CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1350-1400)SELECTIONS FOR READING. Chaucer’s Prologue, the
Knight’s Tale, Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Prioress’ Tale, Clerk’s Tale.
These are found, more or less complete, in Standard En-
glish Classics, King’s Classics, Riverside Literature Series,
etc. Skeat’s school edition of the Prologue, Knight’s Tale,
etc., is especially good, and includes a study of fourteenth-
century English. Miscellaneous poems of Chaucer in Manly’s
English Poetry or Ward’s English Poets. Piers Plowman, in
King’s Classics. Mandeville’s Travels, modernized, in En-
glish Classics, and in Cassell’s National Library.
For the advanced student, and as a study of language, com-
pare selections from Wyclif, Chaucer’s prose work, Mandev-
ille, etc., in Manly’s English Prose, or Morris and Skeat’s
Specimens of Early English, or Craik’s English Prose Selec-
tions. Selections from Wyclif’s Bible in English Classics Se-
ries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
HISTORY. Text-book, Montgomery, pp. 115-149, or
Cheyney, pp. 186-263. For fuller treatment, Green, ch. 5;
Traill; Gardiner.
LITERATURE. General Works. Jusserand; Ten Brink;
Mitchell; Minto’s Characteristics of English Poets;
Courthope’s History of English Poetry.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.
- What are the chief historical events of the fourteenth cen-
tury? What social movement is noticeable? What writers re-
flect political and social conditions?
(^84) For titles and publishers of reference works see GeneralBibliography at the
end of this book.