For many, Shakespeare represents the advent of modernity. It is easy to forget that he was in fact a writer deeply embedded in the Middle Ages, who inherited many of his shaping ideas and assumptions from the medieval past. This collection brings together essays by internationally renowned scholars of medieval and early modern literature, the history of the book and theatre history to present new perspectives on Shakespeare and his medieval heritage. Separated into four parts, the collection explores Shakespeare and his work in the context of the Middle Ages, medieval books and language, the British past, and medieval conceptions of drama and theatricality, together showing Shakespeare's work as rooted in late medieval history and culture. Insisting upon Shakespeare's complexity and medieval multiplicity, Medieval Shakespeare gives readers the opportunity to appreciate both Shakespeare and his period within the traditions that fostered and surrounded him.

Medieval assumptions about the nature of the representation involved in literary and historical narratives were widely different from our own. Writers and readers worked with a complex understanding of the relations between truth and convention, in which accounts of presumed fact could be expanded, embellished, or translated in a variety of accepted ways. Ruth Morse's challenging and wide-ranging book explores how these assumptions operated in a broad range of genres, including romance, history, and biography. The book recovers the rhetorical principles which governed the creation and interpretation of such writings, and demonstrates their educational centrality in medieval Europe. Drawing upon this background, Truth and Convention in the Middle Ages examines in detail the diverse ways in which ostensibly 'historical' narratives established their legitimacy, notably through their invocation of earlier textual authorities or 'sources'. In analysing these complex processes of narrative reconstruction, this lucid and accessible book itself reconstructs medieval habits of reading and writing, and raises far-reaching questions about language and representation.

Wide-ranging study of the myth of Medea, concentrating on but not exclusively confined to its medieval incarnation. The legends of Jason and Medea illustrate how disparate and sometimes contradictory stories were combined in the creation of the first secular princely quest, how that quest functioned as a benchmark of western chronology, and howthat in turn assured the stories' position as part of the legends of Troy. The innovations of Euripides and Apollonius were imitated throughout Antiquity, and examples of murderous mothers illustrated the lethal disruptions of which women could be capable. For many medieval authors - Dante, Chaucer, Boccaccio, Gower, Christine de Pizan and others -the problem of a hero who betrays his oath and a heroine who murders and escapes offered insoluble and tragicsubjects. This study discusses how the legends contribute not only to ideas of history, but also to conceptions of the power and ruthlessness of women. RUTH MORSE is Professeur des Universites at UniversiteParis VII.

For many, Shakespeare represents the advent of modernity. It is easy to forget that he was in fact a writer deeply embedded in the Middle Ages, who inherited many of his shaping ideas and assumptions from the medieval past. This collection brings together essays by internationally renowned scholars of medieval and early modern literature, the history of the book and theatre history to present new perspectives on Shakespeare and his medieval heritage. Separated into four parts, the collection explores Shakespeare and his work in the context of the Middle Ages, medieval books and language, the British past, and medieval conceptions of drama and theatricality, together showing Shakespeare's work as rooted in late medieval history and culture. Insisting upon Shakespeare's complexity and medieval multiplicity, Medieval Shakespeare gives readers the opportunity to appreciate both Shakespeare and his period within the traditions that fostered and surrounded him.

Chaucer was perceived as the father of English poetry, and his works gave rise to a diversity of traditions of both creative response and critical commentary, to subsequent 'Chaucerian' authors and to a body of comment about his writings. This book is the first to describe Chaucer's literary influence across a wide range of writers and periods. It takes as its theme the variety of responses to Chaucer or 'Chaucer Traditions', and addresses topics of special interest arising from the effects Chaucer's work had on subsequent writers in the three centuries leading up to Dryden. Each essay focuses on a certain writer or literary tradition discussing these in the context of Chaucer's work and its influence. The result is an important collection of essays which will be of interest to all teachers and students of Chaucer, as well as to scholars of poetry in later periods.

Medieval assumptions about the nature of the representation involved in literary and historical narratives were widely different from our own. Writers and readers worked with a complex understanding of the relations between truth and convention, in which accounts of presumed fact could be expanded, embellished, or translated in a variety of accepted ways. Ruth Morse's challenging and wide-ranging book explores how these assumptions operated in a broad range of genres, including romance, history, and biography. The book recovers the rhetorical principles which governed the creation and interpretation of such writings, and demonstrates their educational centrality in medieval Europe. Drawing upon this background, Truth and Convention in the Middle Ages examines in detail the diverse ways in which ostensibly 'historical' narratives established their legitimacy, notably through their invocation of earlier textual authorities or 'sources'. In analysing these complex processes of narrative reconstruction, this lucid and accessible book itself reconstructs medieval habits of reading and writing, and raises far-reaching questions about language and representation.

Great Shakespeareans offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally. In this volume, leading scholars assess the contribution of Victor-Marie Hugo, Francois-Victor Hugo, Boris Leonidivich Pasternak, Bertolt Brecht and Aime Cesaire to the afterlife and reception of Shakespeare and his plays. Each substantial contribution assesses the double impact of Shakespeare on the figure covered and of the figure on the understanding, interpretation and appreciation of Shakespeare, provide a sketch of their subject's intellectual and professional biography and an account of the wider cultural context, including comparison with other figures or works within the same field.