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New essays examining Bohemia as a key European context for
understanding Chaucer's poetry. Chaucer never went to Bohemia but
Bohemia came to him when, in 1382, King Richard II of England
married Anne, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV.
Charles's splendid court in Prague was renowned across Europe for
its patronage of literature, art and architecture, and Anne and her
entourage brought with them some of its glamour and allure - their
fashions, extravagance and behaviour provoking comment from English
chroniclers. For Chaucer, a poet and diplomat affiliated to
Richard's court, Anne was more muse than patron, her influence
embedded in a range of his works, including the Parliament of
Fowls, Troilus and Criseyde, the Legend of Good Women and
Canterbury Tales. This volume shows Bohemia to be a key European
context, alongside France and Italy, for understanding Chaucer's
poetry, providing a wide perspective on the nature of cultural
exchange between England and Bohemia in the later fourteenth
century. The contributors consider such matters as court culture
and politics, the writings of Richard Rolle, artistic style, Troy
stories, historiographic writing and travel narrative; they
highlight the debt Chaucer owed to Bohemian culture, and the
affinities between English and Bohemian literary production,
whether in the use of Petrarch's tale of Griselde, the iconography
of the tapster figure, or satires on the Passion of Christ.
Two crucial genres of medieval literature are studied in this
outstanding collection. The essays in this volume honour the
distinguished career of Professor Elizabeth Archibald. They explore
two areas that her scholarship has done so much to illuminate:
medieval romance, and Arthurian literature. Several chapters
examine individual romances, including Emare, Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight and the Roman de Silence. Others focus on wider
concerns in romances and related works in Middle English, Latin,
French, German and Icelandic, from a variety of perspectives. Later
chapters consider Arthurian material, with a particular emphasis on
hitherto unexamined aspects of Malory's Morte Darthur. It thus,
fittingly, reflects the range of linguistic and literary expertise
that Professor Archibald has brought to these fields.
An investigation into the depiction and reception of the figure of
Alexander in the literatures of medieval Europe. How was Alexander
the Great - controversial king, conqueror, explorer, and pupil of
Aristotle, the subject of histories, romances, epic poetry,
satires, and sermons in most of the languages of Europe and the
Middle East - read, written and rewritten during the High Middle
Ages? Aiming to illuminate not only the conqueror's history but
also the fast-changing and complex literary landscape that existed
between 1150 and 1350, this study considers Alexander narratives in
Latin, varieties of French and English - the Alexandreis, the Roman
d'Alexandre, the Roman de toute chevalerie, and Kyng Alisaunder -
to address this vast and wide-ranging question. These important
Alexander works are compared with the fortunes of other prestigious
inherited tales, such as stories of Arthur and Troy, highlighting
the various forms of translatio studii then prevalent across
northern France andBritain. The book's historically appropriate
focus on Latin, French and English allows it to take a multilingual
and comparative approach to linguistic, literary and political
cultures, moving away from interpretations driven by post-medieval
nationalism to set the expansive phenomenon that is Alexander in
its historical and transnational context. VENETIA BRIDGES is
Assistant Professor in the Department of English Studies at Durham
University.
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