Studies in the Harley manuscript : the scribes, contents, and social contexts of British Library MS Harley 2253

'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. 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 Sixteen papers examine the authorship, themes and social context of the Harley manuscript (British Library MS Harley 2253). The manuscript comprises an anthology of mostly Middle English verse, political, religious and secular, which, the contributors demonstrate, reveals a great deal about the social and political life of England during the 14th century. -- Amazon.com This book is the first comprehensive examination of a manuscript that is of supreme value to literary scholars of medieval English literature.