Review by Choice Review
In his A Chaucer Handbook (1927), Robert Dudley French aimed for total coverage of all significant Chaucer scholarship. More than half a century of intensive critical activity later, dealing exhaustively in a single volume with just The Canterbury Tales seems a daunting enterprise. Helen Cooper successfully meets the challenge through a disciplined and judicious selection, proportioning, and organization of her materials. An Ellesmere-ordered discussion of the General Prologue and individual tales is preceded by an introductory chapter on framed tale collections, and is followed by one on imitations to 1615. Each tale is treated in sections devoted to such issues as its date, genre, sources, structure, themes, and style. Sections conclude with a bibliography listing three or four crucially important critical texts. The approach works best for those sections dealing with textual and historical scholarship, and less well for such sections as "themes," where issues are controversial and the subtleties of interpretive criticism resist summary. Even here, however, an effort is made to acknowledge dissenting viewpoints. This handbook is an admirable achievement, and an essential acquisition for any library with Chaucer holdings. -R. J. Pearcy, University of Oklahoma
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
