Essays in this volume argue that it is time for a powerful reassessment of John Lydgate's poetic projects. The pre-eminent poet of his own century, Lydgate (c. 1370-1449) addressed the historical challenges of war with France, of looming civil war, and of new theological forces in the vernacular. He wrote for household, parish, city, monastery, Church, and state. Although an official poet of sorts - perhaps the first major official poet in the English poetic tradition - he was not by any means a merely celebratory or sycophant writer. Instead, he drew on his authority as monk to shape a...

Essays in this volume argue that it is time for a powerful reassessment of John Lydgate's poetic projects. The pre-eminent poet of his own century, Lydgate (c. 1370-1449) addressed the historical challenges of war with France, of looming civil war, and of new theological forces in the vernacular. He wrote for household, parish, city, monastery, Church, and state. Although an official poet of sorts - perhaps the first major official poet in the English poetic tradition - he was not by any means a merely celebratory or sycophant writer. Instead, he drew on his authority as monk to shape a...

This study examines two great poems of the later medieval period, the Latin philosophical epic, Alan of Lille's Anticlaudianus (1181-3), and John Gower's English poem, the Confessio Amantis (1390-3). James Simpson locates these works in a cultural context dominated by two kinds of literary humanism, in which the concept of self is centered in the intellect and the imagination respectively, and shows the very different modes of thought that lie behind their conceptions of selfhood and education.

This book provides an accessible, concise and intellectually stimulating introduction and guide to one of the richest, most challenging poems of pre-Reformation English. New to the internationally-renowned "Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies" series, James Simpson's indispensable guide to Piers Plowman has been fully revised for this reissue. As any teacher of the poem knows, teaching Piers Plowman is massively facilitated by a reliable introductory guide providing both information and interpretation. This book does just that. Its main aim is to demonstrate to undergraduate readers the...

The Parisian manuscript collections checked for the compilation of this handlist are the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Bibliotheque Mazarine and the Bibliotheque Sainte Genevieve. They contain a miscellaneous but interesting set of Middle English prose texts: there is the Middle English version of Guy de Chauliac's 'Cyrurgie'; a 'Brut'; four miscellanies of religious matter, including a 'Pore Caitif' and a 'Lay Folks' Catechism', as well as texts by Rolle and Hilton. There is also Julian of Norwich's Showings, and the polemical Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards.