New Perspectives on Middle English Texts: a Festschrift for R. A. Waldron. (Shorter Notices).

King, Andrew

ed. Susan Powell and Jeremy J. Smith (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000). xii + 190 pp. ISBN 0-85991-590-5. $75.00/45.00 [pounds sterling]. Contents: Susan Powell and Jeremy Smith, `Preface'; Derek Pearsall, `Ronald Waldron: a personal memoir'; Malcolm Andrew, `Setting and context in the works of the Gawain-poet'; Rosamund Allen, `Performance and structure in The Alliterative Morte Arthure'; Ralph Hanna, `Feasting in Middle English alliterative poetry'; George Kane, `Word games: glossing Piers Plowman'; Susan Powell, `Untying the knot: reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'; Jane Roberts, `Two notes on Lazamon's Brut'; Jeremy Smith, `Semantics and metrical form in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'; Norman Blake, `The links in the Canterbury Tales'; Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, `Middle English verse in chronicles'; Janet Cowen, `An English reading of Boccaccio: a selective Middle English version of Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris in British Library MS Additional 10304'; Roger Dahood, `Abbreviations, otiose strokes and editorial practice: the case of Southwell Minster MS 7'; Elton D, Higgs, `Temporal and spiritual indebtedness in the Canterbury Tales'; Derek Pearsall, `"Quha wait gif all that Chauceir wrait was trew?": Henryson's Testament of Cresseid. Reflecting the interests and achievements of the volume's dedicatee, this collection offers a series of high-quality essays which display the virtues of close reading and a detailed enquiry into literary, historical, and codicological contexts. Main interests are alliterative poetry, especially Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the medieval interaction between writers, scribes, and readers.