Studies in the Language of Some Manuscripts of Gower's Confessio Amantis.
- Author/Editor
- Smith, Jeremy J
- Title
- Studies in the Language of Some Manuscripts of Gower's Confessio Amantis.
- Published
- Smith, Jeremy J. "Studies in the Language of Some Manuscripts of Gower's Confessio Amantis." PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 1985.
- Review
- Chapter 1 summarises the present state of knowledge of the history of Middle English and sets forth current theories for analysing scribal practice. Chapter 2 reconstructs the language of the poet through an examination of the manuscript evidence, and presents a study of Gower's rhyming practice. Chapter 3 is a preliminary linguistic survey of all accessible manuscripts and early prints of the Confession Amantis, with the exception of those studies in detail in chapters 2 and 4. Chapter 4 is a study of the manuscripts copied by "Scribe D." Chapter 5 presents conclusions, important among which are that (a) MSS Fairfax and Stafford "are, in all respects except their actual handwriting, as good as autograph copies;" (b) Gower's own language "was transmitted through layers of scribal copying throughout the fifteenth century in a very remarkable way;" (c) a corpus of spellings for the entire available manuscript tradition of the Confessio is presented; (d) new evidence about the career of Scribe D is offered. There are a bibliography and two appendices, one in which data used in the text are presented, and one of maps, showing dialectical regions. [JGN 5.2]
- Date
- 1985
- Gower Subjects
- Language and Word Studies
- Style, Rhetoric, and Versification
- Confessio Amantis
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies