Since its founding in 1943, Medievalia et Humanistica has won worldwide recognition as the first scholarly publication in America to devote itself entirely to medieval and Renaissance studies. Since 1970, a new series, sponsored by the Modern Language Association of America and edited by an international board of distinguished scholars and critics, has published interdisciplinary articles. In yearly hardbound volumes, the new series publishes significant scholarship, criticism, and reviews treating all facets of medieval and Renaissance culture: history, art, literature, music, science, law, economics, and philosophy. Volume thirty-one in the new series contains six original and refereed articles that represent a reengagement with history. They focus on a variety of topics, ranging from reception theory in Andreas Capellanus and the ideal sovereign in Christine de Pizan to peasant rebel leaders in late-medieval and early-modern Europe. Don Monson's article makes good usage of Jauss's reception theory and analyzes the third Dialogue of Book I, Chapter 6 of De Amore in a thorough and intelligent way. Important aspects of the relationship between "scientific" Latin treaties and Proven al courtly poetry are neatly demonstrated. Karen Gross examines structural and thematic resemblances between the Aeneid and De Casibus, arguing that Anchises' "pageant of future Roman worthies" (Aen. VI) is connected to the frame structure of De casibus. The author is interested in "global similarities, not local verbal echoes," and believes that the "structure resonances" have implications for "how Boccaccio understood the interaction between history and poetry, between the living and the dead." Especially thought-provoking and original are the discussion of the motif of father/son piety and commemoration and the contrast of Virgil's fortuna in Roman history and Boccaccio's in world history. Daisy Delogu's article on Christine de Pizan is a timely one, and also represents reengagement with history th

Arguably the single most influential literary work of the European Middle Ages, the Roman de la Rose of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun has traditionally posed a number of difficulties to modern critics, who have viewed its many interruptions and philosophical discussions as signs of a lack of formal organization and a characteristically medieval predilection for encyclopedic summation. In Fortune's Faces, Daniel Heller-Roazen calls into question these assessments, offering a new and compelling interpretation of the romance as a carefully constructed and far-reaching exploration of the place of fortune, chance, and contingency in literary writing. Situating the Romance of the Rose at the intersection of medieval literature and philosophy, Heller-Roazen shows how the thirteenth-century work invokes and radicalizes two classical and medieval traditions of reflection on language and contingency: that of the Provençal, French, and Italian love poets, who sought to compose their "verses of pure nothing"in a language Dante defined as "without grammar," and that of Aristotle's discussion of "future contingents" as it was received and refined in the logic, physics, theology, and epistemology of Boethius, Abelard, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas.Through a close analysis of the poetic text and a detailed reconstruction of the logical and metaphysical concept of contingency, Fortune's Faces charts the transformations that literary structures (such as subjectivity, autobiography, prosopopoeia, allegory, and self-reference) undergo in a work that defines itself as radically contingent. Considered in its full poetic and philosophical dimensions, the Romance of the Rose thus acquires an altogether new significance in the history of literature: it appears as a work that incessantly explores its own capacity to be other than it is.

In The Marquis d’Argens: A Philosophical Life Julia Gasper analyzes the life and works of an influential Enlightenment writer and philosopher. The facts of d’Argens’ life as well as his works have been a source of controversy due to the many rumors and anonymous publications erroneously linked to him. Through meticulous research, Gasper provides the only comprehensive list of d’Argens’ works and separates the realities of his life from the myths that have built up around him. Accused of being a libertine or an unoriginal mimic of greater minds, d’Argens has too often been dismissed as an unimportant figure. Gasper defends this much maligned philosopher and reveals how imaginative and influential he truly was.

First, complete, integrated corpus of this major Elizabethan writer and first critical edition of his collected works in over one hundred years, with major new discoveries of authorship and attribution.Thomas Kyd (1558-94) is best known as author of The Spanish Tragedy, the first revenge play, hugely influential on Shakespeare and other dramatists. He also wrote another love tragedy, Soliman and Perseda, and Cornelia, a classical tragedy translated from the French. This is a small canon for a dramatist described as "industrious". Kyd worked between 1585 and 1594, when the instability in the London theatre caused by the plague led to companies breaking up and plays being published anonymously. For over a century scholars have been searching for Kyd plays, the most frequently attributed being Arden of Faversham. Uniting accepted methods with modern electronic data processing, Brian Vickers has endorsed Kyd''s authorship of Arden and added two other plays: King Leir, Shakespeare''s main source, and Fair Em, a comedy - justifying Jonson''s reference to "sporting Kyd". His research has also identified Kyd as co-author with Nashe of ''harey the vi'', which became 1 Henry VI after Shakespeare adapted it to his "Wars of the Roses" sequence. The evidence suggests that Kyd and Shakespeare co-authored Edward III. The Collected Works of Thomas Kyd brings together for the first time his dramas, poetry, translations, and letters in accurate modernized editions, each text edited by one of a team of internationally renowned scholars, accompanied by commentaries, collation notes, and introductions. Kyd emerges as a pioneering playwright of much greater generic range than has been hitherto recognized. His newly defined canon will stimulate a fresh evaluation of English drama in this crucial period.medy - justifying Jonson''s reference to "sporting Kyd". His research has also identified Kyd as co-author with Nashe of ''harey the vi'', which became 1 Henry VI after Shakespeare adapted it to his "Wars of the Roses" sequence. The evidence suggests that Kyd and Shakespeare co-authored Edward III. The Collected Works of Thomas Kyd brings together for the first time his dramas, poetry, translations, and letters in accurate modernized editions, each text edited by one of a team of internationally renowned scholars, accompanied by commentaries, collation notes, and introductions. Kyd emerges as a pioneering playwright of much greater generic range than has been hitherto recognized. His newly defined canon will stimulate a fresh evaluation of English drama in this crucial period.medy - justifying Jonson''s reference to "sporting Kyd". His research has also identified Kyd as co-author with Nashe of ''harey the vi'', which became 1 Henry VI after Shakespeare adapted it to his "Wars of the Roses" sequence. The evidence suggests that Kyd and Shakespeare co-authored Edward III. The Collected Works of Thomas Kyd brings together for the first time his dramas, poetry, translations, and letters in accurate modernized editions, each text edited by one of a team of internationally renowned scholars, accompanied by commentaries, collation notes, and introductions. Kyd emerges as a pioneering playwright of much greater generic range than has been hitherto recognized. His newly defined canon will stimulate a fresh evaluation of English drama in this crucial period.medy - justifying Jonson''s reference to "sporting Kyd". His research has also identified Kyd as co-author with Nashe of ''harey the vi'', which became 1 Henry VI after Shakespeare adapted it to his "Wars of the Roses" sequence. The evidence suggests that Kyd and Shakespeare co-authored Edward III. The Collected Works of Thomas Kyd brings together for the first time his dramas, poetry, translations, and letters in accurate modernized editions, each text edited by one of a team of internationally renowned scholars, accompanied by commentaries, collation notes, and introductions. Kyd emerges as a pioneering playwright of much greater generic range than has been hitherto recognized. His newly defined canon will stimulate a fresh evaluation of English drama in this crucial period.suggests that Kyd and Shakespeare co-authored Edward III. The Collected Works of Thomas Kyd brings together for the first time his dramas, poetry, translations, and letters in accurate modernized editions, each text edited by one of a team of internationally renowned scholars, accompanied by commentaries, collation notes, and introductions. Kyd emerges as a pioneering playwright of much greater generic range than has been hitherto recognized. His newly defined canon will stimulate a fresh evaluation of English drama in this crucial period.