Literary studies: general Books

Book SynopsisChaucer's translation of Boethius' work is related to medieval intellectual culture, with attention to Trevet's Boethius commentary.This collection seeks to locate the Boece within the medievaltradition of the academic study and translation of the Consolatiophilosophiae, thereby relating the work to the intellectual culturewhich made it possible.It begins with the fullest study yet undertakenof the Boethius commentary of Nicholas Trevet, this being a majorsource of the Boece. There follow editions and translationsof the major passages in Trevet's commentary whereNeoplatonic issuesare confronted, then Chaucer's debt to Trevet is assessed in a detailedreview. The many choices which faced Chaucer as a translator are indicated and the Boeceis placed in a long line of interpreters of Boethius in which both Latin commentators and vernacular translators played their parts. Finally, a view is offered of the Boece as anexample of late-medieval `academic translation': if the Boeceis assigned to this genre, it may be judged a considerable success.Trade ReviewThe scholarship in this book is exemplary, and hits its narrowly defined targets with bull's eyes. NOTES AND QUERIES [James Simpson]For most Chaucerians the piece on Chaucer's translation of the Boecewill be the most important part of this book, but this should in no way diminish its importance in the scholarship on the medieval tradition of Boethius to which it makes a significant contribution. ENGLISH STUDIESA fine book... impressive in its authorial and editorial accuracy and its philological thoroughness. * ANGLIA *Table of Contents"More Platonica loquitur" - what Nicholas Trevet really did to William of Conches, A.J. Minnis and Lodi Nauta; extracts from Trevet's commentary on Boethius - texts and translations - Latin texts, E.T. Silk, translations, A.B. Scott; Chaucer's commentator - Nicholas Trevet and the "Boece", A.J. Minnnis; the "Boece" as late-medieval translation, A.J. Minnis and Tim William Machan. Appendices: the 13th-century revision of William of Conches's commentary on Boethius, Lodi Nauta; Trevet's use of the Boethius commentary tradition, Lodi Nauta.

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Book SynopsisDetailed examination of the evidence linking the authorship of the Equatorie of the Planetis with Chaucer.The Equatorie of the Planetis, a Middle English text on the construction and use of a planetary equatorium, was composed in 1393. The unique manuscript, which appears to be the author's original, belongs to Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1952 it was brought to general attention by Derek Price who argued that the text was written by Geoffrey Chaucer. Whether the Equatorie is indeed Chaucer's has remained controversial ever since. Dr Rand Schmidt's book offers a detailed examination of the literary, linguistic and codicological evidence linking the authorship of the Equatorie with Chaucer. She analyses and compares the manuscript with other specimens proposed asChaucer's hand, and evaluates the available methods of testing. The volume includes a new transcription of the Equatorie, accompanied by a facsimile of the MS, and a KWIC-concordance to the text. Diplomatic transcriptions of three Middle English astronomical texts have also been included and are printed here for the first time. Dr KARI ANNE RAND SCHMIDT is a language specialist, teaching in the Department of English at the University of Oslo.Trade ReviewAn invaluable survey of the problem of the Equatorie, which no serious Chaucerian should ignore. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *The general views matter and the details matter in this formidable book... excellent. * NOTES AND QUERIES *Table of ContentsPart I: The authorship debate; a holograph in Chaucer's hand?; is the "Equatorie" in Chaucer's dialect and ideolect; Chaucer's syntax?. Part II: Texts for comparison; type/token ratios for consecutive units of text; collocations of frequent words; single frequent words as discriminators between authors. Part III: Description of Peterhouse, Cambridge, MS 75.1 - "The Equatorie of the Planetis" facsimile and transcription, notes to the transcription; description of Cambridge University Library, MS Dd.3.53 - "A Treatise on the Astrolabe" transcription, notes to the transcription; description of Trinity College, Cambridge, MS 0.5.26 - "The Shippe of Venyse" transcription, "The Newe Theorik of Planetis" transcription, notes to the transcriptions. Part 4: KWIC-Concordance to the text of "The Equatorie of the Planetis".

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Book SynopsisTraces the development of the forest as a central literary motif in medieval romance.Trade ReviewValuable for its discussions of medieval English and French romances and lays, and especially for its survey of their varieties of wooded landscape - idyllic and exilic, amorous and adventurous. MEDIUM AEVUMCorinne Saunders tackles [forests] with practicality and a clear scheme... she follows a clear chronological plan from 12th to 15th centuries. Her text-by-text layout does justice to the variety of possibilities taken up by different authors. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT [Tom Shippey 07/01/94]Elegant volume... will be essential to future research in the field. STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCERA useful contribution to our understanding of romance narratives. * LEEDS STUDIES IN ENGLISH *Table of ContentsPart 1 The origins of the Romance forest: the historical forest; the Biblical wilderness; the philosophical tradition - "Silva" and "Hyle". Part 2 Classical antecedents and romance retellings: the classical tradition; the "Roman d'Antiquite". Part 3 The forest of courtly romance - the 12th century: the Breton lay; the romances of "Chretien de Troyes"; the "Tristan" romances. Part 4 Convention and innovation - the 13th century: "Contes"; the prose romances of "Lancelot" and "Tristan". Part 5 The landscape of vision - Merlin and the Grail Quest: the "Vita Merlini" and the hagiographic tradition; the "Queste del Saint Graal". Part 6 Multiple readings - the Middle English romances: "Sir Orfeo"; "Sir Launfal"; "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"; Chaucer. Part 7 The forests of Logres - Malory's "Morte Darthur". Part 8 Rewriting the forest - Spenser and Shakespeare: Spenser's "The Faerie Queene"; Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "As You Like It".

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Book Synopsis227 manuscripts dating from the 8th- to the 15th-century.The library at Hereford Cathedral is famous as one of the few surviving `chained libraries'; but the contents of the books secured to the seventeenth century presses are less well known. There are 227 western manuscripts, of whichabout half have been at the cathedral since before the Reformation. They range in date from the eighth to the fifteenth century, and include finely-illustrated patristic books of the twelfth century, a large collection of OxfordUniversity legal textbooks, and books of civil and canon law from the end of the thirteenth century. Over half the volumes survive in largely intact medieval bindings. The catalogue, begun by the late Sir Roger Mynors and completed by Professor Thomson, reflects the particular strengths of the collection. The many glossed books are described using a particularly effective system devised by Sir Roger Mynors. An introductory essay by Michael Gullick describes the medieval bindingTrade ReviewA comprehensive and consistent approach, difficult to believe it will ever be superseded... ensplendoured by a large number of informative plates, no fewer than forty-five of them in full colour...contribute[s] a good deal to our knowledge of the circulation of books and the places where they were made. MEDIUM AEVUM Thomson's introduction is required reading for anyone interested in medieval books and libraries. The same can be said about Gullick's account of the bindings, which breaks new ground... As for the catalogue itself... my guess is that this one will survive very well. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW Majestic catalogue...the library has here received a worthy monument. * SPECULUM *Table of ContentsCatalogue; index of manuscripts; index of incipits.

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Book SynopsisA fresh approach to ambiguities of language in Piers Plowman.Starting from a consideration of medieval definitions of the word as both logos and verbum, this reading of Piers Plowmanshows that both scholastic and mystic attitudes to language are at play within the poem.Concepts of authority, authorship, interpretation and translation are explored and it is made clear that these are inextricably linked, both in critical debates and in the text itself. The study progresses towards a conclusion that the full potential of language can be realised only when the desire to express things unambiguously is abandoned and ambiguity itself is allowed to be a power and a way of understanding. The rich fabric of Langland's text thusbecomes something to enjoy and participate in, rather than battle with or seek to control. Furthermore, it proves to be a meeting point for medieval and modern theories of text and reading, which are themselves enlivened by this complex and vivid poem.G.A. RUDD lectures in English at the University of Liverpool.Trade ReviewInteresting and stimulating... a thoughtful and challenging account of Piers Plowman. * ENGLISH STUDIES *Table of ContentsPart 1 Language, knowledge and authority: language and the "Logos"; aspects of knowledge; the authority of writing; Langland's "Reason" and his heritage; "Reason and Ymaginatif". Part 2 Knowledge through reason: the power of a trained mind; the progression to learning and the role of scripture; the doctor - the last word in scholasticism; speech as God-given resource. Part 3 Knowledge beyond reason: knowledge beyond reason; dowel, dobet, dobest and the three lives; Haukyn and the paradox of the active life; the first inner dream and the force of experience; Trajan; wit through wonders. Part 4 Managing language: naming and interpretation; "Dixit Insipiens".

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Book SynopsisWide-ranging essays engaging with all aspects of medieval romance, from textual studies to historical sources.The essays in this volume reflect the range and diversity of approach and of critical stance which have characterised romance studies in recent years. Amongst the areas of interest addressed are those of generic definition; the role of romance in relation to emergent ideas of nationalism; the complex associations between gender and genre, and between historical events and their expression in literature. Other issues explored are the transmission and reception of texts; the nature of the audiences; and the implications of critical theory for the reading of medieval romance. Contributors: MALDWYN MILLS, J.A. BURROW, DONNA CRAWFORD, A.S.G. EDWARDS, ARLYN DIAMOND, JOCELYN WOGAN-BROWNE, JOHN J. THOMPSON, THORLAC TURVILLE-PETRE, DIANA SPEED, JOHN SCATTERGOOD, COLIN RICHMOND, CAROL M. MEALE.Trade ReviewA welcome addition to romance studies. * STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER *Well shows the liveliness of scholarship in this area. * MEDIUM AEVUM *An admirable volume. * ANGLIA *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Carol. M Meale Sir Isumbras and the Styles of the Tail-rhyme Romance - Maldwyn Mills The Uses of Incognito: Ipomadon A - John A. Burrow 'Gronyng wyth grysly wounde': Injury in Five Middle English Breton Lays - Donna Crawford Gender, Order and Reconciliation in Sir Degrevaunt - A S G Edwards Unhappy Endings: Failed Love/Failed Faith in Late Romances - Arlyn Diamond 'Bet...to...rede on holy seyntes lyves...': Romance and Hagiography Again - Jocelyn Wogan-Browne The Cursor Mundi, the 'Inglis tong', and 'Romance' - John J. Thompson Havelok and the History of the Nation - Thorlac Turville-Petre The Construction of the Nation in Medieval English Romance - Diane Speed The Tale of Gamelyn: The Noble Robber as Provincial Hero - John Scattergood Thomas Malory and the Pastons - Colin Richmond 'gode men/Wiues maydnes and alle men': Romance and Its Audiences - Carol. M Meale Index of Manuscripts Index of Names and Titles

