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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Zea E-Books Zea E-Books 12-4-2017 Uncollected Essays D. W. Robertson Jr. Princeton University Paul A. Olson University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons, and the Other English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Robertson, D. W. Jr. and Olson, Paul A., "Uncollected Essays" (2017). Zea E-Books. 60. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/60 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Zea E-Books at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Zea E-Books by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. D.W. Robertson, Jr. ncollected ssays With a Foreword by Paul A. Olson Foreword by Paul A. Olson • Buzones, an Alternative Etymology • The Manuel des Péchés and an English Episcopal Decree • Correspondence – The Manuel des Péchés • A Note on the Classical Origin of ‘Circumstances’ in the Medieval Confessional • A Study of Certain Aspects of the Cultural Tradition of ‘Handlyng Synne’ • The Cultural Tradition of Handlyng Synne • Marie de France, Lais, Prologue, 13-16 • Cumhthach Labhras an Lonsa • Chaucerian Tragedy • St. Foy among the Thorns • Amors de terra lonhdana • The Subject of the De Amore of Andreas Capellanus • Why the Devil Wears Green • A Further Note on Conjointure • The Book of the Duchess • Chaucer Criticism • “And for my land thus hastow mordred me?” Land Tenure, the Cloth Industry, and the Wife of Bath • Chaucer and the “Commune Profit”: The Manor • The Intellectual, Artistic and Historical Context • Religion and Stylistic History • Simple Signs from Everyday Life in Chaucer • Chaucer and Christian Tradition • The Wife of Bath and Midas • The Probable Date and Purpose of Chaucer’s Troilus • Who Were “The People”? • Chaucer and the Economic and Social Consequences of the Plague • The Probable Date and Purpose of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale • The Physician’s Comic Tale • Wisdom and “The Manciple’s Tale”: A Chaucerian Comic Interlude Zea Books Lincoln, Nebraska ISBN: 978-1-60962-113-1 doi: 10.13014/K23776W6 D.W. Robertson, Jr. (1914-1992) Uncollected Essays With a Foreword by Paul A. Olson Zea Books Lincoln, Nebraska 2017 Collection copyright © 1945–1991 estate of D. W. Robertson, Jr. Foreword copyright © 2017 Paul A. Olson. ISBN: 978-1-60962-113-1 doi: 10.13014/K23776W6 Composed in Sitka types by Paul Royster. Zea Books are published by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries Electronic (pdf) edition available online at http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/ Print edition available from http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/unlib UNL does not discriminate based upon any protected status. Please go to unl.edu/nondiscrimination. Contents Foreword, by Paul A. Olson . vii Buzones, an Alternative Etymology . 1 Studies in Philology 42:4 (October 1945), pp. 741–744. The Manuel des Péchés and an English Episcopal Decree 5 Modern Language Notes 60:7 (November 1945), pp. 439–477. Correspondence – The Manuel des Péchés . 15 Modern Language Notes 61:2 (February 1946), p. 144. A Note on the Classical Origin of ‘Circumstances’ in the Medieval Confessional . 16 Studies in Philology 43:1 (January 1946), pp. 6-14. A Study of Certain Aspects of the Cultural Tradition of ‘Handlyng Synne’ . 26 University of North Carolina Record (1946), pp. 146-147. The Cultural Tradition of Handlyng Synne . 27 Speculum 22:2 (April 1947), pp. 162-185. Marie de France, Lais, Prologue, 13-16 . 64 Modern Language Notes 64:5 (May 1949), pp. 336-338. Cumhthach Labhras an Lonsa . 67 Modern Language Notes 67:2 (February 1952): 123-125. Chaucerian Tragedy . 70 ELH: A Journal of English Literary History 19:1 (March 1952), pp. 1-37. St. Foy among the Thorns . 107 Modern Language Notes 67:5 (May 1952), pp. 295-299. Amors de terra lonhdana . 112 Studies in Philology 49:4 (October 1952): 566-582. The Subject of the De Amore of Andreas Capellanus . .130 Modern Philology 50:3 (February 1953), pp. 145-161. iii Why the Devil Wears Green . 159 Modern Language Notes 69:7 (November 1954), pp. 470-472. A Further Note on Conjointure . 162 Modern Language Notes 70:6 (June 1955), pp. 415-416. The Book of the Duchess . 164 Companion to Chaucer Studies, ed. Beryl Rowland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 332-340. [Updated bibliography, Revised Edition, 1979, pp. 409–413]. Chaucer Criticism . 175 Medievalia et Humanistica 8 (1977), pp. 252-255. “And for my land thus hastow mordred me?” Land Tenure, the Cloth Industry, and the Wife of Bath . 181 Chaucer Review 14:4 (Spring 1980), pp. 403-20. Chaucer and the “Commune Profit”: The Manor . 203 Mediaevalia 6 (1980), pp. 239-259. The Intellectual, Artistic and Historical Context . 