The compilation Fortunes Stabilnes, the English poetry Charles
d'Orléans wrote in the course of his twenty-five year captivity in
England after Agincourt, requires a larger lens than that of
Chaucerianism, through which it has most often been viewed. A fresh view
from another perspective, one that attends to form and style, as well as
to the poet's French traditions, reveals a more conceptually complex and
innovative kind of poetry than we have seen until now.
The essays collected here reassess him in the light of recent work in
Middle English studies. They detail those qualities that make his text
one of the most accomplished and moving of the late Middle Ages:
Charles's use of English, his metrical play, his felicity with formes
fixes lyrics, his innovative use of the dits structure and lyric
sequences, and finally, above all, his ability to write beautiful
poetry. Overall, they bring out the underappreciated contribution made
by Charles to the canon of English poetry.
MARY-JO ARN is an independent scholar, and editor of Fortunes
Stabilnes; R.D. PERRY is Assistant Professor of English and Literary
Arts at the University of Denver.
Contributors: B.S.W. Barootes, J.A. Burrow, Andrea Denny-Brown, Simon
Horobin, Richard Ingham, Philip Knox, Jenni Nuttall, Ad Putter, Jeremy
J. Smith, Elizaveta Strakhov, Eric Weiskott.