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Book SynopsisEssays addressing the relation of aesthetic artistry to historical context in medieval English narrative.A collection of essays offering original arguments in a number of areas. Papers cluster around two topics: the writing of Langland and Chaucer, and writing as historical process. These reflect Frank's own wide-ranging work. The papers contain a refreshing ideological diversity while maintaining coherence of intellectual concerns. There is a discussion of the working of memory in The Knight's Tale. On debt, on Langland's Christology and on revelry, some very interesting ideas are put foward. In addition, literary contexts for the two major poets are usefully and thoroughly mapped out, and three papers illustrate how historical events and processes may be perceived in stimulatingly different ways. Included is an introduction from the editor and bibliography of Robert Worth Frank, Jnr. Contributors: ELIZABETH KIRK, C. DAVID BENSON, ANNA BALDWIN, M.TERESA TAVORMINA, MONICA McALPINE, MARY CARRUTHERS, KATHRYN L. LYNCH, CAROLYN P. COLLETTE, MARY HAMEL, PAUL STROHM, THOMAS J. HEFFERMAN, PEGGY KNAPPTable of ContentsEditor's introduction, Robert R. Edwards; a bibliography of Robert Wirth Frank, Jr.; the frustration of narrative and the reader in "Piers Plowman", C. David Benson; Langland's narrative christology, Elizabeth Kirk; the debt narrative in "Piers Plowman", Anna Baldwin; the chilling of charity - eschatological allusions and revisions in "Piers Plowman" C.16-17, M. Teresa Tavormina; the triumph of fiction in the nun's priest's tale, Monica E. McAlpine; seeing things - locational memory in Chaucer's knight's tale, Mary Carruthers; partitioned fictions - the meaning and importance of walls in Chaucer's poetry, Kathryn L. Lynch; Chaucer's discourse of mariology - gaining the right to speak, Carolyn P. Collette; the "Descriptio Navalis Pugnae" in Middle English literature, Mary Hamel; "Lad with revel to Newegate" - Chaucerian narrative and historical meta-narrative, Paul Strohm; "God hathe schewed ffor him many grete miracules" - political canonization and the "Miracula" of Simone de Montfort, Thomas J. Hefferman; thrift, Peggy A. Knapp.

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Book SynopsisMyles challenges the convention of the `medieval mind' and perceives new semantic sophistication in Chaucer's language.NB DSB BLURB ON CERTAIN OCCASIONS What is the difference between saying something and meaning it, and saying something and not meaning it? A modern question. A Chaucerian question. Through his analysis of intentionality and the metaphysics of speech, Robert Myles shows why Chaucer's appreciation of the functioning of language and thought could be `modern'. Through his analysis of Chaucer's works, particularly the Friar's Tale, Myles demonstrates that Chaucer's understanding of these is modern and the myth of the medieval mind as other than our own is exploded. The medieval belief in intentionality, the object-directedness of all beings, allowed appreciationof a fact: thought and language areintentional. On a practical level Chaucer deliberately exploits three-level semantics (signs are simultaneously mind-drected and world-directed) to create `realistic' fiction in the modernliterary sense of the term. Myles also argues that Chaucer is a realist in the philosophical sense, a view which goes counter to the current of much recent criticism. This book will not only be a challenging addition to medievaland Chaucerian studies, but has interesting implications for the historical study of intentionality, semiotics and epistemology. DR ROBERT MYLESis senior lecturer at the English and French Language Centre, McGill University, and a research fellow at the Department of English, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.Trade ReviewThe most important contribution to considerations over the past decade of the philosophical components of Chaucer's poetry, his psychology, and his semiotic theory... The best discussion I know of the central component of Chaucer's philosophical disposition - intentionality. The argument combines a rich understanding of medieval philosophical tradition in these matters, useful comparisons with 20th-century writings on the topic, and, especially, a lively and just application of the materials to the understanding of Chaucer's poetry. SPECULUM [Russell A. Peck]Joins the ranks of only a handful of sustained, book-length studies of the philosophical implications of Chaucer's poetry, and for this reason it represents an important contribution to the field. STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCERWith the panache and conviction of a medieval theologian (but with the benefit of modern linguistic theory and semiotics) [Miles] deploys an argument dazzling in its learning, careful in its categories, subtle in its development, and irresistible in its logic. -- Peter Brown * MLR *Table of ContentsPart 1 Chaucerian realism: "Realisms" and nominalism - sources of confusion; major misunderstandings - Robert M. Jordan; major misunderstandings - nine more critics; Chaucer's ethical realism; "Wordes white" and "ententes black" - Chaucer, ethics and language. Part 2 The thesis of intentionality - medieval and modern: the thesis of intentionality - the linguistic return; "Entente" and "intentio" - medieval psycholinguistics; intentionality, creationism, and language; Chaucer and the medieval thesis of intentionality; signs and psychology - the thesis of intentionality. Part 3 Judeo-Christian semiological metaphysics - Chaucer's metaphysical option: creationism - presence and/or absence; the metaphysics of presence and absence; the metaphysics of speech; metaphysics and language; personalism - "imago Dei/imago hominis"; semiological metaphysics. Part 4 Medieval and modern understandings of mode of presentation: the modern understanding of mode of presentation; four medieval understandings of mode of presentation; the theology of "uti" and "frui" as mode of presentation; the category of relation; faculty psychology, logic, and first and second intentions; negative and positive theology and analogical thinking; three-level semantics; three-level semantics from Augustine to Frege. Part 5 Chaucerian entencioun - mode of presentation and three-level semantics in the "Friar's Tale": some "ententes" of "rente"; "rentes" and "brybes"; yeoman, "yeoman", and the Liar paradox; "rentes," "lords," "maisters," "yemen," "baillyves," "develes," "somonours," and "theves"; the field expands - "rente," "profit," "fruyt," "purchas," "wynnyng"; the field of association of "entente"; telling confessions - the "entente" of "repente"; willing and nilling - prayers meet preyers; the "entente" of curses; the Carter's curse; metonymic multiplicity or the mystery of the widow's "panne". Part 6 Intentionality - the couplings of a fool: the "Friar's Tale" and the grammar of sex; summoners and the grammar of sex; the couplings of a fool.

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Book SynopsisEssays employing close scrutiny of texts to clarify gender issues in feminist literary criticism.One of the major problems in feminist literary criticism is the tendency to generalise when exploring language and gender. This volume clarifies the issues involved and tests generalisations by specific analysis, and in the process defines a "feminist stylistics" - a fresh, practical approach which will serve as a model for future work in this area. The seven essays in the collection analyse widely varying literary texts, using the framework of linguistic theory to address feminist issues. The texts range from Shakespeare's As You Like It to present-day pop songs, and also cover poetry and contemporary fiction. The feminist critics whose approach is under examination include Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva, Showalter, Woolf and a number of British feminists; and the linguistic models employed cover discourse analysis, politeness theory, lexicalisation and transitivity. Contributors: Clara Calvo, Lesley Jeffries, Marion Lomax, Sara Mills, Louise Sylvester, Anne Varty, Shan WareingTable of ContentsIntroduction: Feminist Linguistics in Literary Criticism - Katie Wales In Defence of Celia: Discourse Analysis and Women's Discourse in As You Like It - Clara Calvo Language in Common: Apposition in Contemporary Poetry by Women - Lesley Jeffries Gendered Writing and the Writer's Stylistic Identity - Marion Lomax And Then He Kissed Her: The Reclamation of Female Characters to Submissive Roles in Contemporary Fiction - Shan Wareing Close Encounters of a Feminist Kind: Transitivity Analysis and Pop Lyrics - Sara Mills From Queens to Convicts: Status, Sex and Language in Contemporary British Women's Drama - Anne Varty Women, Men and Words: Lexical Choices in Two Fairy Tales of the 1920s - Louise Sylvester

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Book SynopsisStudies of the evolution of the hero, from Beowulf to Lancelot.André Crépin, head of the English faculty at the Sorbonne, has made a great contribution to medieval English studies in France and in Europe. These studies in his honour reflect the wide range of his interests in Old and Middle English, fromBeowulf to Malory. Their linking theme is the literary and linguistic evolution of the hero, from the classic expression of the Germanic code to the chivalry of the knights of the Round Table, from Beowulf toChaucer's knight to Sir Lancelot. Beowulf as archetypal hero is both the subject of and the concept behind more than one study; others, attempting to define heroism, grapple with the semantic problem posed by the absence of thisword until very late in the medieval period; and the very notion of heroism is questioned as the passive hero or anti-hero emerges as a literary type, at the same time as the medieval consciousness of self developed. Contributors: GUY BOURGUIN, LEO CARRUTHERS, PETER CLEMOES, ANDY ORCHARD, ERIC STANLEY, JULIETTE DOR, DEREK BREWER, TERENCE P. DOLAN, JILL MANN, JOSSELINE BIBARD, JEAN-JACQUES BLANCHOT, JAMES WIMSATT, TERENCE McCARTHY, GLORIA CIGMAN.Table of ContentsRaynard the Fox as Anti-Hero - Josseline Bidard Type Conceptions of the Good Knight in the French Arthurian Cycles, Malory and Chaucer - Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Dunbar's Poetry - Jean-Jacques Blanchot The Lexis and Deixis of Heroism in Old English Poetry - Guy Bourquin Chaucer's Knight as Hero, and Machaut's Prise d'Alexandrie - Derek S Brewer Kingship and Heroism in Beowulf - The Medieval Self as Anti-Hero - Caroline Muessig / The Editor The Medieval Self As Anti-Hero - Gloria Cigman King and Creation at the Crucifixion: the Contribution of Native Tradition to the Dream of the Rood 50-5a - The Plowman as Hero - Terence P Dolan Humilis exaltetur: Constance, or Humility Rewarded - Juliette Dor Sir Gawain and the Romance Hero - Beowulf's Bairns: Malory's Sterner Knights - Conspicuous Heroism: Abraham, Prudentius, and the Old English Verse Genesis - Heroic Women In Old English Literature - Type Conceptions of the Good Knight in the French Arthurian Cycles, Malory and Chaucer - James Wimsatt

