Originally published in 1967, The Poetry of John Lydgate presents a broad discussion of John Lydgate's secular poetry. It reassesses much of the poetry through critical examination and suggests that Lydgate was not necessarily the master that the medieval ages proclaimed him to be, nor the plain poet that he is often seen as in modern analysis. Instead, the book suggest that he was a competent poetic craftsman that presents substantial literary form in his poetry. The analysis in the book looks at Lydgate as atypical of the Middle Ages, instead exhibiting traits currently linked to the Renaissance. The book provides a unique perspective on John Lydgate as a poet and will be of interest to medievalist and literary historians alike.

Originally published in 1970, John Lydgate sets out to restore a sense of perspective to the work of Lydgate, not by attributing a spurious modernity as a precursor of the Renaissance, but by accepting the fact that he is fundamentally medieval. The book analyses Lydgate’s background in literary tradition and compares this with Chaucer’s work. The book looks at Lydgate as a professional craftsman and examines how his work adapted to the demands and occasions of his age. Without over-valuing the poetry, this approach makes it possible to discriminate with increased objectivity between the more and less worthwhile and to distinguish the unexpectedly large number of poems in which craftsman-like competence rises to rhetorical artistry of a high order. In accepting Lydgate as the epitome of his age, the book also provides a diagram of the medieval poetic mind in its basic form and suggests the usefulness of Lydgate as a source book for the understanding of medieval literature.

A range of essays on Lydgate and his work which challenge preconceived notions of the quality and nature of Lydgate's writing

Originally published in 1967, The Poetry of John Lydgate presents a broad discussion of John Lydgate’s secular poetry. It reassesses much of the poetry through critical examination and suggests that Lydgate was not necessarily the master that the medieval ages proclaimed him to be, nor the plain poet that he is often seen as in modern analysis. Instead, the book suggest that he was a competent poetic craftsman that presents substantial literary form in his poetry. The analysis in the book looks at Lydgate as atypical of the Middle Ages, instead exhibiting traits currently linked to the Renaissance. The book provides a unique perspective on John Lydgate as a poet and will be of interest to medievalist and literary historians alike.

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This book combines a scholarly edition of Lydgate’s Dance of Death and the French Danse Macabre poem, and discusses their wider context and historical circumstances of their creation, authorship and visualisation.

The project is sponsored by the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS) and is affiliated with the Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo. --Book Jacket.