SOURCE: Renoir, Alain. “Attitudes Towards Women in Lydgate's Poetry.” English Studies 42, no. 1 (February 1961): 1-14.

In the following essay, Renoir discusses the varied representation of women in Lydgate's works, which the critic maintains is influenced by the fact that the poet was a monk writing for courtly audiences who demanded poems in praise of women. He claims further that Lydgate's depiction of females reveals the versatility and talent of the poet.

A little more than a century ago, Joseph Ritson described John Lydgate as ‘a voluminous, prosaick, and drivelling monk’¹ whose ‘stupid and fatigueing productions, which by no means deserve the name of poetry, and their still more stupid and disgusting author, are neither worth collecting …, nor even worthy of preservation: being only suitably adapted “ad ficum & piperem”, and other more base and servile uses.’² We know that Ritson's perhaps not altogether unprejudiced judgment³ has remained with us. Only...