Product Description: One of the most intriguing features of The Assembly of Ladies, an anonymous fifteenth-century Middle English poem, is that it has remained in print in anthologies for over 500 years. Why would a poem about courtly love remain so popular for so long? This book analyses the literary and historical publishing evidence about The Assembly of Ladies, to show that the poem has remained in print not for its literary merit, but because its anonymity has allowed it to be appropriated by editors for their own particular social and political causes...read more

Product Description: The Assembly of Ladies is a fifteenth-century secular love poem in Middle English that adheres closely to conventional poetic structures, but throws these conventions into relief as it presents the narrative from a womans point of view, a rare occurrence for poetry of this period...read more