The Political Appropriation of Lydgate's Fall of Princes

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Political Appropriation of Lydgate's Fall of Princes THE POLITICAL APPROPRIATION OF LYDGATE’S FALL OF PRINCES: A MANUSCRIPT STUDY OF BRITISH LIBRARY, MS HARLEY 1766 by SARAH LOUISE PITTAWAY A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham June 2011 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This thesis offers the first extended study of British Library, MS Harley 1766 (c. 1450- 60), an illustrated and much abridged version of Lydgate’s Fall of Princes (c. 1431- 1438/39). Offering a holistic analysis of text, image, and paratextual features, it argues that the manuscript was the product of a Lydgate specialist and a team of associated artisans operating within Bury St. Edmunds during the 1450s and 1460s. Individual chapters explore the manuscript’s concern with promoting both Lydgate and Bury and identify a distinct rhetoric of idealised and stereotyped kings and queens, developed by the rearranged text and amplified through the design of the visual scheme. This thesis reads these motifs against Yorkist propaganda which fêted Edward IV and condemned both Henry VI and his queen, Margaret of Anjou. The connection between Yorkist propagandist themes and Harley 1766 is a direct result of the probable patronage of the manuscript by the Tyrell family, an East Anglian gentry family whose names repeatedly appear on the manuscript’s flyleaves. Commissioned as a direct response to their position as supporters of a deposed regime, Harley 1766 represents a political re-envisaging of the text designed for patrons seeking to realign themselves politically and ensure their safety in Yorkist England. In memory of my Grandad Kenneth Tregenza 1925-2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In writing this thesis I am indebted to many people, but in particular I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. David Griffith, for inspiring me to study medieval visual culture and for drawing my attention to such a fantastic manuscript for my research. Thanks also to my examiners, Dr. Stephen Kelly and Dr. John Warrick. I am tremendously grateful to my fellow scribes, Gav Cole and Sarah Macmillan, and also Michelle Bayne-Jardine for proof-reading, constructive criticism and conversation. Thanks must also go to the many libraries who have generously allowed me to reproduce images from their manuscript collections, particularly the British Library, the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford and the Huntington Library, San Marino. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their constant support and most importantly, Bert, without whom none of this would have been possible. “One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures” George W. Bush U.S. News & World Report 3 January 2000 CONTENTS Volume I List of Illustrations i List of Tables iv Abbreviations v Introduction 1 Chapter One: The Fall of Princes and Responses to Lydgate 12 Chapter Two: Harley 1766 and Related Manuscripts, the Bury Scriptorium and 33 Gentry Reading Communities - Harley 1766 35 - Montreal, McGill University Library, Rare Books and Special 51 Collections Division, Medieval MS 143 - San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 268 and British Library, MS 55 Sloane 2452 - Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 263 57 - Philadelphia, Rosenbach Museum and Library, MS 439/16 60 Chapter Three: Reading Images: A Methodological Overview 65 Chapter Four: Layout and Design of Harley 1766: The Paratextual Apparatus 81 - Scribal Table of Contents 82 - Frontispiece 88 - Rubrics and Labelling 113 Chapter Five: Famous and Infamous Rulers: Visual Rhetoric and Yorkist 134 Propaganda - Book VI: Constantine the Great and Julian the Apostate 144 - Book V: Marcus Regulus and Nero 160 - Books VII and VIII: Arthur and Edward 172 Chapter Six: The Motif of the Female Suicide and Challenges to Male Authority 181 - Books I-II: Phaedra, Jocasta, Althaea and Canace 194 - Book III: Saul and the Role of the Male Suicide 209 - Book III: Lucrece and Dido 214 Chapter Seven: Re-Writing Herod the Great: Scribal Revision and the 228 Influence of the Mystery Plays - Lydgate’s Herod 239 - Harley 1766’s Herod 248 Conclusions 271 Volume II Appendix A: Layout of Harley 1766 1 Appendix B: Index of Text and Image in Harley 1766 3 Appendix C: Categorisation of Harley Images 43 Appendix D: Rubrics 49 Illustrations 57 Bibliography 119 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1 Chapter Two: Harley 1766 and Related Manuscripts, the Bury Scriptorium and Gentry Reading Communities 2.1 Duke Gaultier, Fall of Princes, Montreal, McGill University Library, Rare 57 Books and Special Collections Division, Medieval MS 