Literary studies: ancient, classical Books

Book SynopsisA comparison of Chaucer and Boccaccio sheds new light on both writers, indicating their mutual use of ancient comic literary traditions. Although many of Chaucer's sources have been exhaustively studied, relatively little work has been done on the influence of his contemporary Boccaccio, a gap which this book aims to fill. It examines the relationship of the comictales, the so-called fabliaux, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio's Decameron, demonstrating that not only did Chaucer draw on Boccaccio's work, but that they shared the same comic literary tradition stretching back into antiquity. By putting the tales and the characters side-by-side, it throws new light on Chaucer's inventiveness and mode of working. Professor CAROL FALVO HEFFERNAN teaches at the Department of English, Rutgers University, New Jersey.Trade ReviewCarol Falvo Heffernan's achievement is to have written a full and balanced synthesis while extending the discussion to a comparative evaluation of Boccaccio's writing. [Her] study will provoke much further debate. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements Introductory Matters The Comic Inheritance of Boccaccio and Chaucer Parallel Comic Tales in the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales Antifraternal Satire Boccaccio's Filostrato and Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: Adding Comedy Conclusion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisFirst modern edition, with facing translation, of two of the most mysterious Old English texts extant. The dialogues of Solomon and Saturn, found in MSS Corpus Christi College Cambridge 422 and 41, are some of the most complex Old English texts to survive. The first two dialogues, in verse and prose, present the pagan god Saturn inhuman form interrogating King Solomon about the mysterious powers of the Pater Noster, while in a second poem the two discuss in enigmatic terms a range of topics, from the power of books to the limits of free will. This newedition - the first to appear for some 150 years - presents a parallel text and translation, accompanied by notes and commentary. The volume also includes a full introduction, examining the evidence pointing to the influence of Irish continental learning on the dialogues' style and content; arguing that the circle which produced the dialogues was located at Glastonbury in the early tenth century, and included the young Dunstan, future archbishop of Canterbury; and locating the texts in the context of the learned riddling tradition, and philosophical debates current in the ninth and tenth centuries. Dr DANIEL ANLEZARK teaches in the Department of English at the Universityof Sydney.Trade ReviewA welcome addition to the corpus of modern editions of Old English poems. * REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES *The editions, translations, and apparatus of the texts are clear, full, helpful, and very carefully presented. These texts may never enter into the mainstream of Old English studies, but this solid edition will hopefully bring their linguistic exuberance to the attention of more scholars, and demonstrate that there are more strange treasures in the limited canon of Old English literature than might have been thought. * MEDIUM AEVUM *

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Book SynopsisWhat did medieval readers think of romance? Their attitudes to it, and the implications for the genre, are explored in this provocative study. An important and powerful meditation on romance genre, reception and ethical/moral purpose -- amongst many other aspects of romance. Professor ROBERT ROUSE, University of British Columbia. Medieval readers, like modern ones, differed in whether they saw "noble storie, and worthie for to drawen to memorie" in romance, or "drasty rymyng, nat worth a toord". This book tackles the task of discerning what were the medieval expectations of the genrein England: the evidence, and the implications. Safe for monastic, trained readers, romances provided moral examples. But not all readers saw that role as valid, desirable, or to the point, and not all readers were monks. Working from what was central to medieval readers' concept of the genre from the twelfth century onward, the book sees the changing linguistic, literary, religious and political contexts through such heterogeneous lenses as Denis Piramus, Robert Manning, and Walter Map; Guy of Warwick and Guenevere; chansons de geste and fabliaux; Tristram and Isolde and John Gower's uses of the pair as exemplary; Geoffrey Chaucer as reader and writer ofromance; and the Lollards, clergy, and didacts of the fifteenth century. MELISSA FURROW is Professor of English at Dalhousie University.Trade ReviewA well-structured, in-depth study of how the first readers of medieval romances responded to these texts. * ANGLIA *Will surely be welcomed by many scholars of Middle English romance both for contributing a number of new insights and for affirming a number of currently popular theories. * ARTHURIANA *Furrow marshals her material well, interspersing her critical arguments with textual exemplars that allow the discussion to move forward as well as providing her reader with a functional model through which to think about this problematic genre and its reception. * ENGLISH *Offers extensive and fascinating evidence of the lives romance lived throughout medieval England. [...] It offers a significant redirection of our reception of English romance. * SPECULUM *A rich and suggestive book, it gives us a new model for considering not only how romances were read in different contexts, but also, perhaps more acutely, how they were written to be read. * MEDIUM AEVUM *A detailed and intriguing study of the ways in which medieval readers may have approached and understood these texts. [...] In its sophisticated consideration of genre in social, political and even material, as well as literary, contexts, Expectations of Romance makes a significant contribution to the study of genre theory as it applies to insular medieval writing. * REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES *This a scholarly work, drawing on a wide range of data. It contains excellent readings. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *Table of ContentsThe Problem with Romance The Name and the Genre Genres, Language, and Literary History The Example of Tristram and Isolde Making Free with the Truth Coda: The Reception of a Genre Appendix: Romances and the Male Regular Clergy by Order Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe motif of death and dying traced through over a thousand years of the English Arthurian tradition. It is arguably the tragic end to Arthur's kingdom which gives the myth its exceptional resonance and power. The essays in this volume explore the presentation of death and dying in Arthurian literature and film produced in Englandand America from the middle ages to the modern day. Authors, texts and topics covered include Geoffrey of Monmouth, the chronicle tradition, and the alliterative Morte Arthure; Gawain and the Green Knight, Ywain and Gawain, the stanzaic Morte Arthur, and Malory's Morte Darthur; Tennyson's Idylls, Pyle's retelling of the myth for American children, David Jones, T.H. White, Donald Barthelme, Rosalind Miles and Parke Godwin. Featured films include Knight Rider, Excalibur, First Knight, and King Arthur. CONTRIBUTORS: Sian Echard, Edward Donald Kennedy, Karen Cherewatuk, Michael W. Twomey, K. S. Whetter, Thomas Crofts, MichaelWenthe, Lisa Robeson, Cory James Rushton, Janina P. Traxler, James Noble, Julie Nelson Couch, Samantha Rayner, Kevin J. HartyTrade ReviewProvides a number of insightful and intriguing ways of understanding Arthurian texts. * ENGLISH *A provocative array of analyses of the various incarnations of Arthurian death. [...] This volume teems with stimulating studies [and] attests to its potential value as the seminal work for future scholarship on English (and undoubtedly continental) traditions of Arthurian death. * ARTHURIANA *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Karen Cherewatuk and Kevin S Whetter 'But here Geoffrey falls silent': Death, Arthur, and the Historia regum Britannie - Sian Echard Mordred's Sons - Edward Donald Kennedy Dying in Uncle Arthur's Arms and at His Hands - Karen Cherewatuk 'Hadet with an aluisch mon' and 'britned to noght': Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Death, and the Devil - Michael W. Twomey Love and Death in Arthurian Romance - Kevin S Whetter Death in the Margins: Dying and Scribal Performance in the Winchester Manuscript - Thomas Howard Crofts The Legible Corpses of Le Morte Darthur - Michael Wenthe Malory and the Death of Kings: The Politics of Regicide at Salisbury Plain - Lisa Robeson Layde to the Colde Erthe: Death, Arthur's Knights, and Narrative Closure - Cory Rushton Arthurian Exits: Alone, Together, or None of the Above - Janina P Traxler Woman as Agent of Death in Tennyson's Idylls of the King - James Noble Death as 'Neglect of Duty' in Howard Pyle's The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur - Julie Nelson Couch Death and the 'grimly voice' in David Jones's In Parenthesis - Samantha J. Rayner Roll the Final Credits: Some Notes on Cinematic Depictions of the Death of Arthur - Kevin J Harty

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Book SynopsisArticles which survey and map out the increasingly significant discipline of medievalism; and explore its numerous aspects. This latest volume of Studies in Medievalism further explores definitions of the field, complementing its landmark predecessor. In its first section, essays by seven leading medievalists seeks to determine precisely how tocharacterize the subjects of study, their relationship to new and related fields, such as neomedievalism, and their relevance to the middle ages, whose definition is itself a matter of debate. Their observations and conclusions are then tested in the articles second part of the book. Their topics include the notion of progress over the last eighty or ninety years in our perception of the middle ages; medievalism in Gustave Doré's mid-nineteenth-century engravings of the Divine Comedy; the role of music in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films; cinematic representations of the Holy Grail; the medieval courtly love tradition in Jeanette Winterson's The Passionand The.Powerbook; Eleanor of Aquitaine in twentieth-century histories; modern updates of the Seven Deadly Sins; and Victorian spins on Jacques de Voragine's Golden Legend. CONTRIBUTORS: Carla A. Arnell,Aida Audeh, Jane Chance, Pamela Clements, Alain Corbellari, Roberta Davidson, Michael Evans, Nickolas Haydock, Carol Jamison, Stephen Meyer, E.L. Risden, Carol L. Robinson, Clare A. Simmons, Richard Utz, Veronica Ortenberg West-HarlingTable of ContentsEditorial Note - Medievalism as Fun and Games - Veronica Ortenberg West-Harling Medievalism and Excluded Middles - Nickolas Haydock Medievalitas Fugit: Medievalism and Temporality - Richard Utz Medievalists, Medievalism and Medievalismists: The Middle Ages, Protean Thinking, and the Opportunistic Teacher-Scholar - E L Risden Living with Neomedievalism - Carol L. Robinson and Pamela Clements Tough Love: Teaching the New Medievalisms - Jane Chance Is Medievalism Reactionary From between the World Wars to the Twenty-First Century: On the Notion of Progress in our Perception of the Middle Ages - Alain Corbellari Gustave Doré's illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy: Innovation, Influence, and Reception - Aida Audeh Soundscapes of Middle Earth: The Question of Medievalist Music in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Films - Stephen Meyer Now You Don't See It, Now You Do: Recognizing the Grail as the Grail - Roberta Davidson From the Middle Ages to the Internet Age: The Medieval Courtly Love Tradition in Jeanette Winterson's The Passion and The.Powerbook - Carla A. Arnell New Golden Legends: Golden Saints of the Nineteenth Century - Clare A Simmons A Remarkable Woman? Popular Historians and the Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine - Michael Evans The New Seven Deadly Sins - Carol Jamison

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Book SynopsisImportant and wide-ranging studies of the ideological exploitations performed by and upon the medieval romance. As one of the most important, influential and capacious genres of the middle ages, the romance was exploited for a variety of social and cultural reasons: to celebrate and justify war and conflict, chivalric ideologies, and national, local and regional identities; to rationalize contemporary power structures, and identify the present with the legendary past; to align individual desires and aspirations with social virtues. But the romance in turn exploitedavailable figures of value, appropriating the tropes and strategies of religious and historical writing, and cannibalizing and recreating its own materials for heightened ideological effect. The essays in this volume consider individual romances, groups of writings and the genre more widely, elucidating a variety of exploitative manoeuvres in terms of text, context, and intertext. Contributors: Neil Cartlidge, Ivana Djordjevic, Judith Weiss, Melissa Furrow, Rosalind Field, Diane Vincent, Corinne Saunders, Arlyn Diamond, Anna Caughey, Laura AsheTrade Review[A] stimulating collection, with articles ranging from discussions of specific poems to the reassessment of entire traditions. Many of the [...] pieces here deserve to become classics in the bibliographies of future work on insular romance. * NOTES & QUERIES *An extremely useful collection - a significant contribution to the D. S. Brewer series and to the study of medieval romance writ large. * JOURNAL OF BRITISH STUDIES *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Laura Ashe The Fairies in the Fountain: Promiscuous Liaisons - Neil Cartlidge Saracens and other Saxons: Using, Misusing and Confusing Names in Gui de Warewic and Guy of Warwick - Ivana Djordjevic The Exploitation of Ideas of Pilgrimage and Sainthood in Gui de Warewic - Judith Weiss Chanson de Geste as Romance in England - Melissa Furrow Patterns of Availability and Demand in Middle English Translations de romanz - Rosalind Field Reading a Christian-Saracen Debate in Fifteenth-Century Middle English Charlemagne Romance: The Case of Turpines Story - Diane Vincent Subtle Crafts: Magic and Exploitation in Medieval English Romance - Corinne Saunders Meeting Grounds: Gardens in Middle English Romance - Arlyn Diamond 'Als for the worthynes of þe romance': Exploitation of Genre in the Buik of Kyng Alexander the Conquerour - Anna Caughey Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Limits of Chivalry - Laura Ashe

