Lydgate Matters (1403976740) COOPER

This collection re-evaluates the work of fifteenth-century poet John Lydgate in light of medieval material culture. Top scholars in the field unite here with critical newcomers to offer fresh perspectives on the function of poetry on the cusp of the modern age, and in particular on the way that poetry speaks to the heightened relevance of material goods and possessions to the formation of late medieval identity and literary taste. Advancing in provocative ways the emerging fields of fifteenth-century literary and cultural study, the volume as a whole explores the role of the aesthetic not only in late medieval society but also in our own.

Lisa H. Cooper is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Andrea Denny-Brown is Assistant Professor of English at the University of California-Riverside.

"Rarely does one find a collection of essays that is so thematically cohesive without sacrificing variety, insight, or theoretical adventurousness."--Speculum

"...this collection engages the literary-material divide, but it does so with a broader interest in what constitutes the 'material' and greater attention to how those constructions are theoretically signifant. This informed, provocative collection will be valuable to those interested in medieval literary and cultural studies."--Choice

“Lydgate scholars are back in town. This stylish posse takes aim at the following: medieval London's wealthy oligarchies, its eateries, the sewage systems, the laundromats, trade unions, and the multimedia outlets. The action is brisk and invigorating, the aim startlingly accurate. Each sharpshooter in this this superb collection holds his or her own.”--James Simpson, Douglas P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English, Department of English and American Literature and Language, Harvard University

“If any volume proves that Lydgate matters to current scholarship, criticism, and teaching of medieval literature, it is this one. The editors have assembled a remarkable collection of distinguished senior and promising junior scholars. Taken together, they illuminate Lydgate's place in post-Chaucerian poetry, in the material culture of late medieval England, and in the broader arc of English literary history."--Seth Lerer, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Stanford University

“This volume has an admirable conversational quality to it, a sense that many of the essays are really engaged in a collective reading of Lydgate and cross-pollinate ideas with each other and a larger discourse. A solid contribution to the ongoing interest in Lydgate’s work.”—Ethan Knapp, Ohio State University

"Each contribution unfailingly furthers our understanding of Lydgate's verse and its place in early fifteenth-century English culture, and some of the essays do so extensively, supplying a generous and exemplary balance of erudition and critical insight. This collection has well earned a spot on the shelf next to the other impressive twenty-first century contributions to Lydgate studies."--The Medieval Review