Fifteenth-Century Studies: Recent Essays

The fifteenth century, it has been said, is the last, vast 'terra incognita' of English literature. Pressed as it is between Chaucer on the one hand and Spenser on the other, bedevilled by a tumultuous political history (and scarcely illuminated by Shakespeare's kaleidescopic treatment of its events and figures), the fifteenth century has gotten comparatively little attention in the past from literary scholars. What notice its writings have received is often condemnatory and dismissive: "dull," "plodding," and "undisciplined" are adjectives frequently found scattered across critical surveys attempting to characterize the literature of these years. Indeed, such good as has been offered about fifteenth-century poetry and fiction has come for the most part indirectly, by virtue of its location in the geography of English letters. Like many a crossroads nation, the fifteenth century has been valued for its borders — the places toward which a venturesome traveler embarks, the origins of his departures. Thus we find best known and best praised of fifteenth-century writing the work of the "Scottish Chaucerians," so-called, and the vernacular drama: the first group highly regarded for a supposed ability to recall and continue techniques of a departed master, the second honored as anterior to a resplendent theatrical tradition as yet just beyond the horizon. Even Caxton and Malory — arguably the most familiar citizens of the period — are commonly treated not as natives, with bloodties in various senses to others about them, but rather as unique, somewhat superior outriders more at home in alternative climes.