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Book SynopsisStudies on the influence of the middle ages, and in particular the Arthurian legends, on the culture of North America.Fifteen essays trace North America's enthusiastic engagement with the middle ages from the Revolution to Disney. There are eight studies of the American reception of Arthur: in art (Abbey, Rosenthal), literature (Canadian writers,John Ciardi), scholarship (R.S. Loomis), politics (JFK), and popular culture (Arthurian youth groups, Disneyland, the Excalibur Casino). Other topics include Tom Paine, Elbertus Hubbard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, C.B. DeMille, popular treatments of Villon, the roots of the New Mexican cuento, and the rhetoric of the Gulf War. Contributors: ROGER WOOD, KYMBERLEY N. PINDER, ERICA E. HIRSHLER, ALAN LUPACK, CHARLOTTE OBERG, RAYMOND H. THOMPSON,STAN GALLOWAY, ROBIN BLAETZ, ROBERT D. PECKHAM, JEFF RIDER, KLAUS P. JANKOFSKY, MARY MORSE, PAMELA S. MORGAN, SUSAN ARONSTEIN, NANCY COINER, JONATHAN M. ELUKINTable of Contents`The History Is Concisely This': Thomas Paine's Account of the Peasants' Revolt - Roger Wood The Reception of Toby E Rosenthal's Elaine: Medievalism in San Francisco - Kymberly N Pinder A Quest for the Holy Grail: Edwin Austin Abbey's Murals in the Boston Public Library - Erica Hirshler Visions of Courageous Achievement: Arthurian Youth Groups in America - Fra Elbertus and the Roycrofters: Medievalism in East Aurora - Charlotte Oberg The Arthurian Legend in Canada - Raymond H Thompson The Greystoke Connection: Medievalism in Two Edgar Rice Burroughs Novels - Stan Galloway Cecil B. DeMille's Joan the Woman - Robin Blaetz Dark Laughter in the Chambers of the King: Francois Villon in America - Robert Peckham Roger Sherman Loomis: Medievalism as Antimodernism - Jeff Rider `Launcelot in Hell': John Ciardi's Medievalism - Klaus P Jankofsky The Medieval Roots of Two New Mexican Cuentos - Mary Morse One Brief Shining Moment: Camelot in Washington, D.C. - Pamela S Morgan Medieval Language and Politics: Making the World Safe for Feudalism - Susan Aronstein Twice Knightly: Democratizing the Middle Ages for Middle-Class America - Nancy Coiner Medieval Language and Politics: Making the World Safe for Feudalism -

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Book SynopsisPapers on women and religion in the middle ages, drawn from archive, manuscipt and early printed sources.Taking a variety of critical approaches, the papers in Women, the Book and the Godlyanalyse the subject of women and religion, illustrating clearly the wealth of previously untapped material on this topic, whether in archive, manuscript or early printed source. The volume examines writing by women, writing which excludes women, and writing which ignores them, as well as women readers, women patrons, and women who were read to. Archaeology, canon and civil law, and trial depositions are all represented. The common determinants of marital and social status are, of course, explored, but so also are the problems of women and language, women's various roles as creators, recipients, and objects, and women's positions on the sliding scale between the orthodox, the reforming, and the heterodox churches. The essays thus represent something of the variety and range of work being done on medieval women today.Contributors: ALCUIN BLAMIRES, JACQUELINE MURRAY, WYBREN SCHEEPSMA, ANNEM. DUTTON, ROSALYNN VOADEN, GRACE JANTZEN, ELIZABETH A. ANDERSEN, THOMAS LUONGO, BENEDICTA WARD, GOPA ROY, GEORGES WHALEN, CATHERINE INNES-PARKER, HELENPHILLIPS, SHANNON McSHEFFREY, PETER BILLERTable of Contents`The Limits of Bible Study for Medieval Women'. - Alcuin Blamires `The Absent Penitent: The Cure of Women's Souls and Confessors' Manuals in Thirteenth-Century England'. - Jacqueline Murray ``For hereby I hope to rouse some to piety': Books of Sisters from Convents and Sister-Houses Associated with the Devotio Moderna in the Low Countries'.the Low Countries'. - Wybren Scheepsma `Passing the Book: Testamentary Transmission of Religious Literature To and By Women in England 1350-1500'. - `Women and Texts in Languedocian Catharism'. - Rosalynn Voaden ``Cry Out and Write': Mysticism and the Struggle for Authority'. - Judith Forshaw, Book Reviews `Mechthild von Magdeburg: Her Creativity and her Audience'. - Elizabeth A Andersen `Catherine of Siena: Rewriting Female Holy Authority'. - F Thomas Luongo ``To My Dearest Sister': Bede and the Educated Woman'. - Benedicta Ward ``Sharpen your mind with the whetstone of books': The Female Recluse as Reader in Goscelin's `Liber Confortatorious', Aelred of Rievalx's `De Institutione Inclusarum' and the `Ancrene Wisse''.Rievalx's `De Institutione Inclusarum' and the `Ancren - Gopa Roy `Patronage Engendered: How Goscelin Allayed the Concerns of Nuns' Discriminatory Publics'. - Georges Whalen ``Ancrene Wisse and De Wohunge of Ure Lauerd': The Thirteenth- Century Female Reader and the Lover-Knight'. - Catherine Innes-Parker `Rewriting the Fall: Julian of Norwich and the `Chevalier des Dames''. - Helen Phillips `Literacy and the Gender Gap in the Late Middle Ages: Women and Reading in Lollard Communities'. - Shannon McSheffrey `Women and Texts in Languedocian Catharism'. - Peter Biller

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Book SynopsisInvestigation of literary and archaeological evidence in search of pagan sources for the Arthurian legend.`Darrah makes the valid point that episodes in the Arthurian romances read like motifs from the ancient mythologies...[he] reconstructs a lost British paganism, grounded in the rivers, hills and woods, and especially those grey monoliths...reminders of a cosmology vanished from this island. NIKOLAI TOLSTOY, DAILY TELEGRAPH `Contends, with a good deal of evidence, that the impact of pre-Christian Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Cornish and Breton religion is greater than has been previously thought... Extensively researched and well written.' CHOICE The origins of Arthurian romance will always be a hotly disputed subject. The great moments of the legends belong partly to dimly-remembered history, partly to the poets' imagination down the ages, yet there is another strand to the stories which goes back deeper and further: the traces of ancient pagan religion, found both in Arthurian heroes who have inherited the attributes of gods, and in episodes which reflect ancient religious rituals. Darrah's careful study of the thematic relationships of, particularly, the more obscure episodes of the romances and his identification of the relative geography of Arthurian Britain as portrayed in the romances will be valuable even to those who differ with his conclusions. His most original contribution to an unravelling of a pagan Arthurian past lies in his appropriation of the fascinating evidence of standing stones and pagan cultic sites. This is dark and difficult territory, but building on elusive clues, and tracing a range of sites, especially in south-west Britain, John Darrah hasadded a significant new dimension to the search for the sources of the legends of Arthur and his court. JOHN DARRAH has also written The Real Camelot.Table of ContentsPart 1 An Arthurian adventure analysed: the calendar of Arthurian romance; the challenge; tournaments and the spring marriage; fire from heaven; severed heads and sacred waters; healing blood and the dolorous stroke. Part 2 Further aspects of paganism in the romances: births, lives and deaths of heroes and heroines; the nature of paganism in Britain; ceremonial and ritual. Part 3 The physical background to the romances: constructions; the geography of Arthurian romance; time and place; the once and future king. Part 4 Gazetteer: places whose location can be roughly established; unidentified places. Appendix: who's who in the romances.

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Book SynopsisThe second study of medievalism in Europe shows how the influence of the middle ages has been manifested itself in various forms, throughout the modern age, in Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden - and Brazil.How have the middle ages been constructed in modern European culture? How have these constructions both reflected and refashioned national and political ideology? What has characterised the interplay between literary and artisticmedievalism and the rise of formal medieval studies in the academy? This international collection addresses medievalism in Germany, France, Scandinavia, and postcolonial South America. Contributors: RICHARD J. UTZ, ALBRECHT CLASSEN, OTFRID EHRISMANN, NILS HOLGER PETERSEN, ROBERT E. BJORK, MARTHA L. MACFARLANE, ADAM KNOBLER, WILLIAM CHESTER JORDAN, SUZY BEEMER, WILLIAM CALIN, ROY ROSENSTEINTable of Contents- Richard J. Utz

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Book SynopsisMetrical study of Old English poetry drawing on database of almost half the surviving corpus - a uniquely extensive sample.The primary aim of this study is to provide an improved description of Old English metre. Making use of a computerized database containing 13,044 lines of Old English poetry (about 40% of the total which survives), it is unique among other studies of Old English metre (which have usually confined themselves to Beowulf) for the size of the corpus it examines. Although located firmly within the traditional `five types' theory of Old English metre, itdeparts from previous critical orthodoxies in several respects. It places greater emphasis than is usual on syntax and formulaic diction, and demonstrates, for example, that a coherent metrical system emerges if alliteration is used as a guide to word stress, and that resolution is a metrically significant phenomenon. A secondary aim is to recover the way Anglo-Saxon poets composed their verse, with important implications for oral-formulaic theory; and a revised terminology is suggested. B.R. HUTCHESON teaches at Macon College, USA.Trade ReviewFull of fascinating detail for those who are interested in the empirical analysis of Old English metre. * MEDIUM AEVUM *This very good book. * NOTES AND QUERIES *An invaluable resource, and no student of early Germanic metrics can afford not to study it with the greatest care. * LANGUAGE [US] *Table of ContentsPart 1: Sound changes relevant to Old English meter; resolution; anacrusis. Part 2 A new descriptive theory. Part 3 Catalogue of types.

