Retrospective Prophecy and Medieval English Authorship

"In Retrospective Prophecy and Medieval English Authorship Kimberly Fonzo analyses the ways in which Langland, Gower, and Chaucer exploited the conventions of prophetic language to craft authorial identities that allowed them to address contemporary political issues. In reading historically and retrospectively, Fonzo returns us to the fourteenth-century milieu of these authors and sketches in the processes by which they acquired later and still-promulgated false identities."

Lynn Staley, Harrington and Shirley Drake Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English, Colgate University

"Kimberly Fonzo rescues three fourteenth-century poets from our conviction that they mystically foretell our modernity. Langland, Gower, and Chaucer fancied themselves prophets – but not of us. Their ‘prophetic role’ responds to the political turbulence of England in their lifetimes and to their immersion in French, Italian, and Latin literatures. The prophet-poets whom Fonzo leads us to know behind our retrospective gaze turn out to be stranger writers than we imagined, and compelling for new reasons."

Eric Weiskott, Associate Professor of English, Boston College

"In Retrospective Prophecy and Medieval English Authorship, Kimberly Fonzo breaks new ground by suggesting that modern scholarship has usually misunderstood the original rhetorical purpose of such literary prophecies, leading to a naive effort to ascertain how ‘accurate’ they might have been by comparing them to actual political and social upheavals from later times. This book must be read by all who wish to address this puzzling theme in the future."

Robert Adams, Professor of English, Sam Houston State University