Troy: Our Greatest Story Retold (Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths, 3)

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Lydgate, John (1998). Edwards, Robert R. (ed.). Troy Book: Selections. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications. ISBN 9781879288997 . Retrieved 5 August 2012. A pendant in Bronze limited to 80 depicting the ‘Toad and Host’, a sign invoking the solitary initiatory tradition of the toad-wtich. A tradition found in the lore of numerous parts of Britain gives the initiation being conferred by the witch circling a church before feeding part of the consecrated Host to a toad – Often the ‘Devi’ in disguise. It is thus a symbol of the Divine spark within all things and the old tenet of ‘ All is One‘. Payne, Robert O. "Late Medieval Images and Self-Images of the Poet: Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, Henryson, Dunbar." In Vernacular Poetics in the Middle Ages. Ed. Lois Ebin. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1984. Pp. 249-61. This Hallowtide, we are delighted to bring you all a very special new title from Val Thomas: Hallowtide – A Dark Devotional. The Laud Troy Book. Ed. J. E. Wülfing. Early English Text Society, o.s. 121 and 122. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1902-03.

Spriggs, Gereth M. "Unnoticed Bodleian Manuscripts, Illuminated by Herman Scheerre and His School." Bodleian Library Record 7 (1964), 193-203.

His death "thorugh necligence only of his shelde" (3.5399) is surely the most interesting contradiction of Lydgate's poem. Hector's fatal lapse, which Lydgate adds to Guido's narrative, does not compromise Hector's heroic stature so much as challenge the primacy of prudence as a virtue that can be applied to so many facets of human experience. Critic and Poet: What Lydgate and Henryson Did to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde." Modern Language Quarterly 53 (1992), 23-40. Walsh, Elizabeth R. S. C. J. "John Lydgate and the Proverbial Tiger." In The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Harvard English Studies 5. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974. Pp. 291-303.

In the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, Troy Book enjoyed considerable reputation and influence. Not long after it was composed, it served as the source for a prose Sege of Troy, which retold the story through the fall of the city at the end of Lydgate's Book 4. In The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye (STC 15375), the first book printed in English (c. 1475), William Caxton professes that there is no need for him to translate the portion of his French source, Raoul Lefévre's Recueil des Histoires de Troie, dealing with the fall of Troy: "And as for the thirde book whiche treteth of the generall and last destruccioun of Troye Hit nedeth not to translate hit into englissh ffor as moche as that worshifull and religyous man dan John lidgate monke of Burye did translate hit but late // after whos werke I fere to take upon me that am not worthy to bere his penner and ynke horne after hym, to medle me in that werke" (Epilogue to Book 2). Troy Book's classical topic, narrative scope, and moral purpose probably had something to do with William Dunbar's inclusion of Lydgate with Chaucer and John Gower as a triad of originary English poets in his early-sixteenth-century "Lament for the Makaris": "The noble Chaucer, of makaris flour, / The Monk of Bery, and Gower, all thre" (lines 50-51). Richard Pynson printed the first edition of Troy Book in 1513, under the title The hystorye / sege and dystruccyon of Troye (STC 5579). As A. S. G. Edwards and Carol M. Meale note, Pynson's edition was printed at the command of Henry VIII to manipulate public opinion in his first French compaign (p. 99). Thomas Marshe printed a second edition in 1555, with a prefatory epistle by Robert Braham (STC 5580). The continuing influence of Troy Book can be detected in Thomas Heywood's modernization, printed in 1614 as The Life and Death of Hector (STC 13346a), and in the works of Robert Henryson, Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare. The sense of Trojan history and particularly of Cressida's character in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida bear the imprint of Lydgate's poem. Frazer, Richard M., Jr., trans. The Trojan War: The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phyrigian. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966. Schirmer, Walter F. John Lydgate: A Study in the Culture of the XVth Century. Trans. Ann E. Keep. London: Methuen; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961. English trans. of John Lydgate: Ein Kulturbild aus dem 15. Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1952.Krochalis, Jeanne E. "The Books and Reading of Henry V and His Circle." Chaucer Review 23 (1988-89), 50-77. Benoît de Sainte-Maure. Roman de Troie. Ed. Leopold Constans. Société des anciens textes français. 6 vols. Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1904-12.

Simpson, James (2004) [1986]. "Chaucer's Presence and Absence, 1400-1550". In Boitani, Piero; Mann, Jill (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521894670 . Retrieved 5 August 2012.Now comes the book some of us won’t have heard of, important for filling in the many gaps left by Homer and Virgil. According to Stephen Fry, “The most useful source for everything about Troy is probably Quintus Smyrnaeus, a 4th century AD Greek writer whose Posthomerica is a fabulous source for everything that took place after Homer leaves the story. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Gen. ed. Larry D. Benson. Third ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. and the Hidden Wisdom of the Magical Arts. The book is the first of a forthcoming trilogy The Geassa, which presents a codification of his training and practice of the Art, focusing on Traditional Witchcraft. In a beautifully engrossing opening chapter, Norton introduces us to the inhabitants of a small Irish community whose lives are about to be shattered by a teenage car crash. Following the victims’ families and the survivors over the next three decades, we witness the repercussions of the tragedy – emotional, psychological and practical – as secrets threaten to reveal themselves. Norton’s third novel is a thoughtful examination of sexual identity, shame, and the impact of collective grief. Three Hours