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The so-called Proverbs of Chaucer constitute a trouble-some puzzle to anyone interested in the totality of Chaucer's work, for they may well be authentic but are unlike any of Chaucer's unquestioned writings. Robinson, the latest editor (1957), places the Proverbs in a group of five "doubtful" poems which he feels cannot be proved not to be by Chaucer and which he accordingly prints.[1] But Robinson's opinion is not the only one. For example, the Brown-Robbins Index labels the Proverbs "pseudo Chaucerian"; Brusendorff asserts that they are genuine beyond "serious doubt"; the Globe Chaucer includes the Proverbs among the undisputed writings; and Skeat is of two minds, finding the Proverbs authentic in his Chaucer Canon but doubting their authorship in the Oxford Chaucer.[2] Only one thing seems really certain about the Proverbs: either they are by Chaucer or they are not.
The present paper offers a detailed textual analysis of the Proverbs, partly because no such study seems to exist but also because this fundamental aspect, the textual, has a bearing upon the question of authenticity. Specifically, the paper reclassifies the textual authorities in the light of a previously ignored copy of the Proverbs, gives the text which results from the reclassification, and explores the matter of authenticity as it is modified both by the reclassification and by the new text. The paper does not settle the authorship of the Proverbs, but it does, I believe, alter the grounds upon which any opinion may be based.
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