SOURCE: Norton-Smith, J. “Lydgate's Metaphors.” English Studies 42, no. 2 (April 1961): 90-3.

In the following essay, Norton-Smith disagrees with the critic Alain Renoir that the image of the binding knot simply expresses permanence of union but claims rather that it also suggests, among other things, remembrance and the union of personified ideas.

Lines 17-28 of Lydgate's Gentlewoman's Lament indicate that a precise classification of metaphors is always difficult. Mr. Renoir in a recent article¹ assumes that all knots discussed by him are ‘binding knots used to express permanence of union’. He suggests that Lydgate's poetic ability is measurable by the appropriateness of, and number of changes which he rings on the fundamental image. But it is possible to argue that these metaphors may have an organisation which does not quite tally with Mr. Renoir's description. The excellent lines (unfortunately the poem tails off after a promising start):

For whane we...