Search results for ""Author C. William Marx""

`The Index of Middle English Prose when completed will be a monumental achievement.' REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES This 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.

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A new edition of the full text of the Brut continuation, previously only known through the damaged version, Lyell 34. In 1856 J.S. Davies edited for the Camden Society the continuation of the Middle English prose Brut, from a manuscript in the Bodleian (Lyell 34), that became known as the Davies Chronicle. Covering the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI, it was at once recognised as an important vernacular historical narrative. Unfortunately Lyell 34 is in places badly damaged, and the narrative of the reign of Richard II has survived onlyin fragments. This new edition of what are in fact two Brut continuations makes use of a full text recently discovered in the National Library of Wales (MS 21608), providing a more authoritative version. The narrative covers the periods 1377-1437 and 1440-1461, and includes previously unknown English-language accounts of episodes of the reign of Richard II, such as the Peasants' Revolt. Each continuation is the product of a different political climate, and the introduction explores the narrative and rhetorical structures that lie behind them. As a whole, the edition offers particularly valuable insights into the growth of a highly politicised vernacular historical narrative, and the way in which two medieval compilers sought to represent the history of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. WILLIAM MARX is senior lecturer in medieval literature at the University of Wales, Lampeter

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