First Stage of the "Getting to Know Some Old Things Very Well" Project: optional extra credit work in Special Collections

        To participate in this extra credit project, whose points will be added to the class-participation portion (20%) of your final grade, first read this "over-view" web page that explains the project's purposes and provides important training links.  Then, contact me by email after you have made an appointment with Tara Olivero, the Curator of Special Collections and Archives, or her assistant, to examine and respond to one of the rare books below.  The investigative thread of this stage is the edition of Chaucer's manuscripts for print in the Early Modern and Modern period.

        Begin by familiarizing yourself briefly with the manuscript orders in which vellum and paper manuscripts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales have survived by consulting this web page and talking with the instructor: http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng330/ct_tale_orders.htm.  Especially note that the "families" of manuscripts from which the tale orders are reconstructed are composed of unique documents, each differing from the others in countless ways, including some fairly dramatic differences in which some of the tales occur.  Most importantly, none of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works contains any "front matter" or notes, the editorial guidance and aids modern students are used to encountering in the Norton Anthology or Riverside editions of Chaucer's works.  For example, page through the first few leaves of  the Oxford University Corpus Christi Manuscript 198, which begins in mid-sentence with the General Prologue description of the Knight's "not good" array in very faded ink at the top of the page.  (If you have trouble reading the faded letters, scroll down to the darker ink which picks up the Squire's description at "and karf biforne his fader atte table.")  If you want to see more images of medieval Chaucer MSS, see some of the library's printed facsimiles in the Goucher library collection.

        Next, look at the first leaves in digital facsimile of William Caxton's first printed edition ("editio princeps") of Canterbury Tales (London: 1476) or his second printed edition (London: 1483) at the British Library web site.  Note what Caxton does not give his readers that the Norton and Riverside editors give their readers before they begin reading Chaucer's works.  How does the presence of that editorial "apparatus" affect/shape readers' reception of what Chaucer wrote?

        Then, consult one of these rare printed editions in Goucher's Special Collections and examine their editorial apparatus to see what role they played in the evolution of the modern edition's construction.

1)  The "Speght Chaucer," 1598.  This volume contains a wealth of evidence about how the Renaissance English reading public understood Chaucer, his works, his importance to English literature, and the Middle English language.  It would have been the most recent Chaucer edition available during the period when Shakespeare was adapting Chaucer's Troilus to create Troilus and Cressida (1601-2).  The initial two or three pages of the Speght Chaucer are extremely fragile.  Use great care with working with them.  When possible, prepare by examining the digital images (linked below) before you decide you need to handle those pages.

• How many owners has this book had, that is, how many do you see evidence for, and how many can you name?  Can you tell more about who any of them were, and were any of them historically important?
• What features of this book resemble those of a modern edition like the Riverside Chaucer, and what features seem similar but strangely different, or even completely different?  Think about the book as a physical artifact, as well as a collection of texts to be read.  Comparison of Speght's biography of Chaucer with that in the Norton Anthology or Riverside Chaucer will be especially interesting.  What sorts of things did Renaissance readers think had happened to Geoffrey Chaucer that modern scholars know was not true?
• What works are ascribed to Chaucer by Speght, and which of them do you find in the Riverside Chaucer?  What do you suppose accounts for the difference?
• Speght dedicates this edition to Sir Robert Cecil.  What does he say to Cecil in the dedication?  Who was Cecil--what were his rank and status and political connections?  What is the relationship between Speght, the editor, and Cecil, the noble patron?
• What is the modern scholarly opinion of Speght as an editor of Chaucer?  For one well-informed opinion, consult Derek Pearsall's chapter on Speght in Paul G. Ruggiers, ed., Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition (Norman, Okla: Pilgrim, 1984), 71-92.   826.2 C49Sru 1984

Speght Chaucer Images

2)  Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Thomas Urry, THE WORKS...three Tales are Added...together with a Glossary...to the Whole is Prefixed the Author's Life..., 1721 

        NOTE: the "covers detached" descriptive note below is an important limitation on how you must work with the Urry Chaucer.  Ask for assistance in moving this extremely large, heavy book from its protective enclosure to a properly arranged foam book cradle.  Also ask for help when positioning the detached boards so that opening pages will not pull any of them loose from the binding.

• What does Urry's preface say about his method of editing Chaucer?  What does that suggest about the eighteenth-century readers' concerns, to which the editor is appealing?  Notice especially the overall appearance of this edition, perhaps compared with your Norton Anthology or Riverside Chaucer.  What kind of book is this?  If you have examined the Speght Chaucer, how would that compare with Speght's or a modern editor's methods? 
• Compare the "front matter" (frontispiece, title page, dedicatory material)  and think about them as the editor's and printer's attempt to "sell" the edition to the readers.  What kinds of visual appeals are being made, and do you find any of them at all unusual?  Comparison with the images of the Speght Chaucer front matter (linked above) may help inform your eye.
• Comparing Speght's contents with Urry's, what do you see?  What has been added and what left out?  When you compare Urry with the Riverside Chaucer, how often was he fooled by spurious works and do you see any pattern in that?
• Do you see evidence of ownership, owner's use of the volume, etc.?
• Is the binding original and do the pages appear to have been trimmed?
• What is the modern opinion of Urry's edition?  For one well-informed opinion, consult William L. Anderson's chapter on Speght in Paul G. Ruggiers, ed., Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition (Norman, Okla: Pilgrim, 1984), 93-115.   826.2 C49Sru 1984