Title Matter and making in early English poetry : literary production from Chaucer to Sidney / Taylor Cowdery

Published Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2023 ©2023

Click on the following:
Cambridge Core
ProQuest Ebook Central

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xi, 324 pages) Series Cambridge studies in medieval literature ; 121 Cambridge studies in medieval literature ; 121. Contents Words and deeds in Chaucer -- Gower and the crying voice -- Hoccleve and the force of literature -- Lydgate and the surplus of history -- Copy and copia in Skelton -- Wyatt's grace Summary "What is literature made from? During the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, this question preoccupied the English court poets, who often claimed that their poems were not original creations, but adaptations of pre-existing materials. Their word for these materials was 'matter,' while the term they used to describe their labor was 'making,' or the act of reworking this matter into a new -- but not entirely new -- form. By tracing these ideas through the work of six major early poets, this book offers a revisionist literary history of late- medieval and early modern court poetry. It reconstructs premodern theories of making and contrasts them with more modern theories of literary labor, such as 'authorship.' It studies the textual, historical, and philosophical sources that the court tradition used for its matter. Most of all, it demonstrates that the early English court poets drew attention to their source materials as a literary tactic, one that stressed the process by which a poem had been made"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Taylor Cowdery is Assistant Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Print version record Subject English poetry -- Middle English, 1100-1500 -- History and criticism English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism Literature and society -- England -- History -- To 1500 Literature and society -- England -- History -- 16th century English poetry -- Early modern English poetry -- Middle English Literature and society England Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Literary criticism Literary criticism. Critiques littéraires. Form Electronic book ISBN 9781009223768 1009223763 9781009223775 1009223771

  Permalink