This is the best edition of Chaucer in existence' says the ubiquitous Anthony Burgess on the front cover, where no other name besides Chaucer's appears. Has England's Borges in exile turned editor, cramming a little textual criticism into those dull gaps between writing, composing and broadcasting? Not yet. This is merely 'the best edition in existence.'
The Burgess puff looks out of place here, at odds with Chaucer's favourite posture of self-deprecation and his impeccable sense of sytlistic decorum. No matter. Almost everything else about The Riverside Chaucer fits the bill. This is a comprehensive, readable (despite the small type size) and up-to-date edition of the first major English poet.
Of course, Chaucer was no mere poet. He was courtier, soldier, law student (possibly) family man, linguist, diplomat, customs officer, clerk of the King's works, MP and royal forester too. But, unlike his contemporary Langland, who wrote great poetry in spite of himself, Chaucer was self-consciously a poet. He was himself as a writer in the European tradition.
It therefore mattered to him how accurately his work was transmitted. In the century before printing this was a hazardous affair. Like Chaucer's scribe, Adam, copyists were often guilty of 'negligence and rape (haste).' Chaucer knew, too, that there was 'so gret diversite/In English and in writynge of our tonge' that his poetry was, in any case, liable to be 'myswriten' and 'mysmetred' every time it was copied.
He need have no worries about his latest editors. If, with Troilus, he now laughs at 'this wrecched world' from a privileged vantage point in the heavens, he should put a good word for them in the divine author's ear. Like Robinson, whose second edition of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer the present volume replaces, the Riverside editors have served their poet handsomely.
Alterations to Robinson's texts are largely minor; typically, the Riverside editors restore manuscript readings where their predecessor emended for metrical regularity. The cumulative effect makes the poetry a rougher ride, but not radically so. The new texts are improvements which reveal just how brilliant an editor Robinson was, despite his limited access to the manuscripts. In the 30 years since Robinson's second edition the Chaucer industry has moved a long way on. These advances have made The Riverside Chaucer possible. Unlike the Canterbury pilgrims (for the Tales were never completed) the 34 Riverside editors all have their worthwhile say.
References are discussed in detail, foreign language quotations are translated and difficult passages are explained. The introduction of glosses of difficult words and constructions in footnotes to the texts is a useful addition.
Not everything a Chaucer scholar could want is here. Manuscript descriptions, for example, are left our as in Robinson. But this is already a massive volume and the editors have rightly given the poetry priority. The Riverside Chaucer will not be superseded for another 30 years at least.
