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In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and genre-based anthologies.
Thomas Hoccleve or Occleve (1368/69–1426) was a key figure in 15th-century Middle English literature, significant for promoting Chaucer as "the father of English literature", and as a poet in his own right. His poetry, especially his longest work, the didactic work Regement of Princes, was extremely popular in the fifteenth century, but went largely ignored until the late twentieth century, when it was re-examined by scholars, particularly John Burrow. Today he is most well known for his Series, which includes the earliest autobiographical description of mental illness in English, and for his extensive scribal activity. Three holographs of his poetry have survived, and he also copied literary manuscripts by other writers. As a clerk of the Office of the Privy Seal, he wrote hundreds of documents in French and Latin.
"Adam lay ybounden", originally titled Adam lay i-bowndyn, is a 15th-century English Christian text of unknown authorship. It relates the Biblical events of Genesis, Chapter 3 on the Fall of Man.
"I syng of a mayden" is a Middle English lyric poem or carol of the 15th century celebrating the Annunciation and the Virgin Birth of Jesus. It has been described as one of the most admired short vernacular English poems of the late Middle Ages.
The Three Dead Kings is a 15th-century Middle English poem. It is found in the manuscript MS. Douce 302 in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and its authorship is sometimes attributed to a Shropshire priest, John Audelay. It is an extremely rare survival from a late genre of alliterative verse, also significant as the only English poetic retelling of a well-known memento mori current in mediaeval European church art.
Siege of Thebes is a 4716-line poem written by John Lydgate between 1420 and 1422. Lydgate composed the Siege of Thebes directly following his composition of Troy Book - which was patronized by King Henry V - and directly preceding his production of The Fall of Princes - which Humphrey Duke of Gloucester patronized during King Henry VI's regency. The poem is particularly significant because it was written without an identifiable patron, and most probably without patron or commission whatsoever. Whatever the status of its patronage, the Siege of Thebes still managed to gain significant popularity, attested to by its 31 surviving manuscripts. The poem is, in large part, a response to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Lydgate's poem borrows The Canterbury Tales' pilgrimage-based framing device and is written as an additional tale in the cycle. However, unlike Chaucer, Lydgate establishes himself as the narrator of the work, and recounts the siege of Thebes. Lydgate's Siege of Thebes follows and expands upon the Theban Cycle, but makes significant additions to the source materials.
"Lullay, mine liking" is a Middle English lyric poem or carol of the 15th century which frames a narrative describing an encounter of the Nativity with a song sung by the Virgin Mary to the infant Christ. The refrain is an early example of an English lullaby; the term "lullaby" is thought to originate with the "lu lu" or "la la" sound made by mothers or nurses to calm children, and "by" or "bye bye", another lulling sound.
Sir Degrevant is a Middle English romance from the early fifteenth century. Generally classified as a "composite romance," that is, a romance that does not fit easily into the standard classification of romances, it is praised for its realism and plot. The poem is preserved in two manuscripts along with a variety of secular and courtly texts, one of which was compiled by the fifteenth-century scribe Robert Thornton. It is notable for its blending of literary material and social reality.
The Lincoln Thornton Manuscript is a medieval manuscript compiled and copied by the fifteenth-century English scribe and landowner Robert Thornton, MS 91 in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. The manuscript is notable for containing single versions of important poems such as the Alliterative Morte Arthure and Sir Perceval of Galles, and gives evidence of the variegated literary culture of fifteenth-century England. The manuscript contains three main sections: the first one contains mainly narrative poems ; the second contains mainly religious poems and includes texts by Richard Rolle, giving evidence of works by that author which are now lost; and the third section contains a medical treatise, the Liber de diversis medicinis.
The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye is a fifteenth-century poem written in English. The work exists in two redactions: the first was composed after the siege of Calais in 1436 but before the end of 1438, and a second edition of the work before June 1441. This second edition was probably revised again. Nineteen manuscripts contain the Libelle, which consists of about 1,100 lines in rhyming couplets, with a proem in rhyme-royal and a stanzaic envoi that differs between the poem's two editions.
A miscellany is a collection of various pieces of writing by different authors. Meaning a mixture, medley, or assortment, a miscellany can include pieces on many subjects and in a variety of different forms. In contrast to anthologies, whose aim is to give a selective and canonical view of literature, miscellanies were produced for the entertainment of a contemporary audience and so instead emphasise collectiveness and popularity. Laura Mandell and Rita Raley state:
This last distinction is quite often visible in the basic categorical differences between anthologies on the one hand, and all other types of collections on the other, for it is in the one that we read poems of excellence, the "best of English poetry," and it is in the other that we read poems of interest. Out of the differences between a principle of selection and a principle of collection, then, comes a difference in aesthetic value, which is precisely what is at issue in the debates over the "proper" material for inclusion into the canon.
