Julia Boffey Research Articles

Individuality and Achievement in Middle English Poetry ed. by O. S. Pickering

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER teachers, and of foster parents (the latter are mentioned here mostly in connection with the sagas, but occur in many other forms of literature too).The editors point out that most of the information available about mothering comes, inevitably, from male writers, but there are some fe­ male sources who are not tapped here, such as Christine de Pizan.We might also ask what and where are the gaps between aristocratic and nonaristocratic mothering; very little is said here about life outside courts and noble households.These essays vary considerably in quality, but the topic is a rich one; it is to be hoped that the appearance of this volume will prompt further studies of medieval mothering, both liter­ ary and historical. ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD University of Victoria 0.S. PICKERING, ed.Individuality and Achievement in Middle English Poetry. Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 1997.Pp.xi, 227.$7 1 .0 0. In his preface, 0.S.Pickering remarks that "the influence of a 1960s English department dies hard," and this collection of critical essays cer­ tainly does reflect many ofthe formalistapproaches that dominated me­ dieval criticism during the 1960s and 7 0s.Indeed, one of the explicit purposes of this collection is to counterbalance "the recent growth of theoretical, socio-historical and bibliographical approaches to the study of Middle English literature [that} has led to a decline in the amount of literary appreciation, and to the neglect ...of poets who are not at the centre of the present-day taught canon." The volume contains twelve essays, five on ME lyric poetry (broadly defined), three on ME drama, and four dealing with longer narrative works. They are arranged roughly in chronological order, with each essay focusing on a distinc­ tive aspect of a particular work or a small cluster of works. In the first of the several essays on lyric poetry, Karl Reichl proposes that the apparent simplicity of many early Middle English secular lyrics-a simplicity suggestive of popular songs-actually belies the writers' conscious and sophisticated imitation of such works.Reichl be­ lieves, however, that some of the lyrics in MS Rawlinson D.913 come close to being true reflections of folk poetry, and he cites "Maiden in the mor lay" as an example.On the whole Reichl's argument is persuasive, 308 REVIEWS though the connection he attempts to establish between "Maiden in the mor lay" and certain Portuguese and Spanish ballads seems more tenuous. In his own contribution to the collection, Oliver Pickering com­ ments on the distinctive stylistic features shared by a small group of fourteenth-century religious poems, and suggests the possibility of their common authorship. The most essential feature of this group, he finds, is the use of concentrated visual images not unlike those that occur in seventeenth-century "metaphysical poetry." Pickering refers to four of these poems-the "Dispute between Mary and the Cross" being the best known-as the Dispute group, and he associates them with other somewhat similar poems--e.g., The Devils' Parliament and Richard Maidstone's translation of the seven penitential psalms. This larger group of poems, Pickering believes, reflects a tradition of reli­ gious poetry "distinguished by compressed argument and daring image." In another article on Middle English religious lyrics, Julia Boffey discusses the lyric strategies that underlie many late-medieval religious lyrics such as those found in Balliol College MS 354 (Richard Hill's MS). Boffey shows how these poems manage to encapsulate sub­ ject matter that "is amenable to much more capacious exposition, and to find ways of making it arresting and memorable." Her essay also deals with titulus-verses-poems written to accompany wall paintings or other visual images-and on the relationship between pictura and lit­ teratura. Her discussion of Lydgate's Testament and the series of carved wooden plaques in Holy Trinity Church at Long Melford is particularly compelling. In his discussion of The Simonie, Derek Pearsall considers the ways in which this powerful poem of complaint against the times is like and unlike other works belonging to this genre of satiric poetry. Pearsall believes that The Simonie is not a poem in which the depiction of social...

