Sources and Analogues of “The Canterbury Tales,” Vol. I ed. by Robert M. Correale, Mary Hamel

Abstract

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER bution to the study of this wonderful body of poetry. It is engaged, intelligent, and original work. Stephanie Trigg The University of Melbourne Robert M. Correale and Mary Hamel, eds. Sources and Analogues of ‘‘The Canterbury Tales,’’ Vol. I. Chaucer Studies, 28. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002. Pp. xii, 623. $50.00. This is the first of a two-volume collaborative reference work replacing Bryan and Dempster’s 1941 Sources and Analogues of the ‘‘Canterbury Tales.’’ It contains a chapter by Helen Cooper on the frame story, and chapters on the tales of the Reeve, Cook, Friar, Clerk, Squire, Franklin, Pardoner, Monk, Nun’s Priest, Second Nun, Parson, and Melibee (it will be interesting to see if volume two includes the ‘‘Retraction,’’ as well as the remaining tales.) The most obvious innovation is facing-page translation , though Middle English is merely glossed. Research in the past sixty years has produced many changes. Sercambi is now rejected and the Decameron tentatively accepted as possible sources for the storycollection design. Every chapter has new material or offers versions or manuscript texts probably closer to Chaucer. Peter Nicholson’s five analogues to The Friar’s Tale illustrate gains in literary discoveries, replacing all but one of those in Bryan and Dempster. He provides three Latin exempla found in English manuscripts, as well as two early Continental examples of the widespread satirical tale and an outline of the literary background, which numbers three dozen extant analogues. Fabliaux pose particular problems: extant analogues are often numerous; the plots were in fluid, oral circulation as well as writing. Peter Beidler carefully assesses the difficult evidence in selecting three fabliaux to print for The Reeve’s Tale, with an interesting inclusion of a Flemish candidate, while summarizing arguments for the sidelined candidates. Space prevents a review of all the chapters and material. For their thorough research and judicious analysis, Chaucerians owe a debt of gratitude to the distinguished collaborators. Their work is inevitably diverse, from Richard Newhauser’s magisterial but lucid guidance through the massive textual sources of The Parson’s Tale and the history PAGE 372 372 .......................... 10906$ CH11 11-01-10 13:59:29 PS REVIEWS of their scholarly analysis, to John Scattergood’s excellent, and in its own way equally weighty, presentation of what he demonstrates is substantial background for The Cook’s Tale, where Chaucer’s sources are, he suggests, as much the ‘‘strains in the social fabric of London’’ as the sort of source he usually employed (p. 86). This more user-friendly Sources and Analogues proves a useful new teaching resource. The whole enterprise prompts consideration of central critical questions that arise from its own terms of approach and coverage. Are only literary sources relevant? How far can and should contributors really, as the introduction says (p. viii), eschew all critical judgments? The study of sources and analogues began in the same scholarly world as folklore research and has always had at its center the comparative analysis of plots, but after decades of developing historicist, intertextual, and codicological insights into literary texts and their contexts , the concept of background is richer and more complex, and, within its practical confines, this new Sources and Analogues often recognizes that, and its appearance is an opportunity to focus attention on these important issues. On the first question, as Mary Hamel says in her Pardoner’s Prologue chapter, the background to tales includes records of contemporary ‘‘observed actual behaviour’’ (p. 269). She reminds us that, in a wider sense, Chaucer’s reading and cultural environment generated sources not just for parallels in plot or phrasing but also ‘‘parallelism of idea’’ and more general influences. To take an example of where the question of nonliterary materials arises, as Hahn and Kaeuper have commented on The Friar’s Tale (SAC 1983, p. 101), ‘‘Response to the tale depended on Chaucer’s audience’s notions of how archdeacons and their summoners operated,’’ and ecclesiastical court records provide this background. Since the villains in the analogues are not summoners but other officials, some extracts or references to this material might have guided readers in speculation about Chaucer’s decision in this matter. This...