The Production of Cambridge University Library MS Ff.I.6.
- Author/Editor
- Hanna, Ralph.
- Title
- The Production of Cambridge University Library MS Ff.I.6.
- Published
- Hanna, Ralph. "The Production of Cambridge University Library MS Ff.I.6." Studies in Bibliography 40 (1987): 62-70.
- Review
- This is primarily a codicological argument about Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff.I.6. Some "Confessio Amantis" extracts are part of the larger argument about whether the "Findern Miscellany" was designed to be a coherent whole or to circulate as separate fascicles or pamphlets; hence Hanna's views have some relevance for Gower research. In large part Hanna is responding to Kate Harris' 1983 analysis of the manuscript, "an elaborate discussion which lays out in full the evidence of quiring, of the watermarks of the papers used, and of scribal stints" (62). He notes that while many earlier studies interpreted this manuscript as largely fascicular, Harris concluded that it was a single (albeit group) production. Hanna accepts nearly all of her evidence, but he argues that it instead supports the fascicular theory. Taking this approach requires Hanna to rehearse most of her evidence, and then to lay out his own logic of how that evidence fits the fascicular model. Gower comes into the discussion in Hanna's detailed explanation of the CA extracts (64)--the stints of the five copyists are highly variable in length and placement, so that he notes that "one is forced to assume highly unstructured procedures--either copying as a sort of social game, where the archetype and in-production codex were passed about in a gathering for successive additions; or copying by leaving archetype and in-production codex out (on a table, say) for chance additions by any interested members of the household" (64). Hanna thus raises some intriguing questions about Gowerian reception and the production or consumption of household miscellanies. [RAL. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1]
- Date
- 1987
- Gower Subjects
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Confessio Amantis