This dictionary assembles 2,234 English proverbs and their French equivalents. Equivalent proverbs are those which express the same concept literally, such as “Love is blind” = “L’amour est aveugle” or with completely different words, such as “Every cloud has a silver lining” = “Dans toute chose il y a un bon côté.” The Dictionary is a very useful reference tool for scholars of the two languages, for researchers working in various associated fields such as linguistics, literature, folklore, anthropology, psychology, sociology, history, and for workers in newer areas such as advertising and contemporary media. The Dictionary is also of interest to diplomats and politicians who try to improve their communication by sharing ideas formulated in some common meaningful expressions; it will assist interpreters and translators, and teachers and students for whom it is important to understand not only what the target culture expresses in the same way as their own, but also what is formulated in a different way. The Dictionary is also of benefit to non-professionals who, for the sheer enjoyment of it, wish to savour the wisdom, wit, poetry and the colourful language of proverbs.

This edition presents all of the surviving manuscripts, together with textual apparatus and commentary. The poem is also presented in parallel with its principal source, Boccaccio's "Filostrato", enabling the reader to compare the two poems in charting the evolution and achievement of Chaucer's "Troilus". This edition has been revised and corrected in order to make the text fully accessible to the reader unfamiliar with Chaucer's work. An introduction discusses the text, metre and sources of "Troilus" and assesses the literary importance of Chaucer's translation method.

This edition contains four Middle English Charlemagne romances from the Otuel cycle: Roland and Vernagu, Otuel a Knight, Otuel and Roland, and Duke Roland and Sir Otuel of Spain. A translation of the romances' source, the Anglo-French Otinel, is also included. The romances center on conflicts between Frankish Christians and various Saracen groups, and deal with issues of racial and religious difference, conversion, and faith-based violence.

This volume joins new editions of both texts of John Lydgate's The Dance of Death, related Middle English verse, and a new translation of Lydgate's French source, the Danse macabre. Together these poems showcase the power of the danse macabre motif, offering a window into life and death in late medieval Europe. In vivid, often grotesque, and darkly humorous terms, these poems ponder life's fundamental paradox: while we know that we all must die, we cannot imagine our own death.

The allegorical dream-vision poem, La Voie de Povreté et de Richesse, has been known mainly from its incorporation in Le Mesnagier de Paris (1392-94), an anonymous compilation of advice on good living and household management. Composed as an individual work by Jacques Bruyant, probably about fifty years earlier, the poem has now been edited on the basis of the text in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 1563, fols 203r-221r. It is a first-person account of the dream of a newly-wed husband, who worries about the financial consequences of marriage and the threat of poverty. In long didactic monologues, allegorical figures (Raison, Entendement, and Barat) address the protagonist. He receives the choice of two pathways, one leading to Poverty, the other to Riches. He chooses the path of Diligence, paved with Perseverance, and reaches the château de Labour, for the solution to his problem lies in working to gain sufficiency. In 2634 verses, Jacques Bruyant combined the protagonist’s dream and return home to his credulous wife, with allegorical didactic discourse, and description of work experience. Common sayings and stock pieces, such as an account of the Seven Deadly Sins, are included. Pierre Gringore’s Le Chasteau de Labour, first printed in Paris in 1499, is an adaptation of the poem, marking continued interest in the subject in the fifteenth century.