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Some Observations Upon the Squire's Tale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

Among unfinished stories the Squire's Tale holds a prominent place. Milton, in a familiar passage, lamented its fragmentary condition, and all other lovers of good literature have shared his regret. Two persons have attempted to finish the tale “half told.” Spenser's completion is well-known. Well known, and somewhat notorious, too, is the laborious ambition of John Lane. His dull lines, having neither anything in common with Chaucer nor any native worth, can be of only curious interest to students of literature. They but remind us that the story of “Cambuscan” will never be wholly told.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1905

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References

page 346 note 1 Milton, Il Penseroso, 109 ff.:

“Or call up him that left half told

The story of Cambuscan bold,

Of Camball, and of Algarsife,

And who had Canace to wife,

That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,

And of the wondrous horse of brass

On which the Tartar king did ride.”

page 346 note 2 Faerie Queene, Book iv, Canto ii, st. 30, to end of Canto iii. This, perhaps, should not strictly be called a completion, as Spenser took up only one of the threads which Chaucer had let fall.

page 346 note 3 John Lane, Continuation of Chaucer's Squire's Tale, ed. by F. J. Furnivall, Chaucer Society, 1887.

page 346 note 1 Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, iii, 470 ff.; v, 371.

page 346 note 2 Englische Studien, xii, 161 ff.

page 346 note 3 Publs. of M. L. A., xi, 349 ff.

page 346 note 4 Englische Studien, xiii, 1 ff.

page 346 note 5 Chaucer Society, 1889 (Lane, Continuation of Chaucer's Squire's Tale, Part II).

page 346 note 6 Oxford Chaucer, iii, 475 f.

page 346 note 7 Lane, Continuation of Chaucer's Squire's Tale, Part II, 382 ff.

page 346 note 8 Histoire littéraire de la France, xx, 718.

page 346 note 1 André Van Hasselt, Li Roumans de Cléomadès, par Aedenes li Rois, 2 vols., Bruxelles, 1865; i, xvi ff.

page 346 note 2 Histoire littéraire de la France, xxxi, 171 ff.

page 346 note 3 Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, x, 460 ff.

page 346 note 4 Romvart, 99 ff.

page 346 note 1 Grundriss, 2, 787 ff.

page 346 note 2 Pacolet et les Mille et une Nuits, Wallonia, Janvier-Février, 1898, 5 ff.

page 346 note 3 Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, xi, 421 ff.

page 346 note 4 Romania, 27, 325 ff. (Review of Chauvin, Pacolet et les Mille et une Nuits).

page 346 note 5 Gröber, Grundriss, 2, 786.

page 346 note 1 Cléomadès, 9486 ff.

page 346 note 2 Squire's Tale, 655 ff.

page 346 note 1 Squire's Tale, 659 ff.

page 346 note 2 Histoire littéraire, xxxi, 183 ff.

page 346 note 3 In the Arabian Nights story they are sages. Lane, Arabian Nights, ii, 464.

page 346 note 1 Confessio Amantis, Book v, 2031 ff.

page 346 note 2 Weber, iii, The Sevyn Sages, 2070 ff.

page 346 note 3 L’ Espinette appears to have been written before November, 1373. Compare Le Joli Buisson, 443 ff. (ii, 14) with ib., 859-60 (ii, 26). See Eng. Stud., xxvi, 327-9.

page 346 note 1 Cléomadès, 1639 ff.

page 346 note 2 In the English prose Virgil there is actually a magic horse of copper. See Thom, Early Prose Romances, ii, x.

page 346 note 1 Cléomadès, 2382 ff.

page 346 note 2 L'Espinette, 2583 ff.

page 346 note 3 M. Aug. Scheler, Ouvres de, Froissart, Bruxelles, 1870, i, 384.

page 346 note 1 L'Espinette, 2623 ff.

page 346 note 2 Squire's Tale, 220 ff.

page 346 note 1 Professor Kittredge has suggested to me this punctuation. Scheler puts no exclamation point after fantomme.

page 346 note 2 L'Espinette, 2661 ff.