Traditions and Innovations in the Study of Medieval English Literature: The Influence of Derek Brewer

About the Book

Essays on the many key aspects of medieval literature, reflecting the significant impact of Professor Derek Brewer. Derek Brewer (1923-2008) was one of the most influential medievalists of the twentieth century, first through his own publications and teaching, and later as the founder of his own academic publishing firm. His working life of some sixty years, from the late 1940s to the 2000s, saw enormous advances in the study of Chaucer and of Arthurian romance, and of medieval literature more generally. He was in the forefront of such changes, and his understandings ofChaucer and of Malory remain at the core of the modern critical mainstream. Essays in this collection take their starting point from his ideas and interests, before offering their own fresh thinking in those key areas of medieval studies in which he pioneered innovations which remain central: Chaucer's knight and knightly virtues; class-distinction; narrators and narrative time; lovers and loving in medieval romance; ideals of feminine beauty; love,friendship and masculinities; medieval laughter; symbolic stories, the nature of romance, and the ends of storytelling; the wholeness of Malory's Morte Darthur; modern study of the medieval material book; Chaucer's poetic language and modern dictionaries; and Chaucerian afterlives. This collection builds towards an intellectual profile of a modern medievalist, cumulatively registering how the potential of Derek Brewer's work is being reinterpreted and is renewing itself now and into the future of medieval studies. Charlotte Brewer is Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University and a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford; Barry Windeatt is Professor of English in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Contributors: Elizabeth Archibald, Charlotte Brewer, Mary Carruthers, Christopher Cannon, Helen Cooper, A.S.G. Edwards, Jill Mann, Alastair Minnis, Derek Pearsall, Corinne Saunders, James Simpson, A.C. Spearing, Jacqueline Tasioulas, Robert Yeager, Barry Windeatt.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: A Modern Medievalist's Career Derek Brewer: Chaucerian Studies 1953-1978 - Derek Pearsall Brewer's Chaucer and the Knightly Virtues - Alastair J Minnis Class Distinction and the French of England - Christopher Cannon Time in Troilus and Criseyde - A C Spearing *** Virtue, Intention and the Mind's Eye in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde - Mary Carruthers Falling in Love in the Middle Ages - Jill Mann The Idea of Feminine Beauty in Troilus and Criseyde, or Criseyde's Eyebrow - Jacqueline Tasioulas 'Greater Love hath no Man': Friendship in Medieval English Romance - Corinne Saunders Gowerian Laughter - Robert F. Yeager Derek Brewer's Romance - James Simpson Malory and Late Medieval Arthurian Cycles - Elizabeth Archibald The Ends of Storytelling - Helen Cooper Manuscripts, Facsimiles and Approaches to Editing - A S G Edwards Words and Dictionaries: OED, MED and Chaucer - Charlotte Brewer Afterlives: The Fabulous History of Venus - Barry A Windeatt Afterword - Eric G. Stanley Bibliography

About the Author :
A. S. G. Edwards is Honorary Professor of Medieval Manuscripts at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Corinne Saunders is Professor of Medieval Literature at the Department of English Studies, University of Durham. The late Derek Pearsall was Emeritus Gurney Professor of Middle English Literature at Harvard University; he wrote extensively on Chaucer, Gower, Langland and Lydgate, including biographies of Chaucer and Lydgate, an edition of the C-text of Langland's Piers Plowman. ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD is Professor of English Studies at Durham University, and Principal of St Cuthbert's Society. James Simpson teaches English at Harvard University. He publishes on a wide range of topics in on late medieval and early modern Western European Literature. MARY CARRUTHERS is Remarque Professor Emeritus of Literature, New York University and Quondam Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford. A world-renowned scholar, she has published numerous works on medieval ideas of the mind. R.F. YEAGER is Emeritus Professor of English Literature and Language, University of West Florida.

Review :
Chapter 12, 'The Ends of Storytelling' . . . by [Helen] Cooper is exemplary for its simplicity and clarity. Few scholarly works are so fascinating that they thrust the reader ahead of himself to find out what is coming next. Cooper has written a page-turner.