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Neophilologus (2013) 97:395415 DOI 10.1007/s11061-012-9315-3
Jacob Thaisen
Published online: 19 June 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract Application of standard techniques from natural language processing on
N-gram models of spelling enables quantication of the similarity between Middle English texts despite their lexical differences. Three studies employing similarity metrics conrm that a scribes spelling always is biased in the direction of his exemplars. This bias opens up a window on the number of scribes behind the exemplars for a text executed in a single hand, when other variables such as authorship and poetic form are held constant. A fourth study addresses nine manuscripts of Geoffrey Chaucers poem the Canterbury Tales with early textual contents. A one-way ANOVA/Tukeys Range Test shows that none of these manuscripts is based on exemplars written in more than three hands, when allowance is made for variation due to poetic form. The results point to unied exemplars for the full text as the normal format for the poems transmission. The discussion suggests that the nal tale ordering found in the rst manuscripts is a product of collaboration between the poems rst two scribes, probably working after Chaucers death and spuriously adding the Tale of Gamelyn.
Keywords Scribal copying Natural language processing Authorship
attribution Chaucer Canterbury Tales Manuscript production
Did the poet Geoffrey Chaucer compose the Tale of Gamelyn? The question is of especial interest in view of two recent developments. Firstly, there is increasing recognition today that Chaucer may have overseen the initial phase of the scribal
To Norman F. Blake.
J. Thaisen (&)
Department of Cultural Studies and Languages, University of Stavanger, 4036 Stavanger, Norway e-mail: [email protected]
Gamelyns Place among the Early Exemplars for Chaucers Canterbury Tales
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work on the Hengwrt manuscript of his Canterbury Tales (Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Peniarth 392D), and even that this count of authorially supervised manuscripts of the poem may be a conservative one. The emerging picture is of piecemeal compilation of the rst manuscripts as a result of the poet continuing to add to, revise, and rearrange his text up until his premature death. Their scribes, further, have associations with the London Guildhall, which make it possible to imagine them exchanging exemplars for the poem with one another. Secondly,...