143, f. 3v 2.2 Lydgate and Gloucester, McGill 143, f. 4r 57 2.3 Composite miniature, Fall of Princes, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 58 263, p. 7 Chapter Three: Reading Images: A Methodological Overview 3.1 Presentation scene, Fall of Princes, British Library, MS Harley 1766, f. 5r 59 3.2 Murder of Bersane, Fall of Princes, San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 60 268, f. 100v 3.3 Gold border including David and the lion, Lives of Saints Edmund and 61 Fremund, British Library, MS Harley 2278, f. 10v 3.4 Jason and scribal table of contents, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, ff. 31r and 62 1r Chapter Four: Layout and Content: The Paratextual Apparatus 4.1 Presentation scene, Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, The manuscript 63 belonging to His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, at Arundel Castle, West Sussex (no shelfmark), f. 1r 4.2 Presentation scene, Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, Oxford, 64 Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 46, f. 1r 4.3 Presentation scene, Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, British Library, 65 MS Yates Thompson 47, f. 1r 4.4 St. Edmund, Life, Passion and Miracles of St. Edmund, New York, Pierpont 65 Morgan Library MS M 736, f. 22v 4.5 Lydgate before tomb, Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, Harley 2278, f. 66 9r 4.6 Historiated initial, Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, British Library, MS 67 Harley 4826, f. 52r 4.7 Nero fleeing, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 171v 68 4.8 Cadel initials for Verba Lucrece, Fall of Princes, HM 268, f. 50v 69 1 Page numbers refer to Volume II. i Chapter Five: Famous and Infamous Rulers: Visual Rhetoric and Yorkist Propaganda 5.1 The Prophetic History of Britain, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 623 70 5.2 Edward IV, Illustrated Life of Edward IV, British Library, MS Harley 7353 71 5.3 Cognomens of Henry VI, The Prophetic History of Britain, Bodley 623 72 5.4 Cognomens of Edward IV, The Prophetic History of Britain, Bodley 623 73 5.5 Constantine the Great, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 196r 74 5.6 Julian the Apostate crowned, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 200r 75 5.7 Constantine with St. Peter and St. Paul, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 75 196v 5.8 Veronica, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 198r 76 5.9 Tau Cross, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 199r 77 5.10 Muhammad, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 223r 78 5.11 Edward IV with triple crown, British Library, MS Cotton Vesp E vii, f.72 r 79 5.12 Three crowns of Edward IV, British Library, MS Add. 18,286 A 80 5.13 Edward IV at Mortimer’s Cross, Illustrated Life of Edward IV, Harley 7353 81 5.14 Julian’s flayed skin, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 201v 81 5.15 Arthur’s tomb, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 219r 82 5.16 Alkmund and Veronica, Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, Harley 83 2278, f. 12r 5.17 Constantine, Fall of Princes, HM 268, f. 156r 84 5.18 Arthur enthroned, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 217r 85 5.19 Marcus Regulus killing dragon, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 156v 85 5.20 Jason killing dragon, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 31r 85 5.21 Hercules killing dragon, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 69r 86 5.22 Marcus Regulus taken hostage, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 157v 87 5.23 Marcus Regulus returned to Rome, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 158r 88 5.24 Death of Marcus Regulus, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 159v 89 5.25 Death of Marcus Regulus, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, British 90 Library, MS Royal 14 E v, f. 239r 5.26 Nero and Agrippina, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 171r 91 5.27 Arthur’s defeat of Saracen kings, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 218r 92 5.28 Edward IV at the Battle of Northampton, Harley 7353 93 5.29 Battle between Arthur and Mordred, Des cas des nobles hommes et 94 femmes, Royal 14 E v, f. 439v 5.30 Black Prince, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 259v 95 Chapter Six: The Motif of the Female Suicide and Challenges to Male Authority 6.1 Suicide of Phaedra, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 39r 96 6.2 Suicide of Jocasta, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 50r 96 6.3 Suicide of Althaea, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f. 65r 97 6.4 Suicide of Canace, Fall of Princes, Harley 1766, f.
