BIBLIOGRAPHY.[104]

HISTORY.  Text-book, Montgomery, pp. 115-149, or Cheyney, pp. 186-263.  For fuller treatment, Green, ch. 5; Traill; Gardiner.

Special Works.  Hutton’s King and Baronage (Oxford Manuals); Jusserand’s Wayfaring Life in the Fourteenth Century; Coulton’s Chaucer and his England; Pauli’s Pictures from Old England; Wright’s History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages; Trevelyan’s England in the Age of Wyclif; Jenks’s In the Days of Chaucer; Froissart’s Chronicle, in Everyman’s Library; the same, new edition, 1895 (Macmillan); Lanier’s Boys’ Froissart (i.e.  Froissart’s Chronicle of Historical Events, 1325-1400); Newbolt’s Stories from Froissart; Bulfinch’s Age of Chivalry may be read in connection with this and the preceding periods.

LITERATURE.  General Works.  Jusserand; Ten Brink; Mitchell; Minto’s Characteristics of English Poets; Courthope’s History of English Poetry.

Chaucer, (1) Life:  by Lounsbury, in Studies in Chaucer, vol.  I; by Ward, in English Men of Letters Series; Pollard’s Chaucer Primer. (2) Aids to study:  F.J.  Snell’s The Age of Chaucer; Lounsbury’s Studies in Chaucer (3 vols.); Root’s The Poetry of Chaucer; Lowell’s Essay, in My Study Windows; Hammond’s Chaucer:  a Biographical Manual; Hempl’s Chaucer’s Pronunciation; Introductions to school editions of Chaucer, by Skeat, Liddell, and Mather. (3) Texts and selections:  The Oxford Chaucer, 6 vols., edited by Skeat, is the standard; Skeat’s Student’s Chaucer; The Globe Chaucer (Macmillan); Works of Chaucer, edited by Lounsbury (Crowell); Pollard’s The Canterbury Tales, Eversley edition; Skeat’s Selections from Chaucer (Clarendon Press); Chaucer’s Prologue, and various tales, in Standard English Classics (Ginn and Company), and in other school series.

Minor Writers.  Morris and Skeat’s Specimens of Early English Prose.  Jusserand’s Piers Plowman; Skeat’s Piers Plowman (text, glossary and notes); Warren’s Piers Plowman in Modern Prose.  Arnold’s Wyclif’s Select English Works; Sergeant’s Wyclif (Heroes of the Nation Series); Le Bas’s Life of John Wyclif.  Travels of Sir John Mandeville (modern spelling), in Library of English Classics; Macaulay’s Gower’s English Works.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1.  What are the chief historical events of the fourteenth century?  What social movement is noticeable?  What writers reflect political and social conditions?

2.  Tell briefly the story of Chaucer’s life.  What foreign influences are noticeable?  Name a few poems illustrating his three periods of work.  What qualities have you noticed in his poetry?  Why is he called our first national poet?

3.  Give the plan of the Canterbury Tales.  For what is the Prologue remarkable?  What light does it throw upon English life of the fourteenth century?  Quote or read some passages that have impressed you.  Which character do you like best?  Are any of the characters like certain men and women whom you know?  What classes of society are introduced?  Is Chaucer’s attitude sympathetic or merely critical?