SOURCE: Schirmer, W. F. “Lydgate's Early Works; The Chaucer Tradition and Lydgate's First Epics,” and “Lydgate's Troy Book.” In John Lydgate: A Study in the Culture of the XVth Century, translated by Anne E. Keep, pp. 31-51. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1961.

In first essay that follows, Schirmer discusses several of Lydgate's early works, noting the poet's significance within the English language and examining his place in the tradition of Chaucer, courtly love poetry, and the bourgeois public of the fifteenth century. In the second, he closely examines the Troy Book, considering its patronage, style and political intent.

Lydgate's Early Works; the Chaucer Tradition and Lydgate's First Epics

During the reign of Henry IV, or by monastic reckoning during the abbotship of William Cratfield, we have [almost] no documents on Lydgate. … In spite of this it must be assumed that during this period the newly-ordained priest came...