Derek Brewer, here on the brink of his long and successful career, takes a look at issues in English literature which were to remain of enduring interest to him. Lecturing in Japan at the time, a country where English culture was not at the time well known and understood, he stepped back to get matters in focus. These pages provide a brilliant synthesis of the attitudes and understanding that informed English literature from the early middle ages to the twentieth century. His special subjects are already to the fore: the medieval 'mindset', Chaucer, Malory, and the art of story above all. But...