Occasions for Writing Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Politics and Society

by Scattergood, John

• ISBN13: 9781846821790
• ISBN10: 1846821797
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-31
• Publisher: Four Courts Press

Summary

In 1974, in an introduction to Ben Jonson's poetry, Thom Gunn wrote: 'all poetry is occasional: whether the occasion is an external event like a birthday or a declaration of war, whether it is an occasion of the imagination, or whether it is in some sort a combination of the two.' Most of the texts which make up the subject matter for the essays in this book are 'occasional' less in the sense that they are generated by 'occasions of the imagination' and more in the sense that they are responses to 'external' factors. Sometimes these are feelings about nationalism and are inflected through a concern for language, or geographical space, or foreign or domestic policies. Sometimes the occasions for writing are related to broad social factors like class, or the impact of mechanical timekeeping, or the expensiveness of living in London. Sometimes religious issues generate the writing. Sometimes several of these factors are involved at the same time. But whatever the starting point, the writers - who include Langland, Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, Skelton, Wyatt and Leland - usually respond in a personalized and engaged way. They seek to have an impact, to influence the course of events and the climate of opinion, or, at the very least, to register approval or disapproval at something which impinges on their world. Book jacket.

Author Biography

John Scattergood is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Emeritus), Trinity College Dublin, and Pro-Chancellor of the university.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	p. 8
Abbreviations	p. 9
Acknowledgments	p. 10
Preface	p. 11
Movements
Redeeming English: Language and National Identity in the Later Middle Ages	p. 17
'The Unequal Scales of Love': Love and Social Class in Andreas Capellanus's De Amore and Some Later Texts	p. 38
Writing the Clock: the Reconstruction of Time in the Late Middle Ages	p. 62
Incidents
Elegy for a Dangerous Man: Piers of Bermingham (1308)	p. 85
On the Road: Langland and Some Medieval Outlaw Stories	p. 107
London and Money: Chaucer's Complaint to his Purse	p. 123
Erasing Oldcastle: Some Literary Reactions to the Lollard Rising of 1414	p. 136
The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye: the Nation and Its Place	p. 163
A Muted Triumph: French Prisoners at Whitby in 1451	p. 185
'Familier and Homely': the Intrusion and Articulation of Vice in Skelton's Magnyfycence	p. 213
Thomas Wyatt's Epistolary Satires and the Consolations of Intertextuality	p. 229
John Leland's Itinerary and the Identity of England	p. 246
Index of Manuscripts	p. 259
Index	p. 261
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