Middle English literature in medieval Europe

Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages Seminar series 2019/20 - Writing and Records

• Speaker: Aisling BYRNE (Reading)
  

Abstract

This paper explores the circulation and reception of Middle English texts beyond the English-speaking world before 1550. It looks particularly at the evidence for translation into other European languages. The paper examines the contexts in which such translation took place and considers the role played by colonial, dynastic, trading, and ecclesiastical networks in the transmission of these works. 

Speaker biography

Aisling Byrne is Lecturer in Medieval Literature at the University of Reading. She is the author of Otherworlds: Fantasy and History in Medieval Literature, published in 2016 by OUP. She has also co-edited Crossing Borders in the Insular Middle Ages (Brepols, 2019) with Victoria Flood. She has published a number of articles on the Arthurian legend, medieval translation and medieval libraries. 

We welcome anyone who is at all interested in the research and concerns of the Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages. Each paper will be followed by a pause for refreshments, then questions. After that anyone who wishes will retire for more relaxed conversation, and then we take the speaker out for an early dinner. If you would like to join the speaker for dinner please let the convenor know (Naomi Standen, n.standen@bham.ac.uk) by the end of the Monday before the seminar.