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Book SynopsisMargaret of Oingt was born around 1240 into a noble family in the French Beaujolais region, and became prioress of the Carthusian charterhouse of Poletains; visionary and mystic, her writings are intelligent and humorous. Includedhere are the Page of Meditations, on sin and salvation; the Mirror, a vision of Christ; the Life of the Virgin Saint Beatrice of Ornacieux, an exemplary text; and letters and stories, including comments on her problems as prioress. They are translated from the Latin and Francoprovencal with an introduction, notes, and interpretative essay. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski is Chair, Department of French and Italian, and Professorof French, at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Book SynopsisTranslation, with full explanatory notes, of the two works of Teresa de Cartagena, the fifteenth-century Spanish nun.This affordable, engaging and important translation of Teresa de Cartagena's works significantly expands and enriches the current canon of medieval women writers. ANNE CLARK BARTLETT, DePAUL UNIVERSITY Teresa de Cartagena was born in Burgos in about 1415-20, into a powerful family of Jewish origin. All we know of Teresa comes from her work: she was deaf and not physically strong, she was a nun, and - perhaps the source of her resilience -she was well-educated, above all in religion and moral philosophy. Deaf from early womanhood, her consolatory treatise Grove of the Infirm is a reflection on the spiritual benefits of illness; her second work, Wonder at the Works of God, was apparently written to counter the contention of her critics that a handicapped woman had nothing of value to say. This artful manipulation of the familiar devotional genre of "the treatise of consolation" reveals a woman writer intimately familiar with the cultural practices of her era; overall, both works allow a rare glimpse into the world of women in fifteenth-century Spain. DAYLE SEIDENSPINNER-NUNEZ is Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literature at the University of Notre Dame.

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Book SynopsisFrances Beer chooses Julian's first, more intimate, Revelations on which to base this accessible edition and study of her life and work.Trade ReviewContributes to the complete picture of Julian of Norwich as an author in that it invites renewed close reading of the Revelation and study of the text in its varied manuscript and textual contexts. * REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES *

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Book SynopsisThe imagery of marriage and the family in Piers Plowmanrelated to contemporary social history.Kindly Similitude is the first study to offer a detailed reading of the many passages in Piers Plowman A, B, and C concerned with marriage and family, and to place them within the frameworks of contemporary social history, law, theology, exegesis, and literature. The author shows how Langland draws on the experiences of familial life both literally and metaphorically to further his expositions of law and love, nature and grace, the image of God in individuals and society, the use of time and material goods, the perversion of right relationships through covetise, and doing well in the active life. For Langland, an unmistakably public poet, the marital householdis inextricably linked to religious, economic, and political institutions. It reflects and transmits a divine exemplar of community, and plays a fundamental role in creating the society in which he and his audience must live. Thisimportant new critical approach complements the strong current attention to the poem's intellectual and ecclesiological contexts. Professor M. TERESA TAVORMINA is at the Department of English, Michigan State University.Trade ReviewDiscussion is richly informed by social-historical knowledge... careful and sensitive reading. MEDIUM AEVUM A judicious, as well as an erudite book. NOTES AND QUERIES A book that bears upon the poem in ways both substantive and subtle, and the information, thoughtfulness and eloquence brought to the topic amply succeed in making its relevance apparent. REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES Great industry and erudition. * STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER *Table of ContentsPart 1 The marriage of Meed: the marriage-making - Meed's family, fiance, and friends, the marriage ceremony and charter; the marriage-breaking - theology's objection, Meed before the king. Part 2 Do-wel in this world: the interior household - the castle of Caro, Inwit and the image of God; the social family - helping the helpless, standing fast in one's station; Trewe wedded Libbynge folk - the right use of marriage, marriage at mischief, from Cain to Noe, "Filius Non Portabit...", contemporary marriages; that Iche man have a make. Part 3 The trinite hit meneth: the fruits of charity - the fruits of the tree in B, the fruits of the tree in C; one kind, two lives, three degrees - one kind, two lives in three degrees, Ac Bothe two Ben Gode; betokening the trinity - Abraham and the three degrees; Lo, Treys encountre Treys. Part 4 A kind familiarity: childhood; sexuality; the making of marriages; familial affections - conjugal affections; sibling affections; inheritance and old age - inheritance, old age. Part 5 Kindly similitude - marriage and family in "Piers Plowman": patterns of revision; marriage and family as kindly similitude.

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Book SynopsisA fresh look at early dramatic activity in Scandinavia, using archaeological, historical and literary evidence.This book takes a new approach to the question of whether some form of drama existed in early Scandinavia. Dr Gunnell examines the dialogic poems of the Poetic Edda, preserved in manuscripts from the late thirteenth century, fromthe viewpoints of both performer and audience. He argues that in order to be fully understood by the audience, the poems must have been presented in some dramatic fashion, and not merely chanted. He substantiates his claims by exploring characteristics found only in the manuscripts of these dialogic poems and in contemporary manuscripts of dramatic works from England and Northern France, suggesting that even in the thirteenth century, the dialogic poems must have been regarded as dramatic works. The examination is accompanied by the most complete review to date of the evidence for some kind of ritual drama having existed in pagan Scandinavia, looking at archaeological evidence forthe use of masks and costumes, information contained in the sagas, and contemporary historical accounts. TERRY GUNNELL is Professor of Folkloristics at the University of Iceland.Trade ReviewThe book has two main contributions to make to the study of medieval Scandinavia. It is a marvelous compendium of evidence for dramatic and quasi-dramatic activities in Scandinavia from prehistoric times to the present; and it presents a serious case for regarding the dialogic poems of the Edda as miniature plays... no reader could fail to be informed and stimulated by its contents. * SPECULUM *Full of useful information, current perspectives, and informed speculations, with an enviable profusion of plates... a substantial introduction to the vexing questions of cultic performances in early Scandinavia and their literary/dramatic afterlife. * COMPARATIVE DRAMA [US] *A fascinating and thorough study of the evidence concerning early dramatic performance in pre-Christian Scandinavia. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *Table of ContentsPart 1 Dramatic activities in early medieval Scandinavia - the evidence of archaeology and literature: the conditions for the development of drama; ritual "Leikar" and drama; the archaeological evidence; literary evidence for ritual dramatic activities. Part 2 Dramatic activities in early medieval Scandinavia - the folkloristic evidence: the application of folkloristic material; Scandinavian costumed processions, house visits and performances related to the Christmas period; costumed combat traditions in Scandinavia; the seasonal "mock-marriage" in Scandinavian folk tradition; the continuation of pagan ritual in Scandinavia; the transportation of dramatic folk traditions; the evidence for a shared tradition of "folk-drama" in the North Atlantic Scandinavian settlements. Part 3 The Eddas and drama: the Eddas as oral poetry; the dating of the extent texts of the Eddas; the forms of Eddic poetry; the prose in the Eddic poems - general; the dialogic poems in "Ljodahattr"; the prose in the mythological dialogic poems; the difficulties involved in a one-man performance of the dialogic poems. Part 4 Marginal speaker notation in the Edda and early manuscripts of drama: the marginal notation in the Edda and early manuscripts; other medieval Scandinavian manuscripts containing dialogues; European manuscripts of dramatic works 1000-1300; the use of the margin to indicate speakers in dramatic manuscripts; Scandinavian contact with European dramatic manuscripts. Part 5 Performances of poetry and song involving more than one participant in early medieval Scandinavia: the evidence regarding solo performance; oral performance involving more than one participant outside the Germanic world; oral performance involving more than one participant among the Germanic peoples; oral performances involving more than one performer in Scandinavia.

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Book SynopsisClose study of Chaucer's most important works shows how he used gender issues to extend the range of romance.The paradox of romance as a genre is that it contains multiple possibilities, yet remains profoundly constrained by its own terms and conventions. Through a close reading of several of Chaucer's most important works, Dr Weisl examines Chaucer's use of gender issues to explore and challenge this genre. She argues that Chaucer's complex treatment of the romance, following both continental and Middle English traditions, experiments with and tests romance conventions. Each chapter looks indetail at one or more of Chaucer's works, examining their different approaches to the problems of gender, and showing how this is closely connected with genre. Subjects addressed include the feminised private spaces in Troilus and Criseydewhich protect Criseyde, but are inevitably penetrated by male power; the masculine imperatives of the epic which challenge the limits of the feminised romance in the Knight'sTale(and the speech of its heroine Emelye, who questions the assumptions of the genre itself); Canacee in the Squire's Tale, who rejects the stereotyped role of the heroine, and the romance world in the Tale of SirThopas, without a heroine at all.Dr ANGELA JANE WEISLis visiting assistant professor of English and Women's Studies at Wittenberg University, Ohio.Table of ContentsWalls with windows and rooms with doors - the gendered and genred spaces of "Troilus and Criseyde"; like father, unlike son - order, control and woman's position in the "Knight's" and "Squire's" tales.; the absent woman - generic stasis in the "Tale of Sir Thopas"; public authority and private power in Chaucer's two "Breton Lais"; on the endings of romance.

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Book SynopsisStudy exploring the treatment of the Arthurian legends by the French Romantic movement.French Romanticism was a widespread movement, as apparent in the works of historians and scholars as in the works of creative writers. One of its principal characteristics was the cult of the middle ages, and this book examines the treatment of the Arthurian legends in French Romantic medievalism. Taking into account works of historiography and literary history, as well as literary texts proper, it assesses the place of the Arthurian material in French culture in the period up to 1860, the date of publication of Edgar Quinet's Merlin l'enchanteur. In so doing, it reveals key features of French Romanticism and traces the origins of some of the problems and contradictions which still affect the practice of medieval studies. The authorargues that the depiction of Arthurian legends in French Romantic writing discloses some of the underlying ideological positions of the movement and the developing tensions between the interests of a general literary public and the ambitions of scholars seeking to define and promote medieval literature as an emerging field of study. In addition to scholars such as Claude Fauriel, Paulin Paris and Francisque Michel, other important figures in French Romanticism are considered, including Quinet and Michelet.MICHAEL GLENCROSSis Senior Lecturer in French at the University College of Ripon & York St John.Table of ContentsThe ideological background - chivalry, feudalism and romance in the literary critical and historical discourse of the Restoration; the literary background - medieval and Arthurian literature in the Romantic debate in France, 1813-1830; towards the "real" Middle Ages: the status and function of medieval literary scholarship, 1830-1860; in search of national identity - medieval and Arthurian literature in the historical imagination of Quinet, Mechelet and Henri Martin; the bard and the troubadour - the debate on the origins and diffusion of the Arthurian material in French Romantic scholarship; retelling the tale - new versions of the Arthurian material in French literature, 1812-1860.

