358, 436, 513, 526, 644, 685, 787, 819, 827, 840, 858, 887, 901, 922, 925, 927, 958, 968, 975, 990, 1004, 1028 Medici Society 48 medieval Europe 128 Mehl, Dieter 529, 696 Menippean satire 1011, 1064, 1078 Menon, K.P.K. 576 Mercia 217 Meredith, Peter 933 Merlo, Carolyn 376 mermaid 548a, 878, 933, 937, 945, 954, 1020, 1041 Mersand, Joseph 331 metaphors 192, 1073 Methuen Notes 977 metre 320, 431, 775 Meyer, Emil 550, 783 Michel, Pierre 1046 Michel-Michot, Paulette 1046 Middle Ages 421, 428, 441 Middle English 83, 114, 121, 144, 166, 330, 352, 375, 377, 381, 384, 426 Middle English Dictionary 349 Middle English-German glossary 52 Middleton, Anne 581, 754 Miki, Kunichiro 249

Index / 327

Miller, Robert P. 496, 915 Millican, C.B. 429 Mills, David 588 (with John J. McGavin) 769 Milosh, Joseph E. Jr 1000 Milton, John 154, 854, 907 L’Allegro and Il Penseroso 516 Paradise Lost 1024 Miner, Earl 904 Minnis, A.J. 502, 510, 511, 515, 660, 682, 1034 Mino da Colle 1017 Mirk’s Festial 503, 753 mirror 712 Mirror for Magistrates 203, 725 mirror of princes 720 mise en abyme 712 misquotation 830 Mishle Shu’alim 477 Miskimin, Alice S. 657 mistranslation 963 Mitchell, Jerome 956 mixed style 879 MLA Bibliography 197 mock-heroic 143, 180, 359, 362, 364, 378, 399, 403, 427, 464, 480, 481, 484, 485, 488, 505, 513, 518, 525, 604, 613, 629, 637, 640, 696, 715, 827, 831, 852, 861, 875, 880, 885, 888, 894, 900, 926, 936, 942, 951, 1010, 1014, 1032 Modern Instances 2, 3, 15, 19, 34, 52, 55, 63, 67, 85, 97, 106, 166, 173, 175, 248, 253, 260, 262, 263, 276, 278, 279, 284, 288, 295, 305b, 415, 540, 582, 591, 600, 601, 617, 647, 662, 675, 727, 732, 742, 753, 773, 776, 778g placed after Zenobia 4, 5, 7, 8, 10,14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 24, 31, 37, 48, 49, 55, 58, 70, 72, 75, 83, 85,

86, 87, 90, 91, 97, 99, 106, 110, 114, 115, 116, 118, 128, 130, 134, 138, 141, 146, 149, 158, 160, 170, 172, 181, 184 modernity 1012, 1032 Mogan, Joseph John, Jr 482 monasticism 591 monism 976 Monk, the 85, 180, 284, 288, 355, 363, 385, 412, 422, 424, 430, 546, 551, 552, 553, 554, 555, 556, 559, 561, 562, 565, 568, 569, 570, 572, 575, 576, 577, 579, 581, 582, 583, 585, 586, 588, 589, 590, 591, 592, 594, 596, 597, 605, 609, 618, 624, 629, 630, 631, 632, 637, 639, 640, 648, 652, 659, 660, 667, 669, 670, 674, 677, 679, 683, 686, 689, 693, 696, 702, 705, 713, 714, 716, 720, 728, 739, 758, 774, 775, 776, 989 Monk, Samuel Holt 904 Moore, Arthur K. 837 Moore, Samuel 259, 606 moral(itee), the 101, 657, 658, 662, 678, 682, 695, 701, 829, 843, 864, 868, 885, 900, 931, 936, 941, 945, 959, 988, 989, 1002, 1020, 1047, 1061 moral/morality 145, 180, 184, 248, 468, 485, 501, 506, 514, 529, 533, 541, 547, 564, 565, 572, 579, 598, 634, 642, 645, 648, 649, 650, 651, 658, 670, 683, 689, 690, 696, 700, 707, 711, 714, 715, 716, 717, 722a, 754, 774, 848, 879, 880, 893, 915, 936, 951, 959, 962, 971, 991, 1010, 1027, 1037, 1057, 1063, 1064 ‘mordre wol out’ 27, 445, 795 Morgan, Edwin 137 Morgan, Gerald 748

