Gower in the Delamere Chaucer Manuscript
- Author/Editor
- Edwards, A. S. G.
- Title
- Gower in the Delamere Chaucer Manuscript
- Published
- Edwards, A. S. G.. "Gower in the Delamere Chaucer Manuscript." In The Medieval Book and a Modern Collector: Essays in Honour of Toshiyuki Takamiya. Ed. Matsuda, Takami and Linenthal, Richard A. and Scahill, John. Cambridge: Brewer, 2004, pp. 81-86. ISBN 1843840200
- Review
- The former Delamere MS (now Takamiya MS 32) is one of the very few copies of CT still in private hands. It is also one of the rare MSS in which Chaucer's and Gower's works appear together (Edwards lists only 5 others), and of those that contains excerpts from CA, Takamiya has the largest selection, including 5 tales at the beginning and a sixth ("Nebuchadnezzar”) at the end. Edwards skillfully disentangles the complicated history of the book. Though by the same scribe, the three gatherings containing the Gower excerpts were not originally part of the CT MS with which they are presently bound, and may once have been part of a much larger book. The order and formatting of the selections suggest that they were done in two phases. The tale of Nebuchadnezzar, finally, which immediately follows the conclusion of CT, may, Edwards suggests, have been “conceived as some kind of quire filler” (85). This essay (along with that of Derek Pearsall, summarized below) appears in a magnificently produced new festschrift in honor of the present owner of this MS, Professor Toshiyuki Takamiya of Keio University. Forty of our most distinguished medievalists here offer 39 essays in worthy tribute to Professor Takamiya’s labors as a collector and his contributions to the study of medieval English literature, including his work on Chaucer, Malory, Hilton, and Gower. [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 24.1.]
- Date
- 2004
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies