Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse

by Rossell Hope Robbins

Rossell Hope Robbins collaborated with Carleton Brown in the publishing of the Index of Middle English Verse in 1943. With John L. Cutler, associate professor of English in the University of Kentucky, he has now compiled a supplement to the Index incorporating those texts published since 1943. At the same time, the two have completely revised the Index by including in the Supplement texts previously neglected. The number of entries has been increased to 6,000, and more than half of the 4,500 original entries have been revised. In addition to this basic revision, the appendices of the Index have been corrected and enlarged, especially the listing and locating of privately held manuscripts. Cross references have been inserted abundantly to facilitate easy use of the combined works. Additionally, reference has been made to related specialized studies. The large number of new entries is attributable not only to prolonged manuscript research but also to a broadening of the original criteria for the inclusion of poems. Rather than cutting off entries at 1500, which the authors felt impaired the usefulness of the original Index, Robbins and Cutler included genres that had not concluded but continued into the sixteenth century, as well as poems with uncertain dates they felt would be important for scholars. The Supplement overcomes these barriers by including the so-called Scottish Chaucerians, the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century manuscripts such as the "Tudor songbooks," verse items of only two lines, and tombstone and church bras epitaphs.

Unknown Binding

First published July 15, 2014

About the author

Rossell Hope Robbins was born on July 22, 1912, in Wallasey, Cheshire, England, to Rossell Casson Robbins, formerly of Liverpool, England, and Alice Eveline Hope Robbins, formerly of Kirkcudbright, Scotland.

He began his education at Wallasey Grammar School, 1921-30, then proceeded to the University of Liverpool, where in 1933, as a student of J. H. G. Grattan, he received, with first class honors, his B.A. in English Language and Literature. In 1934 he received his diploma of education from the School of Education, Liverpool. During this period of his life Robbins also trained in music at the Matthay School of Music, Liverpool Branch (1930-36), receiving his licentiate from the Guildhall School of Music, London, in 1932. He was a member of the London Verse Speaking Choir under the direction of Marjorie Gullan from 1935-37. This early interest in music and verse has remained with him all his life. His dissertation and three of his earliest scholarly books dealt with the lyric in English, and, in 1961, Columbia University Press published his Early English Christmas Carols in a handsome gift edition with music, illustrations, and an LP record.

In 1934 Robbins was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on an Open External Studentship to proceed to his doctorate. He was supported by a Wallasey Borough Research Scholarship and the University of Liverpool Graduate Scholarship. He received his Ph.D. in literature in 1937 as a student of G. G. Coulton. In that year he was awarded a Commonwealth Fellowship by the Harkness Foundation, which brought him to America. (He became a naturalized citizen in 1944.) Here, he continued his work on Middle English Lyrics at New York University with Carleton Brown, work which is still acknowledged as the best of its kind.

(http://www.library.rochester.edu/robb...)