New Perspectives on Middle English Texts

The essays in this volume celebrate the career of the distinguished medievalist, Ronald Waldron. Fittingly, they focus on the Middle English alliterative tradition, but do not exclude material in other areas. Acting as a linking theme is a concern with the relationship of texts to their contexts, whether historical, philosophical, linguistic, or codicological. Topics discussed include feasting in Middle English alliterative poetry; setting and context in the works of the Gawain-poet; Henryson's Testament of Cresseid; Layamon; and Middle English verse in Chronicles. Contributors: MALCOLM ANDREW, ROSAMUND ALLEN, RALPH HANNA, SUSAN POWELL, JANE ROBERTS, JEREMY SMITH, DEREK PEARSALL, N.F. BLAKE, JULIA BOFFEY, A.S.G. EDWARDS, JANET COWEN, ROGER DAHOOD, ELTON D. HIGGS, GEORGE KANE.

Jeremy Smith was professor of English philology at Glasgow, where he remains a senior research fellow and emeritus professor, and an honorary professor at St Andrews. His specialisms include English historical linguistics, medieval studies, and book history, combined recently in Transforming Early English (2020). A. S. G. Edwards has taught at various universities in North America and England and currently holds honorary professorships at the University of Kent, University College, London, and King's College, London. The late Derek Pearsall was Emeritus Gurney Professor of Middle English Literature at Harvard University; he wrote extensively on Chaucer, Gower, Langland and Lydgate, including biographies of Chaucer and Lydgate, an edition of the C-text of Langland's Piers Plowman. Jeremy Smith was professor of English philology at Glasgow, where he remains a senior research fellow and emeritus professor, and an honorary professor at St Andrews. His specialisms include English historical linguistics, medieval studies, and book history, combined recently in Transforming Early English (2020). JULIA BOFFEY is Professor of Medieval Studies in the Department of English at Queen Mary University of London.