Here’s the cover for How to Read Middle English Poetry!
The image is part of Manchester, John Rylands Library, MS Eng. 1 (a copy of Lydgate’s Troy Book), f. 31v, and it depicts the rebuilding of Troy.
I wanted something to match the book’s focus on the practical craft and work of poetry. And, for that matter, on the practical craft and work of criticism. The Troy legend also, in its many different branches, forms a key part of the complex vegetation of European poetry. Indeed, Chaucer’s vision of poets sustaining the Trojan legend in his House of Fame also imagines hard work:
And ech of these, as have I joye
Was besy for to bere up Troye.
So hevy therof was the fame
That for to bere hyt was no game.
(HF 1471–4)
How to Read Middle English Poetry is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in spring 2024.
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