Imagining a medieval English nation / Kathy Lavezzo, editor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lavezzo, Kathy.

Series:

Medieval cultures ; v. 37.

Medieval cultures ; v. 37

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Middle English, 1100-1500--History and criticism.

English literature.

National characteristics, English, in literature.

Nationalism and literature--England--History--To 1500.

Nationalism and literature.

Nationalism in literature.

History.

England--In literature.

England.

Physical Description:

xxxiv, 356 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis, MN ; London : University of Minnesota Press, [2004]

Summary:

During the late Middle Ages, the increasing expansion of a central government, together with the greater involvement of the commons in national life, brought England closer than ever to political nationhood. Examining a diverse array of texts -- ranging from Latin and vernacular historiography to Lollard tracts, Ricardian poetry, and chivalric treatises -- this volume reveals the variety of forms "England" assumed when it was imagined in the medieval West. These essays disrupt conventional thinking about the relationship between premodernity and modernity, challenge preconceptions regarding the origins of the nation, and complicate theories about the workings of nationalism. This book is not only a collection of new readings of major canonical works by leading medievalists, it is among the first book-length analyses on the subject.

Contents:

Part I. Theorizing the Medieval English Nation

Pro Patria Mori / L. O. Aranye Fradenburg 3

Part II. The Languages of England

Latin England / Andrew Galloway 41

"As Englishe is comoun langage to oure puple": The Lollards and Their Imagined "English" Community / Jill C. Havens 96

Part III. Chaucer's England

Chaucer Imagines England (in English) / Peggy A. Knapp 131

Hymeneal Alogic: Debating Political Community in The Parliament of Fowls / Kathleen Davis 161

Part IV. Langland's England

King, Commons, and Kind Wit: Langland's National Vision and the Rising of 1381 / Larry Scanlon 191

Piers Plowman and the National Noetic of Edward III / D. Vance Smith 234

Part V. England and Its Neighbors

Translating "Communitas" / Lynn Staley 261

The Captivity of Henry Chrystede: Froissart's Chroniques, Ireland, and Fourteenth-Century Nationalism / Claire Sponsler 304

Afterword: The Brutus Prologue to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight / Thorlac Turville-Petre 340.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0816637342

0816637350

OCLC:

52602747