The Court of Richard II and Bohemian Culture
Title Details

243 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

39 colour, 2 b/w, 1 line illus.

Imprint: D.S.Brewer

The Court of Richard II and Bohemian Culture

Literature and Art in the Age of Chaucer and the Gawain Poet

by Alfred Thomas

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First detailed exploration of the role played by Bohemian tradition and customs in the court of Richard II.

Bohemian culture exercised an important influence on the court of King Richard II, but it has been somewhat overlooked, with previous scholarship on its writers and artists generally confined to the role played by the French courtof King Charles V and the Italian city states of Milan and Florence. This book aims to fill that gap. It argues that Richard's marriage to Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, one of the greatest rulersand patrons of the age, exposed England to the full extent of this international court culture. Ricardian writers, including Chaucer, Gower and the Gawain-poet, wrote in their native language not because they felt "English" in the modern national sense but because they aspired to be part of a burgeoning vernacular European culture stretching from Paris to Prague and from Brabant to Brandenburg; thus, one of the major periods of English literature can only be properly understood in relation to this larger European context.
Richard II and the Luxembourg Court
The Familiar Patron: Collaboration and Conflict in Chaucer and Late Medieval European Courtly Writing
Scandals at Court: Pride and Penitence in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Alliterative Morte Arthur
Pearl in its Setting: Piety and Politics at the Luxembourg and Ricardian Courts
Conclusion: The End of the Ricardian Court Culture
Bibliography

ALFRED THOMAS is Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"Continuing his two-decades-long exploration of medieval and early modern Anglo-Bohemian relations, Thomas, in his latest study, convincingly demonstrates the significant cultural and political ramifications of King Richard II;s marriage to Anne of Bohemia in 1382." Nathanial B. Smith, Renaissance Quarterly

Hardcover

9781843845669

June 2020

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Ebook (EPDF)

9781787449190

June 2020

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Title Details

243 Pages

2.34 x 1.56 cm

39 colour, 2 b/w, 1 line illus.

Imprint: D.S.Brewer