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Product Description: Tail-rhyme romance unites a French genre with a continental stanza form, so why was it developed only in Middle English literature? For English audiences, tail-rhyme becomes inextricably linked with the romance genre in a way that no other verse form does...read more

This book is a study of Anglo-Scottish literary relations in the later Middle Ages and early Renaissance. It attempts to show how those poets who have frequently been called 'Scottish Chaucerians' (James I, Henryson, Dunbar and Douglas) drew upon English writing. In the best Middle Scots poetry we see an order of invention and technical mastery that is comparable with that of Chaucer's work, and this is sometimes accompanied by shrewd commentary on Chaucer's art. Evidence of such an independent and critical view of Chaucer is strikingly absent in contemporary English poetry, and the book accounts for some of the differences between Northern and Southern poetry in the later Middle Ages. Above all, this study reveals that the poetry of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century in Scotland is a rich and extremely varied body of literature, ranging from the carefully wrought philosophical comedy of 'The Kingis Quair' to the tragic grandeur of Henryson's 'The Testament of Cresseid', from the pointed satires and grotesqueries of Dunbar to Douglas' vigorous and sensitive translation of the Aeneid.

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: This book is a history of a medieval literary tradition that grew out of opposition to the mendicant fraternal orders. Penn R. Szittya argues that the widespread attacks on the friars in late medieval poetry, especially in Ricardian England, drew on an established tradition that originated in the polemical theology, eschatology, and Biblical exegesis of the friars' ecclesiastical enemies--secular clergy, theologians, polemicists, archbishops, canon lawyers, monks, and rival orders...read more

Product Description: Starting from the assumption taht 'Pearl', 'Purity', 'Patience' and 'Sir Gawain and the Green knight' are by one poet, W.A. Davenport seeks to define the nature of his art. He makes a close analysis of each poem, considering the four not so much in their

Product Description: This book advances the argument that there exist in Middle English verse distinct narrative patterns that affected medieval contemporary audiences in symbolic ways. The author focuses upon one particular narrative pattern that occurs in a large number of poems, allowing us to discern, even if we do not share, unstated medieval assumptions about narrative structure...read more

Product Description: Book by Cherniss, Michael D.

Modern ways of presenting Chaucer have often made his work seem "normal," so that The Canterbury Tales and its much-studied General Prologue are seen as archetypes of narrative and prologue. The author of this book argues that study of Chaucer's major work alongside contemporary English poems reveals the odd and extreme aspects of Chaucer's writing as well as the daring and experimental qualities in his work. The focus of the book is on strategies of narrative and discourse, but it includes discussion of famous middle English poems--Confessio Amantis, Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, --and some less familiar romances, such as Gamelyn and Emaré, as well as the idea of the tale-collection. (view table of contents)

Professor Kane is widely regarded as the leading middle English textual and literary scholar of our time and this collection of his essays will be widely welcomed. They focus largely upon the texts of Chaucer and Langland and demonstrate in an exemplary way how critical issues can arise from meticulous textual study.

Product Description: The study of the work of Geoffrey Chaucer - still regarded as a literary genius more than 600 years after his death - centres on the problems of detailed readings of his poetry (including in some cases the textual authority for these readings) and the historical context that gives them meaning...read more

Product Description: Chaucer was perceived as the father of English poetry, and his works gave rise to a diversity of traditions of both creative response and critical commentary, to subsequent 'Chaucerian' authors and to a body of comment about his writings...read more

Product Description: This first modern treatment of the Chaucerian Apocrypha--the 51 spurious works included in the folio editions printed between 1532 and 1721--addresses the nature of canon formation and why the apocrypha became a Chaucerian canon of its own, while making a larger argument about how Chaucer is constructed, or invented, by his readers...read more

This collection of seventeen original essays by leading authorities offers, for the first time, a comprehensive overview of the significant authors and important aspects of fifteenth-century English poetry. The major poets of the century, John Lydgate and Thomas Hoccleve, receive detailed analysis, alongside perhaps lesser-known authors: John Capgrave, Osbern Bokenham, Peter Idley, George Ashby and John Audelay. In addition, several essays examine genres and topics, including romance, popular, historical and scientific poetry, and translations from the classics. Other chapters investigate the crucial contexts for approaching poetry of this period: manuscript circulation, patronage and the influence of Chaucer. Julia Boffey is Professor of Medieval Studies at Queen Mary, University of London; A.S.G. Edwards is Professor of Medieval Manuscripts at the University of Kent. Contributors: Anthony Bale, Julia Boffey, A.S.G. Edwards, Susanna Fein, Alfred Hiatt, Simon Horobin, Sarah James, Andrew King, Sheila Lindenbaum, Joanna Martin, Carol Meale, Robert Meyer-Lee, Ad Putter, John Scattergood, Anke Timmermann, Daniel Wakelin, David Watt.