Individuality and Achievement in Middle English Poetry

This new collection of essays is devoted to Middle English poems and poets whose considerable literary achievements are overshadowed by the more usual works of the present-day taught canon. Eight of the twelve essays focus on single texts: The Owl and the Nightingale, The Cursor Mundi, The Simonie, the lyric 'Ne mai no lewed lued' from MS Harley 2253, The Siege of Jerusalem, St Erkenwald, The Castle of Perseverance and the N-Town Cycle's Mary Play. The remaining four are devoted to early Middle English love lyrics, fourteenth-century stanzaic religious poems, late Middle English religious lyrics and the plays of the Wakefield Master. Dr O.S. PICKERINGis Associate Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds, where he is a member of the senior staff of the University Library. Contributors: ALEXANDRA BARRATT, JOHN J. THOMPSON, KARL REICHL, DEREK PEARSALL, THORLAC TURVILLE-PETRE, O.S. PICKERING, DAVID LAWTON, JOHN BURROW, JULIA BOFFEY, AVRIL HENRY, MYRA STOKES, PETER MEREDITH...The overall theme of the book is how the poetry in question is distinctive and outstanding, rather than representative. Approaches range from the literary-historical placing of poems in terms of genre to detailedstudies of poetic method and technique. The aim is to increase an appreciation of the qualities of under-rated poetry, and to bring out the individual achievement of the writers concerned; the essays also demonstrate how the expression of individual creative skill is often dependent upon pre-existing traditions. Most of the twelve contributions are detailed discussions of single texts; others are devoted to particular genres or types of text, from early Middle English love lyrics to the plays of the Wakefield Master.Dr O.S. PICKERING is Associate Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds, where he is a member of the senior staff of the University Library. Contributors: ALEXANDRA BARRATT, JOHN J. THOMPSON, KARL REICHL, DEREK PEARSALL, THORLAC TURVILLE-PETRE, O.S. PICK