Recommended publications
  • Lydgate and the Roman Antique
    FLORILEGIUM 11, 1992 LYDGATE AND THE ROMAN ANTIQUE Paul M. Clogan The obsession with Lydgate's style, according to Derek Pearsall, "is endless, and to some extent self-sufficient, for there is no other poet in whom 'style' becomes so nearly an end in itself, a fixed entity, whose relation to 'subject' is one of abstract congruence not expressive embodiment."1 For John Ganim Lydgate's "often prolix narrative style . can be understood as part of a process of literary history that begins to include an audience broader than the court or monastery. His style comes about from a union of the perspectives of the court and the cloister; ... his creation of a voice that could speak to prince and merchant on the same level."2 This paper focusses on the relation of narrative and moral generalization in The Siege of Thebes and suggests that it springs from a elaboration of elements in the tradition of the roman antique and, in particular, the recovery and assimilation of Le Roman de Thebes into the prose text of the Histoire ancienne jusqu'a Cesar, the earliest ancient history written in Old French. Lydgate's "anxiety of influence"3 to "complete" Chaucer's Knight's Tale by narrating the beginnings of the story of Thebes led him to choose the prose Thebes in the Histoire ancienne as his source rather than the verse Roman de Thebes, which Chaucer negotiates in his adaptation of Statius's Thebaid in the Knight's Tale. And that has made all the difference. Lydgate makes explicit the moral significance of the story of Thebes, which Chaucer 7 8 FLORILEGIUM 11, 1992 left implicit.
    [Show full text]
  • Davies. Troilus and Siege
    ! ‘Wereyed on every side:’ Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and the Logic of Siege Warfare* D"#$%& D"'$%( Geo)rey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is a narrative of war that disavows any interest in recounting the events of war. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, Chaucer’s tale turns its back on valorous deeds and bloody battles in favour of the love a)air between a Trojan prince and a beautiful widow, Troilus and Criseyde. *is attitude is epitomized by a line from the opening of the poem that Chaucer closely translated from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato: ‘*e thynges fellen, as they don of werre’ (+.+!,).+ *ings happened, as they do in war: armies attacked the city, the city fought back; pitched battles occurred, soldiers died; the war of attrition continued. *e events of the Trojan War are ‘wel wist’ (+.-.), and it is not Chaucer’s task or his intention to recapitulate what we already know about the war. *is idea is repeated at the end of the poem, where Chaucer states that if he had intended to write ‘*e armes of this ilke worthi man, / *an wolde ich of his batailles endite; / But for that I to writen /rst bigan / Of his love, I have seyd as I kan’ (-.+.0-–+.01). If Chaucer had meant to write about Troilus’ military endeavours, then * For their criticism, commentary and support, I would like to thank Kellie Robertson and the two anonymous readers of New Medieval Literatures, Aaron Bartels-Swindells, Arthur Bahr, Rita Copeland, Helen Cushman, Jonathan Morton, Paul Saint-Amour, Emily Steiner, Spencer Strub and David Wallace, and audiences at the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, Delaware Medieval Association and La Poésie dans les temps de guerre for comments and suggestions.
    [Show full text]
  • Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London
    Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London Christine Winter Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of London Royal Holloway, University of London, 2012 2 Declaration I, Christine Winter, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: Date: 3 Abstract In the history of crime and punishment the prisons of medieval London have generally been overlooked. This may have been because none of the prison records have survived for this period, yet there is enough information in civic and royal documents, and through archaeological evidence, to allow a reassessment of London’s prisons in the later middle ages. This thesis begins with an analysis of the purpose of imprisonment, which was not merely custodial and was undoubtedly punitive in the medieval period. Having established that incarceration was employed for a variety of purposes the physicality of prison buildings and the conditions in which prisoners were kept are considered. This research suggests that the periodic complaints that London’s medieval prisons, particularly Newgate, were ‘foul’ with ‘noxious air’ were the result of external, rather than internal, factors. Using both civic and royal sources the management of prisons and the abuses inflicted by some keepers have been analysed. This has revealed that there were very few differences in the way civic and royal prisons were administered; however, there were distinct advantages to being either the keeper or a prisoner of the Fleet prison. Because incarceration was not the only penalty available in the enforcement of law and order, this thesis also considers the offences that constituted a misdemeanour and the various punishments employed by the authorities.