Individuality and Achievement in Middle English Poetry ed. by O.S. Pickering (review)

reviews117 baring her breasts is a fascinating work though Hotchkiss omits any discussion ofit. I wonder how Christian iconographers constructed sanctity and gender in portraits of female transvestites? The deficit ofHotchkiss's work is also its strength. The author paints broad strokes drawing upon various medieval texts covering numerous centuries, ethnic groups and varieties ofliterature. The fine points and nuances ofparticular times and places are glossed over. Hotchkiss has made however a vital contribution to cultural analysis of gender in the Middle Ages. JANE MARIE PINZlNO University of Puget Sound o.s. pickering, ed. Individuality andAchievementin MiddleEnglish Poetry. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997. Pp. xi, 227. isbn: 0-85991-424-0. $71. Something of a scholarly miscellany, this collection of twelve original articles on a range ofMiddle English texts—including the CursorMundi, St. Erkenwald, The Siege ofJerusalem, and The Castle ofPerseverance, among othets—is marked by its eclecticism and its intentional omission ofany discussion ofthe works ofChaucer, Langland, or the Pearl-poet. It is also notable for its essays' collective tendency (ifnot commitment) toward a brand of 'New Critical' reading: the volume is published, its editor forthrightly admits, as a 'counterbalance' to other critical approaches that have 'led to a decline in the amount of literary appreciation, and to a neglect in particular of the achievements ofpoets who are not at the centre ofthe. . .canon' (vii). This intriguing attempt to blend old-fashioned close reading and new-fangled canon questioning yields results that, if on the whole uneven, are often illuminating. The volume includes essays by Alexandra Barratt on The Owlandthe Nightingale, John J.Thompson on the CursorMundi, Derek Pearsall on The Simonie, andThorlac Turville-Petrc on the poem 'Ne mai no lewed lued' from British Library, MS Harley 2253. Two other articles, one by Karl Reichl and the other by Julia Boffey, focus on love lyrics and religious lyrics, respectively. David Lawton and John Butrow each write on allitetative verse, with Lawton spotlighting the SiegeofJerusalem and Burrow St. Erkenwald, and O. S. Pickering surveys the imagety employed in a number of other religious poems. Three articles on medieval drama, by Avril Henry, Myra Stokes, and Peter Meredith, round out the collection. While space doesn't petmit a full discussion of every article, several ofthe pieces desetvc special mention. Pearsall in 'The Timelessness of The Simonie,' for instance, describes the three versions in which that poem exists and notes how very few changes are made in the different versions to make it more topical. Characterizing that poem as a 'social penitential,' he argues for the thematic necessity ofthe very 'permanence' ofthe abuses the poem describes. Turville-Petre's essay, 'English Quaint and Strange in "Ne mai no lewed lued",' summarizes this rather little-known poerri nicely and then, by means ofsome philological commentary and comparisons to other consistory court accounts, persuades that the poem adopts, in something ofthe manner ofthe ii8arthuriana fabliaux, a 'lewed' perspective in otdet to laugh at it. Burrow's 'Redundancy in Alliterative Verse: St. Erkenwald' is a brief but suggestive reflection on the narrative and stylistic 'economy' of the poem, and Henry offers a quantitative, exhaustive analysis of 'The Dramatic Function of Rhyme and Stanza Patterns in The Castle of Perseverance that is necessary reading for future studies ofthe play. Readers of this journal may want to be aware that two ofthe articles, Burrow's and David Lawtons excellent 'Titus Goes Hunting and Hawking: The Poetics ofRecreation and Revenge in The Siege ofJerusalem,' make passing references to Arthurian poems such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Awntyrs offArthure, and their respective arguments might well prompt some new thinking on alliterative Arthurian literature. It is not at all clear that this collection will (ot should) have the 'counterbalancing' effect that is intended for it, particularly since at least some ofthe approaches alluded to in the book's 'Preface' seem to be employed, ironically enough, in its essays. Individuality andAchievement in Middle English Poetry does contain, however, a good deal ofsolid and worthwhile scholarship, and its readers may find themselves turning to some seldom-read poems with fresh enthusiasm. DANIEL PINTI New Mexico State University N.F. blake, William Caxton and English Literary Culture. London...