328 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Moritz, Theresa Anne (with Judson Boyce Allen) 670 Morris, Lynn King 531 Morris, Richard 4, 5, 6, 13, 56, 80, 289 Morra, Silvana 133 Morris, William 18 Morrison, Theodore 107, 620, 625 Morse, Charlotte Cook 719 Mossé, Fernand 449, 849, 952 Mosser, Daniel W. 297, 300, 304 Mowbray, Thomas 795 Moxon’s Poetical Works of Chaucer (1843) 2 Mroczkowski, Przemyslaw 860 Mudrick, Marvin 625 ‘mulier est hominis confusio’ 116, 271, 389, 411, 802, 922, 953, 954, 963, 966, 1004, 1027, 1056, 1058 Murphy, James J. 462, 884 Murtagh, Daniel 944 Muscatine, Charles 180, 224, 857, 896, 913, 918, 920, 930, 1018, 1062a music 442, 1041 Mussato 769 Mustanoja, Tauno F. 357, 360 mutability 482 ‘my lief is faren in londe’ 280, 367, 837 Myers, D.E. 959 mythology 991 Nadal, Thomas William 399 Nakao, Yoshiyuki 241 names, see proper names Narkiss, Doron 1072 narrator 557, 569, 589, 598, 689, 701, 711, 712, 722, 964, 1010, 1032, 1047, 1065 Nathalia, St. 351 narrative technique 66, 155, 481, 501, 507, 521, 540, 594, 595, 621,

649, 650, 670, 674, 675, 682, 687, 693, 696, 699, 708, 714, 720, 773, 830, 883, 885, 893, 904, 913 natural history 863, 878 Naunin, Traugott 611, 614 Nebuchadnezzar 55, 80, 124, 140, 441, 443, 448, 500, 592, 636, 710, 735, 737, 744, 747, 761 necessity 407, 430, 856, 888, 919, 964, 978 Neckham, Alexander 854, 863 Neilson, William Allan 57 Neilson, William A. 54 Nelson, Edward W. 538 neo-classical 855 Nero 8, 34, 80, 124, 253, 260, 397, 402, 407, 415, 441, 443, 499, 510, 515, 544, Ness, Lynn 377 Netherlands, the 395 Neuse, Richard 717, 778m, 778n New Criticism 1012, 1018, 1035 New Ellesmere Chaucer Facsimile 190, 305 Newbolt, Sir Henry 723 Newhauser, Richard G. 1063 Nicholas of Lynn, Calendar 495, 504, 928, 1031 Nicholas of Lyra, Postilla Litteralis 541 Nicolas, Harris 4 Nicolson, J.U. 90, 620 Nigel of Longchamps, Speculum Stultorum 395, 488, 493, 517, 819, 937 Nimrod 776, 1074 Nine Unworthies, the 740 Nist, John 934 Nitchie, Elizabeth 409 noise 1054 nominalism 985, 1019, 1065 Norman 338

Index / 329

Norris, Dorothy Macbride 328 North, J.D. 709, 928, 1031 Northumberland 330 Northup, C.S. 46 Nun’s Priest, the 56, 85, 121, 145, 155, 156, 180, 207, 274, 283, 355, 360, 363, 366, 369, 378, 407, 557, 558, 560, 563, 564, 566, 568, 570, 571, 573, 574, 577, 578, 584, 589, 591, 593, 595, 598, 599, 605, 618, 623, 624, 631, 644, 657, 669, 670, 673, 705, 781, 839, 845, 850, 864, 868, 872, 875, 880, 882, 894, 896, 902, 905, 925, 936, 943, 948, 949, 954, 959, 962, 975, 978, 980, 983, 992, 993, 1011, 1021, 1025, 1027, 1032, 1047, 1050, 1065, 1066 O. Henry 830 Oakden, Ellen G. 50, 60 oaths 359 octave 618 ‘Odenake’ 85, 634 Oerlemans, Onno 595 Oizumi, Akio 249 Oliver de Mauny 724 Olmert, Michael 538 Oloferno, see Holofernes Olson, Clair C. 146, 442, 916 Olson, Glending 187, 590, 591 Olson, Paul A. 591 Olsson, Kurt 479, 582 O’Neill, William 516 onomastics, see proper names ‘opie of Thebes fyn’ 787 oppositions 970 oral tradition 365, 390, 508, 594, 824, 826, 884 Ord, Hubert 414 order of tales 549 ‘orgon’ 418, 906, 1041 Oriol, Caridad 158

