Collective Nouns and Medievalist Collectivity: A Poem

by JONATHAN HSY

Briefly noted: If you haven't already, fill out MARY KATE's online survey about BABEL and "Creating Alternative Communities" (she's accepting responses until July 10). Check out KARL's recent posting as well!

I just got back from the amazing Gower-fest (i.e., Third International Congress of the John Gower Society) at the University of Rochester! Expect a blog posting about #JGS2014 very soon.

During the conference banquet, some of the conference participants were wondering if there's a collective noun for Gower scholars, and Brian Gastle joked that it should be called a "recension of Gowerians." On the last day of the conference I expanded Gastle's joke on twitter and Facebook and other people began submitting their own suggestions for other collective nouns for medievalists.

Culling from these discussions, I've composed this poem (taking my lead from KARL's earlier posting about medieval collective nouns):

Medievalist Collectives: A Collaborative Poem

A troop of Anglo-Saxonists
A roundtable of Arthurians
An orientation of cartographers
A compaignye of Chaucerians *
A gathering of codicologists
A circle of Dante scholars
A pageant of early drama scholars
An underappreciation of Early Middle English scholars
A garter of Gawain-Poets
A recension of Gowerians *
A rabble of grammarians
A tempest of Kempists *
A regiment of Hoccleveans *
A fair field of Langlandians
A reduction of Lydgateans *
A tournament of Malorians
A peregrination of Mandevilleans
A massacre of Martinists #gameofthrones
A Pandaemonium of Miltonists
A wonder of monster-theorists
A choir/quire of musicologists
A raze of Ockhamists
An orthography (ormography) of Ormulists *
A necklace of Pearl-Poets
An errant (errancy) of romance scholars *
A Swerve of Shakespeareans
A fellowship of Tolkienists
A torture of Websterians

* ALTERNATIVES: A parliament of Chaucerians; a pride (or romp) of Gowerians; a roaring of Kempists; a Series of Hoccleveans; a tedium of Lydgateans; a quadriga (or flamboyance) of Ormulists; a quest of romance scholars; a moot of Tolkienists. Collectively authored by H. Barbaccia, R. Barrett, @Exhuast_Fumes, A. Farber, C. Fitzgerald, B. Gastle, @GrammarRabble (note the GR tumblr feed and new blog!), J. Hsy, M.K. Hurley, A. Mittman, C. Perry, S. Rajendran, R. Rouse, C. Thomas, R. Utz, A. Walling, R. Wakeman, and M. Worley.


[EDITED July 6: adding Early Middle English scholars, Ormulists, romance scholars]