Manly's Conception of the Early History of the Canterbury Tales

Abstract

Scholars have regretted that the enormous work embodied in The Text of the “Canterbury tales” did not leave Professor Manly the time and strength to integrate in a summary his main ideas as to the early history of the work. For that unwritten chapter no one, of course, could hope to offer a substitute. Yet much which would have gone into it and is not clear at the first reading takes form and coherence as one's familiarity grows with Manly's ideas and his material. One comes to see that, on most of the important features of the early history of the text, he had formed very definite opinions, while his silence on a number of others, if in some cases hard to interpret, more often clearly reflects a conviction that no light can be elicited either from the manuscripts or anything else within our ken. Correlating all indications I shall try to present in its main lines Manly's view of the history of the Canterbury tales to c. 1500, indicating as far as possible the basis for his opinions.

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