Chaucer’s General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales: An Annotated Bibliography, 1900 to 1982 by Caroline D. Eckhardt

Abstract

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER the Legend; Chaucer seems to invoke the idea of intentio auctoris and to call into question its usefulness as a hermeneutical tool. So too does he raise doubts about the whole idea of auctoritas itself. The prologues posit experience and authority first as if they were at cross purposes, then as supplementary. But just as knowledge based on experience is open to doubt, so too is knowledge based on the belief that what old books say is true. Or so it would seem to someone like Dante, who found his "Cleopatras lussuriosa" heading a list of "Good Women." These comments I hope give some sense of how fruitfully provocative Copeland's book is. Everywhere one is engaged by the force of her argu­ ments. Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages is a major work that will influence medieval literary studies for years to come. WARREN GINSBERG State University of New York at Albany CAROLINE D. ECKHARDT. Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales: An AnnotatedBibliography, 1900 to 1982. The Chaucer Bibli­ ographies. Toronto; Buffalo, N.Y; and London: Toronto University Press, 1990. Pp. xli, 468. $85.00. Since the inception of the project in 1979, the ChaucerBibliographies have produced three volumes in conjunction with the University of Toronto Press. Russell Peck produced both the first volume on Chaucer's lyrics and Anelida and Arcite (1983) and the second on the translations, the lost works, and the apocrypha (1988). Like Peck's works, Caroline Eckhardt's contribution to the series must be used recurrently to be appreciated fully, and even more than Peck's work, its quantity of information and the centrality of its subject matter to Chaucer studies will ensure that Chau­ cerians will go back to it time and again, for scholarly reference, for helpful summaries, and for guidance for students. The volume well fulfills the basic utility of a comprehensive list of publications pertaining to The GeneralPrologue to The Canterbury Tales between 1900 and 1982, but its rich annotations make it much more than a list, and the nice match between its topicalarrangement and the structure of The GeneralPrologue provide remarkably easy access to information both specific and general. The work includes twenty-nine sections arranged in large part by the 118 REVIEWS sequence of pilgrims as they appear in The General Prologue (Knight, Squire, Yeoman, etc.), flanked by sections on the opening lines (GP1-42), the narrator's comments and apology (lines 715-16), and the Host and the storytelling contest (lines 747-858). Introductory sections include "Edi­ tions," "Research Tools," "Language and Stylistics," and the longest, "Gen­ eral Criticism and Cultural Backgrounds." Dissertations are included, and considerable effort has been taken toincludecriticismandscholarshipofall languages and to lay to rest all bibliographic ghosts. Individual sections include particular studies and portions of more extensive studies as well. For example, the section on the Friar lists and annotates forty-five items, among them a number of focused essays like Arnold Williams's, "Chaucer and the Friars" (entry 955), but also Jill Mann's section on the tradition offraternal satire in Chaucer andMedieval Estates Satire (entry 937) and Manly and Rickert's assessment of an "addi­ tional couplet" (GP 252a-b) from The Text ofthe Canterbury Tales (entry 936). Both Mann and Manly-Rickert are annotated elsewhere-in the introductory sections and other sections devoted to individual pilgrims­ although no attempt is made to summarize any general or background work beyond its relation to The General Prologue. Other general or reference works are also annotated passim. Appropriate portions of Bowden's Commentary on the General Prologue are discussed in 8 separate sections; Skeat's edition of 1900, 8 times; Manly's Some New Light on Chaucer, thirteen times, etc. Mann's work is annotated seventeen times. Such an arrangement provides students unfamiliar with the bulk of Chaucer scholarship summaries of much of what has been written about The General Prologue in an arrangement they will find convenient because it matches that of The General Prologue. In-depth searches are expedited through judicious cross listing and a fairly extensive index, enabling users to find, for example,Janet Richardson's discussion ofthe Summoner in...