'Studies in the Harley Manuscript' is the first comprehensive examination of a manuscript that is of supreme value to literary scholars of medieval English literature. In an Introduction and fifteen essays a team of scholars considers many aspects of the 140 folios of this trilingual miscellany that preserves 121 items (or 122 depending on how one counts) from which we get a strange and privileged glimpse into the rich literary heritage that existed in England prior to the flourishing of vernacular poetry in the Richardian era. As the Contents indicates, the history and composition of the manuscript are considered, as are the Anglo-Norman, English, and Latin compositions that it preserves. This is a companion volume to the three volume complete edition of Harley 2253.
Author(s): Susanna Fein (ed.)
Series: Medieval Institute Publications. TEAMS. The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages
Publisher: Western Michigan University
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 532
City: Kalamazoo
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Notes on Contributors xii
Note on the Presentation of Text from MS Harley 2253 xiii
List of Plates, Tables, Figures, and Appendices xv
Introduction. British Library MS Harley 2253: The Lyrics, the Facsimile, and the Book / Susanna Fein 1
Scribe and Provenance / Carter Revard 21
Miscellany or Anthology? The Structure of Medieval Manuscripts: MS Harley 2253, for Example / Theo Stemmler 111
An 'Electric Stream': The Religious Contents / Michael P. Kuczynski 123
Authority and Resistance: The Political Verse / John Scattergood 163
Historicity and Complaint in 'Song of the Husbandman' / Richard Newhauser 203
Debate Verse / Karl Reichl 219
Dreams and Dream Lore / Helen Phillips 241
Authors, Anthologists, and Franciscan Spirituality / David L. Jeffrey 261
'Frankis rimes here I redd, / Communlik in ilk[a] sted...': The French Bible Stories in Harley 2253 / John J. Thompson 271
Anthologizing Ribaldry: Five Anglo-Norman Fabliaux / Barbara Nolan 289
Evading Textual Intimacy: The French Secular Verse / Mary Dove 329
A Saint 'Geynest under Gore': Marina and the Love Lyrics of the Seventh Quire / Susanna Fein 351
Layout, Punctuation, and Stanza Patterns in the English Verse / Elizabeth Solopova 377
The Language of the English Poems: The Harley Scribe and His Exemplars / Frances McSparran 391
Harley 2253, Digby 86, and the Circulation of Literature in Pre-Chaucerian England / Marilyn Corrie 427
Bibliography of Works Cited 445
Index of Items in MS Harley 2253 481
Index of Manuscripts 485
General Index 489
