First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The first interdisciplinary enquiry into a key figure in medieval and early modern culture. Guy of Warwick is England's other Arthur. Elevated to the status of national hero, his legend occupied a central place in the nation's cultural heritage from the Middle Ages to the modern period. Guy of Warwick: Icon and Ancestor spans the Guy tradition from its beginnings in Anglo-Norman and Middle English romance right through to the plays and prints of the early modern period and Spenser's Faerie Queene, including the visual tradition in manuscript illustration and material culture as well as the intersection of the legend with local and national history. This volume addresses important questions regarding the continuities and remaking of romance material, and therelation between life and literature. Topics discussed are sensitive to current critical concerns and include translation, reception, magnate ambition, East-West relations, the construction of "Englishness" and national identity, and the literary value of "popular" romance. ALISON WIGGINS is Lecturer in English Language at the University of Glasgow; ROSALIND FIELD is Reader in Medieval Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. Note on ebook images: Due to limited rights we are unable to make all images in this book available in the ebook version. If you'd like to purchase the ebook regardless, please email us on [email protected] to obtain a PDF of the images. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. CONTRIBUTORS: JUDITH WEISS, MARIANNE AILES, IVANA DJORDJEVIC, ROSALIND FIELD, ALISON WIGGINS, A.S.G. EDWARDS, ROBERT ALLEN ROUSE, DAVID GRIFFITH, MARTHA W. DRIVER, SIAN ECHARD, ANDREW KING, HELEN COOPER

First published in 1996. This lavishly illustrated study is a comprehensive literary and social history which offers a record of changing genres, manuscript/book production, and cultural, political, and religious emphases by examining one of the most long lived popular legends in England. Guy of Warwick became part of history when he was named in chronicles and heraldic rolls. The power of the Earls of Warwick, especially Richard de Beauchamp, inspired the spread of the legend, but Guy's highest fame came in the Renaissance as one of the Nine Worthies. Widely praised in texts and allusions, Guy's feats were sung in ballads and celebrated on the stage in England and France. The first Anglo-Norman romance of Gui de Warewic, a Saxon hero of the tenth century was written in the early 13th century; the latest retellings of the legend are contemporary. Examples of Guy's legend can be found in two English translations that survived the Middle Ages, a new French prose romance, a didactic tale in the Gesta Romanorum, and late medieval versions in Celtic, German, and Catalan, as well as English. Guy remained a favorite Edwardian children's story and was featured in the Warwick Pageant, an historical extravaganza of 1906. The patriotism of World War II sparked a resurgence of interest that produced several new versions, mostly folkloric.

The legend of William Tell takes on new meaning in this wonderful retelling by master storyteller H. E. Marshall. William Tell is the folk hero of Switzerland whose exploits were first recorded in a fifteenth-century Swiss chronicle.Set in the time of the first Swiss Confederacy, Tell's story runs alongside that of the struggle for independence waged against the Holy Roman Empire by the Alpine nation.According to the legend, Gessler, a newly-appointed Austrian ruler of two local regions, caused his hat to be placed on a raised a pole in the central square of a village, and ordered that all the townsfolk bow before it. When Tell refused to bow to the hat, Gessler ordered Tell's son to be seized. The tyrannical ruler then demanded that Tell shoot an apple off his son's head or both of them would be executed. Tell took the shot, and succeeded... From there, numerous incidents took place which led to the assassination of Gessler, an act that sparked the Swiss rebellion. There is no real evidence that William Tell actually existed or that the events recounted in the legend really took place. Marshall addresses it this way in her introduction:"Yet some people say that William Tell never lived. Let them visit the R�tli, Tell's Platte, the Hollow Way, and let them ask themselves whether Tell lives in the hearts of his countrymen or not."ContentsChapter I: How Gessler and Landenberg Came to Rule in SwitzerlandChapter II: The Story of Arnold of MelchthalChapter III: The Story of Gessler and StauffacherChapter IV: How the Cap of Austria Was Set UpChapter V: The Meeting of the Three PatriotsChapter VI: The Gathering on the R�tliChapter VII: William Tell and His Great ShotChapter VIII: The Escape of William TellChapter IX: Tell's Second ShotChapter X: How Castle Rossberg Was TakenChapter XI: How Castle Sarnen Was TakenChapter XII: How the Emperor Albrecht Met His DeathChapter XIII: The Battle of Morgarten

Takes the reader into the world of ghosts and spirits in Warwickshire, following their footsteps into the unknown.

For the first time, music legend and humanitarian activist Dionne Warwick reflects on 50 years in showbusiness and the lessons she has learned from being an artist, a mother and a global icon. From her rise to superstardom to raising millions of dollars for AIDS research, she gives readers a glimpse into her dazzling, inspiring life. 'If you think you can do it, you can do it' was the advice she got from her grandfather as a young girl - words she has never forgotten. Like her music and humanitarian work, her story is guaranteed to give hope and inspiration to people across the world.

The study of medieval literature has experienced a revolution in the last two decades, which has reinvigorated many parts of the discipline and changed the shape of the subject in relation to the scholarship of the previous generation. 'New' texts (laws and penitentials, women's writing, drama records), innovative fields and objects of study (the history of the book, the study of space and the body, medieval masculinities), and original ways of studying them (the Sociology of the Text, performance studies) have emerged. This has brought fresh vigour and impetus to medieval studies, and impacted significantly on cognate periods and areas. The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English brings together the insights of these new fields and approaches with those of more familiar texts and methods of study, to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of medieval literature today. It also returns to first principles in posing fundamental questions about the nature, scope, and significance of the discipline, and the directions that it might take in the next decade. The Handbook contains 44 newly commissioned essays from both world-leading scholars and exciting new scholarly voices. Topics covered range from the canonical genres of Saints' lives, sermons, romance, lyric poetry, and heroic poetry; major themes including monstrosity and marginality, patronage and literary politics, manuscript studies and vernacularity are investigated; and there are close readings of key texts, such as Beowulf, Wulf and Eadwacer, and Ancrene Wisse and key authors from Ælfric to Geoffrey Chaucer, Langland, and the Gawain Poet.