Sheila Delany

Bokenham's Claudian as Yorkist propaganda

The first translation of Claudian into English was probably the work of Osbern Bokenham, an Augustinian friar resident at Clare (Suffolk) and author of the Legends of Holy Women (1443-47). The text survives in a unique manuscript dated 1445 and decorated with Yorkist emblems. The choice of original-‘De consulatu Stiliconis’-and management of the translation show strong support for Richard Duke of York at an especially difficult moment in his career, and suggest, as well, encouragement of his dynastic ambitions.

Book reviews: Rewriting Christine

THE BOOK OF THE CITY OF LADIES by Christine de Pizan. Translated by Earl Jeffrey Richards. Persea Books, 1982. COMIC WOMEN, TRAGIC MEN: A STUDY OF GENDER AND GENRE IN SHAKESPEARE by Linda Bamber. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982. 211 pp. (

The Naked Text: Chaucer's Legend of Good Women

18.50) THE UNDISCOVERED CONTINENT: EMILY DICKINSON AND THE SPACE OF THE MIND by Suzanne Juhasz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983. REGINA by Leslie Epstein. Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York. 251 pp. (

Chaucer's House of Fame: The Poetics of Skeptical Fideism

13.95). Avon Books (

Chaucer and the Jews : sources, contexts, meanings

3.95). MORE WORK FOR MOTHER: THE IRONIES OF HOUSEHOLD TECHNOLOGY FROM THE OPEN HEARTH TO THE MICROWAVE by Ruth Schwartz Cowan. Basic Books, New York, 1983. 219 pp.