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Book SynopsisSeven original essays on the theory, practice and future of editing Old English verse.Questions of the theory, practice and future of editing Old English verse have become increasingly pressing in the light of new research and technology, and this volume of seven original substantial essays explores a number of important editorial issues. The collection investigates the implications of current concerns in textual editing relating to the presentation of Old English verse, among them materialist criticism and approaches to the culture of thebook in the early middle ages; revisionist readings of the canons and heritage of nineteenth-century philology; and the electronic future of editing Old English. Particular topics addressed include the ethics of editing and its responsibility to both poet and reader; the neglected verses of the Paris Psalter; the editorial problems presented by the mixed form of Ælfric's rhythmical prose; and the difficulties of the printed page. The final essay in the volume explores the capabilities of the electronic hypertext to reinvent the whole process of editing and editions. KATHERINE O'BRIEN O'KEEFFE is Professor of English and Fellow of the Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame; Dr SARAH LARRATT KEEFER teaches in the Department of English at Trent University. Contributors: EDWARD B. IRVING, JR, SARAH LARRATT KEEFER, A.N. DOANE, D.G. SCRAGG, M.J. TOSWELL, PAUL E. SZARMACH, PATRICK W. CONNERTable of Contents`Respect for the Book: A Reconsideration of `Form', `Content' and `Context' in Two Vernacular Poems'. - Sarah Larratt Keefer Introduction - A.N. Doane `Towards a New Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records'. - Donald G Scragg `How Pedantry Meets Intertextuality: Editing the Old English Metrical Psalter'. - M J Toswell `Abbot Ælfric's Rhythmical Prose and the Computer Age'. - Paul E Szarmach `Beyond the ASPR: Electronic Editions of Old English Poetry'. - Patrick W Conner Introduction - Editing Old English Verse: The Ideal - Edward B. Irving Jr

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Book SynopsisComparative studies of a number of mixed prose-and-verse literatures, from Europe to the Orient, from classical culture to the 19th century.In virtually all the literary traditions of the world there are works of verbal art that depend for part of their effect on the juxtaposition of prose and verse. This volume takes the first step towards a comparative study of "prosimetrum", the mixture of prose and verse, with essays by leading linguists and literary scholars of a selection of prosimetrical traditions. The nature of what constitutes verse or prose is one underlying question addressed. An outline of historical developments emerges, especially for Europe and the Near East, with articles on classical, medieval and nineteenth-century literatures. Oriental prosimetrical literatures discussed include that of Vedic Indiaand the old literary cultures of China and Japan; also represented are oral and oral-derived folk literatures of recent centuries in Africa, the West, and Inner Asia. Professor KARL REICHL teaches in the English Department at the University of Bonn; Professor JOSEPH HARRIS teaches in the English Department at Harvard University. Contributors: KRISTIN HANSON, PAUL KIPARSKY, JAN ZIOLKOWSKI, ARDIS BUTTERFIELD, PROINSIAS Mac CANA, JOSEPH HARRIS, JUDITH RYAN, W.F.H. NICOLAISEN, LEE HARING, STEVEN WEITZMAN, WOLFHART HEINRICHS, DWIGHT REYNOLDS, JULIE SCOTT MEISAMI, KARL REICHL, WALTHER HEISSIGTrade ReviewWonderfully conceived volume... a truly comparative approach to addressing its richly suggestive theme of the hybrod genre of prosimetrum. * BULLETIN OF SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES *Table of Contents`The Nature of Verse and its Consequences for the Mixed Form'. (with Paul Kiparsky) - Kristin Hanson `The Nature of Verse and its Consequences for the Mixed Form'. (with Kristin Hanson) - Paul Kiparsky `The Prosimetrum in the Classical Tradition'. - Jan Ziolkowski ``Aucassin et Nicolette' and Mixed Forms in Medieval French'. - Ardis Butterfield `Prosimetrum in Insular Celtic Literature'. - Proinsias Mac Cana `Combinations of Poetry and Prose in Classical Japanese Narrative'. - Joseph Harris `Hybrid Forms in German Romanticism'. - Judith Ryan `The `Cante Fable' in Occidental Folk Narrative'. - W F T Nicolaisen `The African Challenge'. - Lee Haring `The `Orientalization' of Prosimetrum: Prosimetrum in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Literature'. - Steven Weitzman `Prosimetrical Genres in Classical Arabic Literature'. - Wolfhart Heinrichs `Prosimetrum in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Arabic Literature'. - Dwight Reynolds `Mixed Prose and Verse in Medieval Persian Literature'. - Julie Scott Meisami `The Mixture of Verse and Prose in Turkic Oral Epic Poetry'. - Karl Reichl `From Verse Epic to Prosimetrum in Recent Mongolian Oral Literature'. - Walther Heissig `The Prosimetric Form in the Chinese Literary Tradition'. - Victor H. Mair `Sarama and the Panis: Origins of Prosimetric Exchange in Archaic India'. - Michael Witzel `Combinations of Poetry and Prose in Classical Japanese Narrative'. - Helen Craig McCullough

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Book SynopsisAn original feminist approach, through a study of Chaucer's treatment of masculinity, to the Canterbury TalesThis volume presents a feminist approach to the Canterbury Tales, investigating the ways in which the tensions and contradictions found within the broad contours of medieval gender discourse write themselves into Chaucer'stext. Four discourses of medieval masculinity are examined, which simultaneously reinforce and resist one another: heroic or chivalric, Christian, courtly love, and emerging humanist models. Each chapter attempts to negotiateboth contemporary assumptions of gender construction, and essentialist readings of gender common to the middle ages; throughout, the author argues that the Canterbury Tales offer a sophisticated discussion of masculinity,and that it strongly indicts some of the prevalent medieval notions of ideal masculinity while still remaining firmly homosocial and homophobic. The book concludes that on the question of gender issues, the Tales are beststudied as male-authored texts containing representations and negotiations revealing much about late medieval masculinities. Dr ANNE LASKAYA teaches in the English Department at the University of Oregon.Trade Review`Laskaya surveys the various ways in which Chaucer explores the full range of late 14th-century ideals of masculinity, and then examines how women are figured in the tales of both male and female pilgrims... provides a refreshing perspective on familiar territory, but her most interesting and innovative work is to be found in her reading of the three women who join the tale-telling competition. * MEDIUM AEVUM *Table of ContentsDominant medieval discourses on gender; pervavsive competition and fragile control - Chaucer's appraisal of masculine stereotypes in the frame narrative; the heroic discourse - the "Knight's Tale"; men in love and competition - the "Miller's Tale" and the "Merchant's Tale"; competing ideas - Chaucer's clerks and academic disputes; spirituality and competition; masculinity, representations of ideal femininity in men's narratives, and the challenge; "female" narrators and Chaucer's masquerade - the second Nun, the Prioress, and the Wife of Bath.

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Book SynopsisThis highly acclaimed introduction to the medieval lyric during the period 850-1300 is now reissued in a third edition, which includes a new preface and substantial new bibliographical indications. After an introductory discussionof the performers and performance of lyrics in the middle ages, each chapter analyses one of the major lyrical genres and centres on close critical discussion of outstanding lyrics, with generous quotation of texts and translations. While the rise of religious lyric and the transformations of love-lyric receive the fullest treatment, there are also chapters on women's songs, on the alba, on dance-songs, and on `lyrics of realism'.Trade ReviewA rich, closely packed book. * THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *Table of ContentsPart 1 Introduction - performers and performance: the performer's travels; the performer's and composer's social status; the mode of performance; the performer's repertoire. Part 2 The rise of religious lyric: beginnings; the early sequence; the 11th century; 12th-century France; Italy and the Franciscans; early English lyrics; Spain and Portugal; Germany and the Low Countries. Part 3 "Cantigas de amigo". Part 4 Transformations of medieval love-lyric: Guillaume and Kuerenberc; troubadours and trouveres; Minnesang; a Latin lyric; English and Galician love-songs; from the Sicilians to Dante. Part 5 The alba. Part 6 Dance-songs. Part 7 Lyrics of realism.

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Book SynopsisTwelve essays discuss how the middle ages are reflected in English culture from the sixteenth century to the present day.Eleven essays, by scholars from America, Australia and the United Kingdom, investigate reinventions of the middle ages in English culture from the end of sixteenth century to the present day. Topics addressed include medievalism in English popular literature; Sir Walter Scott's Sir Tristrem; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Chaucer; George Stephens and Old Northern philology; Anglo-Saxonism and the Franco-Prussian War; Dante and the Victorian historical sense; the Grail paintings of G.F. Watts; heterogeneity and the Kelmscott Chaucer; revivals of the Chester Mystery plays; and the cinematic art of Terry Gilliam. KATHLEEN VERDUIN is Professor of English, Hope College,Michigan. Contributors: JOHN SIMONS, DAVID MATTHEWS, ALAN LUPACK, KAREN HODDER, ANDREW WAWN, MARILYNN LINCOLN BOARD, CLARE SIMMONS, ALISON MILBANK, DIANA ARCHIBALD, DAVID MILLS, RICHARD H. OSBERGTable of ContentsMedievalism as cultural process in pre-industrial popular literature, John Simons; Percy, the antiquarians, the ballad, and the Middle Ages, Gwendolyn A. Morgan; "Quaint Inglis" - Walter Scott and the rise of Middle English studies, David Matthews; "Sir Tristrem" - reception and perception, Alan Lupack; George Stephens, Cheapinghaven, and old northern antiquity, Andrew Wawn; Elizabeth Barrett and the Middle Ages' woeful queens, Karen Hodder; Anglo-Saxonism, the future, and the Franco-Prussian War, Clare A. Simmons; modernizing the Grail quest - gender, theology and allegory in the iconography of G.F. Watts, Marilynn Lincoln Board; Dante, the Victorians and the distancing of history, Alison Milbank; beauty, unity and the ideal - wholeness and heterogeneity in the Kelmscott "Chaucer", Diana C. Archibald; replaying the medieval past - revivals of Chester's Mystery Plays, David Mills; pages torn from the book - narrative disintegration in Gilliam's "The Fisher King", Richard H. Osberg.

