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This volume joins new editions of both texts of John Lydgate's The Dance of Death, related Middle English verse, and a new translation of Lydgate's French source, the Danse macabre. Together these poems showcase the power of the danse macabre motif, offering a window into life and death in late medieval Europe. In vivid, often grotesque, and darkly humorous terms, these poems ponder life's fundamental paradox: while we know that we all must die, we cannot imagine our own death.
Megan L. Cook is an Assistant Professor of English at Colby College.
Elizaveta Strakhov is an assistant professor of English at Marquette University.
Introduction
John Lydgate, Dance of Death: A version (Selden)
John Lydgate, Dance of Death: B version (Lansdowne)
Other Late Medieval Poems about Death
Poems in the Dance of Death Tradition
La Danse macabre, translation by Elizaveta Strakhov
Explanatory Notes
Textual Notes
Bibliography
Glossary