Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T01:37:37.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dismantling the Canterbury Book

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

James Dean
James Dean*
Affiliation:
Tufts UniversityMedford, Massachusetts
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although several Chaucer scholars have argued for the last four tales of the Canterbury Tales as a concluding sequence, it has not been generally recognized that Chaucer ends his book deliberately and skillfully beginning with the Second Nun's Tale. Through the concluding stories Chaucer disengages himself and his audience from the fiction making of the Tales, moving toward his own voice in the Retraction, and he introduces themes of transformation in tales concerning the conversion of souls (Second Nun), the transmutation of metals through alchemy (Canon's Yeoman), the metamorphosis of Apollo's crow (Manciple), and the transforming powers of contrition and penitence (Parson, Retraction). The consistency of these closure themes provides evidence for the authority of the Ellesmere manuscript as against the highly regarded and recently published Hengwrt manuscript of the Tales, which has a different concluding tale order and which does not contain the Canon's Yeoman's Tale.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 100 , Issue 5 , October 1985 , pp. 746 - 762
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Allen, Judson B. “The Old Way and the Parson's Way: An Ironic Reading of the Parson's Tale.” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3 (1973): 255–71.Google Scholar
Allen, Judson B., and Moritz, Theresa Anne. A Distinction of Stories: The Medieval Unity of Chaucer's Fair Chain of Narratives for Canterbury. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1981.Google Scholar
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa theologiae. Gen. ed. Gilby, Thomas. 81 vols. New York: McGraw; London: Eyre, 1963-81.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Ralph. “The Yeoman's Canons: A Conjecture.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 61 (1962): 232–43.Google Scholar
Benson, Larry D. “The Order of The Canterbury Tales.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 3 (1981): 77–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blake, N. F., ed. The Canterbury Tales Edited from the Hengwrt Manuscript. By Geoffrey Chaucer. London: Arnold, 1980.Google Scholar
Blake, N. F., ed. “Chaucer Manuscripts and Texts.” Review 3 (1981): 219–32.Google Scholar
Blake, N. F., ed. “Chaucer's Text and the Web of Words.” New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism. Ed. Rose, Donald M. Norman: Pilgrim, 1981. 223–40.Google Scholar
Blake, N. F., ed. “Critics, Criticism and the Order of The Canterbury Tales.” Archiv 218 (1981): 47–58.Google Scholar
Blake, N. F., ed. “On Editing the Canterbury Tales.” Medieval Studies for J. A. W. Bennett, Aetatis suae LXX. Ed. Heyworth, P. L. Oxford: Clarendon, 1981. 101–19.Google Scholar
Blake, N. F., ed. “The Relationships between the Hengwrt and Ellesmere Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales.” Essays and Studies 32 (1979): 1–18.Google Scholar
Campbell, Jackson J. “The Canon's Yeoman as Imperfect Paradigm.” Chaucer Review 17 (1982): 171–81.Google Scholar
Clogan, Paul M. “The Figurai Style and Meaning of the Second Nun's Prologue and Tale.” Mediaevalia et Humanistica ns 3 (1972): 213–40.Google Scholar
Curtius, E. R. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Trans. Trask, Willard R. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1953.Google Scholar
David, Alfred. The Strumpet Muse: Art and Morals in Chaucer's Poetry. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1976.Google Scholar
Dean, James. “The Ending of the Canterbury Tales, 1952-1976.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 21 (1979): 17–33.Google Scholar
Delasanta, Rodney. “Penance and Poetry in the Canterbury Tales.” PMLA 93 (1978): 240–47.Google Scholar
Delasanta, Rodney. “The Theme of Judgment in the Canterbury Tales.” Modern Language Quarterly 31 (1970): 298–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donaldson, E. Talbot, ed. Chaucer's Poetry. 2nd ed. New York: Ronald, 1975.Google Scholar
Donaldson, E. Talbot, ed. “Chaucer's Three ‘P's’: Pandarus, Pardoner and Poet.” Michigan Quarterly Review 14 (1975): 282–301.Google Scholar
Donaldson, E. Talbot, ed. “The Ordering of the Canterbury Tales.” Essays in Honor of Francis Lee Utley. Ed. Mandel, Jerome and Rosenberg, Bruce A. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1971. 193-204, 363–67.Google Scholar
Duncan, Edgar H. “The Literature of Alchemy and Chaucer's Canon's Yeoman's Tale: Framework, Theme, and Characters.” Speculum 43 (1968): 633–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eliade, Mircea. Myth and Reality. Trans. Trask, Willard R. New York: Harper, 1963.Google Scholar
Fisher, John H., ed. The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer. New York: Holt, 1977.Google Scholar
Francis, W. Nelson, ed. The Book of Vices and Virtues: A Fourteenth Century English Translation of the Somme le roi of Lorens d'Orleans. Early English Text Society. Os 217. London: Oxford UP, 1942.Google Scholar
Frye, Northrop. Fables of Identity. New York: Harcourt, 1963.Google Scholar
Fyler, John M. Chaucer and Ovid. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.Google Scholar
Gardner, John. “The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale: An Interpretation.” Philological Quarterly 46 (1967): 1–17.Google Scholar
Gardner, John. The Poetry of Chaucer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1977.Google Scholar