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Book SynopsisMargery Kempe and her Book studied in both literary and historical context. Margery Kempe's Book provides rare access to the "marginal voice" of a lay medieval woman, and is now the focus of much critical study. This Companion seeks to complement the existing almost exclusively literary scholarship with work that also draws significantly on historical analysis, and is concerned to contextualise Kempe's Book in a number of different ways, using her work as a way in to the culture and society of medieval northern Europe. Topics include images and pilgrimage; women, work and trade in medieval Norfolk; political culture and heresy; the prophetic tradition; female mystics and the body; women's roles and lifecycle; religious drama and reenactment; autobiography and gender. Contributors: JOHN H. ARNOLD, P.H. CULLUM, ISABEL DAVIS, ALLYSON FOSTER, JACQUELINE JENKINS, KATHERINE J. LEWIS, KATE PARKER, KIM M. PHILLIPS, SARAH SALIH, CLAIRE SPONSLER, DIANE WATT,BARRY WINDEATT.Table of ContentsPreface - John H Arnold and Katherine J Lewis Introduction: Reading and Re-Reading The Book of Margery Kempe - Barry A Windeatt Margery Kempe and the Ages of Woman - Kim M Phillips Men and Margery: Negotiating Medieval Patriarchy - Lynn and the Making of a Mystic - Kate Parker Margery's Trials: Heresy, Lollardy and Dissent - John H Arnold A Short Treatyse of Contemplacyon: The Book of Margery Kempe in its Early Print Contexts - Allyson Foster Reading and The Book of Margery Kempe - Jacqueline Jenkins Margery Kempe, Drama and Piety - Claire Sponsler Political Prophecy in The Book of Margery Kempe - Diane Watt Margery's Bodies: Piety, Work and Penance - Sarah Salih 'Yf lak of charyte be not ower hynderawnce': Margery Kempe, Lynn, and the practice of the spiritual and bodily works of mercy - P H Cullum Margery Kempe and Saint-Making in Later Medieval England - Katherine J Lewis Final Thoughts - John H Arnold and Katherine J Lewis Bibliography

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Book SynopsisFirst full study of Chaucer's readings and translations of Petrarch suggests a far greater influence than has hitherto been accepted. Despite the fact that Chaucer introduced Petrarch's work into England in the late fourteenth century, Petrarch's influence has been very little studied. This book, the first full-length study of Chaucer's reading and translation of Petrarch, examines Chaucer's translations of Petrarch's Latin prose and Italian poetry against the backdrop of his experience of Italy, gained through his travels there in the 1370s, his interaction with Italians in London, andhis reading of the other two great Italian medieval poets, Boccaccio and Dante. The book also considers Chaucer's engagement with early Italian humanism and the nature of translation in the fourteenth century, including a preliminary examination of adaptations of Chaucer's pronouncements upon translation and literary production. Chaucer's adaptations of Petrarch's Latin tale of Griselda and the sonnet "S'amor non è", as the Clerk's Tale and the "Canticus Troili" from Troilus and Criseyde respectively, illustrate his various translative strategies. Furthermore, Chaucer's references to Petrarch in his prologue to the Clerk's Tale and in the Monk's Tale provide a means of gauging the intellectual relationship between two of the most important poets of the time. WILLIAM T. ROSSITER is Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, University of East Anglia.Trade ReviewA careful consideration of the relationship between Chaucer and Petrarch, but its reach beyond that narrow focus also makes it a valuable addition to the wider field of work on Chaucer and the tre corone. * MEDIUM AEVUM *[P]rovides a wealth of information and many intriguing readings. * STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER *A thorough and scholarly consideration of the subject [and] a valuable addition to the wider field of work on Chaucer and the tre corone. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Forms of Translatio Father of English Poetry, Father of Humanism: When Chaucer "met" Petrarch 'The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen': Petrarchan Inversions in Chaucer's Filostrato 'But if that I consente': The First English Sonnet 'Mutata veste': Griselda between Boccaccio and Petrarch 'Of hire array what sholde I make a tale?': Griselda between Petrarch and Chaucer Conclusion: 'translacions and enditynges' Bibliography

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Book SynopsisEssays examining the genre of medieval romance in its cultural Christian context, bringing out its chameleon-like character. The relationship between the Christianity of medieval culture and its most characteristic narrative, the romance, is complex and the modern reading of it is too often confused. Not only can it be difficult to negotiate the distant, sometimes alien concepts of religious cultures of past centuries in a modern, secular, multi-cultural society, but there is no straightforward Christian context of Middle English romance - or of medieval romance in general, although this volume focuses on the romances of England. Medieval audiences had apparently very different expectations and demands of their entertainment: some looking for, and evidently finding, moral exempla and analogues of biblical narratives, others secular, even sensational, entertainment of a type condemned by moralising voices. The essays collected here show how the romances of medieval England engage with its Christian culture. Topics include the handling of material from pre-Christian cultures, classical and Celtic, the effect of the Crusades, the meaning of chivalry, and the place of women in pious romances. Case studies, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory's Morte Darthur, offer new readings and ideas for teaching romance to contemporary students. They do not present a single view of a complex situation, but demonstrate the importance of reading romances with anawareness of the knowledge and cultural capital represented by Christianity for its original writers and audiences. Contributors: HELEN PHILLIPS, STEPHEN KNIGHT, PHILLIPA HARDMAN, MARIANNE AILES, RALUCA L. RADULESCU, CORINNE SAUNDERS, K.S. WHETTER, ANDREA HOPKINS, ROSALIND FIELD, DEREK BREWER, D. THOMAS HANKS, MICHELLE SWEENEYTrade ReviewTeachers in need of distilling essential information, issues and concepts for classroom consumption are its ideal but not exclusive audience. * ENGLISH STUDIES *A truly outstanding collection of essays on romance and Christianity that offers many new and valuable insights into this relatively narrow field. * PARERGON *One of the great strengths of this collection is that each essay offers substantial, detailed readings of the romances. * ARTHURIANA *With its focus on the romance... this collection of essays accomplishes the difficult task of saying something new about Christianity and medieval literature. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Helen Cooper Medieval Classical Romances: The Perils of Inheritance - Helen Phillips Celticity and Christianity in Medieval Romance - Stephen Knight Crusading, Chivalry and the Saracen World in Insular Romance - Phillipa Hardman and Marianne Ailes How Christian is Chivalry? - Raluca Radulescu Magic and Christianity - Corinne Saunders Subverting, Containing and Upholding Christianity in Medieval Romance - Kevin S Whetter Female Saints and Romance Heroines: Feminine Fiction and Faith among the Literate Elite - Andrea Hopkins Athelston of the Middle English Nativity of St Edmund - Rosalind Field Romance Traditions and Christian Values in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Derek S Brewer Questioning Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Teaching the Text through its Medieval English Christian Context - D Thomas Hanks Jr Teaching Malory: A Subject-Centred Approach - Michelle Sweeney

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Book SynopsisEdition and translation of Anglo-Saxon text, shedding light on Sunday observance and other issues. Few issues have had as far-reaching consequences as the development of the Christian holy day, Sunday. Every seven days, from the early middle ages, the Christian world has engaged in some kind of change in behaviour, ranging fromparticipation in a simple worship service to the cessation of every activity which could conceivably be construed as work. An important text associated with this process is the so-called Sunday Letter, fabricated as a letter from Christ which dropped out of heaven. In spite of its obviously spurious nature, it was widely read and copied, and translated into nearly every vernacular language. In particular, several, apparently independent, translations were made into Old English. Here, the six surviving Old English copies of the Sunday Letter are edited together for the first time. The Old English texts are accompanied by facing translations, with commentary and glossary, while the introduction examines the development of Sunday observance in the early middle ages and sets the texts in their historical, legal and theological contexts. The many Latin versions of the Sunday Letter arealso delineated, including a newly discovered and edited source for two of the Old English texts. DOROTHY HAINES gained her PhD from the University of Toronto, where she is currently an instructor of Old English.Trade ReviewIn its scope and in its meticulous handling of the subject, Haine's book supersedes all other commentary on the Old English Sunday Letter. [...] Haine's scrupulous study and edition of this most interesting but somewhat conflicted medieval text opens the possibility for further work on its reception and use in Anglo-Saxon England and in the rest of medieval Europe. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *An interesting and reliable source for further research in this area. * ENGLISH STUDIES *Table of ContentsPreface The Development of Sunday Observance in the Early Middle Ages Sunday Observance in Anglo-Saxon England The Latin Sunday Letter The Old English Sunday Letters Texts and Translations Commentary Appendices Glossary Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAn engagement with the huge growth in neomedievalism forms the core of this volume, with other essays testing its conclusions. The focus on neomedievalism at the 2007 International Conference on Medievalism, in ever more sessions at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies, and by many recent or forthcoming publications has left little doubtof the importance of this new, provocative area of study. In response to a seminal essay defining medievalism in relationship to neomedievalism [published in volume 18 of this journal], this book begins with seven essays definingneomedievalism in relationship to medievalism. Their positions are then tested by five articles, whose subjects range from modern American manifestations of Byzantine art, to the Vietnam War as refracted through non-heterosexual implications in the 1976 movie Robin and Marian, and versions of abjection in recent Beowulf films. Theory and practice are thus juxtaposed in a volume that is certain to fuel a central debate in not one but two of the fastest growing areas of academia. Contributors: Amy S. Kaufman, Brent Moberley, Kevin Moberley, Lesley Coote, Cory Lowell Grewell, M.J. Toswell, E.L. Risden, Lauryn S. Mayer, Glenn Peers, Tison Pugh, David W. Marshall,Richard H. Osberg, Richard UtzTable of ContentsEditorial Note Medieval Unmoored - Amy S. Kaufman Neomedievalism, Hyperrealism, and Simulation - Brent Moberly and Kevin Moberly A Short Essay about Neo-Medievalism - Lesley A Coote Neomedievalism: An Eleventh Little Middle Ages? - Cory Lowell Grewell The Simulacrum of Neomedievalism - M J Toswell Sandworms, Bodices, and Undergrounds: The Transformative Mélange of Neomedievalism - E L Risden Dark Matters and Slippery Words: Grappling with Neomedievalism[s] - Lauryn S. Mayer Utopia and Heterotopia: Byzantine Modernisms in America - Glenn Peers Queer Crusading, Military Masculinity, and Allegories of Vietnam in Richard Lester's Robin and Marian - Tison Pugh Getting Reel with Grendel's Mother: The Abject Maternal and Social Critique - David W. Marshall The Colony Writes Back: F. N. Robinson's Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer and the Translatio of Chaucer Studies to the United States - Richard Utz False Memories: The Dream of Chaucer and Chaucer's Dream in the Medieval Revival - Richard H Osberg Notes on Contributors

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Book SynopsisNew essays on Chaucer's engagement with religion and the religious controversies of the fourteenth century. How do critics, religious scholars and historians in the early twenty-first century view Chaucer's relationship to religion? And how can he be taught and studied in an increasingly secular and multi-cultural environment? The essays here, on [the Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, lyrics and dream poems, aim to provide an orientation on the study of the the religions, the religious traditions and the religious controversies of his era - and to offer new perspectives upon them. Using a variety of theoretical, critical and historical approaches, they deal with topics that include Chaucer in relation to lollardy, devotion to the saint and the Virgin Mary, Judaism andIslam, and the Bible; attitudes towards sex, marriage and love; ethics, both Christian and secular; ideas on death and the Judgement; Chaucer's handling of religious genres such as hagiography and miracles, as well as other literary traditions - romance, ballade, dream poetry, fablliaux and the middle ages' classical inheritance - which pose challenges to religious world views. These are complemented by discussion of a range of issues related to teachingChaucer in Britain and America today, drawn from practical experience. Contributors: Anthony Bale, Alcuin Blamires, Laurel Broughton, Helen Cooper, Graham D. Caie, Roger Dalrymple, Dee Dyas, D. Thomas Hanks Jr., Stephen Knight, Carl Phelpstead, Helen Phillips, David Raybin, Sherry Reames, Jill Rudd.Trade Review[S]ubstantial, coherent, and serious [...] it is to be praised as an excellent volume, a thorough, sympathetic, and absorbing account of its subject. It really should be in the library of every institution where the study of Chaucer is taken seriously. * MEDIAEVISTIK *[T]he collection [is] interesting and engaging at every turn, with its thorough and detailed discussion of a broad range of religious topics [...] a thought-provoking book, that will serve as an excellent sourcebook and a starting point for a renewed reading of Chaucer's works. * REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES *A welcome new set of assessments of the place of religion within Chaucer's writings. [...] Wide-ranging in their address of late medieval religious practices and institutions and broadly attentive to Chaucer's texts, these essays will be a go-to source for graduate students or for teachers looking to brush up on the literature. * MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Everyone of these essays contains trenchant analysis of Chaucer's works that is accessible, informative and suggestive. [...] Students will learn from this collection, most importantly because they will learn to make up their own minds about informed treatment of religion in the works of a poet whose opinion is famously difficult to determine. * JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Chaucer and Religion - Helen Cooper Love, Marriage, Sex, Gender - Alcuin Blamires Chaucer and the Bible - Graham Caie Chaucer and Lollardy - Frances McCormack "Toward the Fen": Church and Churl in Chaucer's Fabliaux - Stephen Knight 'A maner Latyn corrupt': Chaucer and the Absent Religions - Anthony Bale The Matter of Chaucer: Chaucer and the Boundaries of Romance - Helen Phillips Mary, Sanctity and Prayers to Saints: Chaucer and Late-Medieval Piety - Sherry L Reames "Th'ende is every tales strengthe": Contextualising Chaucerian Perspectives on Death and Judgement - Carl Phelpstead Chaucer and the Saints: Miracles and Voices of Faith - Laurel Broughton Chaucer and the Communities of Pilgrimage - Dee Dyas Classicising Christianity in Chaucer's Dream Poems: the Book of the Duchess, Book of Fame, and Parliament of Fowls - Stephen Knight Morality in the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's Lyrics and the Legend of Good Women - Helen Phillips 'To demen by interrogaciouns': Accessing the Christian Context of the Canterbury Tales with Enquiry/Based Learning - Roger Dalrymple 'Gladly wolde [they] lerne [?]': U.S. Students and the Chaucer Class - D Thomas Hanks Jr Teaching Teachers: Chaucer, Ethics, and Romance - David Raybin Reflections on Teaching Chaucer and Religion: The Nun's Priest's Tale and the Man of Law's Tale - J Rudd

