Full Description
The genre of medieval romance examined through the lens of their physical and their metrical forms.
Romances were immensely popular with medieval readers, as evidenced by their ubiquity in manuscripts and early print. The essays collected here deal with the textual transmission of medieval romances in England and Scotland, combining this with investigations into their metre and form; this comparison of the romances in both their material form and their verse form sheds new light on their cultural and social contexts. Topics addressed include the textualhistory of Sir Orfeo; the singing of Middle English romances; their rhythms and rhyme schemes; their printed transmission from Caxton to Wynkyn de Worde; and the representation of the Otherworld in manuscript miscellanies.
AD PUTTER is Professor of Medieval English at the University of Bristol; JUDITH A. JEFFERSON is Research Associate at the University of Bristol.
Contributors: Michelle de Groot, Judith A. Jefferson, RebeccaE. Lyons, Carol M. Meale, Donka Minkova, Nicholas Mylkebust, Derek Pearsall, Rhiannon Purdie, Ad Putter, Elizabeth Robertson, Jordi Sánchez-Martí, Thorlac Turville-Petre
Contents
Introduction: Forms of Transmission of Medieval Romance - Ad Putter and Judith Jefferson
King Orphius and Sir Orfeo, Scotland and England, Memory and Manuscript - Rhiannon Purdie
The Metre of the Tale of Gamelyn - Derek Pearsall
Rhyme Royal and Romance - Elizabeth Robertson
The Singing of Middle English Romance: Stanza Forms and Contrafacta - Ad Putter
Deluxe Copies of Middle English Romance: Scribes and Book Artists - Carol Meale
Is Cheuelere Assigne an Alliterative Poem? - Thorlac Turville-Petre
Language Tests for the Identification of Middle English Genre - Donka Minkova
The Problem of John Metham's Prosody - Nicholas Myklebust
The Printed Transmission of Medieval Romance from William Caxton to Wynkyn de Worde, 1473-1535 - Jordi Sanchez-Marti
Compiling Sacred and Secular: Sir Orfeo and the Otherworlds of Medieval Miscellanies - Michelle De Groot
The Woodville Women, Eleanor Haute, and British Library Royal MS 14 E III - Rebecca Lyons
