University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts / Department of English / Staff / Academic Staff

Dr Lawrence Warner

BA Yale PhD Pennsylvania
Lecturer
Room N427 John Woolley Building (A20)

+61 2 9351 4286

I am a specialist in Middle English literature, especially Piers Plowman, and have published articles on topics ranging from Dante's "erotics of crusading" to Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century Latin history of King Arthur. I am co-editor of The Yearbook of Langland Studies (the only journal devoted exclusively to Middle English that does not have "Chaucer" in its title) and Vice-President of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand. Before coming to Sydney, I lectured in the English department at the University of Adelaide and was Executive Director of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Research areas

  • Medieval literature and culture, especially Piers Plowman
  • Early modern literature and culture
  • Cross-cultural contact in medieval Europe

Current projects

  • I have completed a book manuscript entitled The Lost History of "Piers Plowman", which is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Censuses of Robert Crowley's editions of Piers Plowman and of the production of major works of Middle English literature.

Selected publications

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  • "New Light on Piers Plowman's Ownership, c. 1450-1600." Journal of the Early Book Society 12 (2009): forthcoming.
  • "The University of Sydney Statuta Angliae (Rare Books Add. MS 39) and the 45, 011 Parish Churches: England's Most Popular Urban Myth, ca. 1327-1606." Script and Print 32 (2008): forthcoming. Special issue on manuscript holdings in Australian collections, co-edited by Margaret Manion and James Lowry.
  • “Latin Verses by John Gower and ‘John of Bridlington’ in a Piers Plowman Manuscript.” Notes and Queries 55 (2008): 127-31.
  • “An Overlooked Piers Plowman Excerpt and the Oral Circulation of Non-Reformist Prophecy, c. 1520-55.” The Yearbook of Langland Studies 21 (2007): 119-42.
  • "The Ending, and End, of Piers Plowman B: The C-Version Origins of the Final Two Passus." Medium Aevum 76 (2007): 225-50.
  • "Adventurous Custance: St. Thomas of Acre and Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale." Place, Space, and Landscape in Medieval Narrative. Ed. Laura L. Howes. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007. 43-59.
  • "Obadiah the Proselyte and the Judaizing Crusade." New Medieval Literatures 8 (2006): 151-73.
  • "Langland and the Problem of William of Palerne." Viator 37 (2006): 397-415.
  • "John But and the Other Works that Will Wrought (Piers Plowman A XII 101-2)." Notes and Queries 52 (2005): 13-18.
  • "Dante's Cato, Crusade Martyr." Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America. 26 August 2004.
  • "Piers Plowman B XV 417-28a: An Intrusion from Langland's C-Papers?" Notes and Queries 51 (2004): 119-22.
  • "Geoffrey of Monmouth and the De-Judaized Crusade." Parergon: Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies 21.1 (2004): 19-37.

For a full list of Dr Warner's publications, including those prior to 2004, please click here