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REVIEWS JACQUELINE DE WEEVER. Chaucer Name Dictionary: A Guide to Astrological, Biblical, Historical, Literary, and Mythological Names in the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 709. New York and London: Garland, 1996. Pp. xxi, 451. $24.95 paper. The decision to release a paperback version of this 1987 volume assumes a substantial audience of scholars and students. Presumably the pub­ lisher felt that those who otherwise would consult the library's hard­ bound version will find it convenient to have at hand an annotated list­ ing of each personal name mentioned in Chaucer's works. And this is a hefty volume, offering information about Chaucer's use of classical, bib­ lical, and contemporary sources that careful readers will find helpful. Entries begin with paragraphs on the lives/significance of the named characters-far and away the most useful part of the volume-to which are added paragraphs on Chaucer's references to those characters, fol­ lowed by (in most cases--de Weever is not entirely consistent) the num­ ber of uses, spelling variants, line numbers, and indications of where the different variants appear in a line. Short bibliographic references com­ plete many entries, but these are arbitrary and limited and, nine years after the volume's initial hardbound publication, often out of date. Regardless of its bulk, a dictionary is only as valuable as it is accurate. As one examines the CND it becomes evident that this is a book to be used only with great care. When my review copy arrived, I turned to the entry on Absalon to see what I might find to help a student exploring the possibility of a political significance in Chaucer's use of this name. De Weever's strategy is to include separate listings for each of a name's referents; hence I discovered two entries, "ABSALON, ABSOLON1 " for David's son, "ABSOLON2 " for Chaucer's parish clerk. The entry on the biblical character includes the information that blond hair was an "at­ tribute of beauty" from the twelfth century on, but instead of referenc­ ing Paul Beichner's article "Absolon's Hair" mistakenly cites his "Chaucer's Hende Nicholas," which does not mention David's son and refers to his Chaucerian namesake only in passing. The entry on Chaucer's clerk belatedly cites "Absolon's Hair," but neglects to mention the color that Chaucer gives to his character's hair (also blond) and places Chaucer's thirty-two references to Absalon (an incorrect count) in The Knight's Tale (pp. 4-5)! Such confusion is typical of the volume. 233 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Looking closely at the first four pages, I found errors in almost every entry: "Moses" for "Moises" and "Mel 1099" for "Mel 1100" (p. 3; de Weever's line references to the prose of The Parson's Tale and The Tale of Melibee are almost always inaccurate, usually by one line but occasion­ ally by as many as four); "HABRADATES" for "HABRADATE," "Achetofel" for "Achitofel," "ParsT 638-40" for "ParsT 639-41," and a spurious medial reference to "KnT 3657," leading to the miscounting of the thirty-one references to Absolon's name (p. 4); "Metr 7.45" for "Metr7.43" and "Metr7.43" for "Metr7.45" (p. 5); "MLT 198" for "MLT 197-199," "SqT 236-240" for "SqT 238-242," "NPT 3142" for "NPT 3141," "BD 1067" for "BD 1066-71," and "Hector" for "Troilus" (p. 6). Random checking of later entries confirmed the pattern: "ParaT 575" for "ParaT 505" (p. 8); "LGW 1927" for "LGW 1977" (p. 9); the spelling "Aleyn" for "Alayn" for RvT 4089 (p. 12); the cross-reference "John'" for "John2 " (p. 19); ShipT 441, NPT 3241, ParsT 381 and 987 missing, PatsT 675 spuriously added, and ParsT "690" for "694," "750" for "754," "765" for "768," and "955" for "958" under the list­ ing for Augustine (pp. 48-49); FranT "929" for "989" and "989" for "982" under the listing for Aurelius (p. 50); "ELEATICIS" for "ELEAT­ ICS" (p. 128); and 3638 omitted under the Mi/IT listing for Nicholas (p. 255)-one notes here de Weever's peculiar decision to modify the...

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