‘orloge’ 381 Oruch, Jack B. 739 ottava rima 389a ‘out of the yeerd’ 85 Ovid 393, 424, 465, 478, 501, 806, 855, 870, 1064 Ars Amatoria 427 Heroides 401, 427 Metamorphoses 427, 441, 470, 670 Ovide Moralisé 502, 511 Owen, Charles A., Jr. 285, 295, 303, 641, 662, 757, 845, 905, 915, 1035 Owl and the Nightingale 911 ‘owls and apes’ 335, 350, 380 Owst, G.R. 729 Oxford Chaucer (ed. Skeat) 5, 15, 16, 20, 21, 27, 46, 48, 54, 57, 66, 75, 83, 110, 113, 122, 141, 149, 163, 164, 187, 251, 255, 289, 336, 397, 434, 440 Oxford English Dictionary 372 Oxford Group (MSS) 260 Ozarks 508 Pace, George B. 738 Paffard, M.K. 858 paganism 515 palaeography 174, 302 Palamon (KnT) 628, 1049 Pantin, W.A. 853 paradise 903, 954 Pardoner, the 598, 677 parents 760 Parkes, M.B. 173, 174, 277, 302 parody 55, 121, 184, 248, 478, 506, 518, 562, 578, 596, 604, 605, 606, 607, 613, 614, 630, 635, 650, 701, 719, 761, 774, 829, 831, 855, 879, 881, 884, 911, 931, 949, 968, 980, 987, 1010, 1032, 1045

330 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Parson, the 550, 598, 667, 679, 868, 1027, 1044, 1078 Partlet/Dame Partlet 414 (see also Pertelote) Pastons, the 800 Patch, Howard Rollin 57, 218, 428, 437, 610, 615, 725, 811 Pathos 10, 30, 121, 393, 413, 435, 479, 529, 534, 537, 615, 616, 617, 619, 644, 684, 686, 689, 725, 754, 757, 760, 763, 764, 774 Paton, Frederick Noël 11 Patristics 180, 859, 866, 871, 876, 915, 1002, 1003, 1057 Patterson, R.F. 56 Paul, St. 503, 512, 846, 976, 1019, 1066 Epistle to Romans 502, 533 Epistle to Thessalonians 503 Payne, F. Anne 978, 1011, 1078 Payne, J.F. 36 Payne, Robert O. 877, 913, 917 Pazdziora, Marian 1001 Pearcy, Roy J. 386, 571 Pearsall, D(erek) A. 69, 180, 181, 266, 267, 291, 292, 294, 298, 305b, 388, 645, 648, 670, 689, 740, 842, 868, 893, 903, 1002, 1012, 1018, 1033, 1035, 1062a Pearson, Charles Holmes 108 peasant conditions 822, 862, 902 Peasants’ Revolt 753, 785, 789, 811, 817, 873, 906, 919, 999, 1036, 1051, 1053, 1055, 1066, 1074 Peck, Russell A. 512, 985 Peden, Alison 532 Pelagian 856 Pérez, Martìn M. a Jesùs 897 Pérez y del Río-Cosa, Manuel 58 Perry, Mary Agnes 805

Pertelote 36, 55, 66, 89, 116, 176, 185, 345, 358, 362, 363, 367, 369, 403, 436, 456, 459, 464, 485, 489, 513, 526, 536, 541, 546, 563, 577, 584, 615, 626, 630, 642, 690, 709, 780, 787, 794, 801, 814, 819, 835, 839, 840, 845, 858, 863, 866, 874, 881, 887, 895, 897, 901, 903, 907, 925, 927, 928, 930, 945, 952, 954, 958, 968, 969, 975, 986, 990, 993, 1004, 1024, 1028, 1032, 1039, 1041, 1052, 1065 Peter of Cyprus 111, 553, 614, 630, 701, 726, 727, 728, 732, 735, 742, 751, 752, 753, 778j Peter (Pedro) of Spain 111, 116, 369, 424, 441, 614, 636, 647, 665, 684, 701, 727, 733, 735, 736, 752, 753, 762, 792 Peters, F.J.J. 1049 Peters, Robert A. 370 Petersen, Kate Oelzner 390, 393, 408, 433, 441, 979 Petrarch 315, 406, 412, 422, 424, 661, 759, 765, 769 Pettit, Thomas 1036 Philip de Repindon 553 Pierre de Lusignan 441 Pierre de Saint Cloud 463, 476, 485 ‘Piers’ 360, 363 Philippa of Hainault (Queen) 337, 452 phoenix 543 Physiologus 164, 935 Pickering, Ken 185 Pierre de Lusignan 219, 369 pilgrims/pilgrimage 1, 32, 39, 50, 59, 73, 85, 117, 125, 165, 278, 355, 377, 579, 599, 626, 639, 662, 704, 782, 826, 902, 915, 989, 1030, 1049, 1060

