This collection honours the scholarship of Professor David F. Johnson, exploring the wider view of medieval England and its cultural contracts with the Low Countries, and highlighting common texts, motifs, and themes across the textual traditions of Old English and later medieval romances in both English and Middle Dutch.

This book offers new insights into the rich and varied Dutch literature of the Middle Ages. Sixteen essays written by top scholars consider this literature in the context of the social, historical and cultural developments of the period in which it took shape. The collection includes studies of the most representative authors, genres and works of the time. A comparative chronological survey provides an overview of the main cultural, historical and literary events in Europe and the Netherlands between 1150 and 1500, and the bibliography lists English translations of medieval Dutch texts discussed.

A ground-breaking investigation into the emergence of new written literatures in the vernacular languages of medieval Europe.

The Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature offers a new, inclusive, and comprehensive context to the study of medieval literature written in the English language from the Norman Conquest to the end of the Middle Ages. Utilising a Trans-European context, this volume includes essays from leading academics in the field across linguistic and geographic divides. Extending beyond the traditional scholarly discussions of insularity in relation to Middle English literature and ‘isolationism’, this volume: Oversees a variety of genres and topics, including cultural identity, insular borders, linguistic interactions, literary gateways, Middle English texts and traditions, and modern interpretations such as race, gender studies, ecocriticism, and postcolonialism. Draws on the combined extensive experience of teaching and research in medieval English and comparative literature within and outside of anglophone higher education and looks to the future of this fast-paced area of literary culture. Contains an indispensable section on theoretical approaches to the study of literary texts. This Companion provides the reader with practical insights into the methods and approaches that can be applied to medieval literature and serves as an important reference work for upper-level students and researchers working on English literature.

Ranging from early medieval times to the present, this diverse collection explores the myriad ways in which literary texts are informed by their historical contexts. The thirty-one chapters draw on varied themes and perspectives to present stimulating new readings of both canonical and non-canonical texts and authors. Written in a lively and engaging style, by an international team of experts, these specially commissioned essays collectively represent an incisive contribution to literary studies; they will appeal to scholars, teachers and graduate and undergraduate students. The book is designed to complement Paul Poplawski's previous volume, English Literature in Context, and incorporates additional study elements designed specifically with undergraduates in mind. With an extensive chronology, a glossary of critical terms, and a study guide suggesting how students might learn from the essays in their own writing practices, this volume provides a rich and flexible resource for teaching and learning.

This Companion presents fifteen original and engaging essays by leading scholars on one of the most influential genres of Western literature. Chapters describe the origins of early verse romance in twelfth-century French and Anglo-Norman courts and analyze the evolution of verse and prose romance in France, Germany, England, Italy, and Spain throughout the Middle Ages. The volume introduces a rich array of traditions and texts and offers fresh perspectives on the manuscript context of romance, the relationship of romance to other genres, popular romance in urban contexts, romance as mirror of familiar and social tensions, and the representation of courtly love, chivalry, 'other' worlds and gender roles. Together the essays demonstrate that European romances not only helped to promulgate the ideals of elite societies in formation, but also held those values up for questioning. An introduction, a chronology and a bibliography of texts and translations complete this lively, useful overview.

In the medieval Low Countries (modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands), Arthurian romance flourished in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Middle Dutch poets translated French material (like Chrétien’s Conte du Graal and the Prose Lancelot), but also created romances of their own, like Walewein. This book provides a current overview of the Dutch Arthurian material and the research that it has provoked. Geographically, the region is a crossroads between the French and Germanic spheres of influence, and the movement of texts and manuscripts (west to east) reflects its position, as revealed by chapters on the historical context, the French material and the Germanic Arthuriana of the Rhinelands. Three chapters on the translations of French verse texts, the translations of French prose texts, and on the indigenous romances form the core of the book, augmented by chapters on the manuscripts, on Arthur in the chronicles, and on the post-medieval Arthurian material..