The English poet John Lydgate (ca. 1370-1449) ranks as one of the most prolific, versatile writers of the Middle Ages.Little is known of John Lydgate's life. He was a professed disciple of Geoffrey Ch...
Read more
When John Lydgate died in the middle of the fifteenth century, he had long been the most important and most sought-after poet of his time. Geoffrey Chaucer had died in 1400, John Gower in 1408, and th...
Read more
In the following essay, Bowers points out the various ideas and motifs that informed Dance of Death and discusses the work's significance in the medieval danse macabre tradition.
John Lydgat...
Read more
In the following essay, Miller maintains that previous critics have overlooked Lydgate's conscious literary artistry and notes in particular the design and control the poet shows in Lives of St...
Read more
In the following essay, Walsh provides an analysis of several of Lydgate's works to show that his use of recurrent tiger imagery marks a distinction between Christian and pagan heroes.
In hi...
Read more
In the following essay, Wilson argues that Lydgate modified the theme and organization of his courtly love poem Temple of Glas, injecting it with more realism, to suit the tastes of his middle-class a...
Read more
In the following essay, Ebin argues that Lydgate developed a new critical language to describe his craft, that his view of poetry differs substantially from that of his English predecessors, and that ...
Read more
In the following essay, Dwyer discusses the unusual features of Lydgate's version of the legend of King Arthur, particularly his raising of the hero to the stars (“stellification”...
Read more
In the following essay, Spearing examines the nature of Lydgate's attitude towards and indebtedness to his great contemporary Geoffrey Chaucer in The Siege of Thebes and goes on to identify the...
Read more
In the following essay, Pearsall argues that while Lydgate had a conventional attitude, he was a poetic innovator. Pearsall contends that Lydgate asserted the status of English as a competent literary...
Read more
In the following essay, Straker argues that previous critics have overlooked two of Lydgate's references to himself in The Siege of Thebes that reveal his attitude toward Chaucer and his own wo...
Read more
In the following essay, Renoir claims that Lydgate uses the image of a binding knot to express permanence of union, and argues further that this metaphor is used to serve different purposes in The Tem...
Read more
In the following essay, Ayers argues that morality is at the heart of Lydgate's purpose in Siege of Thebes.
Lydgate's Siege of Thebes is presented within the framing fiction of a supp...
Read more
In the following essay, Renoir discusses the varied representation of women in Lydgate's works, which the critic maintains is influenced by the fact that the poet was a monk writing for courtly...
Read more
In the following essay, Norton-Smith disagrees with the critic Alain Renoir that the image of the binding knot simply expresses permanence of union but claims rather that it also suggests, among other...
Read more
In first essay that follows, Schirmer discusses several of Lydgate's early works, noting the poet's significance within the English language and examining his place in the tradition of C...
Read more
In the following essay, Lauritis claims that The Life of Our Lady is a poem less literary than “bardic,” as much of it has the ring of improvised speech rather than composed lyric.
Af...
Read more
In the following essay, Edwards contends that Lydgate was not an anti-feminist, as suggested by the critic Alain Renoir, and says that some of the attitudes in his work reflect the views of his audien...
Read more
In the following essay, Pearsall provides a critical overview of Lydgate's work and reputation and examines how one might answer the charges of dullness and prolixity that have been levelled at...
Read more
John Lydgate
John Lydgate
Critical Essay by R. H. Bowers