Christopher Harper-Bill was a British historian who was a professor of history at the University of East Anglia. He had previously taught Medieval History at St. Mary's University College (Twickenham). Harper-Bill's research interests were "the ecclesiastical history of England from the Norman Conquest to the eve of the Reformation, and particularly in the edition of episcopal and monastic records." Harper-Bill was completing a four-volume edition of the acta of the bishops of Norwich from 1070 to 1299.
Anthony Stockwell Garfield Edwards is Professor of Medieval Manuscripts at the University of Kent. Having studied at the University of Reading and McMaster University, he earned his Ph.D. at the University of London.
Cyril William Edwards was a British medievalist and translator. Teaching in London and Oxford, he published extensively on the medieval German lyric and Old High German literature, and translated four of the major Middle High German verse narratives.
The Selden Carol Book is a medieval carol manuscript held by the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Along with the Trinity Carol Roll, with which it shares five contemporaneous carols and texts, it is one of the main sources for 15th century English carols, and like the Trinity Roll contains the music as the well as the texts. The inclusion of Deo Gracias Anglia referencing Henry V's victory at Agincourt in 1415 gives an indication of the date of composition of the carols.
Thorlac Francis Samuel Turville-Petre is an English philologist who is Professor Emeritus and former head of the School of English at the University of Nottingham. He specializes in the study of Middle English literature.
Sandra Ballif Straubhaar is a Germanic studies scholar known for her work on women's poetry in Old Norse, and for her contributions to scholarship on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, in particular his use of Scandinavian medieval literature and lore.
"Maiden in the mor lay" or "The Maid of the Moor" is a Middle English lyric of the early 14th century, set to a melody which is now lost. The literary historian Richard L. Greene called it "one of the most haunting lyrics of all the Middle Ages", and Edith Sitwell thought it "a miracle of poetry". It is a notoriously enigmatic poem, perhaps devotional, perhaps secular, which depicts a maiden in the wilderness who lives on flowers and spring-water. Critics are divided in their interpretation of her: she may be the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, a water-sprite, or an ordinary human girl. The 14th-century bishop Richard de Ledrede's dissatisfaction with this song led to an alternative lyric for it being written, a Latin religious poem, Peperit virgo.
"Lenten ys come with love to toune", also known as "Spring", is an anonymous late-13th or early-14th century Middle English lyric poem which describes the burgeoning of nature as spring arrives, and contrasts it with the sexual frustration of the poet. It forms part of the collection known as the Harley Lyrics. Possibly the most famous of the Middle English lyrics, it has been called one of the best lyrics in the language, and "a lover's description of spring, richer and more fragrant in detail than any other of its period." No original music for this poem survives, but it has been set to music by Benjamin Britten, Alan Rawsthorne and others. It was included in The Oxford Book of English Verse.
"Ich am of Irlaunde", sometimes known as "The Irish Dancer", is a short anonymous Middle English dance-song, possibly fragmentary, dating from the early 14th century, in which an Irish woman issues an invitation to come and daunce wit me in Irlaunde. The original music for this song is now lost. It is historically important as being the earliest documented reference to Irish dance. "Ich am of Irlaunde" is well-known as the source of W. B. Yeats's poem "I Am of Ireland", and it was itself included in The Oxford Book of English Verse, The Norton Anthology of English Literature and The Longman Anthology of British Literature.
References
- ↑ "Professor Julia Boffey on the 20th Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society". All Things SED. 7 July 2016. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
- ↑ "Julia Boffey - School of English and Drama". www.qmul.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
- ↑ Boffey, Julia (2012). Manuscript and Print in London C.1475-1530. British Library. ISBN 9780712358811 . Retrieved 13 November 2018.
- ↑ Boffey, Julia (2003). Fifteenth-century English Dream Visions: An Anthology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199263981 . Retrieved 13 November 2018.
- ↑ Boffey, Julia; Edwards, Anthony Stockwell Garfield (2005). A new index of Middle English verse. British Library. ISBN 9780712348317 . Retrieved 13 November 2018.
- ↑ "A Companion to Fifteenth-Century English Poetry - Boydell and Brewer". boydellandbrewer.com. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
- ↑ "Middle English Lyrics - Boydell and Brewer". boydellandbrewer.com. Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
- ↑ "Publications: Julia Boffey". www.researchpublications.qmul.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 November 2018.
