As the first of the Canterbury Tales, the Knight's Tale attracts special attention, particularly in relation to the overall structure of the work and to the other tales. It has been the subject of a vast body of comment by scholars and lay readers. Monica McAlpine provides access to this material in the first of the Chaucer Bibliographies series to deal with a narrative portion of that author's best-known work.
McAlpine includes book-length and chapter-length studies, portions of books and chapters, articles and portions of articles, notes, substantive commentary in editions, study guides, and a few allusions previously unnoticed. Unpublished dissertations are included on a selective basis. Reviews that reflect scholarly debate on the Knight's Tale have also been annotated.
The first section of the bibliography covers the various editions and translations of the work published between 1900 and 1985. The second includes backgrounds and general studies, and the third deals with the three major sources. The fourth section provides a chronologically ordered survey of material on the Knight in the General Prologue and the Links. The final section, also chronologically divided, discusses works on the Knight's Tale itself.