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Book SynopsisSelection of the works of Hrotsvit, the first-known woman dramatist, containing legends, dramas, and epics.Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (c.935 - c.975), almost certainly of noble Saxon parentage, was a canoness of the Saxon imperial abbey of Gandersheim, living and working there during its time of greatest material prosperity and cultural and intellectual pre-eminence. Her importance cannot be overestimated: she is the first poet of Saxony; the first known dramatist of Christianity (indeed the first known woman dramatist of any time); and a woman displaying erudition and wit in an essentially patriarchal age, a female author in a literary field dominated by men who insisted on re-evaluating and redrawing the literary depiction of women. Discovered in the late fifteenth century, her extraordinary oeuvre, written in medieval Latin, comprises a wide variety of genres: eight legends, six dramas, and two epics, organised into three books. The present volume contains a selection of Hrotsvit's works in Englishtranslation, together with an interpretative essay, critical introduction, and scholarly apparatus.Professor KATHARINA WILSONteaches at the University of Georgia.Trade ReviewAn invaluable resource for introducing Hrotsvit to a wide audience... Long overdue, this volume is most welcome. * SPECULUM *

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Book SynopsisStudies of the influence of the middle ages on aspects of European and American life and culture from 16c to the present day.The eleven essays in this volume are studies of specific instances of the influence and impact of the middle ages on Western life and culture from the sixteenth century to the present day. They cover a wide range of topics -literature, stylistics, lexicography, art, the cinema, philosophy, history and myth-making, oral traditions, feminist issues - and reflect the enduring influence of the middle ages on European art and life. Dr MARIE-FRANÇOISE ALAMICHEL is lecturer in English at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne; the late DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English, University of Cambridge. Contributors: CLAIRE VIAL, DERICK S. THOMSON, KEES DEKKER, ERIC G. STANLEY, FLORENCE BOURGNE, RENATE HAAS, DEREK BREWER, LAURA KENDRICK, RENÉ GALLET, JAMES NOBLE, SANDRA GORGIEVSKI.Table of ContentsFrom Written Record to Legend: the Receyt of the Ladie Kateryne as re-telling of the Morte D'Arthur. - Claire Vial Influences of medieval thinking on the Gaelic world in Scotland, sixteenth-century and later. - Derick S. Thomson Jan van Vliet (1620-1666) and the Study of Old English in the Low Countries. - Kees Dekker The Early Middle Ages = The Dark Ages = The Heroic Age of England and in English. - Eric G. Stanley Medieval mirrors and later vanitas paintings. - Florence Bourgne The Old Wives' Tale and Dryden. - Renate Haas Modernising the Medieval: Eighteenth-century Translations of Chaucer. - Derek S Brewer The American Middle Ages: Eighteenth-century saxonist myth- making. - Laura Kendrick Coleridge, Scholasticism, and German Idealism. - René Gallet The Mists of Avalon: A Confused Assault on Patriarchy - James Noble The Arthurian legend in the cinema: myth or history? - Sandra Gorgievski

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Book SynopsisEvidence for medieval thinking about marriage, drawn from a number of literary texts.This book uses literary texts to trace the development of medieval thinking about marriage in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, taking into account not only important developments in theological and legal thinking about marriage during this period, but conventions such as `courtly love', which affect its portrayal in literary texts. The focus of this study is upon England, and specifically three groups of texts linked together by English manuscripts -the `AB'-Group, containing the Ancrene Wisse; The Owl and the Nightingale and its companion-pieces; and finally the Life of St Christina of Markyate and the Chanson de Saint Alexiswhich she once owned. The author demonstrates the continuity of these texts in their attitude towards marriage, along with continental works such as the letters of Abelard and Heloise, and Chrétien de Troyes' Erec et Enide. Throughout, the volume clearly and accessibly shows how the imaginative literature of the period participated in the evolution of a new and enduring ideology of marriage.Dr NEIL CARTLIDGEis a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.Trade ReviewThis readable, intelligent study has many strengths: it contributes significantly to our understanding of medieval marriage. SPECULUM Complements recent historical studies on medieval marriage with painstaking and sensitive readings of early English and continental literary texts,. In so doing, it opens new windows onto the maginative and affective dimensions of [the] institution. MEDIUM AEVUM Pour la finesse de sa critique littEraire, pour la profondeur de son analyse historique, et pour sa richesse bibliographique, ce livre mErite d'Etre lu, relu, et mEditE. ETUDES ANGLAISES Fascinating study. * STUDI MEDIEVALI *Table of ContentsPart 1 Perspectives upon medieval marriage: modern theories of medieval marriage - the two models; medieval theories of marriage - canon law and theology; Guilhem IX of Aquitaine - "champion of adultery"?; Andreas Capellanus - "adultery's legislator"? Part 2 Literary paradigms: "Ruodlieb"; "Le Mystere d'Adam"; "Erec et Enide"; the letters of Abelard and Heloise. Part 3 "The St Albans Psalter": the development of the legend of St Alexis; the "Chanson de St Alexis" and its treatment of marriage; St Alexis and Guy of Warwick; "The Life of St Christina of Markyate". Part 4 Corpus Christ College Cambridge MS 402 and Oxford Bodley MS 34 (the "AB-Group"): wooing - "Ancrene Wisse", Part VII; wooing - the "Lives" of Juliana, Margaret and Katherine; virginity and marriage - "Hali Meithhad". Part 5 Jesus College Oxford MS 29 and BL MS Cotton Caligula A9: the Middle English lyrics; Chardri - "Le Petit Plet"; "The Owl and the Nightingale" - introduction; the death of the nightingale; the nightingale's defence - ll 1331-1416; maidens and wives - ll 1417-1602.

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Book SynopsisThe expression of cultural differences in medieval courtly literature explored.Cultural differences in medieval European literary practice are reflected in many different ways, as this volume illustrates. The essays cover a whole range of courtly topics, in particular questions of context, genre and poetic voice. The five sections explore contexts for courtliness, especially the position of the vernacular poet at or near the court; the ways in which courtly values and political aspirations are reflected in the work of medieval chronicle and romance writers; questions of register, convention, gender, and narrative technique; problems of literary production and reception, particularly the transmission of courtly and quasi-courtly texts among widely differing medieval audiences; and broader issues such as the clues to the courtly mentality provided by peripheral narrative details, the blurring of conventional courtly boundaries, and the perennial fascination of tales with strong folklore or fabliau elements. Dr EVELYN MULLALLY and Dr JOHN THOMPSON are Senior Lecturers at the Queen's University of Belfast. Contributors: GEAROID MAC EOIN, NOLLAIG O MURA-LE, RUPERT T. PICKENS, FRANÇOISE LE SAUX, CATHERINE LÉGLU, BARBARA N. SARGENT-BAUR, AD PUTTER, MICHEL ZINK, DONALD MADDOX, JEANBLACKER, SARA STURM-MADDOX, MICHELLE SZKIILNIK, THEA SUMMERFIELD, HELEN COOPER JOHN SCATTERGOOD, JUNE HALL MCCASH, JOAN BRUMLIK, LESLIE C. BROOKMAUREEN BOULTON, JESSICA COOKE, DIANE M. WRIGHT, G. KOOLEMANS BEYNEN, LORI J. WALTERS, SYLVIA WRIGHT, FRANK BRANDSMA, CARTER REVARD, A S G EDWARDS, HEATHER COLLIER, TERENCE SCULLY, CHRISTOPHER KLEINHENZ, SARA I. JAMES, WILLIAM MACBAIN, SARA I. JAMES, MARY B. SPEER, YASMINA FOEHR-JANSSENS, CAROL J. HARVEY, BART BESAMUSCA, KEITH BUSBYTrade ReviewThe essays range very widely, and cover subjects as varied as troubadours and the Privy Wardrobe, dogs and cooking, book-collecting and Bosworth Field... Stimulating and original, they undoubtedly illuminae the diverse nature both of courtly writing and of the cultures that produced, listened to, and read such writings. * NOTES & QUERIES *Table of Contents`Poet and Prince in Medieval Ireland'. - Gearoid Mac Eoin `Court Poets and Historians in Late Medieval Connaught'. - Nollaig O Muraile `Courtly Acculturation in the Lais and Fables of Marie de France'. - Rupert Pickens `Locating the Court: Socio-Cultural Exchange in Jean Renart's L'Escoufle'. - Francoise H M Le Saux `Negative Self-Promotion: the Troubadour `Sirventes Joglaresc''. - Catherine Léglu `Odd Man Out: Villon at Court'. - Barbara Sargent-Baur *** `Animating Medieval Court Satire'. - Ad Putter `La Fin des Chroniques de Froissart et le tragique de la cour'. - Michel Zink `Domesticating Diversity: Female Founders in Medieval Genealogical Literature and La Fille de comte de Pontieu'. - Donald L Maddox ``Dame Custance la gentil': Gaimar's Portrait of a Lady and Her Books'. - Jean Blacker `Alterity and Subjectivity in the Roman de Melusine'. - Sara Sturm-Maddox `Passelion, Marc l'Essilie et l'ideal courtois'. - Michelle Szkilnik `The Political Songs in the Chronicles of Pierre of Pierre de Langtoft and Robert Mannying'. - Thea Summerfield `Romance after Bosworth'. - Helen Cooper `Courtliness in Some Fourteenth-Century English Pastourelles'. - John Scattergood `Amor in Marie de France Equitan and Fresne: the Failure of the Courtly Ideal'. - June Hall McCash `Secondary Characters in Equitan and Eliduc'. - Joan Brumlik `The Optimistic Love-Poet: Philippe de Beaumanoir'. - Leslie C Brook `The Lady Speaks: The Transformation of French Courtly Poetry in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries'. - Maureen Boulton `Nice Young Girls and Wicked Old Witches: The `Rightful Age' of Women in Middle English Verse'. - Jessica Cooke `Readers, Writers, and Lovers in Grimalte y Gradissa'. - Diana Wright `Shota Rustaveli and the Structure of Courtly Love'. - Bert Beynen `The Tournai Rose as a Secular and a Sacred Epithalamium'. - Lori J. Walters `The Gesta Henrici Quinti and the Bedford Psalter-Hours'. - Sylvia Wright `Medieval Equivalents of `quote-unquote': the Presentation of Spoken Words in Courtly Romance'. - Frank Brandsma `Courtly Romances in the Privy Wardrobe'. - Carter Revard `The Diabolic Hero in Medieval French Narrative: Trubert and Wistasse le Moine'. - A S G Edwards `Richard Hill - a London Compiler'. - Heather Collier `Our Food, Foreign Foods: Food as a Cultural Delimiter in the Middle Ages'. - Terence Scully `Courtly Cooking all'italiana: Gastronomical Approaches to Medieval Italian Literature'. - Christopher Kleinhenz `The Outsider at Court, or What is so Strange about the Stranger?'. - William MacBain ``Pseudo'-Courtly Elements in a Canonical Epic'. - Sara I. James `The Prodigal Knight, the Hungry Mother and the Triple Murder: Mirrors and Marvels in the Dolopathos Dog Story'. - Mary B Speer `Une recluse fort (peu) courtoise: destin d'une anecdote dans le Roman des Sept Sages'. - Yasmina Foehr-Janssens `Courtly Discourse and Folklore in La Manekine'. - Carol J Harvey `The First-Person Narrator in Middle-Dutch Fabliaux'. - Bart Besamusca `The Diabolic Hero in Medieval French Narrative: Trubert and Wistasse le Moine'. - Keith Busby