    [Show full text]
  • Lydgate's Metrical Inventiveness and His Debt to Chaucer
    /\GJDWH V0HWULFDO,QYHQWLYHQHVVDQGKLV'HEWWR&KDXFHU 0DUWLQ-'XIIHOO Parergon, Volume 18, Number 1, July 2000, pp. 227-249 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\$XVWUDOLDQDQG1HZ=HDODQG$VVRFLDWLRQRI0HGLHYDO DQG(DUO\0RGHUQ6WXGLHV ,QF DOI: 10.1353/pgn.2000.0038 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pgn/summary/v018/18.1.duffell.html Access provided by Boston College (25 Aug 2015 19:59 GMT) Lydgate's Metrical Inventiveness and his Debt to Chaucer Martin J. Duffell Most modem critics and editors of John Lydgate's work feel it necessary to address the problem of his reputation as a versifier: why did his contemporaries rate him so highly when twentieth-century writers regard him, at best, as idiosyncratic and, at worst, as incompetent? Thus, for example, Saintsbury dismissed him as 'a doggerel poet with an insensitive ear' and Hammond demonstrated that Lydgate's roughness was due, not to ignorant copyists, but to an ignorant poet; 'The study of Lydgate's mentality,' she concluded, 'may not be worth the student's candle.' In the last sixty years a number of writers, from Pyle to Hascall, have made important contributions to our understanding of Lydgate's metrics, but have not succeeded in making us admire his versification. Yet he was the most prolific and admired versifier in England during his own lifetime and for a century after his death. 1 George Saintsbury, A History of English Prosody from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day, Y.From the Origins to Spenser (London and New York: Macmillan, 1906), p. 223; Eleanor Prescott Hammond, English Verse between Chaucer and Surrey (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1927), p.l 52.
    [Show full text]
  • Cavendish the Experimental Life
    Cavendish The Experimental Life Revised Second Edition Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge Series Editors Ian T. Baldwin, Gerd Graßhoff, Jürgen Renn, Dagmar Schäfer, Robert Schlögl, Bernard F. Schutz Edition Open Access Development Team Lindy Divarci, Georg Pflanz, Klaus Thoden, Dirk Wintergrün. The Edition Open Access (EOA) platform was founded to bring together publi- cation initiatives seeking to disseminate the results of scholarly work in a format that combines traditional publications with the digital medium. It currently hosts the open-access publications of the “Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge” (MPRL) and “Edition Open Sources” (EOS). EOA is open to host other open access initiatives similar in conception and spirit, in accordance with the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the sciences and humanities, which was launched by the Max Planck Society in 2003. By combining the advantages of traditional publications and the digital medium, the platform offers a new way of publishing research and of studying historical topics or current issues in relation to primary materials that are otherwise not easily available. The volumes are available both as printed books and as online open access publications. They are directed at scholars and students of various disciplines, and at a broader public interested in how science shapes our world. Cavendish The Experimental Life Revised Second Edition Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach Studies 7 Studies 7 Communicated by Jed Z. Buchwald Editorial Team: Lindy Divarci, Georg Pflanz, Bendix Düker, Caroline Frank, Beatrice Hermann, Beatrice Hilke Image Processing: Digitization Group of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Cover Image: Chemical Laboratory.
    [Show full text]
  • Xne Library of Alice Chaucer, Jducness of Suffolk? a Fifteenfk-Century Owner of a Jdoke Ot Le ^L/Itee De Juames
    Misericordia International Xne Library of Alice Chaucer, JDucness of Suffolk? A Fifteenfk-Century Owner of a JDoke ot le ^L/itee de JUames Karen K. Jambeck At the end of the Treasury of the City of Ladies, Christine de Pizan writes, I thought that I would multiply this work throughout the world in various copies, whatever the cost might be, and present it in various places to queens, princesses, and noble ladies. Through their efforts, it will be... circulated among other women.... Seen and heard by many valiant ladies and women of authority, both at the present time and in times to come, they will pray to God on behalf of their faithful servant Christine, ...wishing they might have known her.1 As Charity Canon Willard observes, Christine accurately predicted her own subsequent fame and her audience which would span centuries.2 Indeed, the rolls of this readership reveal generations of women of achievement and distinction, many of whom Willard has identified as patrons and owners of Christine's work: Isabeau of Bavaria, Anne of France, Isabel of Portugal, and Margaret of 1 A Medieval Woman's Mirror of Honor. The Treasury of the City of Ladies, trans. Charity Canon Willard (New York: Bard Hall Press/Persea Books, 1989) 224. 2 Charity Canon Willard, Christine de Pizan. Her Life and Works (New York: Persea Books, 1984) 211-212. 106 The Profane Arts / Les Arts Profanes Austria, among them.3 These and many other women who owned works by Christine de Pizan, Willard points out, played a significant role in the social and political life of their time.4 To this list of distinguished women can be added the name of Alice Chaucer, a fifteenth-century English book owner who possessed a copy of at least one of Christine's works.
