Book Review of: Corinne J. Saunders, A Companion to Medieval Poetry
The title of this mammoth volume is cause for great delight and slight dismay. On the one hand, it is wonderful to see a collection of this size and ambition devoted to poetry and to see poetry itself described by editor Corinne Saunders as “a rich and important subject, and one that needs introduct...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Cambridge University Press
2016
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102083 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3255-051X |
| _version_ | 1826205718182625280 |
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| author | Bahr, Arthur W. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Humanities. Literature Section |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Humanities. Literature Section Bahr, Arthur W. |
| author_sort | Bahr, Arthur W. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The title of this mammoth volume is cause for great delight and slight dismay. On the one hand, it is wonderful to see a collection of this size and ambition devoted to poetry and to see poetry itself described by editor Corinne Saunders as “a rich and important subject, and one that needs introduction in a world where poetry is too little read” (1). Such formulations highlight the volume's pedagogical and evangelizing goals, both of which are most welcome. On the other hand, and as reviewers in other journals have noted, its title is simply inaccurate. This is not “a companion to medieval poetry” but rather a companion to English medieval poetry, or, still more precisely, to medieval poetry in English, since medieval England's vibrant multilingualism is relatively rarely in view. (Three chapters—Andy Orchard's “Old English and Latin Poetic Traditions,” Elizabeth Archibald's “Macaronic Poetry,” and R. F. Yeager's “The Poetry of John Gower,” which treats the poet's French and Latin works extensively—are the most notable and worthy exceptions to this rule.) |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:17:29Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/102083 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:17:29Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1020832022-09-28T13:13:59Z Book Review of: Corinne J. Saunders, A Companion to Medieval Poetry Bahr, Arthur W. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Humanities. Literature Section Massachusetts Institute of Technology. School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Bahr, Arthur W. Bahr, Arthur W. The title of this mammoth volume is cause for great delight and slight dismay. On the one hand, it is wonderful to see a collection of this size and ambition devoted to poetry and to see poetry itself described by editor Corinne Saunders as “a rich and important subject, and one that needs introduction in a world where poetry is too little read” (1). Such formulations highlight the volume's pedagogical and evangelizing goals, both of which are most welcome. On the other hand, and as reviewers in other journals have noted, its title is simply inaccurate. This is not “a companion to medieval poetry” but rather a companion to English medieval poetry, or, still more precisely, to medieval poetry in English, since medieval England's vibrant multilingualism is relatively rarely in view. (Three chapters—Andy Orchard's “Old English and Latin Poetic Traditions,” Elizabeth Archibald's “Macaronic Poetry,” and R. F. Yeager's “The Poetry of John Gower,” which treats the poet's French and Latin works extensively—are the most notable and worthy exceptions to this rule.) 2016-04-01T20:01:33Z 2016-04-01T20:01:33Z 2014-04 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0038-7134 2040-8072 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102083 Bahr, Arthur. “Corinne J. Saunders, A Companion to Medieval Poetry.” Speculum 89, no. 2 (April 2014): 538–540. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3255-051X en_US http://dx.doi.org/110.1017/s0038713414000037 Speculum Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Cambridge University Press Prof. Bahr via Mark Szarko |
| spellingShingle | Bahr, Arthur W. Book Review of: Corinne J. Saunders, A Companion to Medieval Poetry |
| title | Book Review of: Corinne J. Saunders, A Companion to Medieval Poetry |
| title_full | Book Review of: Corinne J. Saunders, A Companion to Medieval Poetry |
| title_fullStr | Book Review of: Corinne J. Saunders, A Companion to Medieval Poetry |
| title_full_unstemmed | Book Review of: Corinne J. Saunders, A Companion to Medieval Poetry |
| title_short | Book Review of: Corinne J. Saunders, A Companion to Medieval Poetry |
| title_sort | book review of corinne j saunders a companion to medieval poetry |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102083 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3255-051X |
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