Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: patronage, politics, and history in Lancastrian England

Fawsitt, Diana

Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: patronage, politics, and history in Lancastrian England

dc.check.embargoformat	Not applicable	en
dc.check.info	No embargo required	en
dc.check.opt-out	Not applicable	en
dc.check.reason	No embargo required	en
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dc.contributor.advisor	Rooney, Kenneth	en
dc.contributor.advisor	King, Andrew	en
dc.contributor.advisor	Connolly, Margaret	en
dc.contributor.author	Fawsitt, Diana
dc.date.accessioned	2015-12-03T11:22:09Z
dc.date.available	2015-12-03T11:22:09Z
dc.date.issued	2014
dc.date.submitted	2014
dc.description.abstract	This thesis, Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: Patronage, Politics and History in Lancastrian England, discusses the relationship between John Lydgate as a court poet to his patron Henry V. I contend that the Troy Book is explored as a vehicle to propagate the idea that the House of Lancaster is the legitimate successor to King Richard II in order to smooth over the usurpation of 1399. Paul Strohm's England's Empty Throne was a key influence to the approach of this thesis' topic. I examine that although Chaucer had a definitive impact on Lydgate's writing, Lydgate is able to manipulate this influence for his own ambitions. In order to enhance his own fame, Lydgate works to promote Chaucer's canon so that as Chaucer's successor, he will inherit more prestige. The Trojan war is seen in context with the Hundred Years War, and can be applied contextually to political events. Lydgate presents characters that are vulnerable to human failings, and their assorted, complicated relationships. Lydgate modernises the Troy Book to reflect and enhance his Lancastrian society, and the thesis gives a contextual view of Lydgate's writing of the Troy Book. Lydgate writes for a more varied target audience than his thirteenth-century source, Guido delle Colonne, and there is a deliberation on the female characters of the Troy Book which promulgates the theory that Lydgate takes a proactive and empathetic interest in women's roles in society. Furthermore Lydgate has never really been accepted as a humanist, and I look at Lydgate's work from a different angle; he is a self-germinating humanist. Lydgate revives antiquity to educate his fifteenth-century audience, and his ambition is to create a memorial for his patron in the vernacular, and enhance his own fame as a poet separate from Chaucer's shadow.	en
dc.description.status	Not peer reviewed	en
dc.description.version	Accepted Version
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.citation	Fawsitt, D. 2014. Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: patronage, politics, and history in Lancastrian England. PhD Thesis, University College Cork.	en
dc.identifier.endpage	252
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10468/2121
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	University College Cork	en
dc.rights	© 2014, Diana Fawsitt.	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/	en
dc.subject	John Lydgate	en
dc.subject	Chaucer	en
dc.subject	Henry V	en
dc.subject	Henry IV	en
dc.subject	Trojan War	en
dc.subject	Troy	en
dc.thesis.opt-out	false
dc.title	Reading Lydgate's Troy Book: patronage, politics, and history in Lancastrian England	en
dc.type	Doctoral thesis	en
dc.type.qualificationlevel	Doctoral	en
dc.type.qualificationname	PhD (Arts)	en
ucc.workflow.supervisor	k.rooney@ucc.ie