Chaucer's Revision of the Prologue to "The Legend of Good Women."

Author/Editor
Seymour, M. C.

Title
Chaucer's Revision of the Prologue to "The Legend of Good Women."

Published
Seymour, M. C. "Chaucer's Revision of the Prologue to 'The Legend of Good Women'." Modern Language Review 92 (1997): 832-41.

Review
Seymour examines in this essay the revisions evident in the G version of Chaucer's Prologue to "Legend of Good Women" found in Cambridge University Library, MS Gg.4.27, the only witness to this version of the poem; he assesses both "accidental and intentional revisions to the text" (832). Along the way, he argues that Chaucer undertook his revision to please the newly crowned Henry IV and--he suggests in passing and without development--"in imitation" (841) of Gower's revision of his Prologue to the CA: "Some years earlier Gower had pointedly revised the Prologue to the 'Confessio Amantis' in Henry's favour, and the two poems and the two poets have much in common" (840). [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1]

Date
1997

Gower Subjects
Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations