<i>Later Medieval English Literature</i> (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Later Medieval English Literature Derek Pearsall Later Medieval English Literature. By Douglas Gray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pp. xiv + 712. $130. Douglas Gray is an acknowledged expert in late medieval English literature. He has ploughed, harrowed, and reaped in this field for many years—in his anthology of late medieval religious lyrics (1975) and book on the same subject (1972); in his anthology of late medieval English verse and prose (1985); and in his edition (which included much rewriting and new writing) of J. A. W. Bennett's Medieval English Literature (1986), a volume of the Oxford History of English Literature, now superseded by the Oxford English Literary History. The present volume is not part of a series nor is it written in the style of such literary histories. It is directed at students and beginning readers and its aim is to tell them what they need to know about literature between 1400 and ca.1535. It is selective and descriptive: there is no thesis or argument, except that good writing is always worth attending to, and no attempt to be innovative. It is not an exciting book, but it has a sureness of touch such as always gives rewards to the reader. Bibliographies are given for each chapter, arranged according to the order in which works are discussed in the text, and chiefly consisting of lists of editions consulted: there are no notes. The book is in five parts: an "Introduction," and then sections on "Prose," "Poetry," and "Drama," with a section also on "Scottish Writing," a way of giving Scotland the prominent and independent position for which Gray himself has always argued. The "Introduction" is divided into three parts, dealing successively with the geopolitical and social scene, with culture, religion, medicine, science, and education, and with book production, literacy, the prevalence of images, multilingualism, and the styles and forms of literature. It is a magnificent achievement in its own right, drawing on rich stores of knowledge and experience of the Middle Ages, and it would on its own make a perfect 150-page background for anyone studying later medieval literature. Everything is covered, with the richness of reference that comes naturally to a treasure-stocked mind, but the individuality of the achievement is in the vivid vignettes of lesser-known events, writers, and texts—from the travels of Felix Fabri and William Wey to the Kalender of Shepherdes, a text often referred to but rarely visited in detail. There is judicious and extensive use of quotation, which allows texts to speak for themselves, and which can often go to the heart of a text better than description. Gray has a personal inclination to the anthologists and collectors of curiosities, such as William Worcestre, and to the unexpected treasures of the Vulgaria. His own anthology of later medieval writing has evidently proved a godsend. The rest of the book is, as Gray calls it in the Preface, "a guidebook for the curious traveller." The method is deliberately descriptive: everything is dealt with in turn, the works summarized, the stories of the less familiar romances told in detail, and lengthy quotation employed to give the flavor of a work. Parenthetic glosses are given for hard words in the quotations, a practice which can cause some confusion to the eye in verse printed as prose (often up to seven lines) and in heavily glossed Scots prose texts. The ending date of the survey is never stated, but generally enforces its own logic (ca.1535); the beginning date is arbitrary, and causes some local difficulties with works that are usually dated "ca.1400," such as the alliterative Morte Arthure, or that were written in the fourteenth century but only survive in fifteenth-century copies. Gray usually has a sensible solution. The distinction of prose and verse in Parts II and III works reasonably well except with certain writers like More, who have to be [End Page 244] divided up into several persons, and except with some kinds of romance and historical writing, though even there a distinction can be maintained on other, nonformal, grounds. Major writers like Malory are not made part of any historical or literary-historical argument...