The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry Before 1600

by rushing into battle, like the “fooles” described in the second stanza. The fi nal COUPLET of each stanza forms a REFRAIN of t ...

C D 287 NASHE, THOMAS (1561–ca. 1601) Thomas Nashe was born in Lowestoft in 1561. He attended St. John’s College, Cambridge, gra ...

takes in trust / Our youth, our joys, and all we have” (ll. 31–32). The conclusion is seemingly inevitable as Time, “When we hav ...

feel sorry for Sidney: “O Philomela fair, O take some gladness, / That here is juster cause of plaintful sad- ness” (ll. 9–10). ...

October 14, 1066, at the Battle of Hastings. William’s coronation as William I, king of England, on Decem- ber 25, 1066, fi rmly ...

close of the day, the lyric conjures images of nature, but also pity for Mary, the sorrowing mother. “Now Goth Sonne Under Wod” ...

The fox foolishly does so, and the nimble rooster escapes. The fox and cock then exchange morals: “beware of fl attery” and “hol ...

quintessentially Chaucerian nature of his tale that makes the Nun’s Priest capable of bearing such close comparison to the fi gu ...

guise of the simple life of shepherds. Heninger and others observe that even Marlowe’s poem betrays ambivalence, with sophistica ...

C D 295 “OCEAN TO CYNTHIA, THE” See RALEIGH, SIR WALTER. OCTAVE (OCTET) In English, an octave (also called an octet) consists of ...

the greedy mismanagement of resources by the wealthy. One such abuse is the unnecessary accumulation of land. In “Of Unsaciable ...

Mag Fhearaigh, Críostóir, and Tim Stampton. Ogham. Indreabhán, Ireland: Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1996. Mark DiCicco and Michelle M. S ...

Old English is a typical West Germanic language. Nouns and adjectives have three numbers, although dual and plural are only dist ...

Duncan, Thomas G., ed. A Companion to the Middle English Lyric. Woodbridge, Suffolk, U.K.: D. S. Brewer, 2005. Woolf, Rosemary. ...

TALE,” and “The WIFE OF BATH’S TALE.” Claims have also been made for a link between Áns saga bogsveigis, a fornaldarsögur Norøur ...

woman with the needs of any woman, or man, for that matter. Having made the offer, the nun then closes the poem by referring bac ...

Writing: The Poetry of Henry VIII, Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, and James VI/I, edited by Peter C. Herman, 135–153. Tempe: Arizona ...

though they never probe very deeply. It is possible that the poem is an allegory in which the Owl represents the contemplative l ...

C D 304 PAEAN In English literature, a paean is a formal song of joy, praise, or triumph. The tradition derives from the ancient ...

words. The cat traps mice in its “net” or paws; the scholar “nets” abstruse argument—another zeugma. The catching of mice counte ...