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Book Synopsis`[The series is an indispensable component of any historical or Arthurian library.' NOTES AND QUERIESThis latest issue of Arthurian Literature continues the tradition of the journal in combining theoretical studies with editions of primary Arthurian texts. There is a special focus on Chrétien de Troyes, with articles considering his identity, providing a new reading of Le Chevalier de la Charrete, and giving an account of a discovery of an important new fragment of the First Continuation. Other essays deal with Glastonbury, at the heart of the English Arthurian legend;the Scottish treatment of the Arthur story in the Reformation period; and the Morte Darthur in the context of fifteenth-century chivalric encyclopaedias. Contributors: SARAH KAY, NICK CORBYN, LISA JEFFERSON, AELRED WATKIN, JEANNE KROCHALIS, DAVID ALLAN, KAREN CHEREWATUKTable of Contents`Who was Chrétien de Troyes?'. - `Irony and Gender Performance in `Le Chevalier de la Charrete''. - `A New Fragment of the First Continuation of the Perceval'. - Lisa Jefferson `The Glastonbury Legends'. - `Magna Tabula: The Glastonbury Tablets (Part 1)'. - Jeanne Krochalis ``Arthur Redivivus': Politics and Poetry in Reformation Scotland'. - David Allan `The Shape of English Chivalry at Edward IV's Court: Chivalric Encyclopaedias and Malory's Morte Darthur'. - Karen Cherewatuk

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Book SynopsisThe first collection of major scholarly studies of aspects of the Robin Hood tradition.The legends of Robin Hood are very familiar, but scholarship and criticism dealing with the long and varied tradition of the famous outlaw is as elusive as the identity of Robin himself, and is scattered in a wide range of sources, many difficult of access. This book is the first to bring together major studies of aspects of the tradition. The thirty-one studies take a variety of approaches, from archival exploration in quest of a real Robin Hood, to a political angle seeking the social meaning of the texts across time, to literary scholars concerned with origin, structures and generic variation, or moral and social significance; also included are considerations of theatre and filmstudies, and folklore and children's literature. Overall, the collection provides a valuable basis for further study. STEPHEN KNIGHT is Professor of English Literature at the University of Wales, Cardiff; he is well-known as an authority on the Robin Hood tradition, and has edited the recently-discovered Robin Hood Forresters Manuscript.Trade ReviewAn important resource for folklorists, literary critics, historians and other researchers... fascinating collection of materials. * JOURNAL OF FOLKLORE RESEARCH *Table of ContentsPart 1 Literature: The Robin Hood poems, Douglas Gray; "The Gest of Robin Hood" revisited, J.B. Bessinger Jr; who was Robin Hood?, W.F. Prideaux; rymes of Robyn Hood, David C. Fowler; ballads and bandits - 14th-century outlaws and the Robin Hood poems, Barbara A. Hanawalt; Robin Hood, Christopher Hill; Robin Hood as Summer Lord, David Wiles; the Earl of Huntingdon - the Renaissance plays, M.A. Nelson; Keats's "Robin Hood", John Hamilton Reynolds and the "Old Poets", John Barnard; the good old times - "Maid Marian", Marilyn Butler; the legend since the Middle Ages, R.B. Dobson and J. Taylor. Part 2 History and politics: Robin Hood, Joseph Hunter; the origins of Robin Hood, R.H. Hilton; the origins and audience of the ballads of Robin Hood, J.C. Holt; the birth and setting of the ballads of Robin Hood, J.R. Maddicott; some further evidence concerning the dating of the origins of the legend of Robin Hood, David Crook; "Drunk with the cup of liberty" - Robin Hood the carnavalesque and the rhetoric of violence in early modern England, Peter Stallybrass; aspects of cultural diffusion in medieval England - the early romances, local society and Robin Hood, Peter R. Coss; the "mistery" of Robin Hood - a new social context for the texts, Richard Tardif; an outlaw and some peasants - the possible significance of Robin Hood, Colin Richmond. Part 3 Myth: Robin Hood, Sir Sydney Lee; Robin Hood, Lord Raglan; the games of Robin Hood, John Matthews. Part 4 Film: Robin Hood on the screen, Rudy Behlmer; "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" - fitting the tradition snugly, Stephen Knight.

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Book SynopsisNew approaches to women writers and attitudes to women in the Romantic period, principally focused on North America.Focusing on the period from 1770 to 1830, this collection deploys recent thinking on women in the romantic period to define an agenda which will shape studies in this area into the next century. Investigating issues of class and gender, imperalism and gender identity, and gender and genre, the essays range widely over women and women's affairs during the period, and include pieces on such important writers as Emily Dickinson, Letitia Landon, and Anna Letitia Barbauld. Recent developments in the theory and practice of feminist literary criticism are used to reassess the literature of the period, and to interrogate the notion of romanticism, both as a conceptual model and as a periodbounded by dates and geographical restrictions. As a whole, the volume raises questions about gendered romanticism in America, about the surge of romantic poetics in mid-century, and about the appropriation of gendered romanticism by fin-de-siècle writers. Dr ANNE JANOWITZteaches in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. Contributors: GARY KELLY, MARY FAVRET, WILLIAM KEACH, JOSEPHINE MCDONAGH, SONIA HOFKOSH, EMMA FRANCIS, DARIA DONNELLY, BRIDGET BENNETT, IRA LIVINGSTONTable of Contents- Gary Kelly - Mary A. Favret - Ira Livingston - William Keach - Josephine McDonagh - Anne Janowitz - Bridget Bennett - Sonia Hofkosh - Daria Donnelly - Emma Francis

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Book SynopsisMajor edition revealing key ideas and events in the lives and work of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood and Victorian literary circles: 5,800 letters (including 2,000 previously unpublished letters) to 330 recipients.The best of these letters, flowing rapidly from his pen, radiate charisma and enthusiasm, warmth and care for his friends, and a total engagement with art and literature. BURLINGTON MAGAZINE [Julian Treuherz] 1835-1854: This nine-volume edition will represent the definitive collection of extant Rossetti correspondence, an outstanding primary witness to the range of ideas and opinions that shaped Rossetti's art and poetry. The largest collection ofRossetti's letters ever to be published, it features all known surviving letters, a total of almost 5,800 to over 330 recipients, and includes 2,000 previously unpublished letters by Rossetti and selected letters to him. In addition to this, about 100 drawings taken from within letter texts are also reproduced. In its entirety the collection will give an invaluable and unparalleled insight into Rossetti's character and art, and will form a rich resource for students and scholars studying all aspects of his life and work. The correspondence has been transcribed from collections in sixty-four manuscript repositories, containing Rossetti's letters to his companions in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt and Stephens; friends such as Boyce and Bell Scott; his early patrons, Ellen Heaton and James Leathart; and his publisher friend, Alexander Macmillan. An additional twenty-two printed sources have also been accessed. Index; extensive annotations.WILLIAM E. FREDEMAN (1928-1999) was professor of English at the University of British Columbia from 1956-1991. His many books, articles and reviews on the Pre-Raphaelites and their followersinclude his important Pre-Raphaelitism: A Bibliocritical Study. He died in 1999 with this edition almost completed. An editorial committee chaired by Betty Fredeman has been formed to see it through the press.Trade ReviewThe best of these letters, flowing rapidly from his pen, radiate charisma and enthusiasm, warmth and care for his friends, and a total engagement with art and literature. -- Julian Treuherz * BURLINGTON MAGAZINE *The young Rossetti emerges as a distinctly more rubust and unpredictable figure than fans of the later Rossetti might expect... Rossetti is by turns earnest, skittish, stiffly formal and exuberantly scatalogical. * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *Impressive volumes...edited with excellent attention to detail... Invaluable and fascinating reading. * REVIEW OF THE PRS *An exemplary model of scholarship.... Brings us closer to the Pre-Raphaelites than anyone in the twenty-first century could otherwise ever imagine.... May stand as [an] exemplary monument of modern editorial scholarship. * JOURNAL OF PRE-RAPHAELITE STUDIES *These handsome volumes are to be warmly welcomed by all of us interested in the Pre-Raphaelites and the Morris circle. * WILLIAM MORRIS SOCIETY JOURNAL *Fredeman's knowledge of the period and careful editing separates Rossetti from what he calls the `bleak, reclusive, somnolent stereotype' portrayed by many of his biographers. * ANITIQUARIES JOURNAL *

