Dysart 51

I got to take a look at that 1602 printing of Chaucer (Dysart 51). It might surprise some people to see how readable such old texts can be. I found myself just flipping through it and reading it, forgetting about the research I was supposed to be doing. The editor has included a nice preface outlining changes to the text he’s made since his last edition. He also includes a nice table of contents, a biography of Chaucer and a handy glossary of words that Chaucer uses. The glossary would have been helpful even in 1602, since Chaucer had been dead for 200 years by that point, and the English language had changed a lot during the intervening period.

The whole package seems a lot like an academic edition you would find today, with this glossary, table of contents and supplementary texts by other authors which provide insight into Chaucer. As you can read for yourself in the editor’s preface, the editor is also very concerned with accuracy regarding Chaucer’s texts. Since early printed texts were based upon handwritten manuscripts, the possibility of error and variation is great. Even the order of the tales in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is disputed. Editors back then, as they are today, were interested in being as true to the original author’s intention as possible.

This is just another example of how history never really goes away — it’s always reflected in our own culture.