The Variorum Chaucer project has a twofold mission: 1) to provide an analysis of the textual history of Chaucer's individual works; 2) to offer a comprehensive overview of all facets of critical commentary on each work.
Textual analysis begins with collation, a careful word-by-word comparison of important manuscripts and printed editions of the work in question; in most cases some thirty or so copies are examined. The process allows one to see how copyists and editors, from the 15th century to the late 20th century, understood, revised, presented, and explained the language of Chaucer's works.
The survey of criticism seeks to provide a historical survey of all commentary on each aspect of a given work: sources and analogues, date, relationship with other Chaucerian works, all relevant thematic considerations, and individual passages, phrases, and words.