    [Show full text]
  • Downloaded on 2017-02-12T08:18:26Z Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: Patronage, Politics, and History In
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Cork Open Research Archive Title Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: patronage, politics, and history in Lancastrian England Author(s) Fawsitt, Diana Publication date 2014 Original citation Fawsitt, D. 2014. Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: patronage, politics, and history in Lancastrian England. PhD Thesis, University College Cork. Type of publication Doctoral thesis Rights © 2014, Diana Fawsitt. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Embargo information No embargo required Item downloaded http://hdl.handle.net/10468/2121 from Downloaded on 2017-02-12T08:18:26Z Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: Patronage, Politics, and History in Lancastrian England. Diana Fawsitt, B.A., M.A. Presented for PHD Degree National University of Ireland, Cork. School of English, University College Cork. November, 2014. Head of School Prof. Claire Connolly Supervisors Dr. Andrew King Dr. Kenneth Rooney Dr. Margaret Connolly Supervisor: Dr. Kenneth Rooney. Diana Fawsitt CONTENTS Declaration . ii Abstract . iii Dedication . v Acknowledgements . vi Abbreviations . vii INTRODUCTION . 1 CHAPTER ONE Translating and Contrasting the Historia and the Troy Book . 16 CHAPTER TWO The Appropriation of Chaucer's Legacy, and its Impact on Lydgate and His Troy Book . 45 CHAPTER THREE Humanism, Myth, and Lydgate's Application of Antiquity to Fifteenth-Century Ideals of Religious Ethos . 80 CHAPTER FOUR Women: In Defence of Lydgate . 114 CHAPTER FIVE A Trojan Mirror for a Lancastrian King: The Troy Book as a Speculum for Henry V. 162 CHAPTER SIX Human Relationships and the Seven Deadly Sins within the Troy Book .
    [Show full text]
  • Copy 2 of DOC003
    DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91125 MUTAVIT VULTUM: FORTUNE AND THE WIFE OF BATH'S TALE David Burchmore HUMANITIES WORKING PAPER 33 August 1979 MUTAVIT VULTUM: FORTUNE AND THE WIFE OF BATH'S TALE The Wife of Bath concludes the lengthy discussion of marriage in her Prologue with an account of the means by which she taught obedience to her fifth husband, Jankyn. The immediate result of his submission, according to her story, was a sudden and dramatic transformation in her character. Where before she had been stubborn and shrewish, a "janglaresse" at home who wandered abroad without Jankyn's permission and against his will, she is now as kind to him and as true as any wife from Denmark to India. Having made this rather astonishing confession, she then proceeds to tell a story which embodies the lessons of her experience in a striking emblem: the physical trans­ formation of a loathly hag into a young and beautiful woman upon being granted sovereignty in marriage. Clearly this transformation is meant to represent in a symbolic way the kind of change in demeanor which the Wife claims to have displayed herself., But in her figurative or emblematic characterization the Hag bears an even more striking resemblance to another figure familiar to every member of Chaucer's audience. That is the image of Fortune, who was often portrayed as a woman with two different faces: young, lovely and smiling on one side, but hideously old and unpleasant on the other. Exactly how the likeness of this familiar image to Chaucer's transformed Hag might have influenced the response of his audience to the Wife of Bath's Tale will be the subject of this essay.