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Book SynopsisA gendered reading of monster and the monstrous body in medieval literature. Monsters abound in Old and Middle English literature, from Grendel and his mother in Beowulf to those found in medieval romances such as Sir Gowther. Through a close examination of the way in which their bodies are sexed and gendered, and drawing from postmodern theories of gender, identity, and subjectivity, this book interrogates medieval notions of the body and the boundaries of human identity. Case studies of Wonders of the East, Beowulf, Mandeville's Travels, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and Sir Gowther reveal a shift in attitudes toward the gendered and sexed body, and thus toward identity, between the two periods: while Old English authors and artists respond to the threat of the gendered, monstrous form by erasing it, Middle English writers allow transgressive and monstrous bodies to transform and therefore integrate into society. This metamorphosis enables redemption for some monsters, while other monstrous bodies become dangerously flexible and invisible, threatening the communities they infiltrate. These changing cultural reactions to monstrous bodies demonstrate the precarious relationship between body and identity in medieval literature. DANA M. OSWALD is Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Parkside.Trade ReviewMonsters, Gender, and Sexuality in Medieval English Literature offers a compelling long view of the monstrous medieval body, and Oswald's novel readings of lesser-known monsters [...] are fresh and exhilarating. [...] I hope that she and other modern teratologists will return to further trace the intriguing ideas outlined in this fine first foray. * SPECULUM *[T]his well-written book is a pleasure to read. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *Monster studies remains a lively field, in medieval criticism and especially in pedagogy. The next time I teach a monsters course, I will be happy to recommend Oswald's book to my students [...] Oswald's study, particularly in its close and suspicious attention to the images of the Wonders texts, shows the continuing vitality of this approach [tracking down anxiety and transgression]. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Sex and the Single Monster The Indecent Bodies of the Wonders of the East Dismemberment as Erasure: the Monstrous Body in Beowulf Circulation and Transformation: The Monstrous Feminine in Mandeville's Travels Paternity and Monstrosity in the Alliterative Morte Arthure and Sir Gowther Conclusion: Transformation and the Trace of the Monstrous Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe Story of Merlin depicts the role of the seer Merlin in the conception and birth of Arthur, who is to rescue Britain from the Saxons and establish an ideal kingdom. It follows Arthur's career as he is designated king bythe magical sign of the Sword in the Stone, triumphs over his rebellious barons and drives out the Saxons. With his marriage to Guinevere, he acquires the Round Table, and sets up the famous order of knighthood which is at the centre of his power. The Merlin was written after the last three romances of the Vulgate Cycle were already complete, and serves as a prologue to the history of Arthur, just as the History of the Holy Grail is theprologue to the adventures of the Grail. For a full description of the Vulgate Cycle see the blurb for the complete set.

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Book SynopsisFresh study of the intricate roles played by gender, visibility, and the idea of romance in Malory's Morte. Skilfully blending analysis of medieval ideas of optics and vision with careful close readings of the text and deft use of modern critical theory, the author offers a fresh, exciting and insightful reading of the Morte. Of interest to all medievalists, and particularly fascinating for those working in the fields of Arthurian literature, medieval science and philosophy, and gender studies. Dorsey Armstrong, Purdue University. This first book-length study of vision in the Morte Darthur examines the roles played by sight - seeing and being seen - in the Morte's construction of gender, highlighting also the influence of the romance genre in this process. The discussion addresses several key figures: Gareth provides a paradigm of visible romance masculinity; Launcelot's and Trystram's adulteries introduce competing needs for both visibility and invisibility; Palomydes and other less acclaimed knights, and reactions to their shortcomings, confirm the model of visible gender; grail knights and Malory retain secular romance ideas of vision and gender on the religious quest; and the two Elaynes and Percivale's sister prove femininity more variable and less rigid than masculinity in the text. The book argues that visibility is crucial to Malory's conception of gender identity and, further, that masculinity and femininity are determined throughout the Morte by the romance genre. MOLLY MARTIN is Associate Professor of English at the University of Indianapolis.Trade Review[A] clearly written and engaging work of scholarship. Martin deftly integrates close reading with her presentation of the scholarship of other critics, making both the argument and her informative footnotes a pleasure throughout. [...] Not only Malorians but all students of romance will want more than a glance. * SPECULUM *[The] reader can learn a lot about the variety of masculinities in Malory's work and come away from it knowing more about parts of the book that have frequently been overlooked. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *The analysis is well written and typically accessible, with a strong use of secondary sources to illustrate and bolster the arguments being put forward. * PARERGON *A smart, solid and timely combination of medieval and contemporary theories love, gender, and sight. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Masculinity and Vision in the Morte Darthur "Beholdyng" Gareth: The Spectacle of Romance Masculinity Gazing at the Queen: Trystram and Launcelot Seeing Unseen: Palomydes and the Failure of Masculine Display Romancing Religion: Competing Modes of Vision on the Grail Quest The Female Gaze: Constructing Masculinity with and without Men Conclusion: Malory's Arthurian Visions of Masculinity Bibliography

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Book SynopsisArthur and the grail stories appeared in this French prose cycle together for the first time; scholars explore its social, historical, literary and manuscript contexts and account for its enduring interest. The early thirteenth-century French prose Lancelot-Grail Cycle (or Vulgate Cycle) brings together the stories of Arthur with those of the Grail, a conjunction of materials that continues to fascinate the Western imagination today. Representing what is probably the earliest large-scale use of prose for fiction in the West, it also exemplifies the taste for big cyclic compositions that shaped much of European narrative fiction for three centuries. A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle is the first comprehensive volume devoted exclusively to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle and its medieval legacy. The twenty essays in this volume, all by internationally known scholars, locate the work in its social, historical, literary, and manuscript contexts. In addition to addressing critical issues in the five texts that make up the Cycle, the contributors convey to modern readers the appeal that the text must have had for its medieval audiences, and the richness of composition that made it compelling. This volume will become standard reading for scholars, students, and more general readers interested in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, medieval romance, Malory studies, and the Arthurian legends. Contributors: RICHARD BARBER, EMMANUELE BAUMGARTNER, FANNI BOGDANOW, FRANK BRANDSMA, MATILDA T. BRUCKNER, CAROL J. CHASE, ANNIE COMBES,HELEN COOPER, CAROL R. DOVER, MICHAEL HARNEY, DONALD L. HOFFMAN, DOUGLAS KELLY, ELSPETH KENNEDY, NORRIS J. LACY, ROGER MIDDLETON, HAQUIRA OSAKABE, HANS-HUGO STEINHOFF, ALISON STONES, RICHARD TRACHSLER. CAROL DOVER is associate professor of French and director of undergraduate studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC.Trade ReviewA welcome addition to Cycle scholarship. * FRENCH REVIEW, *Reliable, insightful...[as] an introduction to European literature's first major work of prose fiction, this is the place to start. Most of us serious about Arthuriana will want the book. * ARTHURIANA *A welcome collection of essays. * TLS *Table of ContentsChivalry, Cistercianism and the Lancelot-Grail Cycle - Richard Barber The Making of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle - Elspeth Kennedy *** A Question of Time: Romance and History - Richard Trachsler The Lancelot-Grail Cycle and the Post-Vulgate Cycle - Fanni Bogdanow Interlace and the Cyclic Imagination - Douglas Kelly The Gateway into the Lancelot-Grail Cycle: L'Estoire del Saint Graal - The Merlin and its Continuations - Annie Combes The Book of Lancelot - Carol Dover Varied Repetitions: Prose and Verse Charrette - Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner La Queste del Saint Graal: from semblance to veraie semblance - Emmanuèle Baumgartner The Sense of an Ending: La Mort le roi Artu - Norris J. Lacy 'Mise en page' in the French Lancelot-Grail: The First Hundred and Fifty Years of the Illustrative Tradition - Alison Stones The Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England: Malory and his Predecessors - Helen Cooper Lancelot in Italy - Donald L Hoffman Lancelot in Germany - Hans-Hugo Steinhoff The Spanish Lancelot-Grail Heritage - Michael Harney Neither Sublime Nor Galant: The Portuguese Demanda do Santo Graal - Haquira Osakabe The Lancelots of the Lowlands - Frank Brandsma Manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England and Wales: Some Books and their Owners - Roger Middleton Selective Bibliography - Carol Dover

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Book SynopsisNew essays demonstrate Gower's mastery of the three languages of medieval England, and provide a thorough exploration of the voices he used and the discourses in which he participated. John Gower wrote in three languages - Latin, French, and English - and their considerable and sometimes competing significance in fourteenth-century England underlies his trilingualism. The essays collected in this volume start from Gower as trilingual poet, exploring Gower's negotiations between them - his adaptation of French sources into his Latin poetry, for example - as well as the work of medieval translators who made Gower's French poetry availablein English. "Translation" is also considered more broadly, as a "carrying over" (its etymological sense) between genres, registers, and contexts, with essays exploring Gower's acts of translation between the idioms of varied literary and non-literary forms; and further essays investigate Gower's writings from literary, historical, linguistic, and codicological perspectives. Overall, the volume bears witness to Gower's merit and his importance to English literary history, and increases our understanding of French and Latin literature composed in England; it also makes it possible to understand and to appreciate fully the shape and significance of Gower's literary achievement and influence, which have sometimes suffered in comparison to Chaucer. ELISABETH DUTTON is Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. Contributors: Elisabeth Dutton, Jean Pascal Pouzet, Ethan Knapp, Carolyn P. Collette,Elliot Kendall, Robert R. Edwards, George Shuffleton, Nigel Saul, David Carlson, Candace Barrington, Andreea Boboc, Tamara F. O'Callaghan, Stephanie Batkie, Karla Taylor, Brian Gastle, Matthew Irvin, Peter Nicholson, J.A. Burrow,Holly Barbaccia, Kim Zarins, Richard F. Green, Cathy Hume, John Bowers, Andrew Galloway, R.F. Yeager, Martha DriverTrade ReviewPresents new information about Gower's work and raises new provocative questions. . It is an excellent addition to the growing scholarship. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *The level of critical energy, enterprise, and imagination generally on show in this collection of essays is exceptionally high, and it significantly advances studies of Gower's whole corpus. * MEDIUM AEVUM *[A] notable contribution to the study of Gower, who emerges here as an erudite and wide-ranging poet in Latin, French, and English. * STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER *Making available new work by well-known scholars as well as fresh contributions by younger scholars, the collection yields abundant proof, if proof were needed, of the ongoing vitality of Gower studies. [...] There is no doubt about the value of this collection. These essays represent the current flourishing state of Gower studies. * MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction. John Gower: Readings in the Work of a Trilingual Poet - Elisabeth Dutton Southwark Gower - Augustinian Agencies in Gower's Manuscripts and Texts - Some Prolegomena - Jean-Pascal Pouzet The Place of Egypt in Gower's Confessio Amantis - Ethan Knapp Topical and Tropological Gower: Invoking Armenia in the Confessio Amantis - Carolyn P Collette Saving History: Gower's Apocalyptic and the New Arion - Elliot Kendall Gower's Poetics of the Literal - Robert R. Edwards Romance, Popular Style, and the Confessio Amantis: Confict or Evasion? - George Shuffleton John Gower: Prophet or Turncoat? - Nigel Saul The Parliamentary Source of Gower's Cronica Tripertita and Incommensurable Styles - David R. Carlson John Gower's Legal Advocacy and "In Praise of Peace" - Candace Barrington Se-duction and Sovereign Power in Gower's Confessio Amantis book V - Andreea D. Boboc The Fifteen Stars, Stones, and Herbs: book VII of the Confessio Amantis and its Afterlife - Tamara F. O'Callaghan "Of the parfite medicine": Merita Perpetuata in Gower's Vernacular Alchemy - Stephanie L. Batkie Inside Out in Gower's Republic of Letters - Karla Taylor Gower's Business: Artistic Production of Cultural Capital and the Tale of Florent - Brian Gastle Genius and Sensual Reading in the Vox Clamantis - Matthew W. Irvin Irony v. Paradox in the Confessio Amantis - Peter Nicholson Sinning against Love in Confessio Amantis - John A. Burrow The Woman's Response in John Gower's Cinkante Balades - Holly Barbaccia Rich Words: Gower's Rime Riche in Dramatic Action - Kim Zarins Florent's mariage sous la potence - Richard Firth Green Why did Gower write the Traitié? - Cathy Hume Rival Poets: Gower's Confessio and Chaucer's Legend of Good Women - John M. Bowers Reassessing Gower's Dream Visions - Andrew Galloway John Gower's French and His Readers - Robert F. Yeager Conjuring Gower in Pericles - Martha W. Driver Bibliography

