1610900 1561 Geoffrey Chaucer
10472.
Fine
Large section from The Woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer. 1561.
Likely Shakespeare's source for Troilus & Cressida.
This edition of Chaucer's Works, containing Troilus and Creseide, was likely a major source for Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. Though this copy is incomplete (lacking the Canterbury Tales among others), the work with the closest connection to Shakespeare is complete. The 1561 Stowe edition exists in two (possibly three) variants, though these are based on the frontmatter which is not present in this work. The editor John Stowe, a connoisseur of English poetry and a tailor by trade, heavily based his Chaucer's Works on earlier printings by editor William Thynne. Thynne's edition, printed in 1532, 1542, and 1550, was the first serious attempt at a critical edition. This, the rare Fifth edition overall of the Works, is "doubtless the Chaucer that was studied by Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser and at least leafed through by the young Shakespeare" (The Book of Geoffrey Chaucer, 24). The tales present in this copy are: The Romaunt of the Rose (with woodcut border title page); Troilus and Creseide; the Legende of good women; the Legende of Cleopatras Duene of Egipte; Legende of Tribe of Babilone; Legende of Dido quene of Cartage, and numerous other short tales; De Consolatione Philosophie in English (The Consolation of Philosophy) by Boethius; several shorter tales including the Testament of Love; this copy ends on fol.ccxxxv with Scogan, unto the Lordes and Gentilmen of the Kinges house. ESTC S107207; STC 507.
"Chaucer's characters live age after age. Every age is a Canterbury Pilgrimage; we all pass on, each sustaining one of these characters; nor can a child be born who is not one of these characters of Chaucer" (William Blake). Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, "It is difficult to pass over the name of Chaucer without marking the high pitch of perfection to which he brought the art of narration in verse... He was a great narrative artist, incomparably the greatest of an age that loved story-telling and knew nothing of the drama." By anticipating the inward turn of character generally associated with the Renaissance and the Reformation, Chaucer influenced both the shape and direction of English literature. Shakespeare drew on the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner for such characters as Falstaff and Iago, Spenser called him the "pure well of English undefiled," and the modern critic Harold Bloom suggests that "without such characters [as Chaucer created], there would be less life in literature, and less literature in life" (The Western Canon, 105-26).
The collation formula above describes what this copy contains. The complete copy would collate: [fleuron]⁴ A-V⁶ 2A-2T⁶ 2V-2X⁸ 2Y-T⁶ 3V⁸; [10], ccclxxviij leaves, though there are numerous pagination errors. This copy lacks the initial gatherings from the preliminaries to quire V (containing the Canterbury Tales), and the final six gatherings.
Condition:
Vellum rubbed and spotted, front joint cracked; some toning and stains, paper repairs to edges of about the first and last 15 leaves not affecting text except for catchwords, bottom outer corner of most leaves dampstained affecting some text; still very good.