Index / 331

Pillars of Hercules 346 Pinte 36, 447, 485, 526, 952, 990 Pinte, Daniel 548f Pizzorno, Patrizia Grimaldi 1058 place names 193, 216, 217, 219 Plato/Platonic 598 Timaeus 342, 975 Pleiades, the 709, 928 Pliny 863 Plowman, the 550 poetics 352, 420, 667, 713, 715, 775, 803, 851, 868, 877, 884, 913, 1014, 1015, 1045 Poetria Nova see Geoffrey de Vinsauf pointing 649 politics 1054 Pollard, Alfred W. 7, 10, 14, 17, 19, 26, 36, 72, 260, 600, 723 Polycrates’ daughter 419 Pompey 614 Pompeius Trogus 15 Pope, Alexander 154, 625 Pope, Emma F. 321 Portyngale 193, 219 possessive demonstrative 893 power 720 praesagium 432, 444 Pratt, Robert A. 111, 114, 116, 134, 146, 147, 184, 266, 267, 271, 274, 285, 346, 384, 447, 472, 485, 497, 730, 867, 1065 Praz, Mario 424, 446 preaching 472, 518, 577, 598, 634, 696, 729, 850, 868, 883, 926, 940, 942, 954, 971, 979, 1006, 1020, 1021, 1058 predestination see providence Premierfait, Laurent de 609 Preston, Raymond 618 Priam 409, 427, 1039

Príbusová, Margita 159 Prins, A.A. 275 Prioress, the 143, 180, 207, 258, 366, 378, 477, 551, 558, 559, 563, 567, 571, 577, 578, 584, 591, 598, 662, 872, 881, 954, 984, 1027, 1035, 1060 Priscian, 1069, Institutiones grammaticae 1051 Progymnasmata 1040 prolixity 803, 806 pronouns 355, 360 proper names 192, 233, 247, 360, 363, 369, 382, 386, 390 proverbs 192, 207, 229, 484, 805, 833, 894, 1001 providence 180, 342, 371, 407, 570, 592, 616, 617, 630, 644, 651, 653, 683, 685, 686, 699, 710, 716, 833, 853, 904, 905, 931, 959, 962, 978, 1007, 1011, 1021, 1026, 1027, 1043, 1056, 1065 Provost, William 956 prudence 715 Pseudo-Augustine 450 psychography 644 puns 340, 343, 344, 366 Puritan 1 pursuit (of fox) see chase Pyrrhus 427 Pythagorus/Pythagorean 440 Quick, Anne 243 Quintilian 1069 Ramanzani, Jahan 775 Ramsey, Roy Vance 286, 918 Rand, George I. 929 Raybin, David 772 ‘reccheleshed’ 843 Reed, Thomas L. Jr. 710 Reeve, the 823, 1055 Regan, Charles Lionel 380

332 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Reinart de Vos 471 Reinhart/Reineke Fuchs 36, 51, 203, 390, 393, 408, 441, 441, 456, 471, 526 Reiss, Edmund 134, 638, 673, 761, 1043 religion 231, 693, 746, 767, 1063 Renard le Contrefait 51, 476, 485 Renart-le-nouvel 452 reversals 1046 revolution 1055 Reynard/Renart (the fox) 36, 69, 164, 386, 390, 441, 449, 461, 463, 490, 498, 518, 520, 523, 609, 613, 632, 795, 808, 828, 902 rhetoric 143, 145, 184, 369, 432, 462, 472, 473, 501, 506, 564, 581, 582, 589, 598, 602, 604, 607, 611, 614, 630, 635, 644, 660, 664, 674, 683, 685, 690, 696, 697, 699, 701, 713, 719, 775, 806, 828, 847, 849, 851, 866, 872, 874, 877, 879, 883, 888, 891, 893, 894, 896, 900, 913, 917, 920, 922, 926, 931, 941, 942, 943, 948, 951, 959, 971, 980, 984, 997, 1005, 1012, 1014, 1028, 1032, 1040, 1046a, 1064, 1069 Rhode Island (breed of fowl) 176 rhyme 311 rhyme royal 618 Rhys, Ernest 3 Ricardian poetry 649, 754 Richard I 187, 420, 432, 441, 447, 473 Richard II 548, 555, 632, 638, 776, 778c, 778g, 795, 949, 1017 Richardson, H.G. 323 Richardson, Janette 935 Richmond, Velma Bourgeois 473 Rickert, Edith 97, 290, 322, 323, 324, 337 Rickert, Margaret 97

