Through a series of close readings of selected short poems and Lydgate's Troy Book, Fall of Princes, and Siege of Thebes and of Hoccleve's Regiments of Princes and Series, Smyth looks at expressions of time and examples of the authors' negotiation of time consciousness. Smyth illustrates how both poets manipulate a range of cultural narratives of time in order to create multiple and sometimes competing temporalities within a single poem.