Introduces Skelton and his work to readers unfamiliar with the poet, gathers together the vibrant strands of existing research, and opens up new avenues for future studies. John Skelton is a central literary figure and the leading poet during the first thirty years of Tudor rule. Nevertheless, he remains challenging and even contradictory for modern audiences. This book aims to provide an authoritative guide to this complex poet and his works, setting him in his historical, religious, and social contexts. Beginning with an exploration of his life and career, it goes on to cover all the major aspects of his poetry, from the literary traditions in which he wrote and the form of his compositions to the manuscript contexts and later reception. SEBASTIAN SOBECKI is Professor of Medieval English Literature and Culture at the University of Groningen; JOHN SCATTERGOOD is Professor (Emeritus) of Medieval and Renaissance English at Trinity College, Dublin. Contributors: Tom Betteridge, Julia Boffey, John Burrow, David Carlson, Helen Cooper, Elisabeth Dutton,A.S.G. Edwards, Jane Griffiths, Nadine Kuipers, Carol Meale, John Scattergood, Sebastian Sobecki, Greg Waite

This volume brings together a selection of lectures and essays in which J.A. Burrow discusses the work of English poets of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries: Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and Hoccleve, as well as the anonymous authors of Pearl, Saint Erkenwald, and a pair of metrical romances. Six of the pieces address general issues, with some reference to French and Italian writings ('Autobiographical Poetry in the Middle Ages', for example, or 'The Poet and the Book'); but most of them concentrate on particular English poems, such as Chaucer's Envoy to Scogan, Gower's Confessio Amantis, Langland's Piers Plowman, and Hoccleve's Series. Although some of the essays take account of the poet's life and times ('Chaucer as Petitioner', 'Hoccleve and the 'Court''), most are mainly concerned with the meaning and structure of the poems. What, for example, does the hero of Ipomadon hope to achieve by fighting, as he always does, incognito? Why do the stories in Piers Plowman all peter out so inconclusively? And how can it be that the narrator in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess so persistently fails to understand what he is told?

Material on the production and transmission of medieval literature and the early formation of the canon of English poetry. A wide range of poets is covered - Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, the Gawain poet, Langland, and Lydgate, along with the translator of Claudian's De Consulatu Stilichonis. The Turnament of Totenham is read in termsof theory of the carnivalesque and popular culture, and major contributions are made to current linguistic, editorial and codicological controversies. Going beyond the Middle Ages, the book also considers the sixteenth-century reception of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women and Post-Reformation reading of Lydgate. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the production and transmission of medieval literature, and in the early formation of the canon of English poetry. Contributors: JULIA BOFFEY, J.A. BURROW, CHRISTOPHER CANNON, MARTHA DRIVER, SIAN ECHARD, A.S.G. EDWARDS, KATE D. HARRIS, S.S. HUSSEY, KATHRYN KERBY-FULTON, CAROL M. MEALE, LINNE R. MOONEY, CHARLOTTE C. MORSE, V.I.J. SCATTERGOOD, ELIZABETH SOLOPOVA, ESTELLE STUBBS, JOHN THOMPSON.

Essays exploring different aspects of late medieval and early modern manuscript and book culture. Late medieval manuscripts and early modern print history form the focus of this volume. It includes new work on the compilation of some important medieval manuscript miscellanies and major studies of merchant patronage and of a newly revealed woman patron, alongside explorations of medieval texts and the post-medieval reception history of Langland, Chaucer and Nicholas Love. It thus pays a fitting tribute to the career of Professor A.S.G. Edwards, highlighting his scholarly interests and demonstrating the influence of his achievements. Carol M. Meale is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol; the late Derek Pearsall was Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and Honorary Research Professor at the University of York. Contributors: Nicolas Barker, J.A. Burrow, A.I. Doyle, Martha W. Driver, Susanna Fein, Jane Griffiths, Lotte Hellinga, Alfred Hiatt, Simon Horobin, Richard Linenthal,Carol M. Meale, Orietta Da Rold, John Scattergood, Kathleen L. Scott, Toshiyuki Takamiya, John J. Thompson.

