A wide-ranging survey of the most important medieval authors and genres, designed for students of English.

A compact collection of focused introductions to and inquiries into medieval England, representing both history and literature.

The medieval period was one of extraordinary literary achievement sustained over centuries of great change, anchored by the Norman invasion and its aftermath, the re-emergence of English as the nation's leading literary language in the fourteenth century and the advent of print in the fifteenth. This Companion spans four full centuries to survey this most formative and turbulent era in the history of literature in English. Exploring the period's key authors - Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain-Poet, Margery Kempe, among many - and genres - plays, romances, poems and epics - the book offers an overview of the riches of medieval writing. The essays map out the flourishing field of medieval literary studies and point towards new directions and approaches. Designed to be accessible to students, the book also features a chronology and guide to further reading.

A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture,c.1350-c.1500 challenges readers to think beyond a narrowlydefined canon and conventional disciplinary boundaries. A ground-breaking collection of newly-commissioned essays onmedieval literature and culture. Encourages students to think beyond a narrowly defined canonand conventional disciplinary boundaries. Reflects the erosion of the traditional, rigid boundary betweenmedieval and early modern literature. Stresses the importance of constructing contexts for readingliterature. Explores the extent to which medieval literature is in dialoguewith other cultural products, including the literature of othercountries, manuscripts and religion. Includes close readings of frequently-studied texts, includingtexts by Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain poet, and Hoccleve. Confronts some of the controversies that exercise students ofmedieval literature, such as those connected with literary theory,love, and chivalry and war.

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.

This is the first comprehensive account of English Renaissance literature in the context of the culture which shaped it: the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the tumult of Catholic and Protestant alliances during the Reformation, the age of printing and of New World discovery. In this century courtly literature under Henry VIII moves toward a new, more personal poetry of sentiment, narrative and romance. The development of English prose is seen in the writing of More, Foxe and Hooker and in the evolution of satire and popular culture. Drama moves from the churches to the commercial playhouses with the plays of Kyd, Marlowe and the early careers of Shakespeare and Jonson. The Companion tackles all these subjects in fourteen newly-commissioned essays, written by experts for student readers. A detailed chronology of major literary achievements concludes with a list of authors and their dates.

Orietta Da Rold provides a detailed analysis of the coming of paper to medieval England, and its influence on the literary and non-literary culture of the period. Looking beyond book production, Da Rold maps out the uses of paper and explains the success of this technology in medieval culture, considering how people interacted with it and how it affected their lives. Offering a nuanced understanding of how affordance influenced societal choices, Paper in Medieval England draws on a multilingual array of sources to investigate how paper circulated, was written upon, and was deployed by people across medieval society, from kings to merchants, to bishops, to clerks and to poets, contributing to an understanding of how medieval paper changed communication and shaped modernity.