Elucidations
Subtitle: medieval poetry and its religious backgrounds
By: by Siegfried Wenzel
Series: Synthema -- 6; Synthema -- 6.
Publisher: Peeters
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Louvain; Walpole, MA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 374
ISBN-13: 9782758400660; 9789042921955
Subjects: English poetry; History and criticism; Christian poetry, English (Middle); English literature; Religion and literature; History
Description: The twenty-seven reprinted essays and one so far unpublished lecture assembled in this collection deal with works by Chaucer, Langland, Dante, Petrarch, Middle-English lyrics and drama, and several broader topics, such as the Three Enemies of Man, the pilgrimage of life, and the figure of the wise fool. In them Siegfried Wenzel applies his long-standing interest and study of contemporary works of religious instruction, especially medieval sermons and penitential literature to elucidate different aspects of major works of vernacular medieval poetry as well as of smaller details that have caused critical concern. Most of the essays contain hitherto unpublished medieval Latin texts. With a foreword by Nigel Palmer.
Notes: Collection of texts published previously.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Foreword / by Nigel Palmer; title: Medieval sermons and the study of literature; title: The three enemies of man; title: The pilgrimage of life as a late medieval genre; title: The wisdom of the fool; title: The joyous art of preaching or, The preacher and the fabliau; title: Petrarch's Accidia; title: Dante's rationale for the seven deadly sins (Purgatorio, 17); title: The classics in late-medieval preaching; title: Chaucer and the language of contemporary preaching; title: Chaucer's Parson's tale : "every tales strengthe"; title: Chaucer's Troilus of book 4; title: Moral Chaucer?; title: The Moor Maiden, a contemporary view; title: Poets, preachers, and the plight of literary critics; title: Two notes on Chaucer and Grosseteste; title: Notes on the Parsons tale; title: Chaucer's pardoner and his relics; title: Another analogue to The pardoner's tale; title: Why the monk?; title: Langland's Troianus; title: Eli and his sons; title: A Latin miracle with Middle English verses; title: The "gay" carol and exemplum; title: Mum and the sothsegger, lines 421-422; title: St. Erkenwald and the uncorrupted body; title: A new occurrence of an English poem from the Red book of Ossory; title: An early reference to a Corpus Christi play; title: Somer game and sermon references to a Corpus Christi play.