This thesis offers a critical edition of The Plowman's Tale, a poem in the Chaucer apocrypha, which was last edited by W.W. Skeat in 1897. A full collation of all extant editions - both manuscript and printed - has led the present editor to select the text printed by Thomas Godfray in 1535, the earliest printed edition, as the base text for the present edition. The text is accompanied by a commentary and a glossary. The introductory chapters are concerned to relate the poem to its two most meaningful literary contexts. It is argued that almost all of the poem is a characteristic product of the Lollard movement at the end of the fourteenth century, but that by the addition of a Prologue at some time early in the sixteenth century, the anonymous verse tract came to be associated with Chaucer, as it took on its new role as a work of official Henrician propaganda after 1535.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:577799 |
| Date | January 1969 |
| Creators | Wawn, Andrew Nicholas |
| Publisher | University of Birmingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/4469/ |
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