Book Description

From the Preface: THIS edition of Lydgate's Assembly of Gods serves a double purpose. It is, first, a study in literature conducted at The University of Chicago, a part of the work having been first offered in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy; it is, second, a study of an English text undertaken for the Early English Text Society of London. The two institutions are associated in the publication. The critical and linguistic parts of the work and the notes are as accurate and comprehensive as I am able to make them with the materials at hand. The hardihood of venturing to work upon ancient and foreign matters in a land that has no past at its back, that neither possesses antiquarian materials nor engenders antiquarian enthusiasms, will be appreciated by those who, like myself, have made the endeavor without what one may call a traditional training for the event. The literary discussion of the Introduction maintains the general interest that any work of literature is wont to arouse. This portion represents the reaction which the poem made upon my mind with its own knowledge of mediaeval life and art. While this part is necessarily somewhat pedantic I have tried to maintain my natural interest in literature as an exponent of life, as the expression of the imagination. The study of Allegory is a selection and condensation of materials that I have gathered for an extended history of Allegory. Everyone who works in Lydgate will find himself indebted at every turn to the investigations of Dr. Schick, now of Heidelberg, who edited the Temple of Glas—indebted not only for matters of fact but also for judgments of critical and literary insight. Workers in the same field will bear witness to the value of the edition of Lydgate and Burgh's Secrees of Old Philisoffres by Mr. Robert Steele, of London. For the facts relating to Lydgate's life and works, reference may be made to the very accurate and complete article on Lydgate by Mr. Sidney Lee in the Dictionary of National Biography.