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Book SynopsisEdition and translation of prognostic guides and calendars, intended as an effort to foretell the future. Winner of the Beatrice White Prize, 2013. Medieval prognostic texts - a survival from the classical world - are the ancestors of modern almanacs; a means of predicting future events, they offer guidance on matters of everyday life, such as illness, childbirth, weather, agriculture, and the interpretation of dreams. They give fascinating insights into monastic life, medicine, pastoral care, the transformations of classical learning in the middleages, and the complex interconnections between orthodox religion, popular belief, science and magic. This volume provides the first full critical edition, with a facing-page translation, of a diverse and peculiar group of prognostic guides and calendars, in Latin and Old English, found in an eleventh-century manuscript from Christ Church, Canterbury; they are collated with related versions in both Anglo-Saxon and continental manuscripts. A lengthy introduction and commentary examine the transmission and translation of these texts, and shed light on their origins and uses in late Anglo-Saxon monastic culture. ROY LIUZZA is Professor of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.Trade ReviewA handsome and scholarly [volume] that will facilitate research into this fascinating corner of Anglo-Saxon learning. * SPECULUM *Liuzza's edition is a major contribution, not only to the study of Anglo-Saxon prognostics themselves, but to our understanding of pre-Conquest intellectual culture more generally. [...] a significant scholarly achievement, one which will help open up for Anglo-Saxonists a new area of study. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsPreface List of Manuscripts Referred to by Sigla Introduction Note on Editorial Principles Texts Commentary Glossary Bibliography

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Book SynopsisFirst full study of the homilies of Archbishop Wulfstan, bringing out their most characteristic themes and concerns. The prodigious writings of Archbishop Wulfstan (d. 1023) encompass secular laws, religious canons, political theory, and homilies (sermons); despite their importance, however the homilies have not received the critical attention they deserve, a gap which this book seeks to fill. It focuses on three particular aspects: the re-establishment of the Wulfstan homiletic canon, Wulfstan's processes of composition and revision as manifested in their manuscript variants, and his characteristic themes and concerns. These include adherence to secular and divine law; the keeping of Christian feasts and fasts; the payment of church dues and tithes; social justice for the poor; absolute clericalcelibacy and sexual continence for the laity; repentance, prayer and penance; and the continual reminder, both pre- and post-millennium, that the end of the world is close at hand. Wulfstan's homilies indicate that for the English to heed his warnings, they would have to be persuaded or if necessarily legally coerced to adhere to the dictates of a "Holy Society"; and their influence can be seen in his law codes, where the book argues that even in coercionthe archbishop sought to teach and to persuade. JOYCE TALLY LIONARONS teaches in the English Department at Ursinus College, Pennsylvania.Trade ReviewA detailed analysis [and] a useful and comprehensive survey. * JOURNAL OF CHURCH HISTORY *Table of ContentsIntroduction Wulfstan and Wulfstan Manuscripts Re-Establishing the Wulfstanian Homiletic Canon Wulfstan's Eschatology Salvation History and Christianity Wulfstan as Archbishop Sacramental Sermons The Danish Invasions and the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos Homilies Based on Legal Codes and the Institutes of Polity Conclusion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe intricate structure and the many different narrative threads of the Prose Lancelot are here skilfully analysed, showing them to be a major new development in literary technique. Thematically and as a narrative technique, interlace, the complex weaving together of many different story-telling strands, comes to its full development in the intriguing conclusion of the Prose Lancelot. The Grail appearson the horizon and although Lancelot's love for Guenevere still makes him the best knight in the world, it becomes clear that this very love disqualifies him from the Grail Quest. Meanwhile, the adventures of a myriad Arthurian knights continue to be followed. This study explains how the interlace works and shows that it is the perfect vehicle for the relation of the events. It discusses the division of the narrative into threads, their interweaving,convergence and divergence, the gradual introduction of the Grail theme and its first climax (the begetting of Galahad), the distribution of information to the audience, the use of dramatic irony and emotions, and many other aspects of this major innovation in story-telling technique. Dr FRANK BRANDSMA is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature (Middle Ages) in the Department of Modern Languages at Utrecht University.Trade ReviewThe book features very clear footnoting throughout and thorough appendices, which when combined with the close textual analysis and staggering detailed content of the whole, forms a valuable addition to scholarship on the Prose Lancelot. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Table of ContentsPreface Editorial Conventions Plot summary of the Prose Lancelot and Vulgate Cycle Introduction Interlace: the narrative technique in Lancelot Part 3 Interlace: the themes of Lancelot Part 3 Conclusion: narration [revisited] and the audience Appendix 1: Survey of Prose Lancelot manuscript according to [1] date and [2] contents Appendix 2: The interlace of the primary narrative threads in Lancelot Part 3 Appendix 3: Reading time Bibliography

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Book SynopsisArthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. Delivers some fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT The influence and significance of the legend of Arthur are fully demonstrated by the subject matter and time-span of articles here. Topics range from early Celtic sources and analogues of Arthurian plots to popular interest in King Arthur in sixteenth-century London, from the thirteenth-century French prose Mort Artu to Tennyson's Idylls of the King. It includes discussion of shapeshifters and loathly ladies, attitudes to treason, royal deaths and funerals in the fifteenth century and the nineteenth, late medieval Scottish politics and early modern chivalry. Elizabeth Archibald is Professor of English, University of Durhaml; Professor David F. Johnson teaches in the English Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee. Contributors: Aisling Byrne, Emma Campbell, P.J.C. Field, Kenneth Hodges, Megan Leitch, Andrew Lynch, Sue Niebrzydowski, Karen Robinson.Trade ReviewA well-edited volume, this collection offers thought-provoking material for both specialists and those only generally acquainted with Arthuriana. * TLS *Table of ContentsGeneral Editors' Foreword - Elizabeth Archibald and David F. Johnson Commemoration in La Mort le roi Artu - Emma Campbell '..."if indeed I go"': Arthur's Uncertain End in Malory and Tennyson - Andrew Lynch The Intruder at the Feast: Negotiating Boundaries in Medieval Insular Romance - Aisling Byrne What Women Really Want: The Genesis of Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale - Peter J.C. Field Monstrous Appetite and Belly-Laughs: A Reconsideration of the Humour in The Weddyng of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell - Paul Frazer, Reviews Editor Speaking [of] Treason in Malory's Morte Darthur - Megan G. Leitch Lancelot of the Laik: A Scottish Mirror for Princes - Karen Robinson Prince Arthur's Archers: Innovative Nostalgia in Early Modern Popular Chivalry - Kenneth Hodges

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Book SynopsisAn examination of English verse translations of Beowulf, including Seamus Heaney's version alongside other influential renditions. A senior scholar writing here at the height of his powers and bringing experience and insight to an important topic... the second chapter is one of the best short, general introductions to the artistry of the poem I have read...A dizzying and engaging narrative. Dr Chris Jones, Senior Lecturer in English Poetry, Department of English, University of St Andrews Translations of the Old English poem Beowulf proliferate, and their number continues to grow. Focusing on the particularly rich period since 1950, this book presents a critical account of translations in English verse, setting them in the contexts both of the larger story of the recovery and reception of the poem and of perceptions of it over the past two hundred years, and of key issues in translation theory. Attention is also paid to prose translation and to the creative adaptations of the poem that have been produced in a variety of media, not least film. The author looks in particular at four translations of arguably the most literary and historical importance: those by Edwin Morgan [1952], Burton Raffel [1963], Michael Alexander [1973] and SeamusHeaney [1999]. But, from an earlier period, he also gives a full account of William Morris's strange 1898 version. Hugh Magennis is Professor of Old English Literature at Queen's University Belfast.Trade Review[A] percipient, absorbing, and eloquent study. * SPECULUM *[T]his engaging study will be of great interest to scholars, students, and general readers alike. * NOTES AND QUERIES *This is both a very enjoyable and a very scholarly book. [...] As a sustained exercise in close reading it is exemplary. * ÓENACH *Interesting and compelling, this book is essential reading for Beowulf scholars and those with an interest in poetry and translation. * ENGLISH *While much of this history is known to Anglo-Saxonists, Magennis offers to a broader readership a wide-ranging and lively synthesis of Beowulf scholarship, informed by his own clear enthusiasm for the subject and his authoritative grasp of Old English and Latin. * TRANSLATION AND LITERATURE *An important study which will interest students of translation and reception theory and initiates and acolytes of Old English literary culture. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsPreface Beowulf and Translation Approaching the Poetry of Beowulf Reception, Perceptions, and a Survey of Earlier Verse Translations of Beowulf Edwin Morgan: Speaking to his Own Age Burton Raffel: Mastering the Original to Leave It Michael Alexander: Shadowing the Old English Seamus Heaney: A Living Speech Raised to the Power of Verse Other Post-1950 Verse Translations Epilogue Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA highly readable version of this remarkable and largely unexplored work. Perceforest is one of the largest and certainly the most extraordinary of the late Arthurian romances. Justly described as "an encyclopaedia of 14th-century chivalry" and "a mine of folkloric motifs", it is the subject ofrapidly increasing attention and research. The author of Perceforest draws on Alexander romances, Roman histories and medieval travel writing (not to mention oral tradition, as he gives, for example, the distinctly racy first written version of the Sleeping Beauty story), to create a remarkable prehistory of King Arthur's Britain. It begins with the arrival in Britain of Alexander the Great. His follower Perceforest, the first of Arthur's Greek ancestors, is made king of the island and finds it infested by the "evil clan" of Darnant the Enchanter. Magic plays a dominant part in the adventures which follow, as Perceforest ousts Darnant's clan despite their supernaturalpowers. He founds the knightly order of the "Franc Palais", an ideal of chivalric civilisation prefiguring the Round Table of Arthur and indeed that of Edward III. But that civilisation is, the author shows, all too fragile. The vast imaginative scope of Perceforest is matched by its variety of tone, ranging from tales of love and enchantment to bawdy comedy, from glamorous tournaments to unvarnished descriptions of the havoc wrought by war.And the author's surprising view of pagan gods and the coming of Christianity is as fascinating as the prominence he gives to women and his understanding of how the world of chivalry should work. Because of its enormous length - it runs to over a million words - Nigel Bryant has provided a version which gives a complete account of every episode, linking extensive passages of translation, to make a manageable and highly readable version (including the previously unpublished Books Five and Six), of this remarkable and largely unexplored work. Nigel Bryant has worked as a producer for BBC Radio 3 and as head of drama at Marlborough College. This is his fourth majortranslation of medieval Arthurian romance.Trade ReviewPerceforest has attracted increasing attention from scholars in recent years, and this adaptation, which must have been a huge undertaking, helpfully provides a flavour of the romance for the benefit of a wider readership. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *Quoi qu'il en soit, cet imposant volume constitue une importante contribution au champ des études arthuriennes et apparentées, et facilite considérablement l'accès à l'une des ouvres les plus fascinantes de la fin du Moyen ge. * CAHIERS DE RECHERCHES MÉDIÉVALES ET HUMANISTES *[A] gripping new abridged translation of the Old French Perceforest [...] while interest in the Arthurian legend remains strong, this Old French text demonstrates that the medieval prehistory of Britain's once and future king is no less fascinating. * TLS *An English translation of the fascinating, but little known, Roman de Perceforest is a welcome contribution that should help make this text more accessible both to undergraduates, and to medievalists from fields outside French Studies. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Scholars and students owe Nigel Bryant a debt of gratitude, for his new English translation makes the Perceforest truly accessible for the first time to those wishing to engage with its marvellous episodes. [...] One can imagine the possibility of using this text - or large sections of it - in the classroom, something preciously difficult or impossible. * MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Brewer is to be congratulated on its enormous contribution to Arthurian studies over past decades. [...] Bryant has given us a delightfully fast-paced read which rattles along through quests, battles, beautiful maidens and enchantments. [...] A wonderful addition to the Arthurian corpus. * FORTEAN TIMES *Faced with this fascinating but enormous text [...] the translator and publisher of this [book] [.] took a very sensible decision: to publish a modern, easy-to-read, re-telling in English, which includes all the stories, but not every word of the text. [...] The introduction [...] discusses the many remarkable sides to the fourteenth-century, anonymous author's view of the world. * THE RICARDIAN *Table of ContentsIntroduction Manuscripts, editions and dates Further Reading Book One, Chapters I-LX Book Two, Chapters I-LXIII Book Three, Chapters I-LX Book Four, Chapters I-LIX Book Five, Chapters I-XLII Book Six, Chapters I-LXIX

