Papers by Diane Facinelli
Quidditas, 1989
Arizo na Hum a nitie ouncil The merit of the Middle English alliterative poem Richard the R edele... more Arizo na Hum a nitie ouncil The merit of the Middle English alliterative poem Richard the R edeless and Mum and the othsegger can be judged accurately only if they are approached as individual compo iti ns. Ever since the Early English Text ociety published the label Da and Robert teele edition of Mum and the oth egger in 1936, most schola r have uncritically accepted the ingle-poem theory the e editor posited, regard less of how this adveJ"Se ly affected their analy e of the work. ' The argument for regarding Richa,•d and Mum as fragments of one comp ition, begun in 1399 and fini hed sometime between 1403 and 1406, is, however, far less conclusive than the evide nce agains t thi theory.• Indeed, the compulsion to regard these distinct po m a one actually impedes the process of assess ing their pos ible contribution to Middle English literature, especiall the contribution of the more arti ticall y sophisti ated Mum.]. P. Oakden' admonition over fifty years ago that the e poems merited mor h lar hip than yet had been awarded them remains true today.' One step toward remedying this •ituation i to examine Richard and Mum a eparate omposition by the same author. Examinations of the use of Piers Plowman, dialect, meter, and vocabular poim to the poems' composition b y the ame author:' The, ork a l o hare the common goal of advi ing a king, and the poet's fundamental theories and hi view of life remain constant. But important changes reinforce the theory that Mum is a la t.er composition, not a continuation. Differences in intended aud ience, obje ts of criticism, and style strongly indicate they were conceived a ' separate poems.> Furthermore, the author has become a more poli hed arti t in Mum than he was in Richard, possibly because Henr IV's trengt.h required a ubtlety of expre ion that Richard's dire predicament in the earlier book of poetic advice rendered unnecessary.• Another
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Papers by Diane Facinelli