Chaucer Studies : A Historical and Critical Survey : Part 2 Mainly Interpretative

Part 1 of the present subject deals chiefly with philological studies in Chaucer, which are to be contributed to 'ANGLICA' Vol. 2, No. 3 (published by The English Philological Society of Kansai University). Part 2 given here is mainly concerned with interpretative studies of Chaucer. The progress and development of Chaucer scholarship has, during the past fifty years, been made with rapid but steady strides. American scholarship tended to take the lead in this field. English scholarship in Chaucer seems to have reached its acme when W. W. Skeat's Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer was published in 1894, with its later Supplement appearing in 1897. With the new century, however, the tide turned toward the United States, where from Child and Lounsbury on many significant investigations and studies were made by a number of eminent scholars including Kittredge, Manly, Lowes, Rickert, Tatlock, Root, Carleton Brown, Gerould, et al. To crown all, The Text of The Canterbury Tales (1940) in eight volumes, by the late Professors Manly and Rickert was widely recognized as the greatest achievement done in Chaucer scholarship of the first half of this century. This work was indeed a Herculean task consuming fifteen years, or thereabouts, into which these two professors poured their time, energy, and scholarship. Thus our interpretation and knowledge of this great poet have steadily increased and become profound and wide, subtle and complex, as he has been more carefully studied, a fact which shows that this century has made Chaucer by far a greater and subtler poet than any other century has done. Boldly speaking, as Professor Manly puts it, the present appraisal of Chaucer may claim the next highest rank among English poets, even higher than Shakespeare in some respects. Why this is so or how the poet has come to be so appreciated and interpreted might be inferred from what the present writer attempted in this article to describe bibliographically with comments and reviews : 1. The development of studies in Chaucer's historical environments. 2. Tendencies and changes in Chaucerian interpretation from 1900 onwards. 3. Specific studies and researches in Chaucer's individual works, of which The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Parliament of Fowls, Troilus and Criseyde, The Legend of Good Women, and the Canterbury Tales are treated with regard to the meanings of their themes, dates, and prevalent theories propounded by various scholars from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. 4. Recent trends in Chaucerian interpretations and studies especially since the appearance of F. N. Robinson, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1933), and P. V. D. Shelly, The Living Chaucer (1940), a new departure toward the interpretation of Chaucer as artist. From both works, the former being of fair and sound scholarly judgment, the latter an artistic revaluation of Chaucer, new directions can be detected, which will be more and more strongly accentuated in later works and researches on Chaucer. Especially studies in the structure, texture, style, and attitude of the poet, creative and critical, are to be noted. 5. Some suggestions toward future studies in Chaucer