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Book SynopsisText and facing translation of an important medieval German Arthurian romance. Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet, dating from the end of the twelfth century, is a verse translation into Middle High German of what was probably an Anglo-Norman romance, now lost. It presents the story of Lanzelet (Lancelot), but in quite a different version from Chrétien de Troyes' Chevalier de la charrette. The first half of the tale concerns Lanzelet's knightly and romantic exploits on his way to discovering his true identity, while at the same time winning the beautiful Iblis as his wife. The second half revolves around Lanzelet's efforts to defend the honor of the Arthurian court and reestablish his own and his wife's kingdoms. As in much literature of the time, sex, violence and magic abound. This volume presents the first full translation into English, with a new, facing edition of the Middle High German text. It is accompanied by an introduction, variant readings and notes to the translation. Kathleen J. Meyer teaches in the Department of Languages and Ethnic Studies, Bemidji State University.Trade Review[Meyer's] translation is a welcome addition to the series of German romances in the Arthurian Archives. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *[H]as the potential to become the best starting point for beginners who want to discover the potential of Ulrich's Unorthodox and very interesting romance. * MEDIUM AEVUM *[A] competent line-by-line translation that enables us to work back from the translation to the original. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction Lanzelet Notes Bibliography Index of Proper Names

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Book SynopsisFirst English translations of later adaptions of Chrétien's romances: a vital source for the development of Arthurian romance. In the middle of the fifteenth century two anonymous writers "translated" into prose Chrétien de Troyes's first verse romances, Erec and Cligés (dating from the twelfth century), for the circle of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy. For a long time unfairly dismissed as trite and slavish renderings of Chrétien's masterful narratives, the prose Erec and Cligés actually merit careful study in their own right, for these Middle French reworkings adapt the earlier romances to fit the interests of the fifteenth-century public. The authors updated not only the language but also the descriptions of chivalric exploits, tourneys, and siege warfare; furthermore, they showed real ingenuity in the way they modified the story line, clarifying motivation, rescripting characters, and shortening many of the descriptions. The romances offer valuable insights into the evolution of Arthurian romance,the history of reception of Chrétien's work, and the mentality and culture of one of the most remarkable courts to flourish in the late middle ages. This volume presents the first English prose translations of the writings,accompanied by an introduction presenting the historical, cultural, and literary context, and notes. Joan Tasker Grimbert is Professor of French at the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC; Carol J. Chase is Professor Emerita of French at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois.Trade ReviewGrimbert and Chase's well-made and attractive book certainly is a good invitation to study these intriguing texts. * SPECULUM *[A] highly readable translation [...] will help bring late medieval persifications to the attention of a wider body of students and scholars. * MEDIUM AEVUM *[The editors] rendering of the Middle French syntax and vocabulary of both texts is fluid, accurate, and believable, while the overall presentation of the volume is clean and unfussy. * ENGLISH *Table of ContentsIntroduction Translators' Notes The Story of Erec, Son of King Lac The Book of Alixandre Emperor of Constantinople and His Son Cligés Glossary Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive guide to the medieval popular romance, one of the age's most important literary forms. Popular romance was one of the most wide-spread forms of literature in the middle ages, yet despite its cultural centrality, and its fundamental importance for later literary developments, the genre has defied precise definition,its subject matter ranging from tales of chivalric adventure, to saintly women, and monsters who become human. The essays in this collection seek to provide an inclusive and thorough examination of romance. They provide contexts,definitions, and explanations for the genre, particularly in, but not limited to, an English context. Topics covered include genre and literary classification; race and ethnicity; gender; orality and performance; the romance and young readers; metre and form; printing culture; and reception. CONTRIBUTORS: ROSALIND FIELD, RALUCA L. RADULESCU, MALDWYN MILLS, GILLIAN ROGERS, JENNIFER FELLOWS, THOMAS H. CROFTS, ROBERT ALLEN ROUSE, JOANNE CHARBONNEAU, DESIREE CROMWELL, AD PUTTER, KARL REICHL, PHILLIPA HARDMAN, CORY JAMES RUSHTONTrade ReviewServes as a nice introduction to the critical complexities of what are all too often dismissed as simplistic texts. * JOURNAL OF THE EARLY BOOK SOCIETY *A valuable collection of essays on the popular romance, a genre traditionally neglected by scholars. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *

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Book SynopsisText, with English translation in two formats, of all the Old Norse poetry attributed to women - skáldkonur. The rich and compelling corpus of Old Norse poetry is one of the most important and influential areas of medieval European literature. What is less well known, however, is the quantity of the material which can be attributed to women skalds. This book, intended for a broad audience, presents a bilingual edition (Old Norse and English) of this material, from the ninth to the thirteenth century and beyond, with commentary and notes. The poems here reflect the dramatic and often violent nature of the sagas: their subject matter features Viking Age shipboard adventures and shipwrecks; prophecies; curses; declarations of love and of revenge; duels, feuds and battles; encounters with ghosts; marital and family discord; and religious insults, among many other topics. Their authors fall into four main categories: pre-Christian Norwegian and Icelandic skáldkonur of the Viking Age; Icelandic skáldkonur of the Sturlung Age (thirteenth century); additional early skáldkonur from the Islendingasögur and related material, not as historically verifiable as the first group; and mythical figures cited as reciting verse in the legendary sagas (fornaldarsögur). Sandra Ballif Straubhaar is Senior Lecturer in Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.Trade Review[O]ffers a lively and accessible introduction to the work of female poets in medieval Scandinavian texts. [...] seeks to give voice to the impressive range of women's poetry found within the corpus of Old Norse-Icelandic literature [...] the volume is admirable in its focus on female poets who have traditionally claimed less scholarly attention than their male counterparts. * SAGA-BOOK *Drawing on the most up-to-date Norse texts available [...] Straubhaar's collection will be useful for Norse scholars thinking about poetic aspects of gender, literary scholars of European literature interested in gender conceptualisations, and should even appeal to the casual reader. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part 1: Verse Translations and Commentary Real People, Real Poetry Quasi-Historical People and Poetry Visionary Women: Women's Dream-Verse Legendary Heroines Magic-Workers, Prophetesses and Alien Maidens Trollwomen Part 2: Prose Translations Glossary of Names: Persons and Weapons Time Line Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAn examination of the ways in which late medieval lyric poetry can be seen to engage with contemporary medical theory. This book argues that late medieval love poets, from Petrarch to Machaut and Charles d'Orléans, exploit scientific models as a broad framework within which to redefine the limits of the lyric subject and his body. Just as humoraltheory depends upon principles of likes and contraries in order to heal, poetry makes possible a parallel therapeutic system in which verbal oppositions and substitutions counter or rewrite received medical wisdom. The specific case of blindness, a disability that according to the theories of love that predominated in the late medieval West foreclosed the possibility of love, serves as a laboratory in which to explore poets' circumvention of the logical limits of contemporary medical theory. Reclaiming the power of remedy from physicians, these late medieval French and Italian poets prompt us to rethink not only the relationship between scientific and literary authority at the close of the middle ages, but, more broadly speaking, the very notion of therapy. Julie Singer is Assistant Professor of French at Washington University, St Louis.Trade ReviewAn ambitious volume, meticulously researched and bringing together a wealth of material. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Singer's study is an admirable blend of philology, cultural history, and disability studies. It is well researched and has the unusual merit of giving almost equivalent space to both Italian and French texts and criticism. * SPECULUM *[M]eticulously researched and bringing together a wealth of material. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Table of ContentsIntroduction: On Rhetoric and Remedy The Love-Imprint Medical Blindness, Rhetorical Insight Irony, or the Therapeutics of Contraries Metaphor as Experimental Medicine Metonymy and Prosthesis Blindfold Synecdoche Epilogue. Just Words Bibliography

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Book SynopsisPioneering examination of the Old English version of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica and its reception in the middle ages, from a theoretically informed, multi-disciplinary perspective. The first full-length study of the Old English version of Bede's masterwork, dealing with one of the most important texts to survive from Anglo-Saxon England. The subjects treated range from a detailed analysis of the manuscriptsand the medieval use of them to a very satisfying conclusion that summarizes all the major issues related to the work, giving a compelling summary of the value and importance of this independent creation. Dr Rowley convincingly argues that the Old English version is not an inferior imitation of Bede's work, but represents an intelligent reworking of the text for a later generation. An exhaustive study and a major scholarly contribution. GEORGE HARDIN BROWN, Professor of English emeritus, Stanford University. The Old English version of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum is one of the earliest and most substantial surviving works of Old English prose. Translated anonymously around the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century, the text, which is substantially shorter than Bede's original, was well known and actively used in medieval England, and was highly influential.However, despite its importance, it has been little studied. In this first book on the subject, the author places the work in its manuscript context, arguing that the text was an independent, ecclesiastical translation, thoughtfully revised for its new audience. Rather than looking back on the age of Bede from the perspective of a king centralizing power and building a community by recalling a glorious English past, the Old English version of Bede's Historia transforms its source to focus on local history, key Anglo-Saxon saints, and their miracles. The author argues that its reading reflects an ecclesiastical setting more than a political one, with uses more hagiographical than royal; and that rather than being used as a class-book or crib, it functioned as a resource for vernacular preaching, as a corpus of vernacular saints' lives, for oral performance, and episcopal authority. Sharon M. Rowley is Associate Professor of English at Christopher Newport University.Trade ReviewA new and provocative reading. * SCRIPTORIUM *Rowley's book is groundbreaking. Her careful and thorough scholarship enhances her fresh, original readings, and her willingness to think through larger contexts and implications is a major strength. * MEDIEVAL REVIEW *[This] excellent study of the Old English version of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica recasts our views on this most important text in all its variations. . Rowley's book is groundbreaking. Her careful and thorough scholarship enhances her fresh, original readings, and her willingness to think through larger contexts and implications is a major strength. The study necessitates changes in how we consider the impact and uses of Bede. * MEDIEVAL REVIEW, September 2013 *This study has set down the foundations not only for the study of the OEHE, but also for bringing out how the OEHE can contribute to, and should be considered in, various other fields of research pertaining to Anglo-Saxon England and Old English. * ENGLISH STUDIES *This is one of those books that start from an idea so simple and so seemingly obvious that the reader is left wondering why nobody ever thought of it before [...] this is an exemplary and innovative work of scholarship. * CERCLES *[This] wide-ranging and thoughtful study of the ways in which the late ninth- or early tenth-century Old English translation of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica reshapes its source is a valuable contribution to the field that deepens our understanding of both works. * REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Manuscripts and Editions of the OEHE Backgrounds, Contexts and the History of Scholarship Gentes Names and the Question of 'National' Identity in the OEHE Rewriting Salvation History Who Read Æthelbert's Letter? Translation, Mediation and Authority in the OEHE Queen Takes Bishop: Marriage, Conversion and Papal Authority in the OEHE Visions of the Otherworld: Endings, Emplacement and Mutability in History Anglo-Saxon Signs of Use in Manuscripts O, C and B Later Medieval Signs of Use in Manuscripts Ca and T Conclusion Appendices Bibliography

