If a reader of Chaucer suspects that an echo of a biblical verse may somehow depend for its meaning on traditional commentary on that verse, how does he or she go about finding the relevant commentaries? If one finds the word 'fire' in a context that suggests resonances beyond the literal, how does that reader go about learning what the traditional figurative meanings of fire were? It was to the solution of such difficulties that R.E. Kaske addressed himself in this volume setting out and analyzing the major repositories of traditional material: biblical exegesis, the liturgy, hymns and sequences, sermons and homilies, the pictorial arts, mythography, commentaries on individual authors, and a number of miscellaneous themes. An appendix deals with medieval encyclopedias. Kaske created a tool that will revolutionize research in its designated field: the discovery and interpretation of the traditional meanings reflected in medieval Christian imagery.

Ethan Campbell argues that a central feature of the Gawain-poet's Middle English works' moral rhetoric is anticlerical critique. Written in an era when clerical corruption was a key concern for polemicists such as Richard FitzRalph and John Wyclif, as well as satirical poets such as John Gower, William Langland, and Geoffrey Chaucer, the Gawain poems feature an explicit attack on hypocritical priests in the opening lines of Cleanness as well as more subtle critiques embedded within depictions of flawed priest-like characters.

A new history of the origins of the English Bible, revealing the complex continuities between Latin commentaries and English translations.

Edited by poet and scholar Ryan Dobran, this volume of correspondence between the American poet Charles Olson (1910–1970) and the English poet J. H. Prynne (b. 1936) sheds light on a little-known but incredibly influential aspect of twentieth-century transatlantic literary culture. Never before published, the letters capture their shared passion for knowledge as well as their distinct writing styles. Written between 1961 and Olson’s death in 1970, the letters display the mutual admiration and intimacy that developed between the two poets after Prynne initiated their exchange when pursuing work for the literary magazine Prospect. This work illustrates how Olson and Prynne influenced each other, and it represents an important step toward understanding their contributions to poetics on both sides of the Atlantic.

This study examines expectations of imminent judgment that energized reform movements in Late Medieval and Reformation Europe. It probes the apocalyptic vision of the Lollards, followers of the Oxford professor John Wycliff (1384). The Lollards repudiated the medieval church and established conventicles despite officially sanctioned prosecution. While exploring the full spectrum of late medieval apocalypticism, this work focuses on the diverse range of Wycliffite literature, political and religious treatises, sermons, biblical commentaries, including trial records, to reveal a dynamic strain of apocalyptic discourse. It shows that sixteenth-century English apocalypticism was fed by vibrant, indigenous Wycliffite well springs. The rhetoric of Lollard apocalypticism is analyzed and its effect on carriers and audiences is investigated, illuminating the rise of evil in church and society as perceived by the Lollards and their radical reform program.