An introduction to Gower and his work, focusing on his sources, historical context and literary tradition; special attention is paid to Confessio Amantis. Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate were the three poets of their time considered to have founded the English poetic tradition. Gower, like Lydgate, eventually fell victim to changing tastes but is now enjoying renewed scholarly attention.Current work in manuscript studies, linguistic studies, vernacularity, translation, politics, and the contexts of literary production has found a rich source in Gower's trilingual, learned, and politically engaged corpus. This Companion to Gower offers essays by scholars from Britain and North America, covering Gower's works in all three of his languages; they consider his relationships to his literary sources, and to his social, material and historical contexts; and they offer an overview of the manuscript, linguistic, and editorial traditions. Five essays concentrate specifically on the Confessio Amantis, Gower's major Middle English work, reading it in terms of its relationship to vernacular and classical models, its poetic style, and its treatment of such themes as politics, kingship, gender, sexuality, authority, authorship and self-governance. A reference bibliography, arranged as a chronologyof criticism, concludes the volume. Contributors J.A. BURROW, ARDIS BUTTERFIELD, NATHALIE COHEN, E.H. COOPER, SIAN ECHARD, ROBERT EPSTEIN, JOHN HINES, EDWARD MOORE, DEREK PEARSALL, RUSSELL PECK, A.G. RIGG, SIMON ROFFEY, JEREMY J. SMITH, DIANE WATT, WINTHROP WETHERBEE, ROBERT F. YEAGER. SIAN ECHARD is associate professor, Department of English, University of British Columbia. The Companion can serve as an introduction to Gower and his works for the advanced undergraduate or graduate student, and the essays will also be of interest to experts in Middle English studies and in Gower.

A full survey and overview of the extraordinary flowering of Scottish poetry in the middle ages. The poetry written in Scotland between the late fourteenth and the early years of the sixteenth century is exceptionally rich and varied. The contributions collected here, by leading specialists in the field, provide a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the material. There are introductions to the literary culture of late medieval Scotland and its historical context; separate studies of the writings of James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay; and essays devoted to general themes or genres, including the historiographical tradition, religious verse, romances, and the legendary history of Alexander the Great. A final chapter provides bibliographical guidance on the major advances in the criticism and scholarly study of this poetry during the last thirty years. Contributors: PRISCILLA BAWCUTT, JULIA BOFFEY, JOHN BURROW, ELIZABETH EWAN, R. JAMES GOLDSTEIN, DOUGLAS GRAY, JANET HADLEY WILLIAMS, R. J. LYALL, ANNE MCKIMM, JOANNA MARTIN, RHIANNON PURDIE, NICOLA ROYAN.

A full survey and overview of the extraordinary flowering of Scottish poetry in the middle ages. The poetry written in Scotland between the late fourteenth and the early years of the sixteenth century is exceptionally rich and varied. The contributions collected here, by leading specialists in the field, provide a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the material. There are introductions to the literary culture of late medieval Scotland and its historical context; separate studies of the writings of James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay; and essays devoted to general themes or genres, including the historiographical tradition, religious verse, romances, and the legendary history of Alexander the Great. A final chapter provides bibliographical guidance on the major advances in the criticism and scholarly study of this poetry during the last thirty years. Contributors: PRISCILLA BAWCUTT, JULIA BOFFEY, JOHN BURROW, ELIZABETH EWAN, R. JAMES GOLDSTEIN, DOUGLAS GRAY, JANET HADLEY WILLIAMS, R. J. LYALL, ANNE MCKIMM, JOANNA MARTIN, RHIANNON PURDIE, NICOLA ROYAN.

New investigations into Charles d'Orleans' under-rated poem, its properties and its qualities. The compilation Fortunes Stabilnes, the English poetry Charles d'Orleans 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.

Wide-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.

This volume brings together a selection of lectures and essays in which J.A. Burrow discusses the work of English poets of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries: Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and Hoccleve, as well as the anonymous authors of Pearl, Saint Erkenwald, and a pair of metrical romances. Six of the pieces address general issues, with some reference to French and Italian writings ('Autobiographical Poetry in the Middle Ages', for example, or 'The Poet and the Book'); but most of them concentrate on particular English poems, such as Chaucer's Envoy to Scogan, Gower's Confessio Amantis, Langland's Piers Plowman, and Hoccleve's Series. Although some of the essays take account of the poet's life and times ('Chaucer as Petitioner', 'Hoccleve and the 'Court''), most are mainly concerned with the meaning and structure of the poems. What, for example, does the hero of Ipomadon hope to achieve by fighting, as he always does, incognito? Why do the stories in Piers Plowman all peter out so inconclusively? And how can it be that the narrator in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess so persistently fails to understand what he is told?