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Book SynopsisFirst book-length treatment of a fascinating medieval French romance, underlining its influence in the genre. Partonopeus de Blois is one of the most important works of twelfth-century French fiction; it shaped the development of romance as a genre, gave rise to adaptations in several other medieval languages and even an opera (Massanet's Esclarmonde). However, partly because of its complicated transmission history, and partly due to the fact that it has been overshadowed by the works of Chrétien de Troyes, it has been unjustly neglected. This firstfull-length study of the romance brings together literary, historical and manuscript studies to explore its making as it evolved through seven medieval "editions", the earliest of which probably predated most of Chrétien's romances. The book's thematic analyses show how the Partonopeus poet applied established techniques of rewriting to a wide range of classical, vernacular and Celtic sources, combining this literary fusion with political subtexts to create a new and influential model of romance composition. Detailed studies of the Continuation reveal more ambitious experimentation by the original author, as well as the activities of a series of "editors" who continued to modify the text for over a century. A final discussion of patronage proposes a new reading of the poem's distinct narratorial interventions on women and love, and suggests a link between Partonopeus and a disturbing episode in the history of Blois. Penny Eley is Professor of Medieval French at the University of Sheffield.Trade Review[Gives] Partonopeus de Blois the detailed treatment it richly deserves. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Eley's book is learned, wide-ranging, and lucid. It should certainly inspire greater scholarly attention to Partonopeus, its versions, and adaptations. * SPECULUM *This book constitutes a sine qua non for Partonopeus scholarship. It is also a very important study for anyone considering the history and creation process of medieval romance, in France and elsewhere. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *[A] meticulous study [...] demonstrates how much the study of this romance can contribute to our knowledge of romance composition in general. * FRENCH STUDIES *Eley [...] is finally giving Partonopeus de Blois the detailed treatment it richly deserves. [...] her analysis is warm and thought-provoking. [...] this book will initiate critical dialogue about Partonopeus de Blois: an exciting prospect indeed. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Table of ContentsIntroduction Patterns of Youth and Age Power, Birth and Values: The fils à vilain Theme Walter Map and Other Animals Experiments in Fiction: Anselot's Story When is an Ending not an Ending? Questions of Closure Poets and a Patron: The Making of Partonopeus de Blois Conclusion Appendix 1: Notes on Editions and Manuscripts Appendix 2: Synopsis Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA reading of how women's power is asserted and demonstrated in the popular medieval genre of romance. The cultural and social power of women in the Middle Ages is perhaps hard to trace, with evidence for it scarce. This book argues that medieval romances provide a central, but under-explored, source for and examples of such authority. By reassessing the influence exerted by female characters, in a spectrum that includes both intellectual and chivalric aid and, in some cases, patronage, it considers how they functioned as models of cultural, intellectual, and social authority in medieval literary texts. In addition to examples set by the family connections, socio-political networks, and textual communities in which they lived, this study argues that women also learned methods of influence from the books they read. In texts like Troilus and Criseyde and Partonope of Blois, the female reader encounters an explicit demonstration of how a woman`s intellectual and financial resources can be used. The literary representations of women's cultural power expose a continuum of influence from non-material effects to material sway in the medieval patronage system, an influence often unacknowledged in strictly historical and extra-literary sources. Amy N. Vines is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, University of North Carolina-Greensboro.Trade Review[An] illuminating study [that] makes a substantial contribution not only to our understanding of medieval romance but to the fields of women's and translation studies as well. * SPECULUM *The close readings of English romances in their contexts of rewriting and patronage found in Women's Power in Late Medieval Romance manage to tease out certain newly nuanced insights, and suggest that yes: women could have significant influence on the creative process of romance creation, and thereby in turn influence those in their social circle with the didactic messages of the texts they recommended. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction Prophecy as Social Influence: Cassandra, Anne Neville, and the Corpus Christi Manuscript of Troilus and Criseyde The Science of Female Power in John Metham's Amoryus and Cleopes A Woman's 'Crafte': Sexual and Chivalric Patronage in Partonope of Blois Creative Revisions: Competing Figures of the Patroness in Thomas Chestre's Sir Launfal Conclusion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisEssays examining the way in which the sea has shaped medieval and later ideas of what it is to be English. Local and imperial, insular and expansive, both English yet British: geographically and culturally, the sea continues to shape changing models of Englishness. This volume traces the many literary origins of insular identity from local communities to the entire archipelago, laying open the continuities and disruptions in the sea's relationship with English identity in a British context. Ranging from the beginnings of insular literature to Victorian medievalisms, the subjects treated include King Arthur's struggle with muddy banks, the afterlife of Edgar's forged charters, Old English homilies and narratives of migration, Welsh and English ideas about Chester, Anglo-Norman views of the sea in the Vie de St Edmund and Waldef, post-Conquest cartography, The Book of Margery Kempe, the works of the Irish Stopford Brooke, and the making of an Anglo-British identity in Victorian Britain. SEBASTIAN SOBECKI is Professor of Medieval English Literature and Culture at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Contributors: Sebastian Sobecki, Winfried Rudolf, Fabienne Michelet, Catherine A.M. Clarke, Judith Weiss, Kathy Lavezzo, Alfred Hiatt, Jonathan Hsy, Chris Jones, Joanne Parker, David WallaceTrade ReviewA welcome addition to the growing list of titles re-examining the vitally important conceptual links between literature and the sea. * INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MARITIME HISTORY *[A] valuable addition to our understanding of medieval notions of Englishness and of England [...] demonstrates that English identity is and was a constant struggle against the pull of land and ocean alike, a hybrid existence at the edge of earth and water. * LIMINA *A well-produced, well-written and well-conceived volumes. [...] Medievalists of all disciplines will find something of interest here. * THE RICARDIAN *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Edgar's Archipelago - Sebastian Sobecki The Spiritual Islescape of the Anglo-Saxons - Winfried Rudolf Lost at Sea: Nautical Travels in the Old English Exodus, the Old English Andreas, and Accounts of the adventus Saxonum - Fabienne Michelet Edges and Otherworlds: Imagining Tidal Spaces in Early Medieval Britain - Catherine A M Clarke East Anglia and the Sea in the Narratives of the Vie de St Edmund and Waldef - Judith Weiss The Sea and Border Crossings in the Alliterative Morte Arthure - Kathy Lavezzo 'From Hulle to Cartage': Maps, England, and the Sea - Alfred Hiatt Lingua Franca: Overseas Travel and Language Contact in The Book of Margery Kempe - Jonathan Hsy 'Birthplace for the poetry of the sea-ruling nation': Stopford Brooke and Old English - Chris Jones Ruling the Waves: Saxons, Vikings, and the Sea in the Formation of an Anglo-British Identity in the Nineteenth Century - Joanne Parker Afterword: Sea, Island, Mud - David Wallace Bibliography

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Book SynopsisSex, blood, and gender have diverse associations in the Malorian tradition, yet their inter-relatedness and intersections are comparatively understudied. This present collection of essays is intended to go some way toward remedying the need for a sustained examination of blood ties, kinship, gender, and sexuality, and the prominence of these themes in Malory's work. They concentrate in particular upon the analyses of sexuality and sexual activity (and itslack or erasure) and the significance of blood (and blood-shedding) in the Morte Darthur, as well as the interconnections with gender (biological sex) and familial ("blood") relations in the Morte, its sources and its later reworkings. The result is a wide-ranging investigation into related but distinctive thematic preoccupations, including the national and kinship affiliations of Malorian knights, sibling relationships, deviant sexuality, and blood-spilling in martial and intimate contexts. Contributors: Christina Francis, Megan G. Leitch, Helen Phillips, Carolyne Larrington, Lydia A. Fletcher, Kate McClune, Sally Mapstone, Caitlyn Schwartz, Maria SachikoCecire, Anna Caughey, Catherine LaFargeTrade ReviewOpen[s] up several new avenues for further research [and] succeeds in bringing to the forefront of Malory criticism a series of interesting, challenging, and fresh contributions, which will spark off new debates. * ANGLIA, 2013, 131 (1) *[A] lively and coherent collection, in which any scholar of these topics is bound to find several articles of interest. * TLS *[A]n interesting collection, in places corroborating recent scholarly work on the Morte Darthur [...], in places building on existing paradigms, and in a few places pointing us in new directions. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsPreface Reading Malory's Bloody Bedrooms - Christina Francis [Dis]Figuring Transgressive Desire: Blood, Sex, and Stained Sheets in Malory's Morte Darthur - Megan G. Leitch Bewmaynes: The Threat from the Kitchen - Helen Phillips Sibling Relations in Malory's Morte Darthur - Carolyne Larrington 'Traytoures' and 'Treson': the Language of Treason in the Works of Sir Thomas Malory - Lydia A. Fletcher 'The Vengeaunce of My Brethirne': Blood Ties in Malory's Morte Darthur - Kate McClune Malory and the Scots - Sally Mapstone Blood, Faith and Saracens in 'The Book of Sir Tristram' - Caitlyn Schwartz Barriers Unbroken: Sir Palomydes the Saracen in 'The Book of Sir Tristram' - Maria Sachiko Cecire Virginity, Sexuality, Repression and Return in the 'Tale of the Sankgreal' - Anna Caughey Launcelot in Compromising Positions: Fabliau in Malory's 'Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake' - Catherine La LaFarge

