This classic and eminently readable work provides a full critical introduction to the complete Canterbury Tales. Essential reading for students of Chaucer.

This series of studies, by experts in the relevant fields, comprehensively and systematically examines British book production and publishing in the hundred years before the introduction of printing. The terms 'book' and 'publishing' are usually employed in reference to the products of the printing press. This collection of essays, however, deals with the manuscript book, its materials and make-up, the people who made, commissioned and read such books, the kinds of reading matter they wanted, and the way books catered for - and created - the reading and book-buying public. Special attention...

This collection of previously published essays acts as a companion to Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology of Writings in English 1375 -1575. It pays particular attention to those critics who have had the most powerful recent impact on our reading of the texts of the period.

This collection of previously published essays acts as a companion to Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology of Writings in English 1375 -1575. It pays particular attention to those critics who have had the most powerful recent impact on our reading of the texts of the period.

Opening with extracts from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and closing with Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, this concise collection introduces readers to some of the most influential poetry produced between the mid-fourteenth and late sixteenth centuries.

• Provides a concise selection of the most important late medieval poetry.
  
• Ideal for general readers, or for students needing a digest of the poetry of the period.
  
• Introduces readers to the lives of the poets, their major works, and the historical context in which they were...

This witty and accessible book traces the history of Arthurian romance from medieval to modern times, explaining its enduring appeal.

• Traces the history of Arthurian romance from medieval to modern times.
  
• Covers art and films as well as the great literary works of Arthurian romance.
  
• Draws out the changing political, moral and emotional uses of the story.
  
• Explains the enduring appeal of the Arthurian legend.
  
• Written by an author with vast knowledge of medieval literature.

This important new critical biography traces in carefully considered detail what is known of Geoffrey Chaucer's personal life while exploring the fascinating relationship between the man of affairs, who made so many 'improvisations and accommodations' to ensure his own survival, and the poet. A major reexamination of England's greatest narrative poet, it is supplemented with reproductions of Chaucer portraits and other illustrations, including maps of medieval England.

The study of manuscripts is one of the most active areas of current research in medieval studies: manuscripts are the basic primary material evidence for literary scholars, historians and art-historians alike, and there has been an explosion of interest over the past twenty years. Manuscript study has developed enormously: codices are no longer treated as inert witnesses to a culture whose character has already been determined by the modern scholar, but are active participants in a process of exploration and discovery. The articles collected here discuss the future of this process and vital...

Contains side glosses for the student reader's benefit and includes an introduction, which contextualises the poem and appraises Langland scholarship.

William Langland's poem stands at the centre of the study of ideological conflict, social change and religious ideas in the later fourteenth century. It is a poem that vividly encapsulates the great issues and debates of the day and acts as a commentary on cataclysmic events such as the Peasants' Revolt (1381), the condemnation of Wyclif's ideas (1382) and the rise of Lollardy. It is also one of the greatest poems of the English Middle Ages, worth reading beside Dante and Chaucer.The poem has provoked a sophisticated and wide-ranging critical literature. It needs to be read in an edition by...