Associate Professor of Literature Katherine Terrell presented a paper at the 53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, which met May 9-13 at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Terrell’s paper, “Reevaluating Bannatyne's Chaucer,” examined the role of Geoffrey Chaucer’s poems in the Bannatyne Manuscript (1568), one of the most important manuscripts for the preservation of older Scottish poetry.
Two genuine Chaucerian poems survive in the manuscript, along with eight poems that have been misattributed to Chaucer; other poets within the manuscript also mention Chaucer and his work. The paper investigated what the manuscript reveals about Scottish attitudes toward Chaucer, arguing that his name functions as a marker of transnational cosmopolitan authority and an elevated poetic register.