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Book SynopsisWhy did Gower choose to write his most famous poem in English? New insights into his purpose and the context and tradition of the poem are presented here. After establishing his reputation as a literary author by means of his French and Latin verse, Gower came to recognize the possibilities which English held for serious poetry only in the 1380s. This book gives sustained attentionto the implications of this language choice for the form, readership, religious position, and lay authority of his best-known work, the Confessio Amantis.The author argues that in all of his moral-political-theological writings, Gower's stance as a satirist and publicist is more markedly lay, and more rhetorically momentous for reasons associated with this lay status, than is generally thought. But during the 1380s, the conditions for writing lay public poetry in English made the Confessio a truly remarkable feat, for Gower and for English poetry. Notwithstanding the poem's formal debt to aristocratic literature and the evident elitism of its earliest known readership, the Confessio imagines a broader and more popular audience than do the Vox and the Mirour, modulating its author's vision into a comparatively muted register by appropriating the oblique strategies ofOvidian myth, Ovidian art of love, affective devotional writing, and romance. The resulting "public poetry" is at once subtly accommodated to the conditions for writing in English and profoundly significant for the development ofthe English poetic tradition. T. Matthew N. McCabe is Assistant Professor of English at Ambrose University College (Calgary).Trade ReviewA commendable first book. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *[An] extremely thoughtful study [and] a valuable contribution to Gower scholarship. * MEDIUM AEVUM *This immensely provocative study is filled with striking connections between approaches to the poem that are rarely brought together, illuminating studies of key words [...], and compelling readings of individual tales. [...] A splendid example of the vigour of new work on Gower. * REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES *This is a well-written, scholarly book and a significant contribution to Gower studies. [...] Recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Vernacularity and Public Poetry Gower's Ovidian Voice in English English Writing and Lay Theology At the Limits of Clerical Discourse: Gower and "lewed clergie" Kinde Grace: Metamorphosis in Other Words Ethics, Art, and Grace Conclusion: Gower and Public Poetry Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA new study of the continuations to Chrétien's Conte du Graal shows their crucial influence on the development of Arthurian literature. Chrétien de Troyes's late twelfth-century Conte du Graal has inspired writers and scholars from the moment of its composition to the present day. The challenge represented by its unfinished state was quickly taken up, and over the next fifty years the romance was supplemented by a number of continuations and prologues, which eventually came to dwarf Chrétien's text. In one of the first studies to treat the Conte du Graal and its continuations as a unified work, Thomas Hinton considers the whole corpus as a narrative cycle. Through a combination of close textual readings and manuscript analysis, the author argues that the unity of the narrative depends on a balanced tension between centripetal and centrifugal dynamics. He traces how the authors, scribes and illuminators of the cycle worked to produce coherence, even as they contended with potentially disruptive forces: multiple authorship,differences of intention, and changes in the relation between text, audience and book. Finally, he tackles the long-held orthodoxy that places the Perceval Continuations on the margins of literary history. Widening the scope of enquiry to consider the corpus's influence on thirteenth-century verse romances, this study re-situates the Conte du Graal cycle as a vital element in the evolution of Arthurian literature. Thomas Hinton isJunior Research Fellow in Modern Languages at Jesus College, Oxford.Trade ReviewHinton's notes and explanations of earlier critical views, whether standard references or newer treatments, are cogent and thorough, providing the new student of this literature with direction and the experienced scholar with helpful reminders. * ARTHURIANA *A substantial and wide-ranging book. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW, *A truly well-written and executed study. [Hinton's] argument is compelling and persuasive. [...] When it comes to approach, execution, and overall argument, Hinton is to be commended for his sensitive study of these texts; it sheds not just new, but also important, light on the corpus. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Scholars of Old French can only rejoice in the renewal of critical interest in the Continuations of Chrétien's Perceval, of which Thomas Hinton's book forms an indispensable part. * H-FRANCE REVIEW *[A]n excellent book. [...] gives a deep understanding of how stories and history work together in a tangled world. * BIBLIOBUFFET.COM *Table of ContentsIntroduction Narrative Aesthetic and Cyclic Formation Manuscripts, Memory and Textual Transmission Authorship, Kinship and the Ethics of Continuation Rereading the Evolution of Arthurian Verse Romance Conclusion Appendix 1: Narrative Summaries Appendix 2: Lengths and Dates of Texts Appendix 3: Manuscripts of the Conte du Graal Cycle Appendix 4: Full Contents of Conte du Graal Cycle Manuscripts Appendix 5: Arthurian Verse Romances: Dates and Manuscripts Appendix 6: Contents of Arthurian Verse Romance Manuscripts Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA new look at the way in which medieval European literature depicts torture and brutality. An ugly subject, but one that needs to be treated thoroughly and comprehensively, with a discreet wit and no excessive relish. These needs are richly satisfied in Larissa Tracy's bold and important book. DEREK PEARSALL, ProfessorEmeritus, Harvard University. Torture - that most notorious aspect of medieval culture and society - has evolved into a dominant mythology, suggesting that the Middle Ages was a period during which sadistic torment wasinflicted on citizens with impunity and without provocation: popular museums displaying such gruesome implements as the rack, the strappado, the gridiron, the wheel, and the Iron Maiden can be found in many modern European cities.These lurid images of medieval torture have re-emerged within recent discussions on American foreign policy and the introduction of torture legislation as a weapon in the "War on Terror", and raised questions about its history and reality, particularly given its proliferation in some literary genres and its relative absence in others. This book challenges preconceived ideas about the prevalence of torture and judicial brutality in medieval society byarguing that their portrayal in literature is not mimetic. Instead, it argues that the depictions of torture and brutality represent satire, critique and dissent; they have didactic and political functions in opposing the statusquo. Torture and brutality are intertextual literary motifs that negotiate cultural anxieties of national identity; by situating these practices outside their own boundaries in the realm of the barbarian "Other", medieval and early-modern authors define themselves and their nations in opposition to them. Works examined range from Chaucer to the Scandinavian sagas to Shakespeare, enabling a true comparative approach to be taken. Larissa Tracy isAssociate Professor, Longwood University.Trade ReviewA substantial and broadly based approach to the topic, one in which scholars from many different fields of medieval literature will find material of interest. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *An important and provocative book. * HISTORY *Tracy's insights regarding writers' (often specious) rejections of torture as belonging to an alienated past, a pagan oppressor or a foreign enemy, serve as a timely rejoinder to the ways in which we do exactly the same, in labelling as 'medieval' the brutality that characterizes societies and governments now just as it did then. * REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES *[T]he ambitious scope of this project is impressive and laudable. [...] a truly impressive [book] in the range of its historical and geographic coverage. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *The value of this book rests not only in its redefinition of medieval attitudes to torture, but also in its consideration of modern attitudes to torture. [.] Its wealth of detail and breadth of coverage ensure that it has the potential to become one of the seminal studies in the field. * ÓENACH: FMRSI REVIEWS *Tracey convincingly points to a persistent 'literary resistance' to unjust uses of pain for power. [...] Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Larissa Tracey's book constitutes an illuminating challenge to popular conceptions of the Middle Ages. [...] her study suggests that [...] modern times have more in common with the Middle Ages than most of us might like to believe. * TLS *Tracy's in-depth study historicizes torture, demonstrating that, as a rare topos of medieval literature, it predominantly articulated a distrust and rejection of violent judicial practices. Whatever its impact on modern-day detractors of medieval civilization may be, this argument should become part of medievalists' further reflection on the place and meaning of cruelty in the Middle Ages. * SPECULUM *Table of ContentsIntroduction Rending the Flesh: The Orthodoxy of Torture in Hagiography Resisting the Rod: Torture and the Anxieties of Continental Identity The Matter of the North: Icelandic Sagas and Cultural Autonomy The Matter of Britain: Defining English Identity in Opposition to Torture Laughing at Pain: The Comic Uses of Torture and Brutality Medieval Torture and Early-Modern Identity - Jay Paul Gates Conclusion Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAn examination of what the translation of medieval French texts into different European languages can reveal about the differences between cultures. Throughout the Middle Ages, many Francophone texts - chansons de geste, medieval romance, works by Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France - were widely translated in north-western Europe. In the process, these texts were frequently transformed to reflect the new cultures in which they appeared. This book argues that such translations, prime sites for cultural movement and encounters, provide a rich opportunity to study linguistic and cultural identity both in and through time. Via a close comparison of a number of these texts, examining the various modifications made, and drawing on a number of critical discourses ranging from post-colonial criticism to translation theory, the author explores the complexities of cultural dialogue and dissent. This approach both recognises and foregrounds the complex matrix of influence, resistance and transformations within the languages and cultural traditions of medieval Europe, revealing the undercurrents of cultural conflict apparent in medieval textuality. Sif Rikhardsdottir is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Iceland and Vice-Chair of the Institute ofResearch in Literature and Visual Arts.Trade ReviewA ground-breaking model for the future of translation studies. * MEDIUM AEVUM *[T]his book offers models for further studies of adaptations from Old French narrative texts into Old Norse, Middle English, and other languages. For those in medieval French studies. * FRENCH STUDIES *[T]truly impressive in the range of its historical and geographic coverage. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *[A] significant contribution to romance in a European context and an invitation to look over the traditional boundaries--linguistic, national and academic--of medieval studies. It will disappoint no one interested in the richness and complexity of medieval textual culture. THE MEDIEVAL * REVIEW *[H]elps us to understand the relationship between writer, culture and story. [...] it covers terrain carefully and thoroughly and contain[s] many fascinating insights. * BIBLIOBUFFET.COM *Table of ContentsIntroduction The Imperial Implications of Medieval Translations: Textual Transmission of Marie de France's Lais Behavioural Transformations in the Old Norse Version of La Chanson de Roland Narrative Transformations in the Old Norse and Middle English Versions of Le Chevalier au Lion [or Yvain] Female Sovereignty and Male Authority in the Old Norse and Middle English Versions of Partonopeu de Blois Appendix: Summaries of the Versions of Partonopeu de Blois Conclusion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisFemale mysticism, usually nourished in contemplative surroundings, in Blannbekin's case drew its inspiration from urban life; Weithaus identifies her visions as "street mysticism". This early example of a spiritual diary incorporating the visions of a female mystic offers a glimpse of religious women's daily life and spiritual practices. Her visions comment on memorable events such as a popular bishop's visit to town during which people were trampled to death; the consequences of a rape committed by a priest; thefts of the Eucharist and the work of witches. Christ, for Blannbekin, is not only bridegroom, but also shopkeeper, apothecary, and axe-wielding soldier, and it was her vision of swallowing Christ's foreskin which led to her eventual censorship. Life and Revelations has only relatively recently been rediscovered by Austrian scholar Peter Dinzelbacher, and this translation is based on his critical edition. Ulrike Wiethaus is Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Appointments, Wake Forest University.Trade ReviewScholars of women's spirituality will welcome this entrée to th etext of a lively, hitherto inaccessible author. * CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW [hardback edition] *

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Book SynopsisThis new companion to the works of Marie de France offers fresh insights into the standard critical debates. Marie de France is the author of some of the most influential and important works to survive from the middle ages; arguably best-known for her Lais, she also translated Aesop's Fables (the Ysopë), and wrote the Espurgatoire seint Patriz (St Patrick's Purgatory), based on a Latin text. The aim of this Companion is both to provide information on what can be gleaned of her life, and on her poetry, and to rethink standard questions of interpretation, through topics with special relevance to medieval literature and culture. The variety of perspectives used highlights both the unity of Marie's oeuvre and the distinctiveness of the individual texts. Aftersituating her writings in their Anglo-Norman political, linguistic, and literary context, this volume considers her treatment of questions of literary composition in relation to the circulation, transmission, and interpretation ofher works. Her social and historical engagements are illuminated by the prominence of feudal vocabulary, while her representation of movement across different geographical and imaginary spaces opens a window on plot construction.Repetition and variation are considered as a narrative technique within Marie's work, and as a cultural practice linking her texts to a network of twelfth-century textual traditions. The Conclusion, on the posterity of her oeuvre, combines a consideration of manuscript context with the ways in which later authors rewrote Marie's works. Sharon Kinoshita is Professor of Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz; Peggy McCracken is Professor of French, Women's Studies, and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Trade Review[This] volume is well written and informative throughout and succeeds in its stated aim [...] of catering for the needs of the student, the scholar, and the general reader. * FRENCH STUDIES *Kinoshita and McCracken challenge readers to rethink their understanding of Marie de France and her works based on cultural, social, and political concerns of the period in which she lived and it is for this reason that their book should be read not only by students, but also by specialists in the field. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Highly Recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsPreface Introduction: The World of Marie de France Communication, Transmission, and Interpretation: Literary History Courtly Love and Feudal Society: Historical Context Movement and Mobility: Plot Bodies and Embodiment: Characters Repetition and the Art of Variation: Narrative Techniques Posterity: The Afterlives of Marie's Works Further Reading

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Book SynopsisAn indepth examination of the presentation of Constantinople and its complex relationship with the west in medieval French texts. Medieval France saw Constantinople as something of a quintessential ideal city. Aspects of Byzantine life were imitated in and assimilated to the West in a movement of political and cultural renewal, but the Byzantine capital wasalso celebrated as the locus of a categorical and inimitable difference. This book analyses the debate between renewal and utopia in Western attitudes to Constantinople as it evolved through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in a series of vernacular (Old French, Occitan and Franco-Italian) texts, including the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne, Girart de Roussillon, Partonopeus de Blois, the poetry of Rutebeuf, and the chronicles by Geoffroy de Villehardouin and Robert de Clari, both known as the Conquête de Constantinople. It establishes how the texts' representation of the West's relationship with Constantinople enacts this debate between renewal andutopia; demonstrates that analysis of this relationship can contribute to a discussion on the generic status of the texts themselves; and shows that the texts both react to the socio-cultural context in which they were produced, and fulfil a role within that context. Dr Rima Devereaux is an independent scholar based in London.Trade ReviewRima Devereaux's study is simultaneously broad yet detailed, drawing together people, places, and peregrinations to explore the literary representation of the Byzantine capital in ten Old French and Franco-Italian works of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. [A] thought-provoking and accessible study of Eastern and Western 'sites of power' [...], in which Constantinople is seen to be a function or process as much as a physical space. * FRENCH STUDIES *Table of ContentsIntroduction Making Sense of History: East-West Relations and the Idea of the City in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries Renewal and Utopia: Two Paradigms for Understanding East-West Relations in Medieval French Texts Aemulatio: The Limitations of East-West Alliance Admiratio: Utopia as Social Critique Translatio Embodied? Renewal, Truth and the Status of Constantinople in Thirteenth-Century Didactic Texts Renovatio as Commemoration: Civic Loyalty and the Latin Empire of Constantinople as Venetian Historiography Conclusion Appendix 1: Original Latin Quotations Appendix 2: References to Constantinople in Other Epics and Romances Appendix 3: Outline of Events in the History of East-West Relations from the Second Crusade to the Palaeologan Reconquest Bibliography

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Book SynopsisInvestigations into the heroic - or not - behaviour of the protagonists of medieval romance. Medieval romances so insistently celebrate the triumphs of heroes and the discomfiture of villains that they discourage recognition of just how morally ambiguous, antisocial or even downright sinister their protagonists can be, and, correspondingly, of just how admirable or impressive their defeated opponents often are. This tension between the heroic and the antiheroic makes a major contribution to the dramatic complexity of medieval romance, but it is not an aspect of the genre that has been frequently discussed up until now. Focusing on fourteen distinct characters and character-types in medieval narrative, this book illustrates the range of different ways in which the imaginative power and appeal of romance-texts often depend on contradictions implicit in the very ideal of heroism. Dr Neil Cartlidge is Lecturer in English at the University of Durham. Contributors: Neil Cartlidge, Penny Eley, David Ashurst, Meg Lamont, Laura Ashe, Judith Weiss, Gareth Griffith, Kate McClune, Nancy Mason Bradbury, Ad Putter, Robert Rouse, Siobhain Bly Calkin, James Wade, Stephanie Vierick Gibbs KamathTrade ReviewSheds new light on the romance genre by asking some innovative questions about the nature of the conventional romance protagonist....It should prove a valuable addition to the study of a genre of writing that has still not been fully appreciated. * HORTULUS JOURNAL *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Neil Cartlidge Turnus - Penny Eley Alexander the Great - David Ashurst Hengist - Margaret Lamont Harold Godwineson - Laura Ashe Mordred - Judith Weiss Merlin - Gareth Griffith Gawain - Kate McClune Gamelyn - Nancy Mason Bradbury Ralph the Collier - Ad Putter The Anti-heroic Heart - Stephanie Kamath Crusaders - Robert Rouse Saracens - Siobhain Bly Calkin Ungallant Knights - James Wade Sons of Devils - Neil Cartlidge

