Sources and Analogues of the 'Canterbury Tales', Vol. I by Robert M. Correale The Chaucerian Apocrypha: A Counterfeit Canon by Kathleen Forni (review)

Abstract

454 Reviews last medieval English saint, St Thomas de Cantilupe. It is this breadth of interest and information that makes Textual Situations as entertaining as it is provocative. University College Dublin/Universitat Freiburg Neil Cartlidge Sources and Analogues ofthe 'Canterbury Tales', vol. i. General Ed. Robert M. Correale ; Ass. General Ed. Mary Hamel. (Chaucer Studies) Cambridge: Brewer. 2002. xii + 623pp. ?55; $85. ISBN 0-85991-628-6. The ChaucerianApocrypha: A CounterfeitCanon. By Kathleen Forni. Gainesville, Tallahassee, and Tampa: University Press of Florida. 2001. xviii +260 pp. $55. ISBN 0-8130-2427-7. These two books approach Chaucer from opposite ends, as it were, forone deals with the sources and analogues which he may have used in working on the Canterbury Tales, whereas the other deals with the way his work and reputation were exploited after his death. Both are welcome contributions to Chaucer scholarship. In 1941 Bryan and Dempster's Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'was published (Chicago: Chicago University Press), and the firstbook reviewed here is the firstof two volumes to replace that work. Since 1941 a large amount of scholarship has been devoted to this area, and scholars throughout the world have publishednew sources or more accurate editions ofthe known sources. In this firstvol? ume there are chapters on the frame and on the tales ofthe Reeve, Cook, Friar, Clerk, Squire, Franklin, Pardoner, Melibee, Monk, Nun's Priest, Second Nun, and Parson. The order followed is that of the Riverside Chaucer, though as the tales are taken from the whole poem rather than just its firstpart the sequence appears somewhat arbitrary. Two of the chapters can hardly be said to reproduce sources or analogues. The firstis the chapter on the frame (pp. 1-22), which reproduces Helen Cooper's article published in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 19 (1997), 183-210, in which she discusses the four main literary genres exploited by Chaucer: story collections, in which she pays special attention to Boccaccio's Decameron, debate, poetic contests, and pilgrimages involving storytelling. A chapter on the General Prologue will appear in the second volume. The second is the chapter on the Cook (pp. 75-86), whose tale is incomplete. John Scattergood has to speculate what sort of tale the Cook might have told and what sources and analogues there may have been for these speculative suggestions. He offerssome comments on the Tale of Gamelyn without going into it in depth or referringto the work done on it and its analogues by Stephen Knight. Two of the chapters, the Friar's Tale by Peter Nicholson (pp. 87-99) and the Second Nun's Tale by Sherry L. Reames (pp. 491-527), contain much new material. For the first,recent scholarship has revealed what represents 'a distinct English tradi? tion of the tale' (p. 87). This version is found in a group of Latin exempla, the earliest of which dates from the firsthalf of the fourteenth century, while the other two date from about 1400. It is these three versions which appear in this volume, so that close analogues?of which there are many, especially in the German-speaking world?are simply mentioned in the introductory comments. For the second, study of the tale itselfhas benefited enormously from work done on saints' lives and their abbreviated versions. Chaucer's version is shown to be close to abridged forms of the Life of St Cecilia found in copies otLegenda Aurea and individual accounts of the saint. The sources and analogues are printed in their original language with a facing English translation, into which the lineation of the original text is inserted so that comparison between the two is facilitated. Each chapter is by a differentscholar and each has had a free hand in deciding whether to reproduce a published text or edit the text afresh, and the same freedom applies to the translation. Similarly, the way MLR, 99.2, 2004 455 in which they present the text and the number of footnotes or explanatory notes included have been left to the individual editors. Each chapter, other than those for the frame and the Cook, contains introductory material reviewing the research done on the sources of the tale...