'Litle herd gromes piping in the wind': The Shepheardes Calender, The House of Fame, and 'La Compleynt'
May 2019
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Chapter
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Rereading Chaucer and Spenser : Dan Geffrey with the New Poete
By reading one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages alongside one of the greatest poets of the English Renaissance, this collection poses questions about poetic authority, influence, and the nature of intertextual relations in a more ...
Stories of the new geography: The Refugee Tales
March 2019
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Journal article
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Journal of Medieval Worlds
The Refugee Tales project holds a distinctive place amongst 20th and 21st century responses to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The project comprises collections of tales published in textual editions alongside a politically embodied campaign to call an end to the practice of indefinite detention of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. The tales that are told take the form of an established writer giving voice to those that are caught up in this inhuman process. Some of the oral narratives come from refugees, some from care-workers and supporters, and some from from those caught up in the institutional processes of bureaucracy. These tales are heard and rehearsed on an annual walk that appropriates the pilgrimage route to a new geography that contests political space and its confinements. The project as a whole captures the spirit and purpose of Chaucer’s work. While engagement with textual detail is intermittent, but probing where it appears, this body of work, as Chaucer’s did, gives voice to those whose voices are unheard. The Refugee Tales pick up on how Chaucer integrated a narrative about England into an international geography—though with a difference. While Chaucer sets his stories chiefly outside the shores of England for literary purposes, The Refugee Tales appropriate the space of England to create a borderless nation that is hospitable to persons from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and in fact a whole international diaspora of nations whose people have become displaced. The Refugee Tales takes its inspiration from Chaucer not to produce a quaint exercise in medievalism or to update his work as a solely intellectual exercise. This project engages minds, body, creativity and political will. International in its remit, it frees the Father of English poetry to kick over the traces of borders that would separate nation from nation, children from parents, and human beings from each other. The Refugee Tales digs deep into the spirit of the medieval past to face up to a pressing and urgent global challenge.
refugees, medievalism, Chaucer, asylum-seekers
Queer Blood
January 2018
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Chapter
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Blood Matters: Studies in European Literature and Thought, 1400-1700
Leicester
January 2016
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Chapter
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Europe: A Literary History. 1348-1418
Transporting Chaucer
November 2014
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Book
This is not the first tale that Chaucer as pilgrim delivers. His first tale is Sir Thopas. Critical discussion has argued back and forth as to why Chaucer was placed next to Melibee rather than Thopas. The dominant answer to this apparent truancy...
Literary Criticism
Major Episodes and moments in Piers Plowman B
February 2014
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Companion to Piers Plowman
A comprehensive study of the fascinating medieval poem Piers Plowman, consolidating the most enduring work with groundbreaking new research.
Literary Criticism
Wycliffite Controversies
January 2012
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Book
'Wrinkled deep in time': Emily and Arcite in A Midsummer Night's Dream
January 2012
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Journal article
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Shakespeare Survey
The Place of the Poor in the Piers Plowman Tradition
January 2011
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Chapter
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From Beowulf to Caxton
Religious practices in The Prioresse's Tale: Rabbit and/or Duck
January 2010
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Journal article
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Studies in the Age of Chaucer
Contemporary Events
January 2009
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Chapter
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A Concise Companion to Middle English 1100-1500
The Digby Poems: A Critical Edition of the Lyrics
January 2009
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Scholarly edition
The Digby Poems: A Critical Edition of the Lyrics
January 2009
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Book
With this new edition, Helen Barr includes, for the first time, a full critical apparatus, a substantial introduction, and annotation to each of the twenty-four poems in the Digby manuscript.
Poetry
The Pearl Poet
January 2009
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Chapter
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The Companion to the Bible
The Two Gentlemen of Verona,’ ’The Tempest,’ and ’Enduring Shakespeare’