Description: English literary culture in the fourteenth century was vibrant and expanding. Its focus, however, was still strongly local, not national. This study examines in detail the literary production from the capital before, during, and after the time of the Black Death. In this major contribution to the field, Ralph Hanna charts the development and the generic and linguistic features particular to London writing. He uncovers the interactions between texts and authors across a range of languages and genres: not just Middle English, but Anglo-Norman and Latin; not just romance, but also law, history, and biblical commentary. Hanna emphasises the uneasy boundaries legal thought and discourse shared with historical and 'romance' thinking, and shows how the technique of romance, Latin writing associated with administrative culture, and biblical interests underwrote the great pre-Chaucerian London poem, William Langland's Piers Plowman.
Brief description: Ralph Hanna is Professor of Palaeography at the University of Oxford.
Review Quotes: "Hanna posits a myriad of localized literatures, certainly capable of interplay with one another, but primarily responsive to local conditions, pressures and requirements. Any reader with even a passing interest in fourteenth century English writings is likely to find much of value here."
-Ben Parsons, University of Sheffield, Sixteenth Century Journal