Search

The article focuses on Middle English prose, print and provenance in Trinity College Dublin MS. 352, highlighting the discovery of unrecorded copies of Middle English verse and prose and extracts from works such as Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection, and William Flete's Remedies Against Temptation. It explores how MS. 352, a commonplace book possibly owned by a sixteenth-century recusant, offers insights into the reception of late medieval literature and the dissemination of Recusant ideas.

The changes Geoffrey Chaucer made in his translation of Oton de Graunson's French poem 'Cinq Balades' reflects his view that the translation's simpler structure does not downgrade the value of the original. Chaucer does not retain the structural intricacies or 'curiosites' of Graunson's poem in his translated version, 'Complaint of Venus,' which conveys a meaning different from the original.

Alain de Lille's 'De Arte Praedicatoria,' dating from the 12th century, is a likely source for the opening lines of the Middle English poem 'Patience.' The treatise by Alain describes seven kinds of patience which are associated with the Beatitudes, and a similar association occurs in the poem. The poem has other features suggestive of a sermon which may be related to Alain's work, which was intended as an aid to the composition of sermons.

Four poems that were thought to be possibly by the same author, namely, Kyng Alisaunder, Of Arthour and of Merlin, Richard Coeur de Lion and The Seven Sages of Rome, written around 1300, in the London area or in the south-east of England have common dialectal features. They represent a local tradition of Roman writing and share common narrative procedures and similarities of phrasing.

Egle offers instructions on lifestyle, traveling of sound, and constellions to Chaucer with reference to his 'House of Fame'.

Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Parliament of Fowls' describes the making of Cupid's arrows, and the word 'couchede' in line 216 has been interpreted as 'arranged' or 'placed.' Similar description in Boccaccio's 'Tesida' suggests 'couchede' is more appropriately read as cutting a notch with a file in the end of the shaft, a meaning also supported by Modern French's 'cocher,' cutting a groove or notch, and by archaeological evidence.

Stephen Knight, Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), xxi + 229 pp. ISBN 0-8014-3885-3. $25.00. In Piers Plowman B, XIX.246-7, Grace, a messenger of God, [...]