224 Approaches to Teaching Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ed. Joseph Gibaldi (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1980), pp. 129-135. Religion and Stylistic History . 232 Theolinguistics Brussels, ed. J. P. van Noppen (Brussels: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1981), pp. 215-229. Simple Signs from Everyday Life in Chaucer . 247 Signs and Symbols in Chaucer’s Poetry, ed. John P. Hermann and John J. Burke Jr. (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1981), pp. 12-26 & 208-215. Chaucer and Christian Tradition . 274 Chaucer and Scriptural Tradition, ed. David Lyle Jeffrey (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1984), pp. 3-32. The Wife of Bath and Midas . 317 Studies in the Age of Chaucer 6 (1984), pp. 1-20. The Probable Date and Purpose of Chaucer’s Troilus . 337 Medievalia et Humanistica 13 (1985), pp. 143-171. iv Who Were “The People”?. 374 The Popular Literature of Medieval England, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), pp. 3-29. Chaucer and the Economic and Social Consequences of the Plague . 405 Social Unrest in the Late Middle Ages. Papers of Fifteenth Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, ed. Francis X. Newman (Binghamton, NY: SUNY Binghamton Press, 1986), pp. 49-74. The Probable Date and Purpose of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale . 433 Studies in Philology 84:4 (Autumn 1987): 418-439. The Physician’s Comic Tale . 457 Chaucer Review 23:2 (Fall 1988), pp. 129-139. Wisdom and “The Manciple’s Tale”: A Chaucerian Comic Interlude . 470 Essays in Honor of Edward B. King. Ed. Robert G. Benson & Eric W. Naylor (Sewanee, TN: The University of the South, 1991), pp. 223-237. v vii Foreword by Paul A. Olson i During the late summer of 1992, I received a call from Darryl Gless, a professor of Renaissance literature at the University of North Carolina and my former student, asking me if it would be all right if he and other people looking after the literary remains of D. W. Robertson would send me a package of published and unpublished articles that Robertson had left behind upon his death in July of that year. Gless had been a friend of Dr. and Mrs. Robertson in Chapel Hill, visiting with them frequently while trying a bit to look after their well-being in old age. Professor Gless said that he and other former students of Profes- sor Robertson wanted me to see what could be done about collecting and publishing Robbie’s literary remains. Though I was slightly intimi- dated, I consented to take on the project. I offered to receive the items and promised to try to distribute the materials. At the time, I had good contacts with the University of Nebraska Press, which had published a number of Robertsonian pieces, and with a number of other places that had published analyses much in the vein of Robertson’s. I also had a telephone call from Robbie’s son, expressing his interest in my mak- ing public the items in the package through computerized publication if book avenues were not available. When I received the aforesaid items, I added to them a large pack- age of letters that I had received from Robbie across the years—from 1957 to just before his death. Unfortunately, in the 1990s there was little interest in publishing Robertsonian material, largely because his research and interpretive methods, always controversial, had become increasingly unpopular with the rise of deconstructionism and New Historicism. Indeed, viii Foreword by Paul A. Olson Robbie told me, late in his life, that he had refused to have A Pref- ace to Chaucer translated into Japanese because he thought that his way of doing things no longer had any serious following. Though the New York Times obituary said that he was “widely regarded as this [the twentieth] century’s most influential Chaucer scholar,” the halls of academe echoed with the idea that his methods were losing all of the battles with the French fancies. Eventually, after talking to a few people about methods of publication and failing to find one, I deposited the trove in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries’ Special Collections so scholars could at least access them at another time. In later years, I felt guilty that I had not succeeded in fulfilling the trust that Gless and members of the Robertson family placed in me. I hoped that digitized access to the work could be prepared but was not clear about how. Recently, Kathleen Johnson, a humanities librarian at the Univer- sity of Nebraska–Lincoln, called my attention to Paul Royster of the DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska–Lincoln, who also had been a student of Robertson. She indicated that he might well be interested in seeing to it that the materials would be made widely available. I had a few meetings with Dr.