Introduction to Chaucerian English by Arthur O. Sandved

Abstract

REVIEWS Root for Troy/us and Manly-Rickert for The Canterbury Tales undertook to produce scientific texts according to principles which reduced editorial choicetoaminimum-withdisastrousresults, asthe essaysbyRalphHanna and George Kane make clear, although Root's annotations and Manly­ Rickert's collations still provide invaluable data for the study of Chaucer's poetry. George Kane'sessay raiseslarge questionsnotonlyabout Manlyand Rickert's application of the genetic method, but about the method itself. Implicit in his discussion is whether the method he and Talbot Donaldson applied to the construction of the text of Piers Plowman should now be applied to Chaucer. He adduces many examples of readings produced by Manly-Rickert's rescensions whose inferiority can be explained by scribal practice. The next step would be to produce a text according to these principles-another eclectic text, to be sure, but one whose choices were based on durior lectio and usus scnhendi rather than on lucidity and aesthetics. The Variorum Chaucer text of The Canterbury Tales is another application of the best text method, with Hengwrt as the copy text. Thus it will not represent a full application on the Kane-Donaldson method. The general effect of this splendid volume is to heighten our awareness of the progress of scholarship. "Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plus­ quam ipsi gigantes vident" (Didacus Stella in Lucan 10.2). In the absence of such a historical view we little know how much the lucid readings and crisp annotations in modern school texts like Cawley's or Fisher's stand upon the heroic accomplishments of their predecessors. The Variorum is the next attempt to create an omnium gatherum, but that, too, will be provisional, awaiting the computer generated or Kane-Donaldson gener­ ated editions of the future. If only the human mind can expand to comprehend all the data being placed before it! Chaucer would be amazed. JOHN H. FISHER University of Tennessee ARTHUR 0. SANDVED. Introduction to ChaucerianEnglish. Chaucer Stud­ ies 12. Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Dover, N.H.: Boydell and Brewer, 1985. Pp. X, 107. ,£22.50, $33.75. There has been a flurry of activity recently in books about Chaucer's language, which is very welcome after the neglect to which the subject was 241 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER relegated for so long. In 1985 we have this introduction by Sandved as well as a similar introduction in German by Udo Fries published by Niemeyer. It should be said at once that the title of Sandved's book is misleading. It deals only with the phonology and morphology of Chaucer's language, though that language is attested through the extant manuscripts. It may be for this reason that Sandved has used the adjective "Chaucerian," though it is likely to suggest to many readers that this book deals with the language of Chaucer's contemporaries as well as with Chaucer. Even the word "Intro­ duction" perhaps fails to acknowledge that the book is fairly comprehen­ sive in its coverage of the phonology and morphology. The book is then not so much an introduction to Chaucerian language as a brief description of Chaucer's phonology and morphology. This is an important point, for many who want an introduction to Chaucer's language might well acquire this book and be disappointed with it because of its limited coverage. A problem for anyone dealing with Chaucer's phonology and mor­ phology is what data to use. Sandved has chosen to rely on the second edition of Robinson, presumably because this edition is not only fairly complete but also widely used in universities in Europe and America. However, the edition is old-fashioned in its editorial policy, and it is now widely agreed that it often relies on manuscripts which are not the best. Robinson often interfered in the language of his manuscripts to make them represent what he thought Chaucer's language was; and since he often started from lessaccurate manuscripts like the Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, his interventions in the language of his authorities could make the resulting language rather different from Chaucer's. Increasingly studies on language, such as the articles by David Burnley, are being based on the manuscripts themselves, and recently Samuels...