The Kingis Quair and Other Prison Poems

The Kingis Quair and Other Prison Poems

Author: Mary-Jo Arn

Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications

Published: 2005-05-01

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1580444032

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Readers have noticed that the fifteenth century saw a remarkable flourishing of poems written in conditions of physical captivity or on the subject of imprisonment. The largest body of this poetry is from the pen of Charles of Valois, duke of Orleans, who was captured by the English at the battle of Agincourt in 1415 and not released until 1440. The longest single poem on the subject is James I of Scotland's The Kingis Quair, purportedly written at the time of his release from an eighteen-year imprisonment in England .This volume reflects the wide scope of these prison poems by bringing together a new edition of The Kingis Quair, a selection from Charles d'Orleans' Fortunes Stabilnes, a poem by George Ashby, who was imprisoned in London's Fleet prison, and the poems of two other poets, both anonymous, who wrote about physical and/or emotional imprisonment.


James I

James I

Author: Michael Brown

Publisher: Birlinn Ltd

Published: 2015-06-10

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 1788853644

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Conditioned by a childhood surrounded by the rivalries of the Stewart family, and by eighteen years of enforced exile in England, James I was to prove a king very different from his elderly and conservative forerunners. This major study draws on a wide range of sources, assessing James I's impact on his kingdom. Michael Brown examines James's creation of a new, prestigious monarchy based on a series of bloody victories over his rivals and symbolised by lavish spending at court. He concludes that, despite the apparent power and glamour, James I's 'golden age' had shallow roots; after a life of drastically swinging fortunes, James I was to meet his end in a violent coup, a victim of his own methods. But whether as lawgiver, tyrant or martyr, James I has cast a long shadow over the history of Scotland.


The Whole Book

The Whole Book

Author: Stephen G. Nichols

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9780472106967

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An investigation of the fascinating, not-so-miscellaneous miscellanies


Late-Medieval Prison Writing and the Politics of Autobiography

Late-Medieval Prison Writing and the Politics of Autobiography

Author: Joanna Summers

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2004-07-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0191515094

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Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy has long been taken as one of the seminal works of the Middle Ages, yet despite the study of many aspects of the Consolation's influence, the legacy of the figure of the writer in prison has not been explored. A group of late-medieval authors, Thomas Usk, James I of Scotland, Charles d'Orléans, George Ashby, William Thorpe, Richard Wyche, and Sir Thomas Malory, demonstrate the ways in which the imprisoned writer is presented, both within and outside the Boethian tradition. The presentation of an imprisoned autobiographical identity in each of these authors' texts, and the political motives behind such self-presentation are examined in this study, which also questions whether the texts should be considered to from a genre of early autobiographical prison literature.


Remembering Boethius

Remembering Boethius

Author: Elizabeth Elliott

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-23

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 1317066731

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Remembering Boethius explores the rich intersection between the reception of Boethius and the literary construction of aristocratic identity, focusing on a body of late-medieval vernacular literature that draws on the Consolation of Philosophy to represent and reimagine contemporary experiences of exile and imprisonment. Elizabeth Elliott presents new interpretations of English, French, and Scottish texts, including Machaut's Confort d'ami, Remede de Fortune, and Fonteinne amoureuse, Jean Froissart's Prison amoureuse, Thomas Usk's Testament of Love, and The Kingis Quair, reading these texts as sources contributing to the development of the reader's moral character. These writers evoke Boethius in order to articulate and shape personal identities for public consumption, and Elliott's careful examination demonstrates that these texts often write not one life, but two, depicting the relationship between poet and aristocratic patron. These works associate the reception of wisdom with the cultivation of memory, and in turn, illuminate the contemporary reception of the Consolation as a text that itself focuses on memory and describes a visionary process of education that takes place within Boethius's own mind. In asking how and why writers remember Boethius in the Middle Ages, this book sheds new light on how medieval people imagined, and reimagined, themselves.


Anglo-Scottish Literary Relations 1430-1550

Anglo-Scottish Literary Relations 1430-1550

Author: G. C. Kratzmann

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1980

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0521226651

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This book is a study of Anglo-Scottish literary relations in the later Middle Ages and early Renaissance. It attempts to show how those poets who have frequently been called 'Scottish Chaucerians' (James I, Henryson, Dunbar and Douglas) drew upon English writing. In the best Middle Scots poetry we see an order of invention and technical mastery that is comparable with that of Chaucer's work, and this is sometimes accompanied by shrewd commentary on Chaucer's art. Evidence of such an independent and critical view of Chaucer is strikingly absent in contemporary English poetry, and the book accounts for some of the differences between Northern and Southern poetry in the later Middle Ages. Above all, this study reveals that the poetry of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century in Scotland is a rich and extremely varied body of literature, ranging from the carefully wrought philosophical comedy of 'The Kingis Quair' to the tragic grandeur of Henryson's 'The Testament of Cresseid', from the pointed satires and grotesqueries of Dunbar to Douglas' vigorous and sensitive translation of the Aeneid.