Charles d'Orléans' English Aesthetic

The Form, Poetics, and Style of Fortunes Stabilnes

Mary-Jo Arn editor R D Perry editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published:18th Sep '20

Should be back in stock very soon

Charles d'Orléans' English Aesthetic cover

New investigations into Charles d'Orléans' under-rated poem, its properties and its qualities. The compilation Fortunes Stabilnes, the English poetry Charles d'Orléans wrote in the course of his twenty-five year captivity in England after Agincourt, requires a larger lens than that of Chaucerianism, through which it has most often been viewed. A fresh view from another perspective, one that attends to form and style, as well as to the poet's French traditions, reveals a more conceptually complex and innovative kind of poetry than we have seen until now. The essays collected here reassess him in the light of recent work in Middle English studies. They detail those qualities that make his text one of the most accomplished and moving of the late Middle Ages: Charles's use of English, his metrical play, his felicity with formes fixes lyrics, his innovative use of the dits structure and lyric sequences, and finally, above all, his ability to write beautiful poetry. Overall, they bring out the underappreciated contribution made by Charles to the canon of English poetry.

[T]his is an excellent and very timely contribution to research and scholarship on Charles, which will hopefully form the groundwork for a renewed appreciation and deeper understanding of his unique and exciting English-­language work. * STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER *
Charles d'Orléans' English Aesthetic enjoyably and usefully advances our knowledge. The book offers new findings and new arguments; [...] the editors and chapter authors should pat themselves on their backs. -- THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW (TMR)

ISBN: 9781843845676

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 634g

307 pages