Ridley, Florence H. 567 Riemer, A.P. 1010 Rigby, S.H. 722 Rigg, A.G. 381 Riverside Chaucer 184, 249, 306, 542 Robathan, Dorothy M. 346 Robbins, Rossell Hope 358, 475, 890 Robertson, D.W. Jr. 585, 722, 722i, 737, 756, 871, 919, 920, 930, 981, 1002, 1012, 1013, 1062a (with Bernard F. Huppé) 876 Robertson, J. Logie 27 Robin, P. Ansell 815 Robinson, Duncan 167 Robinson, F. N. 85, 104, 110, 116, 118, 129, 134, 135, 137, 141, 143, 146, 149, 162, 168, 171, 177, 178, 182,184, 234, 258, 266, 270, 286, 291, 293, 298, 340, 343, 360, 380, 428, 571, 889 Robinson, Ian 361 Rochester 248, 250, 278, 590, 600 Rodax, Yvonne 637, 642 Rogers, H.L. 645 Rogers, William E. 697, 1003 Rollinson, Philip 1013 Le Roman de Fauvel 1054 Le Roman de Renart/d 10, 36, 51, 123, 143, 145, 180, 187, 203, 386, 390, 393, 403, 407, 441, 449, 454, 456, 459, 461, 463, 471, 485, 490, 517, 518, 520, 523, 526, 548a, 832, 952, 988 Le Roman de la Rose see entry under Lorris, Guillaume de, and Jean de Meun Roman poets 428 Roman Martyrology 356 Romance 312, 331, 333, 347, 352, 1015

Index / 333

Romanian 138 Rooney, Anne 118 Root, Robert K. 260, 393, 441, 779 Roscow, G.H. 375 Rosenberg, Bruce A. 360 Ross, J.F. 826 Ross, Thomas W. 4, 232 Rosse, Hermann 81 Rowland, Beryl 350, 643, 688, 878, 920, 921, 945, 960, 1004 Royal Academy of Music 105 Rudat, Wolfgang 758 Ruggiers, Paul G. 174, 287, 289, 290, 292, 293, 294, 479, 637, 653 Russel, Sir John 795 Russell (Daun) 101, 229, 363, 452, 936, 952, 976 Russell, G.H. 768 Saint’s Life 337, 693 St. Paul’s Cathedral 217 Sagen, Leda V. 341 Sakanishi, Shio 433 Salmon, Vivian 345 Salter, Elizabeth 930 Salutati 759 Sam(p)son 41, 80, 124, 140, 165, 402, 441, 443, 469, 592, 605, 693, 735, 761 Sandved, Arthur O. 382 Sarum 356 Satire 1, 51, 129, 145, 180, 403, 561, 563, 566, 567, 568, 576, 584, 605,652, 659, 660, 690, 701, 716, 722, 795, 803, 825, 828, 838, 910, 911, 927, 978, 1004 Satyr-play 779 Saturn 709, 760, 928 Sauerbrey, Gertrud 315 Savage, Henry 733 Scandinavian 264

Scanlon, Larry 720, 1052 Schaar, Claes 621, 622 Schauber, Ellen (with Ellen Spolsky) 1014 Scheps, Walter 936, 972 Schimmelpfennig, Bernhard 765 Schirmer, W(alter) F. 422, 922 Schlauch, Margaret 453, 731 Schless, Howard H. 530, 745 Schmidt, A.V.C. 282, 659, 744 Schnuttgen, Hildegard 245 Schoeck, Richard J. (with Jerome Taylor) 627 Schrader, Richard J. 937 science 792, 801, 968 science fiction 1000 Scott, A.F. 234 Scottish Chaucerians 468 Scragg, Leah 536 scribe A 173 scriptures 448, 761 Seaton, Ethel 337 Second Nun, the 557, 577 Sedgwick, H.D. 820 Seneca 515, 544, 548, 636, 757, 769 sentence 639, 676, 679, 691, 696, 742, 882, 942 sententiae 192, 207, 229, 484, 719, 805, 894, 1001, 1003, 1064 sentimentality 745 Sequeira, Isaac 576 sermon see preaching Serraillier, Ian 906 seven liberal arts 699 Severs, J. Burke 832, 861 ‘sewed’ 318 sexuality 755, 758 Seymour, Mary 12 Seymour, M.C. 180, 305a, 579, 771 ‘seynd bacoun’ 116, 330 Shakespeare, William 113, 154, 414

