Chaucer's Knight's Tale: an annotated bibliography 1900 to 1985 (review)

228 Reviews appearance in the different chapters and sections of chapters, a hazardous undertaking if one is to heed the warning of H. S. A. Fox on Devon and CornwaU, for 'Underlying these general features was a well-developed regional mosaic...which makes one wary of generalizing about arable farming in any county or province of medieval England' (p. 306). An equally cautious view is expressed by Frydes that 'The period from 1381 to the last popular rebellion of thefifteenthcentury in 1497 is still a very obscure age in the history of the English countryside' (p. 784). Thanks to this volume the period is far less obscure than they feared. John Walmsley School of History, Philosophy & Politics Macquarie University McAlpine, Monica E., Chaucer's Knight's Tale: an annotated bibliography 1900 to 1985 (The Chaucer Bibliographies, 4), Toronto/Buffalo/London, University of Toronto Press, 1991; cloth; pp. Iii, 432; R.R.P. CAN$85.00. Annotations in this volume, the fourth in the Toronto Chaucer Bibliographies series, are divided into five sections: the Knight in the General Prologue (and the links), and the Knight's Tale. Inevitably, there is some degree of overlap between McAlpine's coverage of the portrait and Caroline Eckhardt's annotated bibliography of the General Prologue (volume three of the series). However, McAlpine's coverage is a good deal fuller and the inclusion of an exhaustive section on the portrait of the Knight have impacted significantly on readings of the Tale. Scholarship pertaining to the Tale's relationship to Boethius is excluded from coverage in view of the detaded treatment of Boethian influence on Chaucer by RusseU Peck in volume two of the series, which covers Romaunt ofthe Rose and Boece. The section on backgrounds and general studies is a welcome addition and the topical subdivisions are well judged. These are: Chaucer and Italy, romance and romances, courtliness and courtly love, Chaucer and women, paganism and the gods, Chaucer and science (especially astrology), estates and social status, and chivalry (including tournaments). A number of publications annotated in this section contain specific discussion of Chaucer's Knight and/or his Tale, for which the reader is refened to separate entries in the last two sections of the bibliography. It would have been helpful to have had an explicit statement as to whether or not discussion of the Knight is to be found in the publications which are not separately annotated. The section on backgrounds and studies is alphabetically ordered. In accordance with the practice adopted in earlier volumes in the series, editions are listed chronologically. The section on source studies, which includes editions as well as scholarship devoted to Chaucer's sources, thus employs both Reviews 229 chronological and alphabetical ordering. In the section on the portrait and the Tale entries are divided into five chronological periods. Within these five divisions, however, items are presented in alphabetical order. This seems unnecessarily compUcated. The advantages of chronological ordering are certainly not overwhehning. A common objection, noted by McAlpine, is that scholarly discussion does not evolve in strict temporal order. Perhaps it would have been better to abandon chronological ordering altogether in the last two sections, since the reversion to alphabetical ordering within the five chronological periods breaks up the chronological sequence while at the same time making it more difficult for readers to locate a particular author's work unless they know the approximate date of its publication. Given the complexities of organization, the index offers by far the fastest means of locating a particular author's work. However, even here a certain amount of page-riffling is required because there is no separate author index and, in the single index into which author and subject entries are conflated, the author's names are not typographically distinguished. The great strength of the Toronto series is the fullness and particularly of the annotations. McAlpine maintains the high standard of earlier volumes. The summaries are highly readable, scholarly arguments are efficiently and succinctly outlined, and the liberal use of quotations does much to evoke the flavour and quality of the original. Extensive cross-referencing between entries gives easy access to critical and scholarly dialogues. For the most part, McAlpine refrains...