Description

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The Oxford History of Poetry in English is designed to offer a fresh, multi-voiced, and comprehensive analysis of 'poetry': from Anglo-Saxon culture through contemporary British, Irish, American, and Global culture, including English, Scottish, and Welsh poetry, Anglo-American colonial and post-colonial poetry, and poetry in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, India, Africa, Asia, and other international locales. The series both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge research, employing a global team of expert contributors for each of the fourteen volumes.

This volume explores the developing range of English verse in the century after the death of Chaucer in 1400, years that saw both change and consolidation in traditions of poetic writing in English in the regions of Britain. Chaucer himself was an important shaping presence in the poetry of this period, providing a stimulus to imitation and to creative expansion of the modes he had favoured. In addition to assessing his role, this volume considers a range of literary factors significant to the poetry of the century, including verse forms, literary language, translation, and the idea of the author. It also signals features of the century's history that were important for the production of English verse: responses to wars at home and abroad, dynastic uncertainty, and movements towards religious reform, as well as technological innovations such as the introduction of printing, which brought influential changes to the transmission and reception of verse writing. The volume is shaped to include chapters on the contexts and forms of poetry in English, on the important genres of verse produced in the period, on some of the fifteenth-century's major writers (Lydgate, Hoccleve, Dunbar, and Henryson), and a consideration of the influence of the verse of this century on what was to follow.

About the Author

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Julia Boffey, Professor Emerita, English Department at Queen Mary, University of London, A. S. G. Edwards, Honorary Professor of Medieval Manuscripts, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury and Honorary Professor, English Department, University College London Julia Boffey is Professor Emerita in the English Department at Queen Mary, University of London. She has written on various aspects of the production, transmission, and reception of late medieval literature in Britain. Publications include an edition of Middle English dream visions, a book on Manuscript and Print in London c. 1475-1530, and edited essay collections on Middle English lyrics and Performance, Ceremony and Display in Late Medieval England. She is a member of the council of the Early English Text Society and of the Harlaxton Symposium Steering Committee. A. S. G. Edwards is Honorary Professor of Medieval Manuscripts in the School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury and Honorary Professor in the English Department at University College London. He has previously taught at various universities in North America and England and at the Folger and Beinecke libraries. He has written about Middle English manuscripts and texts of the later middle ages and early modern periods. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, Girton College, Cambridge, and the Huntington and Houghton libraries.