The Fall of Princes

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Miniature of Oedipus, dressed in royal garments, tearing out his own eyes, from John Lydgate's The Fall of Princes, England (Bury St Edmunds?), c. 1450 - c. 1460, Harley MS 1766, f. 48r

The Fall of Princes is a long poem by English poet

De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, which Lydgate knew in a French translation by Laurent de Premierfait, entitled Des Cas des nobles hommes et femmes.[2] Lydgate's poem was written in the years 1431-38. It is composed of nine books and some 36 thousand lines.[3] It is made up of rhyme royal stanzas:[4]

The poem tells about lives and tragic deaths of many historical and legendary persons. A sixteenth-century poem The Mirror for Magistrates by various authors is a sequel to The Fall of Princes.

References

  1. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lydgate, John" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 156.
  2. ^ Nigel Mortimer, John Lydgate's Fall of Princes: Narrative Tragedy in its Literary and Political Contexts at Oxford Scholarship Online.
  3. ^ J. Allan Mitchell, John Lydgate: The Fall of Princes at The Literary Encyclopaedia, which was inspired by Guidodelle Colome.
  4. ^ John Lydgate at Encyclopaedia Britannica.
  5. ^ Falls of Princes, Book I, at Luminarium.

External links