Article,
The Production of the First Copies of the Canterbury Tales
Congreso Internacional de AEDEAN, (2004)
Abstract
The question of whether or not the early copies of the Canterbury Tales were made in Chaucer’s lifetime or not is a problem which appears not to have exercised the early editors of the poem. Although Tyrwhitt in his edition of 1775-8 thought Chaucer had not completed the poem because the return journey from Canterbury is not included, he nevertheless edited the poem as a complete entity and provided a through line numbering. He based his edition on what he considered the most reliable manuscripts, but did not go into the question of whether any manuscripts dated from Chaucer’s lifetime. In his edition of 1847-51, Wright criticised Tyrwhitt for using later fifteenth-century manuscripts, when he knew that earlier ones existed. Wright believed that British Library MS Harley 7334 Ha4, which he claimed was written shortly after 1400, was the manuscript that best represented Chaucer’s language and text. His edition is based on this manuscript, but he followed the through lineation found in Tyrwhitt’s edition. The implication of his edition also is that no complete manuscript from Chaucer’s lifetime had survived.