334 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Shallers, A. Paul 973 Shannon, Edgar F. 401, 410, 427 Sharma, Govind Narayan 887 Sharp, Michael D. 778d Shaver, Chester Linn 335, 380 Shaw, Judith Shaver 1037 Shea, John S. 904 Shelly, Percy Van Dyke 827 Shepherd, Geoffrey 746 Sherbo, Arthur 558, 571 Shipman, the 1026 short story 830 Short-Title Catalogue, 1475– 1640 546 Sidney, Sir Phillip 154 signs 1041, 1042, 1052 Silverstein, H. Theodore 434 similes 192 Simms, Norman 655, 1036 Simpson, James (with Gregory Kratzmann) 768 Simpson, Percy 728 Simon, Irène 1046 Sinclair, Giles 620 Sinon 409, 530, 1039 Sinsheimer, Estelle 28 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 778 sirens 935, 937, 945 Sisam, Kenneth 69, 85, 180, 289, 327, 375, 441, 860, 875 Sivaramasubramonia, A. 576 Six-Text Edition 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 19, 24, 27, 41, 52, 55, 57, 85, 129, 192, 250, 255, 287, 289 (see also Furnivall, F.J.) Skeat, Walter W. 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 20, 23, 31, 33, 34, 41, 45, 98, 110, 117, 135, 192, 234, 251, 253, 255, 256, 258, 263, 287, 288, 289, 307, 336, 338, 397, 407, 427, 434, 440

skepticism 840 Sklute, Larry 687 slang 372 Slaughter, Eugene Edward 859 Smith, Egerton 320 Smith, G. Hubert 429 Smith, Jeremy J. 306 Smith, Roland M. 821 Smithfield decretals 461 Snell, F.J. 608 social contest 714 social history 807, 833 society 802, 916, 1053 sociology of literature 999 Socola, Edward M. 735 ‘sodeyn(ly)’ 373 Solomon 591 Song of Songs 591, 993 songs 837, 1041 sonnets 414 Sophismata 1040 sounds 1051 Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (W.F. Bryan and Germaine Dempster) 116, 441 Southworth, James Granville Verses of Cadence 357 Spackman, Anna 1005 Spanish 58, 149, 158 Spearing, A.C. 143, 662, 748, 882, 884, 1044 (with Maurice Hussey and James Winny) 635 Spector, R.D. 855 Speculum Stultorum see Nigel of Longchamps Speght, Thomas (1602 edition) 2, 154, 268, 292 Speirs, John 116, 617, 645, 831, 848, 1018 Spencer, H.L. 693

Index / 335

Spenser, Edmund 66, 108, 154, 180, 393, 790, 854, 964 Faerie Queene 15, 389a Muioptmos 399, 941 Spenser, Theodore 435 Spenserian sonnet 389a Spenserian stanza 320, 321, 329 Sperber, Heinz 178 Spillenger, Paul 547a Spolsky, Ellen (with Ellen Schauber) 1014 Spurgeon, Caroline F.E. 400, 404, 425, 429, 445 Stahl, W.H. 450 Staines, David 1011 Stanley, E.G. 175, 381 stanzaic form 601 Stead, W.T. 43 Steadman, John H. 466, 863, 864, 922 Steele, Bruce 156, 157 Stephen, Leslie 816 Stevens, Martin 190, 283, 305 Stevens, Michael (with Michael Hoy) 926 Stevenson, David Lloyd 556 Stewart, Randall 113 Stillwell, Gardner 621 Stone, Brian 703 ‘storie’ 946 Stow, John 254 Strange, William G. 569 Stratford (atte Bowe) 558 Strohm, Paul 946, 1053 Stroud, Theodore A. 670 structure 682, 697 Stuart, Dorothy Margaret 35 Student’s Chaucer (ed. Skeat) 16, 45, 98 Stugrin, Michael 754 Sturt, Mary 50, 60

subjectivity 593 sublime 540 Subsidy roll 322 Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum 492, 499, 548b, 548 Suhamy, Henri 1050 Sullivan, Sheila 938 Summoner, the 283 Surbanov, Aleksandar 161 ‘sustres and paramours’ 993 Suzuki, Shigeki 241 Swedish 74, 151 Sym, C.A.M. 874 symbolism 376, 756, 845, 960, 998, 1003, 1006, 1020, 1022, 1030, 1041 ‘syn March bigan’ 1049 syntax 375, 377, 378 Taggie, Benjamin F. 762 Talbot 316, 1017 Tappan, Eva March 38 Tarbert, Gary C. 226 Tatlock, J(ohn) S(trong) P(erry) 46, 61, 85, 204, 249, 256, 263, 307, 308, 317, 329, 405, 406, 552, 554, 555, 601, 620 Taurus 886, 1020 Taylor, Estelle W. 741 Taylor, Jerome (with Richard J. Schoeck) 627 Taylor, Laurie 100 Taylor, P(aul) B. 548b, 548, 1019 teaching Chaucer 994, 996 Temporale 899 Ten Brink, Bernhard, Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst 258 Terry, Patricia 524 theatricality 713 thematic particulars 673 Thomas, Mary Edith 840 Thomas, Paul R. 517, 518, 533,

