Ethan Knapp, The Bureaucratic Muse

Knapp argues that bureaucratic identity and scribal labor in the fifteenth century contributed to the literature and overall vernacular landscape. He uses Thomas Hoccleve’s writing, particularly the Series and the Regiment of Princes, to make this argument. Hoccleve is not merely a “genetic” descendent of Chaucer, as he has been treated in the past, but… Continue reading Ethan Knapp, The Bureaucratic Muse

Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip

In her book Feminist, Queer, Crip, Alison Kafer looks to develop a way of talking about disability that recognizes its status as a political identity, and that also imagines a future for disabled people. Attitudes towards disability link the present with the future: “one’s assumptions about the experience of disability create one’s conception of a… Continue reading Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip

Lisa H. Cooper, “Agronomy and Affect in Duke Humphrey’s On Husbondrie”

I am really excited about this article, because it brings together several things I want to write about more: labor, ecological/material viewpoints on literature, and affect. This essay’s project is to examine the poetics of this commissioned manual, “On Husbondrie”, and how its translation into Middle English from Latin affected its affect (ha). Cooper argues… Continue reading Lisa H. Cooper, “Agronomy and Affect in Duke Humphrey’s On Husbondrie”

Lydgate, “The Fifteen Joys and Sorrows of Mary”

This poem appears in a volume titled “The Minor Poems of John Lydgate”, and it is indeed minor (about 12 pages). I know next to nothing about Lydgate, but learned that he was a prodigious poet and friends with Chaucer’s son, Thomas. I’m reading Book of the Duchess in a few months and think I… Continue reading Lydgate, “The Fifteen Joys and Sorrows of Mary”