The Buke of the Howlat was composed in the late 1440s for Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Archibald Douglas, earl of Moray. It is one of the great monuments of fifteenth-century Scots verse, perhaps the finest example of Older Scots alliterative poetry, telling a comic fable of an owl's borrowed feathers, his pride and ultimate fall, and a bird parliament which decides his fate. At its centre is a heraldic excurses which leads to a celebration of the virtues of the Douglas family and their service to Robert Bruce in the Scottish Wars of Independence. Its themes therefore focus on Scottish freedom, aristocratic achievement, and good self- and political governance; its influencesare drawn from chanson d'aventure, beast fable and complaint, and embrace the French, Scots, Gaelic and English Chaucerian and northern literary traditions, making it of great significance to anyone interested in the late medieval literature of the British Isles.
This critical edition provides a new text, with full modern annotation and glossary. Its introduction and notes address the textual transmission of the poem in detail, its traditionalalliterative form, the poetic tula, its language, heraldic elements, and historical references and contexts.
Ralph Hanna is Emeritus Professor of Palaeography, University of Oxford.
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Anbieter: Better World Books Ltd, Dunfermline, Vereinigtes Königreich
Zustand: Very Good. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 68833966-20
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Anbieter: Blacket Books (PBFA), Edinburgh, Vereinigtes Königreich
Hardcover. Zustand: Near Fine. First Edition Thus. Hardback. A near fine copy in green cloth lettered in gilt on the spine. A clean copy without ownership inscription or foxing. Pp.xiv,212. Frontispiece. Family tree of the "Black" Douglases. This is the oldest surviving alliterative poem in Scots, dating from the mid-15th century. It is a comic allegory in which all the characters are birds with human attributes and it is also a piece of propaganda praising the Scottish noble family of Douglas. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 025757
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