Gardner, John. “Signs, Symbols, and Cancellations.” Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry. Ed. Hermann, John P. and Burke, John J. Jr. University: U of Alabama P, 1981. 195-207, 248.Google Scholar
Gordon, E. V., ed. Pearl. Oxford: Clarendon, 1953.Google Scholar
Gower, John. The English Works of John Gower. Ed. Macaulay, G. C. Early English Text Society. Extra ser. 81, 82. 2 vols. London: Oxford UP, 1900, 1901.Google Scholar
Grennen, Joseph E. “The Canon's Yeoman's Alchemical ‘Mass.‘” Studies in Philology 62 (1965): 546–60.Google Scholar
Grennen, Joseph E. “St. Cecilia's ‘Chemical Wedding’: The Unity of the Canterbury Tales, Fragment VIII.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 65 (1966): 466–81.Google Scholar
Howard, Donald R. 'The Conclusion of the Marriage Group: Chaucer and the Human Condition.“ Modern Philology 57 (1960): 223–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, Donald R. “The Idea of a Chaucer Course.” Approaches to Teaching Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Ed. Joseph Gibaldi. New York: MLA, 1980. 57–62.Google Scholar
Howard, Donald R. The Idea of the Canterbury Tales. Berkeley: U of California P, 1976.Google Scholar
Howard, Donald R. Writers and Pilgrims: Medieval Pilgrimage Narratives and Their Posterity. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980.Google Scholar
Jung, C. G. Psychology and Alchemy. Trans. Hull, R. F. C. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968.Google Scholar
Kane, George. “Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. A Facsimile and Transcription of the Hengwrt Manuscript with Variants from Ellesmere Manuscript. Edited by Paul Ruggiers.” Mediaevalia 5 (1979): 283–88.Google Scholar
Knight, Stephen. “Chaucer and the Sociology of Literature.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 2 (1980): 15–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolve, V. A. “Chaucer's Second Nun's Tale and the Iconography of Saint Cecilia.” New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism. Ed. Rose, Donald M. Norman: Pilgrim, 1981. 137–74.Google Scholar
Langland, William. Piers Plowman: The B Version. Ed. Kane, George and Talbot Donaldson, E. London: Athlone, 1975.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. Trans. Jacobson, C. and Schoepf, B. G. New York: Basic, 1963.Google Scholar
Lumiansky, R. M. “Chaucer's Retraction and the Degree of Completeness of the Canterbury Tales.” Texas Studies in English 6 (1956): 5–13.Google Scholar
Manley, John M. Some New Light on Chaucer. New York: Holt, 1926.Google Scholar
Marshall, David F. “Unmasking the Last Pilgrim: How and Why Chaucer Used the Retraction to Close The Canterbury Tales.” Christianity and Literature 31.4 (1982): 55–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Migne, J.-P., ed. Patrologiae cursus completus: Series Latina. 221 vols. Paris: Garnier, 1844–1903.Google Scholar
Muscatine, Charles. Chaucer and the French Tradition. Berkeley: U of California P, 1964.Google Scholar
Olson, Glending A. “Chaucer, Dante, and the Structure of Fragment VIII (G) of the Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer Review 16 (1982): 222–36.Google Scholar
Owen, Charles A. Jr. “The Alternative Reading of The Canterbury Tales: Chaucer's Text and the Early Manuscripts.” PMLA 97 (1982): 237–50.Google Scholar
Owen, Charles A. Jr. Pilgrimage and Storytelling in the Canterbury Tales. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1977.Google Scholar
Patterson, Lee W. “The Parson's Tale and the Quitting of the Canterbury Tales.” Traditio 34 (1978): 331–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratt, Robert A. “The Order of the Canterbury Tales.” PMLA 66 (1951): 1141–67.Google Scholar
Ramsey, R. Vance. “The Hengwrt and Ellesmere Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales: Different Scribes.” Studies in Bibliography 35 (1982): 133–54.Google Scholar
Robinson, F. N., ed. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1957.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Bruce A. “The Contrary Tales of the Second Nun and the Canon's Yeoman.” Chaucer Review 2 (1968): 278–91.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Bruce A. “Swindling Alchemist, Antichrist.” Centennial Review 6 (1962): 566–80.Google Scholar
Ruggiers, Paul, ed. The Canterbury Tales. A Facsimile Edition and Transcription of the Hengwrt Manuscript with Variants from Ellesmere Manuscript. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1979.Google Scholar
Samuels, M. L. “The Scribe of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere Manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 5 (1983): 49–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sayce, Olive. “Chaucer's ‘Retractions’: The Conclusion of the Canterbury Tales and Its Place in Literary Tradition.” Medium aevum 40 (1971): 230–48.Google Scholar
Schlauch, Margaret. “The Art of Chaucer's Prose.” Chaucer and Chaucerians. Ed. Brewer, D. S. University: U of Alabama P, 1967. 140–63.Google Scholar
Schricker, Gale C. “On the Relation of Fact and Fiction in Chaucer's Poetic Endings.” Philological Quarterly 60 (1981): 13–27.Google Scholar
Shumaker, Wayne. “Chaucer's Manciple's Tale as Part of a Canterbury Group.” University of Toronto Quarterly 22 (1953): 147–56.Google Scholar
Singleton, Charles S. Journey to Beatrice. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1967.Google Scholar
Wenzel, Siegfried. The Sin of Sloth. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1967.Google Scholar
Whittock, Trevor. A Reading of the Canterbury Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970.Google Scholar
Wood, Chauncey. Chaucer and the Country of the Stars. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1970.Google Scholar