Description
Book SynopsisThis volume joins new editions of both texts of John Lydgate's The Dance of Death, related Middle English verse, and a new translation of Lydgate's French source, the Danse macabre. Together these poems showcase the power of the danse macabre motif, offering a window into life and death in late medieval Europe. In vivid, often grotesque, and darkly humorous terms, these poems ponder life's fundamental paradox: while we know that we all must die, we cannot imagine our own death.
Table of ContentsGeneral Introduction
John Lydgate, Dance of Death: A version
John Lydgate, Dance of Death: B version
Other Late Medieval Poems about Death
John Lydgate, "Death's Warning to the World" (DIMEV 4905)
"Three Messengers of Death" (DIMEV 5387)
"A Warning Spoken by the Soul of a Dead Person" (DIMEV 3624)
"A Mirror for Young Ladies at their Toilet" (DIMEV 3454)
"The Ressoning betuix Deth and Man," ascribed to Robert Henryson (DIMEV 4000)
Poems in the Dance of Death Tradition
"The Dawnce of Makabre" (DIMEV 4104)
"Can Ye Dance the Shaking of the Sheets" (DIMEV 956)
French Danse macabre, translated by Elizaveta Strakhov
Explanatory Notes
Textual Notes
Bibliography
Glossary
