The General Prologue

“This book has been more helpful to the students—both the better ones and the lesser ones—than any other book I have ever used in any of my classes in my more than a quarter century of university teaching.” —RICHARD L. KIRKWOOD, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire This Norton Critical Edition includes: • The medieval masterpiece’s most popular tales, including—new to the Third Edition—The Man of Law’s Prologue and Tale and The Second Nun’s Prologue and Tale. • Extensive marginal glosses, explanatory footnotes, a preface, and a guide to Chaucer’s language by V. A. Kolve and Glending Olson. • Sources and analogues arranged by tale. • Twelve critical essays, seven of them new to the Third Edition. • A Chronology, a Short Glossary, and a Selected Bibliography. About the Series Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format—annotated text, contexts, and criticism—helps students to better understand, analyze, and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.

A re-editing of F.N. Robinson's second edition of The works of Geoffrey Chaucer published in 1957 by the team of experts at the Riverside Institute who have greatly expanded the introductory material, explanatory notes, textual notes, bibliography and glossary. The result of many years' study. The Riverside Chaucer is the most authentic and exciting edition available of Chaucer's complete works.

Part One This monumental edition, in two volumes, presents a full record of commentary, both textual and interpretive, on the best known and most widely studied part of Chaucer's work, The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales. Part One A contains a critical commentary, a textual commentary, text, collations, textual notes, an appendix of sources for the first eighteen lines of The General Prologue, and a bibliographical index. Because most explication of The General Prologue is directed to particular points, details, and passages, the present edition has devoted Part One B to the record of such commentary. This volume, compiled by Malcolm Andrew, also includes overviews of commentary on coherent passages such as the portraits of the pilgrims.