Julia Boffey and Pamela King, eds., London and Europe in the Later Middle Ages (Westfield Publications in Medieval Studies, 9.) London: Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, 1995. Pp. xi, 258 plus 3 black-and-white figures; 1 map. £22.

Julia Boffey and Pamela King, eds., London and Europe in the Later Middle Ages (Westfield Publications in Medieval Studies, 9.) London: Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, 1995. Pp. xi, 258 plus 3 black-and-white figures; 1 map. £22.

Women and literature in Britain 1150-1500 (review)

276 Reviews are again misunderstandings. For example, 'In the century before the discovery of the Cape route, Portuguese shipbuilders had adapted the refined maritime technology of Mediterranean Muslims to their own ships in the Adantic, . . . ' (p. 159). In fact the caravel was developed in the fifteenth century by the Portuguese from their own medieval sea-goingfishingboats and the carrack, which succeeded it on the routes to die Indian Ocean, was developed by the Italians from an amalgamation of the North-European cog with elements of their own medieval sailing 'round ships'. Muslim maritime technology contributed nothing to eidier die caravel or the carrack. When he draws attention to the limitations of the Portuguese impact on the indigenous states and peoples of die Indian Ocean, McPherson really needed to relate die discussion to the limitations of sixteenth-century shipping and artillery. He is aware that ' . . . Portuguese ambitions in the Indian Ocean were also curbed by shortages of manpower, shipping and capital.' (p. 165). However, it was not only small numbers of men and ships but the fact that, pace Carlo Cipolla, sixteenth-century artillery was simply too ineffective to eliminate competition that was instrumental. A discussion of the technology of maritime warfare is sorely missed in a book which is essentially focussed on die historical clashes of civilizations across the sea. Although the themes of this book are interesting, its limitations of research and structure are so severetiiatit is unlikely to 'live' for long. John H. Pryor Department of History University of Sydney Meale, Carol M. ed., Women and literature in Britain 1150-1500 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 17) Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993; cloth; pp. 223; R.R.P. $99.00. Carol Meale explains in her introduction that the issue central to the essays in this collection is: ' . . . women's access to a written culture, and their ability, or lack of it, to use that culture for their own ends, independent of the male authority by which it was sanctioned' (p. 1). The authors address the nature of literacy and literature in their subjects' milieux and the roles women played in a range of literary genres, including romance, hagiography, and devotional works, as well as in the authoring, commissioning, and dissemination of texts. These are large and important questions that the Reviews 277 authors respond to with imagination and scholarship,resultingin a valuable collection of studies, fascinating in their insight and learned in their detail. The collection begins with three essays on the roles of women in romance: 'The power and weakness of women in Anglo-Norman romance' by Judith Weiss, 'Women as lovers in early English romance' by Flora Alexander, and 'Mothers in Middle English romance' by Jennifer Fellows. The following three focus on women as writers and readers of vernacular religious works: ' "Clerc u lai, muine u dame": women and Anglo-Norman hagiography in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries' by Jocelyn WoganBrowne , 'Women in no man's land: English recluses and the development of vernacular literature in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries' by Bella Millett, and ' "Women talking about the things of God": a late medieval subculture ' by Felicity Riddy. T w o essays which examine book ownership and literacy follow: ' "... alle the bokes that I haue of latyn, englisch, and frensch": laywomen and their books in late medieval England' by Meale, and 'Women authors and women's literacy in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England' by Julia Boffey. An essay by Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, 'Women and their poetry in medieval Wales', concludes die collection. The volume includes indices of manuscripts and of names and titles. Bibliographic details are found in each essay's end-notes, which in several cases contain a wealth oforiginal research. Many perceptive conclusions are drawn from the dual focus on women and literature. Just a few are Felicity Riddy's suggestion that it is the female protectors and disciples of Richard Rolle 'who in a sense socialise Rolle into writing his vernacular epistles' (p. 107), Bella Millett's observation that some texts imply 'a hierarchy of literacy, ranging from the clerici assumed by some of the untranslated Latin to the illiterate women who will need to have the book read to them, whether...