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Book SynopsisAn adaptation of an Old French romance with parallel text, notes and a detailed introduction. Some time in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, Guillaume le Clerc composed the story of Fergus, a romance in which the main character features as a "new" Perceval in a realistically depicted Scottish landscape. Shortlythereafter, perhaps as early as 1250, the story was translated into Middle Dutch. The Ferguut, however, is an adaptation of the Old French Fergus, rather than a slavish translation. The result is a romance which possesses all the appeal of the Old French Fergus, but at the same time reveals something of the Middle Dutch romancer's tastes and techniques. This volume offers the first ever English translation, facing a new edition of thetext, and will thus bring this important work to a wider audience; it is accompanied by an introduction, variants and rejected readings, and critical notes. David F. Johnson is Professor of English, Florida State University; Geert H.M. Claassens is Professor of Middle Dutch Literature at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

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Book SynopsisThe romances translated here are contained in the so-called Lancelot Compilation. Compiled in the early fourteenth century by five scribes, its 241 extant folios contain the lion's share of Arthurian romance in Middle Dutch, no fewer than ten texts. The core of this compilation is comprised of translations into rhymed couplets of the Lancelot-Queste-Mort, into which seven additional romances have been inserted. The result is a compilation that successfully transforms a number of disparate texts into an ordered sequence of ten Arthurian romances, a project that rivals similar ones in better known European vernaculars, and bears comparison with Malory's Morte Darthur. Parallel text with notes and an introduction. < The romances are: the Wrake van Ragisel (Vengeance of Raguidel), the Ridder metter mowen (Romance of the Knight of the Sleeve), Lanceloet en het hert metde witte voet (Lancelot and the Hart with the White Foot), Walewein ende Keye, and Torec. David F. Johnson is Professor of English, Florida State University; Geert H.M. Claassens is Professor of Middle Dutch Literature at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.Trade ReviewAll that was excellent about Johnson and Claassen's editions of Walewein and Ferguut in Dutch Romances I and II is similarly excellent in this ambitious presentation of five important Arthurian romances little known beyond Dutch scholarship. [.] Make[s] accessible a wonderful set of texts hitherto unavailable to those who do not read (Middle) Dutch. * SPECULUM *

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Book SynopsisJohn Gower's works examined as part of a tradition of "official" writings on behalf of the Crown. John Gower has been criticised for composing verse propaganda for the English state, in support of the regime of Henry IV, at the end of his distinguished career. However, as the author of this book shows, using evidence from Gower's English, French and Latin poems alongside contemporary state papers, pamphlet-literature, and other historical prose, Gower was not the only medieval writer to be so employed in serving a monarchy's goals. Professor Carlson also argues that Gower's late poetry is the apotheosis of the fourteenth-century tradition of state-official writing which lay at the origin of the literary Renaissance in Ricardian and Lancastrian England. David Carlsonis Professor in the Department of English, University of Ottawa.Trade Review2013 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title * . *David Carlson has written a book that contributes enormously to our knowledge of the dynamics of late-medieval literary patronage in general and to our understanding of John Gower's relationship to Richard II and Henry IV in particular. In its detailed exposition of difficult verse texts it stands as a model for literary scholars, and in its nuanced elucidation of contemporary responses to political events (especially the Lancastrian usurpation), it offers some valuable lessons for the historian as well. * SPECULUM *An important book for everyone interested in political writing - argued, as one would expect from Carson, on the basis of a wealth of detail which is submitted to skeptical scrutiny. * MEDIUM AEVUM *A crucial addition to the history of ways in which literary production and politics were interconnected in fourteenth-century England. * PARERGON *A game-changing study. ... An outstanding inquiry, blending source study, political criticism, and sensitive analyses. ... Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Gower in History Official Verse: The Sources and Problems of Evidence The State Propaganda Occasions of State and Propagandistic Verse in Mid-Century Walter Peterborough's Victoria belli in Hispania [1367] and its Official Source Compulsion in Richard Maidstone's Concordia [1392] Official Writing at the Lancastrian Advent English Poetry in Late Summer 1399 The Cronica tripertita and its Official Source Gower after the Revolution: Client and Critic Bibliography

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Book SynopsisNew study of the complexities of how power operates in a number of Anglo-Saxon texts. A work of fine and nuanced intelligence... Skilled and learned readings of a number of important texts. Fluent, polished, and beautifully written. Dr Katy Cubitt, University of York. The formation and operation of systems of power and patronage in Anglo-Saxon England are currently the focus of concerted scholarly attention. This book explores how power is shaped and negotiated in later Anglo-Saxon texts, focusing in particular on how hierarchical, vertical structures are presented alongside patterns of reciprocity and economies of mutual obligation, especially within the context of patronage relationships (whether secular, spiritual, literal or symbolic). Through closeanalysis of a wide selection of sources in the vernacular and Latin (including the Guthlac poems of the Exeter Book, Old English verse epitaphs, the acrostic poetry of Abbo of Fleury, the Encomium Emmae Reginae and Libellus Æthelwoldi Episcopi), the study examines how texts sustain dual ways of seeing and understanding power, generating a range of imaginative possibilities along with tensions, ambiguities and instances of disguise or euphemism. It also advances new arguments about the ideology and rhetoric of power in the early medieval period. Catherine A.M. Clarke is Professor in English, University of Southampton.Trade ReviewT]ruly focused and perceptive work. * SPECULUM *Offers its readers many illuminating insights. ... [The author's] nuanced approach to her subject and its complexities is one of the book's great strengths and will prove thought provoking and highly rewarding for the attentive reader. * JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL LATIN *The volume's greatest strengths are its thorough grounding in the critical history of its texts; its meticulous attention to detail and close reading; and its willingness to suspend judgment and sustain ambiguity in examining complex questions.[It] is a pleasure to read, and serves as a fine model for undertaking careful and detailed close reading, thoroughly grounded in critical history, to illuminate aspects of texts that have been hitherto unappreciated (or at least underappreciated) in the scholarship. * MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction Order and Interlace: the Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book Sites of Economy: Power and Reckoning in the Poetic Epitaphs of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 'Absens ero ... presens ero': Writing the Absent Patron Power and Performance: Authors and Patrons in late Anglo-Saxon Texts Remembering Anglo-Saxon Patronage: the Libellus Æthelwoldi Episcopi and its Contexts Afterword Bibliography

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Book SynopsisEssays shedding fresh and significant light on Gower's poetry, major and minor, as it was received, read, and re-produced in England and in Iberia from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. John Gower's great poem, the Confessio Amantis, was the first work of English literature translated into any European language. Occasioned by the existence in Spain of fifteenth-century Portuguese and Spanish manuscripts ofthe Confessio, the nineteen essays brought together here represent new and original approaches to Gower's role in Anglo-Iberian literary relations. They include major studies of the palaeography of the Iberian manuscripts;of the ownership history of the Portuguese Confessio manuscript; of the glosses of Gowerian manuscripts; and of the manuscript of the Yale Confessio Amantis. Other essays situate the translations amidst Anglo-Spanish relations generally in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; examine possible Spanish influences on Gower's writing; and speculate on possible providers of the Confessio to Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt and queenof Portugal. Further chapters broaden the scope of the volume. Amongst other topics, they look at Gower's use of Virgilian/Dantean models; classical gestures in the Castilian translation; Gower's conscious contrasting of epic ideals and courtly romance; nuances of material goods and the idea of "the good" in the Confessio; Marxian aesthetics, Balzac, and Gowerian narrative in late medieval trading culture between England and Iberia; reading the Confessio through the lens of gift exchange; literary form in Gower's later Latin poems; Gower and Alain Chartier as international initiators of a new "public poetry"; and the modern sales history of manuscript and earlyprinted copies of the Confessio, and what it reveals about literary trends. Ana Sáez Hidalgo is Associate Professor at the University of Valladolid, Spain; R.F. Yeager is Professor of English and World Languagesand chair of the department at the University of West Florida. Contributors: María Bullón-Fernández, David R. Carlson, Siân Echard, A.S.G. Edwards, Robert R. Edwards, Tiago Viúla de Faria, Andrew Galloway, Fernando Galván, Marta María Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Mauricio Herrero Jiménez, Ethan Knapp, Roger A. Ladd, Alberto Lázaro, María Luisa López-Vidriero Abelló, Matthew McCabe, Alastair J. Minnis, Clara Pascual-Argente, Tamara Para A. Shailor, Winthrop WetherbeeTrade ReviewEditors Ana Sáez-Hidalgo and R. F. Yeager have assembled essays that significantly enrich Gower studies. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *[A] remarkable volume. * SPECULUM *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Ana Saez-Hidalgo and Robert F. Yeager Castilian Script in the Iberian Manuscripts of the Confessio Amantis - Mauricio Herrero Jiménez and Marta María Gutiérrez Rodríguez and Tamara Pérez-Fernández Provenance Interlacing in Spanish Royal Book-Collecting and the Case of the Confessio Amantis [RB MS II-3088] - Maria Luisa Lopez Vidriero Inglorious glosses? - Alastair J Minnis The Yale Gower Manuscript, Beinecke Osborn MS fa.1: Paleographical, Codicological, Technological Challenges and Opportunities - Barbara A Shailor The English Literature of Nájera [1367] from Battlefield Dispatch to the Poets - David R. Carlson At the Nájera Crossroads [1367]: Anglo-Iberian Encounters in the Late Fourteenth Century - Fernando Galván Spanish Literary Influence in England: John Gower and Pedro Alfonso - Robert F. Yeager From Norwich to Lisbon: Factionalism, Personal Association, and Conveying the Confessio Amantis - Tiago Viúla de Faria Gower's Second Cursus - Robert R. Edwards Remembering Antiquity in the Castilian Confessio Amantis - Clara Pascual-Argente Gower and the Epic Past - Winthrop Wetherbee Goods and the Good in the Confessio Amantis - Maria Bullon-Fernandez Gower's Kiste - Andrew Galloway John Gower: Balzac of the Fourteenth Century - Ethan Knapp Gower's Gifts - Roger A. Ladd The Long and the Short of it: On Gower's Forms - Sian Echard "Al université de tout le monde": Public Poetry, English and International - Matthew McCabe Buying Gower's Confessio Amantis in Modern Times - A S G Edwards Gaps and Silences in the Reception of John Gower in Franco's Spain - Alberto Lazaro

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Book SynopsisSubstantial new readings of Chaucer's poems, offering a fresh perspective on some of the major controversies in Chaucer scholarship. Chaucer's preoccupation with love and marriage has been a focus of criticism for more than a century. Here, the love relationships and marriages in six of the Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and the Legend of Good Women are reappraised from a fresh direction, using late medieval letter collections and advice literature for women to shed new light on the competing cultures of love and marriage that troubled both Chaucer himself and hiscontemporaries. Beginning with a concise summary of the history of marriage in fourteenth-century England, and making use of recent research in social history, the volume goes on to analyse letter collections and advice books inorder to reconstruct late medieval ideology and practice. Among other elements, the author discusses the flirtatiousness of court culture, the anti-love discourse of advice literature, courtship conventions, rival models of marriage among the bourgeoisie and aristocracy, and the pathos of arranged marriages. Dr Cathy Hume is currently a visiting scholar at Northwestern University.Trade ReviewWell-written and insightful, an excellent resource for any Chaucer scholar to add to his or her bookshelf. * CITHARA *Casts new light on Chaucer's representation of marriage in relation to 'real human lives' and his 'own social reality'. * REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES *[A] rich and extremely interesting book. One of the most rewarding aspects of Hume's work is the invaluable evidence that it builds for the sheer complexity of late-medieval attitudes to love and marriage, both ideologically and in practice. * LITERATURE & HISTORY *[B]y bringing the Chaucer canon into dialogue with works whose full cultural significance has yet to be realized, she offers a new way of interpreting how Chaucer responded to and reflected on the expectations and realities of his own time. As Hume demonstrates, the 'marriage debate' beyond the Canterbuty Tales universe still has much to contribute to our understanding of Chaucerian love and marriage. * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *The first study to apply such a broad and detailed reading of letter collections and advice literature to Chaucer. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Marriage and love in late medieval England 'The name of soveraynetee': The Franklin's Tale 'Humble servant to youre worthynesse': the Clerk's Tale Domestic opportunities: The social comedy of the Shipman's Tale Love in confinement in the Merchant's Tale The Man of Law's Tale: The medieval marriage market and human suffering The Knight's Tale and Emily's marriage: Chain of love or prison fetters? 'Nyce fare': The courtly culture of love in Troilus and Criseyde Beyond the bounds of good behaviour: Imprudent fidelity in the Legend of Good Women Conclusion Bibliography

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