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Book Synopsis`Provides an excellent one-volume guide to the works of the anonymous Gawain-poet.' CHOICEThe essays collected here on the Gawain-Poet offer stimulating introductions to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience, providing both information and original analysis. Topics includetheories of authorship; the historical and social background to the poems, with individual sections on particularly important features within them; gender roles in the poems; the manuscript itself; the metre, vocabulary and dialect of the poems; and their sources. A section devoted to Sir Gawain investigates the ideas of courtesy and chivalry found within it, and explores some of its later adaptations from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Afull bibliography completes the volume. The late DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge; JONATHAN GIBSON has worked as a lecturer in the Universities of Exeter and Durham.Trade ReviewThis superb collection of introductory essays by leading scholars and critics provides an excellent one-volume guide to the works of the anonymous Gawain-poet. * CHOICE *Impressive collection of essays... will surely become a key starting point for any new work on the poet and poems. * SPECULUM *A boon companion, an essential guide, for those setting out to explore the world of this fascinating poet. * ARTHURIANA *All students and scholars of the Middle English Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawain will want to consult this valuable new compendium. * ANGLIA *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Derek S Brewer Theories of Authorship - Malcolm Andrew Poetic Identity - A C Spearing *** Gender and Sexual Transgression - Jane Gilbert The Historical Background - Christianity for Courtly Subjects: Reflections on the Gawain-Poet - David Aers The Materials of Culture: Landscape and Geography - Ralph W V Elliott The Materials of Culture: Castles - Michael Thompson The Materials of Culture: Feasts - Derek S Brewer The Materials of Culture: Jewels in Pearl - Felicity Riddy The Materials of Culture: The Hunts in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Anne Rooney The Materials of Culture: Armour I - Michael Lacy The Materials of Culture: Armour II: The Arming Topos as Literature - Derek S Brewer The Materials of Culture: The Colour Green - Derek S Brewer The Materials of Culture: Some Names - Derek S Brewer The Manuscript: British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x - A S G Edwards Meter, Stanza, Vocabulary, Dialect - Hoyt N Duggan Sources I: The Sources of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Elisabeth Brewer Sources II: Scriptural and Devotional Sources - Richard G. Newhauser The Supernatural - Helen Cooper The Gawain-Poet as a Vernacular Theologian - Nicholas Watson Allegory and Symbolism - Priscilla Martin Narrative Form and Insight - Nick Davis Courtesy and Chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Order of Shame and the Invention of Embarrassment - Derek Pearsall SIR GAWAIN: SOME LATER VERSIONS The Grene Knight - Gillian E Rogers SIR GAWAIN: SOME LATER VERSIONS Sir Gawain at the fin de siècle: Novel and Opera - Barry A Windeatt SIR GAWAIN: SOME LATER VERSIONS Sir Gawain in Films - David J. Williams Bibliography

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Book SynopsisComplete Malory articles by leading Malory scholar on issues relating to the text and sources of the Morte Darthur.During the last thirty years, the study of Malory's text and sources has given rise to hotly contested issues and spectacular discoveries, as well as fundamental questions about the nature of his Morte Darthurand how we should read it. The debate has given rise to hotly contested issues and spectacular discoveries, even requiring forensic examination of the unique manuscript of Malory's great book; it has also thrown fresh light on Malory's art, politics, revisions, tastes, reading, knowledge of Europe, and sense of history. Professor Peter Field is a leading authority on these questions, and the essays collected here, revised and updated for this edition, are of great importance for an understanding of Malory. A new study considers the relative authoirty of the Winchester and Caxton texts. P.J.C. FIELD is Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Wales, Bangor.Trade ReviewField is better acquainted than anyone else in Britain, perhaps in the world, with the minutiae of the issues which which current Malory scholarship concerns itself... a valuable guide. * MEDIUM AEVUM *This very substantial collection of essays makes an extremely valuable contribution to our uinderstanding of one of the greatest authors of the later middle ages. * YEAR'S WORK IN ENGLISH STUDIES *Extremely useful and important volume. * MLR *Reveals the breadth and depth of one of the sharpest minds currently at work on Malory. * ANGLIA *

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Book SynopsisNew editor, new directions: the series broadens its scope to encompass European literatures other than French and English; still, however, "an indispensable component of any historical or Arthurian library". NOTES AND QUERIESThis new volume of Arthurian Literature, the first under its new editor Keith Busby, is devoted to the Roman van Walewein(The Romance of Walewein [Gawain]) by Penninc and Pieter Vostaert, an undisputed gem of Middle Dutch literature which has recently become accessible to an English-speaking audience through translation. Essentially a fairy-tale written into Arthurian romance, it presents a Gawain quite different to the man found in the English Sir Gawain and the Green Knightor the French Gauvain. Expert readings of the Walewein, especially commissioned and collected by BART BESAMUSCA and ERIK KOOPERof the University of Utrecht are provided by a group of renowned scholars, contributing to the on-going critical appraisal of the Walewein.KEITH BUSBY is George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the Center for Medieval and Renaissane Studies, University of Oklahoma. Contributors: BART BESAMUSCA, ERIK KOOPER, WALTER HAUG, DOUGLAS KELLY, NORRIS J. LACY, MATHIAS MEYER, AD PUTTER, FELICITY RIDDY, THEA SUMMERFIELD, JANE H.M. TAYLOR, BART VELDHOEN, NORBERT VOORWINDEN, LORI WALTERSTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Study of the 'Roman van Walewein' (with Erik Kooper) - Introduction: The Study of the 'Roman van Walewein' (with Bart Besamusca) - Erik Kooper The 'Roman van Walewein' as a Postclassical Literary Experiment - Walter Haug The Pledge Motif in the 'Roman van Walewein': Original Variant and Rewritten Quest - Douglas Kelly Convention and Innovation in the Middle Dutch 'Roman van Walewein' - Norris J. Lacy It's Hard to Be Me, or Walewein/Gawan as Hero - Matthias M A Meyer Walewein in the Otherworld and the Land of Prester John - Ad Putter Giving and Receiving: Exchange in the 'Roman van Walewein' and 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' - Linda Brosnan Reading a Motion Picture: Why Steven Spielberg Should Read the 'Roman van Walewein' - Thea Summerfield The 'Roman van Walewein': Man into Fox, Fox into Man - The 'Roman van Walewein' Laced with Castles - Bart Veldhoen Fight Descriptions in the 'Roman van Walewein' and in Two Middle High German Romances. A Comparison - Norbert Voorwinden Making Bread from Stone: The 'Roman van Walewein' and the Transformation of Old French Romance - Lori J. Walters

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Book Synopsis`The Index of Middle English Prose when completed will be a monumental achievement.' REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIESThis is the first volume in the series to deal with a national library. Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru, the National Library of Wales, was founded with the expressed purpose of preserving the material of the literary culture and history of Wales. The number of medieval English language manuscripts, while substantial, does not form as great a proportion of the holdings as in other libraries in Britain, and a special feature of the collection is that the manuscript context for some English texts is one in which Welsh is the main language. The collection is thus relatively unexplored for its Middle English holdings, and of the manuscripts indexed here fewer than half are listed in the Index of Printed Middle English Prose; they contain awealth of materials, most notably in historical writings, scientific texts, and prophecies. The introduction sets the wider context for the manuscripts by discussing the history of the Library and the way in which its major collections were brought together.WILLIAM MARXis Senior Lecturer in the Department of English, University of Wales, Lampeter.Trade ReviewA model of its kind... provides answers to anything one could want to know. * ARCHIV *

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Book SynopsisMedieval attitudes to health and treatment revealed in Hildegard's treatise.Hildegard of Bingen [1098-1179], an important figure in her own time, has come increasingly to critical attention in recent years. Cause et Cure, attributed to Hildegard, is both a cosmological text and a medical handbook;it is a densely layered work woven together from diverse threads. It begins with a chapter on cosmology which leads to consideration of the human being as a small-scale copy of the universe. From here the focus shifts to the diseases and disorders which afflict human beings. The sections on treatment which follow provide information on medieval pharmacology and herbal healing. The text discusses the differences between male and female, human sexuality, embryology, sleep and dreams, signs predicting death or survival, astrological influences.The Introduction sketches Hildegard's life and career, and describes the cultural context with emphasis on medieval medicine. The Interpretive Essay discusses the selections presented in translation and alerts the reader to the benefits as well as the limits of medieval health care. MARGRET BERGER, formerly Associate Professor in the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies [German] at Simon Fraser University, has specialised in medieval German literature and Romance philology.Table of ContentsChronological sketch; introduction - Hildegard of Bingen, life and works, visionary writing, the cultural context; translations from "Beate Hildegardis Cause et Cure" ("Blessed Hildegard's Cause and Cure") - the creation of the world, the cosmos and its components, macrocosm and microcosm, elements and humours, Adam, embryology, human sexuality, complexion and aptitude, complexional differences, sleep and dreams, waking, disorders and diseases, menstruation, conception and pregnancy, childbirth and infancy, regimen of health, bloodletting, bathing, nutritional disorders, digestive-system disorders, disorders of the skin, fevers, treatment, diagnostic and prognostic signs, lunar prognostication; interpretive essay.

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Book SynopsisArticles on the historical, social and political realities of postcolonialism as expressed in contemporary writing.Contemporary postcolonial studies represent a controversial area of debate. This collection seeks a more pragmatic approach to the subject, taking into account its historical, social and political realities, rather than ignoring aconsideration of material conditions. The contributors look at the oppositional power held and exercised by anti-colonial movements, a neglected topic; address the literary strategies devised by metropolitan writers to contain the insecurities of empire, given that unrest and opposition were integral to British imperialism; contest the charges of nativism and essentialism made by postcolonial critics against liberation writings; and investigate the voicesof both inhabitants of post-independence nation states, and those scattered by colonialism itself. Dr LAURA CHRISMAN teaches at Sussex University; BENITA PARRY is Honorary Professor at Warwick University. Contributors: Vilashini Cooppan, Fernando Coronil, Gautam Premnath, Ato Quayson, Tim Watson, Lawrence Phillips, Sukhdev SandhuTable of ContentsW(h)ither Post-Colonial Studies? Towards the Transnational Study of Race and Nation - Vilashini Cooppan Listening to the Subaltern: Postcolonial Studies and the Poetics of Neocolonial States - Fernando Coronil Remembering Fanon, Decolonizing Diaspora - Gautam Premnath Instrumental and Synoptic Dimensions of Interdisciplinarity in Postcolonial Studies - Indian and Irish Unrest in Kipling's Kim - Tim Watson The Canker of Empire: Colonialism, Autobiography and the Representation of Illness: Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson in the Marquesasin the Marquesas - Lawrence Phillips Pop Goes the Centre: Hanif Kureishi's London - Sukhdev Sandhu

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