Julia Boffey and Janet Cowen, eds., Chaucer and Fifteenth-Century Poetry. (King's College London Medieval Studies, 5.) London: King's College London, Center for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 1991. Paper. Pp. x, 174. £8.75.

Julia Boffey and Janet Cowen, eds., Chaucer and Fifteenth-Century Poetry. (King's College London Medieval Studies, 5.) London: King's College London, Center for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 1991. Paper. Pp. x, 174. £8.75.

Chaucer and Fifteenth-Century Poetry ed. by Julia Boffey, Janet Cowen

Chaucer and Fifteenth-Century Poetry ed. by Julia Boffey, Janet Cowen

Middle English: Excluding Chaucer

Middle English: Excluding Chaucer Get access JULIA BOFFEY, JULIA BOFFEY Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar S. POWELL, S. POWELL Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar A. J. FLETCHER A. J. FLETCHER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Year's Work in English Studies, Volume 71, Issue 1, 1993, Pages 205–234, https://doi.org/10.1093/ywes/71.1.205 Published: 01 September 1993

Lydgate, Henryson, and the Literary Testament

Research Article| March 01 1992 Lydgate, Henryson, and the Literary Testament Julia Boffey Julia Boffey Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Modern Language Quarterly (1992) 53 (1): 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-53-1-41 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Julia Boffey; Lydgate, Henryson, and the Literary Testament. Modern Language Quarterly 1 March 1992; 53 (1): 41–56. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-53-1-41 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsModern Language Quarterly Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1992 by Duke University Press1992 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Middle English: Excluding Chaucer

Journal Article Middle English: Excluding Chaucer Get access JULIA BOFFEY, JULIA BOFFEY Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar S. POWELL, S. POWELL Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar A.J. FLETCHER A.J. FLETCHER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Year's Work in English Studies, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1991, Pages 135–176, https://doi.org/10.1093/ywes/69.1.135 Published: 01 September 1991

Book production and publishing in Britain, 1375-1475

List of illustrations and figures List of contributors Acknowledgements List of abbreviations List of works cited in short form Introduction Derek Pearsall Part I. The Book: 1. Materials: the paper revolution R. J. Lyall 2. Design, decoration and illustration Kathleen L. Scott 3. English decorated bookbindings Miriam M. Foot Part II. Book Production: 4. Evidence for the study of London's late medieval manuscript-book trade C. Paul Christianson 5. Publication by members of the religious orders A. I. Doyle 6. Lollard book production Anne Hudson 7. The production of books of liturgical polyphony Andrew Wathey Part III. Patrons, Buyers and Owners: 8. Patrons, buyers and owners: the evidence for ownership, and the role of book owners in book production and the book trade Kate Harris 9. Patrons, buyers and owners: book production and social status Carol Meale 10. Books and book owners in fifteenth-century Scotland R. J. Lyall Part IV. The Contents of Books: 11. The manuscripts of the major English poetic texts A. S. G. Edwards and Derek Pearsall 12. Anthologies and miscellanies: production and choice of texts Julia Boffey and John J. Thompson 13. Vernacular books of religion Vincent Gillespie 14. Scientific and medical books Linda Ehrsam Voigts Part V. Aftermath: 15. Manuscript to print N. F. Blake Appendices Index of manuscripts General index.

Manuscripts of English Courtly Love Lyrics in the Later Middle Ages. Julia Boffey

<i>Manuscripts of English Courtly Love Lyrics in the Later Middle Ages</i>. Julia Boffey

Manuscripts of English Courtly Love Lyrics in the Later Middle Ages

Julia Boffey investigates the original context of over six hundred 15th- and early 16th-century English courtly lyrics.