The Problems of Authorship and Date of "Wynnere and Wastoure"

Abstract

When in 1897 Professor Gollancz first edited The Parlement of the Thre Ages and Wynnere and Wastoure, for the Roxburghe Club, he suggested that the two were the work of one author. For this conclusion he gave seven reasons: (1) The poems have lines in common, and (2) passages in one are strongly reminiscent of passages in the other. (3) The general framework is the same. (4) Both use verbal forms in -ande as nouns. (5) Both show careless confusion in details. (6) Tests of language and meter do not tell against the identity of authorship. (7) The general impression conveyed by the two pieces tells strongly in favor of the view. Kdlbing in his review of Gollancz' edition accepted this conclusion, saying that the use of alliteration was practically the same in both poems.1 In his second edition of the Parlement,2 Professor Gollancz said: No criteria gainsay the theory that would assign it [the Parlement] to the author of Wynnere and Wastoure. If we look at the evidence for this opinion, however, we find it not strong. The similarities in phrasing and idea are not more remarkable than those which connect these poems with Piers the Plowman and Sir Gawayne and the Grene Kny3t. As a test of authorship such similarities are valueless, as Mr. George Neilson's reductio ad absurdum has demonstrated. As to the third point, the framework is the vision as found in Piers the Plowman and many other Middle English poems. In regard to the fourth point, the use of forms in -ande as nouns is extraordinary, but only one instance is found in each poem, and in one of these the B-Manuscript of Parlement reads make instead of makande. The use is also found sporadically elsewhere, for example, in the reports of the Guilds, to ye