LAUSR

The dates in the title are the only clues to the impressive scope of Joanna Bellis’s study, The Hundred Years War in Literature, 1337–1600, about the influence of the Hundred Years War on English language and literature. Although Philippe VI’s confiscation of Edward III’s French lands in 1337 marks the beginning of this conflict, the traditional date for its end is the defeat and death of John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, in the Battle of Castillon in 1453. Bellis, however, is not examining the war as a historical event but rather scrutinizing its significance as an impetus for English linguistic and national identity for almost three hundred years under three different dynasties. Moreover, although she includes the word literature in her title, Bellis is not referring to the narrow concept of canonical works but rather a broader notion of textuality that includes propagandistic chronicles and ballads as well as the poetry of Chaucer and the history plays of Shakespeare. Bellis should thus be commended for bridging the divides between the medieval and early modern periods and between historical and literary studies. In the process, she introduces readers to neglected texts that fall between the cracks of periodization and disciplinary boundaries but deserve more extended analysis. Bellis organizes the book’s five chapters both chronologically and recursively in a structure she calls “kaleidoscopic” (5). Although the chapters push forward from 1066 to 1600, three subtitled topics are addressed intermittently to emphasize recurring issues: the Norman myth, writing history, and the problem of Chaucer. This unique organizational structure of the study helps the reader to appreciate the continuity amid change in the long shadow cast over the language and literature of England by the Hundred Years War. In chapter 1 Bellis introduces the polemics that called into question England’s multilingual vernacularity during the fourteenth century. Ironically, as the English king was pressing his birthright to the French throne, proponents of war with France increasingly expressed Journal of British Studies 56 (January 2017): 138–176. © The North American Conference on British Studies, 2017