Delimiting Chaucerian Obscenity in Caxton’s Second Edition of The Canterbury Tales

Abstract

Abstract This essay takes a closer look at the changes William Caxton made to his second edition of The Canterbury Tales (c. 1483), focusing in particular on the material that he deleted from his first edition (c. 1477) and did not replace. Caxton’s well-known prologue to the second edition claims that one of the printer’s key aims is to ‘satysfye thauctour’ and repair the ‘hurtyng and diffamyng’ he felt his first edition had inflicted on Chaucer’s text and reputation by accidentally omitting some of Chaucer’s text and leaving in ‘somme thynges that he neuer sayd ne made’. I show that most of what Caxton deleted consisted of bawdy spurious verse but argue that the printer was more concerned with rooting out ‘counterfeit’ Chaucerian obscenity rather than obscenity in general. By making these corrections, Caxton reveals his sense that ribaldry is a recognized element of Chaucer’s trademark style, and one whose limits must be established in order for the edition to be made according to the poet’s ‘owen makyng’.