336 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

548c, 539, 1076 Thomism 962 (see also St Thomas Aquinas) Thompson, Phillip 220 Thomson, Christine Campbell 82 Thomson, Hugh 32 Thomson, Peter 1069 Thomson, S. Harrison 198 Thompson, W. Meredith 458 Thundy, Zacharias P. 987 Thynne, Francis 292 Thynne, William 34, 85, 154, 268, 288, 292 Tieken-Boom van Ostade, Ingrid 387 Togail Troi 346 Tolkien, Christopher 123 Tolkien, J.R.R. 332 tone of voice 897 Torrance, Robert M. 498 Torti, Anna (with Piero Boitani) 681, 1029 Toynbee, Paget 397 tragedy 121, 143, 175, 203, 248,393, 403, 424, 428, 446, 456, 492, 511, 515, 535, 540, 551, 562, 564, 569, 572, 573, 578, 581, 582, 588, 591, 596, 601, 608, 616, 628, 629, 630, 631, 637, 640, 652, 653, 657, 658, 673, 676, 682, 683, 684, 685, 689, 693, 694, 710, 711, 716, 722a, 722f, 722g, 723, 728, 729, 735, 737, 738, 748, 765, 769, 775, 778k, 831, 857, 860, 875, 950, 1039, 1044, 1058, 1066 transgression 1074 Trapp, J.B. 164 Traversi, Derek 683 Travis, Peter W. 1040, 1045, 1051, 1073, 1077 Trecento 240, 424, 680

Trevisa, John 187 Trigg, Stephanie 1, 1060 Trigona, F. Prestifilippo 417 Trivet/Trevet, Nicholas 462, 510, 515, 769 trivium 1040 Troilus (TC) 1039, 1048 Trojan War 1067 ‘Trophee’ 15, 85, 238, 309, 313, 314, 346, 384, 391, 424 Tropheus 313 Troy 47, 346, 447, 1039 Tubach, Frederic C. 231 Tupper, Frederick 313, 314, 781, 782, 802 Turner, G.L’E. 1031 Tyll Owlglass 335 Tyrwhitt, Thomas 2, 4, 5, 7, 34, 52, 270, 288, 294, 329, 398, 411, 433 Ugolino 10, 19, 27, 42, 55, 60, 80, 104, 111, 121, 124, 162, 203, 219, 248, 260, 393, 397, 403, 413, 417, 423, 424, 431, 435, 441, 446, 475, 479, 494, 507, 519, 521, 530, 534, 537, 543a, 547a, 548d, 548f, 540, 548, 600, 603, 608, 614, 616, 617, 618, 619, 632, 644, 645, 649, 675, 682, 684, 685, 689, 699, 716, 717, 722f, 723, 727, 728, 735, 745, 750, 753, 754, 757, 760, 763, 764, 774, 778m Uhlig, Claus 961 Ulmann 346 Ulysses 521 Underdown, Emily 47, 65 unity 850 upside down 668, 903, 1046 Utley, Francis Lee 215, 360, 871 Utz, Richard J. 1065 Valerius Maximus 344, 416, 433, 492, 497

Index / 337

Facta et dicta memorabilia 36, 416, 441 Vallese, Tarquinio 67 Van Doren, Mark 104 Van Eyck, Jan 820 Van Wyck, William 83 Variorum Edition 69, 174, 180, 503b, 1062a Varty, Kenneth 461, 463, 476 Vasta, Edward 987 Vatican Mythographers 394 Venantius Fortunatus 418 Venus 782, 870, 882, 886, 889, 995, 1020, 1039 Vermeer, P.M. 902 village 798 Vincent of Beauvais 180, 419, 436, 450, 840, 863 Speculum Historiale 384, 411, 438, 443, 510 violence 750 Virgil 416, 427, 457, 852 Aeneid 409, 416, 427, 447 Bucolics 434 Georgics 434 Virginia (PhT) 757 virtue 859 Visconti Libraries 730 Vitré (Brittany) 184 ‘vitremyte’ 85, 184, 307, 308, 325, 336, 385, 596 Vockrodt, G. 311 Vogelweide, Walter van der 74 Voigts, Linda Ehrsam 744 von Düring, Adolf 160 Vos und de Hane 525 vox (voice) 1051 Vox and [the] Wolf 396, 454, 471, 952 Wagenknecht, Edward 644, 865 Waldron, R(onald) A. 705, 740

