TY - BOOK AU - Gerald Morgan PY - 2017 CY - Oxford, United Kingdom PB - Peter Lang Verlag SN - 9781787076167 TI - The Shaping of English Poetry – Volume IV T2 - Essays on 'The Battle of Maldon', Chrétien de Troyes, Dante, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and Chaucer DO - 10.3726/b11799 UR - https://www.peterlang.com/document/1109850 N2 - This fourth volume of essays under the title The Shaping of English Poetry consolidates the work of the previous three volumes on the great subjects of English literature in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. The Norman Conquest of England built upon the rich foundation of Anglo-Saxon England but did not destroy it; thus the present volume begins with the commemoration of English heroism in The Battle of Maldon. In the late twelfth century we encounter in Chrétien de Troyes's seminal romance Le Chevalier de la Charrete a new kind of hero in Lancelot, abject and obedient before his mistress, although Chrétien himself is not an uncritical admirer of the sanctity of adulterous love. Hence the importance of Dante's exposition of love in Purgatorio, XVIII, which forms a background to the essays here on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Parliament of Fowls. The volume concludes with essays on Chaucer's Knight's, Monk's and Nun's Priest's Tales, which form part of a long-term project to interpret the Canterbury Tales as a unified whole and not merely a series of fragments awaiting revision on Chaucer's death. KW - The commemoration of an heroic sacrifice in 'The Battle of Maldon', the conflict of love and chivalry in Le Chevalier de la Charrete, an explanation of Purgatorio, XVIII.22-24, the goodness of Sir Gawain in 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', Nature and the bird-debate in 'The Parliament of Fowls', the campaigns of Chaucer's Knight, rhetoric in the Nun's Priest's Tale, the grand design of the Monk's Tale LA - English ER -