Description
Book SynopsisThe genre of medieval romance examined through the lens of their physical and their metrical forms. Romances were immensely popular with medieval readers, as evidenced by their ubiquity in manuscripts and early print. The essays collected here deal with the textual transmission of medieval romances in England and Scotland, combining this with investigations into their metre and form; this comparison of the romances in both their material form and their verse form sheds new light on their cultural and social contexts. Topics addressed include the textualhistory of Sir Orfeo; the singing of Middle English romances; their rhythms and rhyme schemes; their printed transmission from Caxton to Wynkyn de Worde; and the representation of the Otherworld in manuscript miscellanies. AD PUTTER is Professor of Medieval English at the University of Bristol; JUDITH A. JEFFERSON is Research Associate at the University of Bristol. Contributors: Michelle de Groot, Judith A. Jefferson, RebeccaE. Lyons, Carol M. Meale, Donka Minkova, Nicholas Mylkebust, Derek Pearsall, Rhiannon Purdie, Ad Putter, Elizabeth Robertson, Jordi Sánchez-Martí, Thorlac Turville-Petre
Trade ReviewThis universally excellent collection is an important contribution to the increasingly sophisticated study of medieval romance and its afterlives. * ANGLIA *
This will prove a valuable collection for anyone working on insular romance, verse form, or textual transmission in medieval England. * MEDIUM AEVUM *
The volume is well supported, with lists of figures and abbreviations, and a substantial index. * Parergon *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Forms of Transmission of Medieval Romance - Ad Putter and Judith Jefferson King Orphius and Sir Orfeo, Scotland and England, Memory and Manuscript - Rhiannon Purdie The Metre of the Tale of Gamelyn - Derek Pearsall Rhyme Royal and Romance - Elizabeth Robertson The Singing of Middle English Romance: Stanza Forms and Contrafacta - Ad Putter Deluxe Copies of Middle English Romance: Scribes and Book Artists - Carol Meale Is Cheuelere Assigne an Alliterative Poem? - Thorlac Turville-Petre Language Tests for the Identification of Middle English Genre - Donka Minkova The Problem of John Metham's Prosody - Nicholas Myklebust The Printed Transmission of Medieval Romance from William Caxton to Wynkyn de Worde, 1473-1535 - Jordi Sanchez-Marti Compiling Sacred and Secular: Sir Orfeo and the Otherworlds of Medieval Miscellanies - Michelle De Groot The Woodville Women, Eleanor Haute, and British Library Royal MS 14 E III - Rebecca Lyons