Wallace, David 534, 543a, 778c Wallace-Hadrill, Anne 238 Waller, Marta M. 499 Wallis, N. Hardy 117 Walter (ClT) 752 Walters, Marjorie 124 Warner, Lawrence 1074 Wasserman, Julian N. (with Robert J. Blanch) 698 Watkins, Charles A. 573 Watson, Charles S. 634, 706 Watson, George 212, 235 Watson, Jeanie 770 Wayne, Valerie 770 Webster, K.G.T. 54 Weidhorn, Manfred 907 Weinstock, Horst 1023 Weise, Judith 242 Wells, John Edwin 194, 195, 199, 202, 205, 206, 209, 211, 213, 215, 428 Wells, Whitney Hastings 797 Wentersdorf, Karl P. 371, 663, 1020 Wenzel, Siegfried 674, 778e, 979, 1063 Werthamer, Cynthia C. 1038 Westminster Abbey 554 Wetherbee, Winthrop 774 Whateley, Edward 1069 ‘whilom ther was’ 354 ‘whit and black’ 339 Whitbread, L. 749 White, Helen Wescott 229 White, Robert A. Whiting, Bartlett Jere. 207, 229, 445 Whitmore, Frederic 96 Whitmore, Mary E., [Sister] 823 Whittock, Trevor 645

338 / Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Whyte, Edna 115 Widow, the 101, 362, 429, 447, 452, 523, 526, 550, 563, 567, 568, 569, 573, 645, 647, 649, 661, 662, 683, 693, 695, 703, 787, 798, 804, 807, 822, 823, 833, 836, 845, 848, 862, 873, 879, 895, 903, 906, 920, 945, 954, 961, 975, 981, 982, 993, 1010, 1013, 1038, 1077 Widsith 784 Wife of Bath, the 260, 403, 572, 593, 622, 641, 668, 802, 867, 882, 956 Wilcockson, Colin 970 Wilkes, G.A. 1010 Willard, James F. 198 William of Cloune, abbot of Leicester 553 William of Colchester, abbot of Westminster 949 William of Conches 510 William of Ockham 856, 998, 1065 William of St. Amour 846 William of Tripoli, De Statu Saracenorum 753 Williams, Arnold 846 Williams, David 704 Williams, George 638 Wilson, F.P. 833 Wilson, Gordon Donley 95 Wilson, William S. 898 Wimsatt, W.K. Jr. 438, 923 Windeatt, B.A. 294 Winny, James 143 (with Maurice Hussey and A.C. Spearing) 635 Winstanley, Lilian 51 Winterich, John T. 122 Wirecker, Nigel see Nigel of Longchamps Wittig, Joseph S. 705 Woo, Constance (with William Matthews) 574

Wood, Chauncey 924, 939 Wood, Thomas 101, 105 Woods, Marjorie Curry 719 Woods, Phil 176 Woodward, Daniel 190, 305 Woolf, Virginia 800 Wordsworth, William 893 ‘worthy’ 327 Wright, David 141, 181, 182 Wright, H.G. 268 Wright, Thomas 4 Wright, Thomas Goddard 49 Wundt, Wilhelm Max, Die Sprache 315 Wurtele, Douglas J. 592 Wyatt, A.J. 29, 73, 77, 84, 86, 106 Wycliffe, John 591, 1033 Fasciculi Magistri Joannis Wyclif 336 Wynkyn de Worde 276 Wright, G. 631 Yates, Donald N. 525 Yeager, Robert F. 291 Young, Karl 336, 420, 444 Ysengrimus 520, 525 Zacharius, Richard 969 Zacher, Christian K. 579 Zanco, Aurelio 623 Zanoni, Mary-Louise 1021 Zatta, Jane Dick 776 Zeller, Otto 225 Zenobia 4, 8, 34, 80, 124, 184, 253, 260, 307, 325, 336, 385, 406, 412, 424, 441, 494, 495, 522, 548, 596, 614, 636, 645, 689, 693, 699, 722c, 735, 737, 757, 770, 778d Zesmer, David M. 223 Ziegler, Carl W. 61 Zodiac 902