The Northern Homily Cycle is a Middle English poem written c. 1315. The poem consists of approximately 20,000 rhyming, octosyllabic lines.[1][2] It features a Middle English retelling of the Gospel in verse form, alongside stories to illustrate the points of the verses and messages.[3] Many of these illustrative stories use familiar, agricultural examples, calling to mind Chaucer's tales.[2][3]

The work is anonymous, however the text suggests that the author "wrote in his native dialect and was well versed in the lore of the north country."[1]

A good copy of it can be found in Oxford Bodleian Eng. Poet. a.1, a 14th-century manuscript.

A Cambridge manuscript of the poem has been edited by Saara Nevanlinna.

References

  1. 1 2 Heffernan, Thomas J. (1985). "The Authorship of the 'Northern Homily Cycle': The Liturgical Affiliation of the Sunday Gospel Pericopes as a Test". Traditio. 41: 289–309. doi:10.1017/S0362152900006929. ISSN 0362-1529.
  2. 1 2 Morey, James H. (1994). "Legal and Spiritual Sanctuary in the "Northern Homily Cycle" and "Piers Plowman" B, XVII, 1 - 126". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 93 (3): 326–335. ISSN 0363-6941.
  3. 1 2 ELLIS, ROGER (2019). "THE NORTHERN HOMILY CYCLE: A WORK IN PROGRESS". Medium Ævum. 88 (1): 23–51. doi:10.2307/26889855. ISSN 0025-8385.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.