Death and Purgatory in Middle English Didactic Poetry
Purgatory has been the focus of much literary and historical attention since Jacques Le Goff's important Naissance du Purgatoire(1981), but this is the first book-length study to trace its development, reception and influence in Middle English literature.Following a survey of the doctrine of Purgatory and its cultural reception, the book explores the two major Middle English genres in which it is discussed, visions of the afterlife, and didactic and homiletic treatises on death. In a detailed...
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The concept of Purgatory in Middle English didactic writings is explored through examination of visions of the afterlife, sermons, homiletic treatises, and lyrics.
List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsAbbreviationsIntroduction11The Doctrine of Purgatory and Late Medieval Attitudes Towards Death and the Afterlife52The Reception of Purgatory in Late Medieval Didactic Literature and Art34The twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin visions of Purgatory34The English visionary texts on Purgatory in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries60The discussion of Purgatory in Middle English didactic and homiletic treatises78The iconography of Purgatory in late medieval art94The didacticism of Middle English religious writings on death1083The Middle English Homiletic Poems on Death112The homiletic structure of the Middle English lyrics on death and their manuscript context112The body and soul dialogue in Middle English1324The Presence of Purgatory in the Middle English Religious Poems147References to Purgatory among the Middle English lyrics on death147Purgatory in British Library, MS Additional 37049151Purgatory in the poems of John Audelay1675Literature of Pragmatic Prudence Before Death174The medieval concept of prudence174Middle English aphoristic writings on prudence before death182The ars moriendi187The poems on the ages of man192The Vernon and Digby 102 poems206Ecclesiastes and the Vernon poems on death and transience217Conclusion234AppUnpublished Related Texts238Bibliography245Index272
