F. J. Furnivall’s six of the best: The six-text Canterbury tales and the Chaucer society
F. J. Furnivall founded the Chaucer Society in 1868 to print unpublished manuscripts of Chaucer and forward philological work on the poet. It promoted better understanding of the works, especially the Canterbury Tales, by allowing readers to be their own editors through access to the raw data (the m...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford University Press
2015
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| _version_ | 1826259095847436288 |
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| author | Spencer, H |
| author_facet | Spencer, H |
| author_sort | Spencer, H |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | F. J. Furnivall founded the Chaucer Society in 1868 to print unpublished manuscripts of Chaucer and forward philological work on the poet. It promoted better understanding of the works, especially the Canterbury Tales, by allowing readers to be their own editors through access to the raw data (the manuscripts’ variant readings). Thanks to his background in Christian Socialism (he taught the Tales to students at Maurice’s Working Men’s College), his intentions in founding the Society were essentially democratic. The Society’s, and Furnivall’s, great monument was his parallel text edition of the Tales in six manuscripts: the Six-Text (first part published in 1868), later followed by two further manuscripts to make, in effect, an ‘eight-text’. It was a radically important publication, and had far-reaching consequences for the later editing of Chaucer. Furnivall was in the thick of discussions, with Henry Bradshaw, Walter Skeat and others, about which were the most ‘valuable’ manuscripts of the Tales and the Tales’ order. The consequences of this appraisal (if not its underlying assumptions) are still with us. At this time, important manuscripts in private ownership, including Ellesmere and Hengwrt, were becoming more accessible. Furnivall and his associates made these manuscripts household names among Chaucer students. The Six- [eight] Text’s legacy has been contradictory in prophetic ways. It democratized the editing process, yet it made possible Skeat’s more authoritarian standard edition. It brought Ellesmere into prominence, but asserted the claims of other early manuscripts, notably Harley 7334. It strikingly anticipates recent trends in Chaucer criticism. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T18:44:27Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:0e07c379-15f9-45a5-a518-c19c28a7afda |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T18:44:27Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:0e07c379-15f9-45a5-a518-c19c28a7afda2022-03-26T09:43:41ZF. J. Furnivall’s six of the best: The six-text Canterbury tales and the Chaucer societyJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:0e07c379-15f9-45a5-a518-c19c28a7afdaEnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordOxford University Press2015Spencer, HF. J. Furnivall founded the Chaucer Society in 1868 to print unpublished manuscripts of Chaucer and forward philological work on the poet. It promoted better understanding of the works, especially the Canterbury Tales, by allowing readers to be their own editors through access to the raw data (the manuscripts’ variant readings). Thanks to his background in Christian Socialism (he taught the Tales to students at Maurice’s Working Men’s College), his intentions in founding the Society were essentially democratic. The Society’s, and Furnivall’s, great monument was his parallel text edition of the Tales in six manuscripts: the Six-Text (first part published in 1868), later followed by two further manuscripts to make, in effect, an ‘eight-text’. It was a radically important publication, and had far-reaching consequences for the later editing of Chaucer. Furnivall was in the thick of discussions, with Henry Bradshaw, Walter Skeat and others, about which were the most ‘valuable’ manuscripts of the Tales and the Tales’ order. The consequences of this appraisal (if not its underlying assumptions) are still with us. At this time, important manuscripts in private ownership, including Ellesmere and Hengwrt, were becoming more accessible. Furnivall and his associates made these manuscripts household names among Chaucer students. The Six- [eight] Text’s legacy has been contradictory in prophetic ways. It democratized the editing process, yet it made possible Skeat’s more authoritarian standard edition. It brought Ellesmere into prominence, but asserted the claims of other early manuscripts, notably Harley 7334. It strikingly anticipates recent trends in Chaucer criticism. |
| spellingShingle | Spencer, H F. J. Furnivall’s six of the best: The six-text Canterbury tales and the Chaucer society |
| title | F. J. Furnivall’s six of the best: The six-text Canterbury tales and the Chaucer society |
| title_full | F. J. Furnivall’s six of the best: The six-text Canterbury tales and the Chaucer society |
| title_fullStr | F. J. Furnivall’s six of the best: The six-text Canterbury tales and the Chaucer society |
| title_full_unstemmed | F. J. Furnivall’s six of the best: The six-text Canterbury tales and the Chaucer society |
| title_short | F. J. Furnivall’s six of the best: The six-text Canterbury tales and the Chaucer society |
| title_sort | f j furnivall s six of the best the six text canterbury tales and the chaucer society |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT spencerh fjfurnivallssixofthebestthesixtextcanterburytalesandthechaucersociety |