This thesis is a study of the physical features of the four earliest manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales all dated to the first years after the death of Geoffrey Chaucer. I assess the ways in which codicological examination can contribute to the understanding of a complex textual tradition and inform the study of the text. The thesis is divided into two volumes. The first volume contains the seven chapters which make up the thesis. The first chapter contains a review of the printed editions of the poem since Caxton's first edition of 1476 and a summary of the most important contributions of scholarship in the twentieth century. It reveals that many influential editions and much scholarship on the textual tradition of the poem have been achieved with scant consultation of the extant manuscripts. The second chapter addresses the problems which have arisen as a result of this neglect and offers suggestions for a different approach to manuscript analysis which will be provided as a result of the examination of the manuscripts in the remainder of the thesis. Chapters three to six contain detailed analyses of the four manuscripts in the survey: Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales MS. Peniarth 392D (Hengwrt), Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS. 198 (Corpus), London, British Library MS. Harley 7334 (Harley 4), and California, San Marino, Huntington Library MS. El. 26 C 9 (Ellesmere). In chapter seven, I summarise the findings and offer suggestions for future research. The second volume contains all the appendices numbered 1-20 followed by 22 Plates. For each manuscript there are four or five separate appendices which provide details of the following: a visual overview, a detailed analysis of individual quires, a list of all rubrics, lines added, omitted or variant in each manuscript, and a list of catchwords.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:690018 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Stubbs, Estelle Vivien |
| Publisher | University of Sheffield |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/15177/ |
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