    [Show full text]
  • February 15, 2021 Dear Participants in The
    Thomas J. McSweeney Robert and Elizabeth Scott Research Professor of Law P.O. Box 8795 Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795 Phone: 757-221-3829 Fax: 757-221-3261 Email: [email protected] February 15, 2021 Dear Participants in the Columbia Legal History Workshop: I am delighted to have the opportunity to present Writing the Common Law in Latin in the Later Thirteenth Century to you. I wanted to give you some context for this project. I’m interested in treatise-writing as a practice. Why do people choose to write treatises? I published my first book, Priests of the Law, a little over a year ago. Priests of the Law is about Bracton, a major treatise of the early to mid-thirteenth century. I have now moved on to a project on the later thirteenth century. A number of (mostly shorter) tracts on the common law survive from the period between about 1260 and 1300. These texts are some of the earliest evidence we have for the education of the lawyers who practiced in the English royal courts. Some even appear to be derived from lecture courses on the common law that we otherwise known nothing about. And yet many of them have never been edited. I have begun to edit and translate some of these texts. As I have been working my way through them, I have been looking for connections and trying to make sense of some of the oddities I have been finding in these texts. This paper is my attempt to make sense of the differences in language I have found.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Spirit and Public Order. Edmund Burke and the Role of the Critic in Mid- Eighteenth-Century Britain
    Public Spirit and Public Order. Edmund Burke and the Role of the Critic in Mid- Eighteenth-Century Britain Ian Crowe A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2008 Approved by: Advisor: Professor Jay M. Smith Reader: Professor Christopher Browning Reader: Professor Lloyd Kramer Reader: Professor Donald Reid Reader: Professor Thomas Reinert © 2008 Ian Crowe ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Ian Crowe: Public Spirit and Public Order. Edmund Burke and the Role of the Critic in Mid- Eighteenth-Century Britain (Under the direction of Dr. Jay M. Smith) This study centers upon Edmund Burke’s early literary career, and his move from Dublin to London in 1750, to explore the interplay of academic, professional, and commercial networks that comprised the mid-eighteenth-century Republic of Letters in Britain and Ireland. Burke’s experiences before his entry into politics, particularly his relationship with the bookseller Robert Dodsley, may be used both to illustrate the political and intellectual debates that infused those networks, and to deepen our understanding of the publisher-author relationship at that time. It is argued here that it was Burke’s involvement with Irish Patriot debates in his Dublin days, rather than any assumed Catholic or colonial resentment, that shaped his early publications, not least since Dodsley himself was engaged in a revision of Patriot literary discourse at his “Tully’s Head” business in the light of the legacy of his own patron Alexander Pope.
    [Show full text]
  • The Representation of Chivalry in the Knight's Tale Jordi Sánchez Martí
    Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 13 (2000): 161-173 The Representation of Chivalry in The Knight's Tale Jordi Sánchez Martí Cornell University [email protected] ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to determine to what exíent the contemporaneous state of chivalry has influenced Chaucer's Knight in his literary endeavor. First I analyze the Knight's personality, which evinces his militant and nonconformist nature: as opposed to the majority of knights, Chaucer's Knight, in an attempt to uphold the ideal of chivalry, is engaged in religious campaigns, while he refrains from taking part in the Hundred Years War. To his eyes this is an immoral war among Christians which is mainly motivated by the lucrative desires of the so-called nobles. From this critical position regarding the practice of chivalry, the Knight proceeds to relate a story inspired directly by Boccaccio's Tesedia. Nonetheless, the narrator intentionally maneuvers his source to present a grimmer view of chivalric conduct. All his interpolations with regard to Arcite and Palamon are geared to créate a feeling of decadence, since they represent a perversión of the order of chivalry, as in the case of the breach of the bond of compagnonnage or in the omission of an attempt at reconciliation in the judicial combat. In addition, referring to Theseus, the Knight emphasizes the practical inefficacy of the aesthetic code of the order of chivalry that Theseus tries to implement. Despite the pessimistic visión of the second estáte suggested by this paper, the Knight's attitude must be framed in what Maurice Keen has called "chivalry's war against its own distortedhnage".
    [Show full text]
  • TRUTH, TRANSLATION, and the TROY BOOK WOMEN by Lynn
    TRUTH, TRANSLATION, AND THE TROY BOOK WOMEN by Lynn Shutters When one thinks of the great writers of Middle English verse, John Lydgate is not likely to come to mind. Lydgate’s vast corpus of writing has often been relegated to a somewhat embarrassing footnote in the annals of medieval literature, and it is relatively recently, in the last thirty years or so, that he has received any critical attention at all. De- spite some resurgence of interest in Lydgate, he is still frequently dis- missed as a deficient poet whose dullness nonetheless serves to empha- size just how exceptional other poets, particularly Chaucer, are in com- parison.1 The casting of Lydgate as Chaucer’s eager yet ineffective disciple figures prominently in studies of Lydgate’s Troy Book, a work that provides ample opportunity for comparison with Chaucer because it includes the pseudo-classical myth of Troilus and Cressida, and be- cause Lydgate himself repeatedly refers to and compares his work with Troilus and Criseyde. How Lydgate depicts himself vis-à-vis his “Maister Chaucer” is certainly of some interest, as Chaucer’s colossal presence in Lancastrian England was both a sheltering aegis and a daunting challenge to poets working in the English vernacular. There are problems, however, with reading Lydgate solely in Chaucer’s shadow, for when we allow the Chaucerian sections of the Troy Book to serve as a stand-in for the work as a whole, other parts of the text, those parts which do not relate so directly to a literary giant, are all but ig- nored.
    [Show full text]