The Authorship Of The Kingis Quair

Excerpt from The Authorship of the Kingis Quair: A New Criticism Note B. John Major's History: Passage attributing vernacular poetry to James: Mr. Constable's translation: Translations of certain words and phrases: Sibbald and Professor Skeat. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ...in the construction of the poems. It will be remembered that I have directed attention to the use of the very uncommon word "balas" in both 11 quite expect that at first some readers will incline to regard certain things in both poems as "mediaeval commonplaces," but a critical examination will alter that view. The sequence of many of the imitations, once caught, is perfectly convincing. I am hopeful that note D, p. 84, will be found helpful. poems. That single instance, I submit, would be of some value in deciding a question like the one we are at present discussing. But there are two others yet to be cited. The first relates to the word "smaragde," signifying "an emerald." In the Court of Love we find it used by the author in describing the lustre of Rosial's eyes. He says: 113. "And eke her eyen ben bright and orient As is the smaragde." One is not surprised to find the editor of Bell's edition of Chaucer adding a note that "light green eyes would not be beautiful."1 It is, I fancy, quite unnecessary to argue that point. Rosial, it will be remembered, is described as golden-haired. The poet was surely ignorant of the 'smaragde' being a green stone. Come now to the Kingis Quair. What do we find in it? The author has used the same word in stanza 155: ' The lyoun king and his fere lyonesse, The pantere, like unto the smaragdyne."2 In an interesting note by Professor Skeat we read, "Tytler wonders how the panther could be like an emerald. The fact is, the poet follows the usual description in the old so-called 'Bestiaries, ' or descriptions of beasts. Compare, for example, the Bestiary printed by Dr. Morris for the Early English Text Society; the Bestiary of Philip de...

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1896 Edition.