Description
Book SynopsisNew investigations into Charles d'Orléans' under-rated poem, its properties and its qualities. The compilation Fortunes Stabilnes, the English poetry Charles d'Orléans wrote in the course of his twenty-five year captivity in England after Agincourt, requires a larger lens than that of Chaucerianism, through which it has most often been viewed. A fresh view from another perspective, one that attends to form and style, as well as to the poet's French traditions, reveals a more conceptually complex and innovative kind of poetry than we have seen until now. The essays collected here reassess him in the light of recent work in Middle English studies. They detail those qualities that make his text one of the most accomplished and moving of the late Middle Ages: Charles's use of English, his metrical play, his felicity with formes fixes lyrics, his innovative use of the dits structure and lyric sequences, and finally, above all, his ability to write beautiful poetry. Overall, they bring out the underappreciated contribution made by Charles to the canon of English poetry.
Trade Review[T]his is an excellent and very timely contribution to research and scholarship on Charles, which will hopefully form the groundwork for a renewed appreciation and deeper understanding of his unique and exciting English-language work. * STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER *
Charles d'Orléans' English Aesthetic enjoyably and usefully advances our knowledge. The book offers new findings and new arguments; [...] the editors and chapter authors should pat themselves on their backs. -- THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW (TMR)
Table of ContentsIntroduction - R.D. Perry The Two Dreams of Charles d'Orleans and the Structure of His English Book - John A. Burrow Charles d'Orleans' Cross-Channel Poetics: The Choice of Ballade Form in Fortunes Stabilnes - Elizaveta Strakhov The English Roundel, Charles's Jubilee, and Mimetic Form - Jenni Nuttall A Grieving Lover: The Work of Mourning in Charles' First Ballade Sequence - B. S. W. Barootes Charles d'Orleans' English Metrical Phonology - Eric Weiskott The English Poetry of a Frenchman: Stress and Idiomacy in Charles d'Orleans - Ad Putter Verb Use in Charles d'Orleans' English - Richard Ingham Charles d'Orleans and His Finding of English - Jeremy J Smith Aureation as Agon: Charles d'Orleans versus John Lydgate - Andrea Denny-Brown Charles d'Orleans, Harley 682, and the London Booktrade - Simon Horobin The Form of the Whole - Philip Knox Select Bibliography
