This essential Middle English textbook, now in its third edition, introduces students to the wide range of literature written in England between 1150 and 1400. New, thoroughly revised edition of this essential Middle English textbook. Introduces the language of the time, giving guidance on pronunciation, spelling, grammar, metre, vocabulary and regional dialects. Now includes extracts from 'Pearl' and Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde'. Bibliographic references have been updated throughout. Each text is accompanied by detailed notes.

An Introduction to Middle English combines an elementary grammar of the English language from about 1100 to about 1500 with a selection of texts for reading, ranging in date from 1154 to 1500. The grammar includes the fundamentals of orthography, phonology, morphology, syntax, regional dialectology, and prosody. In the thirty-eight texts for reading are represented a wide range of Middle English dialects, and the commentary on each text includes, in addition to explanatory notes, extensive linguistic analysis. The book includes many useful figures and illustrations, including images of Middle English manuscripts as an aid to learning to decipher medieval handwriting and maps indicating the geographical extent of dialect features. This introduction to Middle English is based on the latest research, and it provides up-to-date bibliographical guidance to the study of the language.

"A direct, clear, and user-friendly introduction to the sound of Chaucer's language, as well as to aspects of Chaucer's vocabulary and principal metrical form."--Back cover.

Originally composed in Latin by Gilbertus Anglicus (Gilbert the Englishman), his Compendium of Medicine was a primary text of the medical revolution in thirteenth-century Europe. Composed mainly of medicinal recipes, it offered advice on diagnosis, medicinal preparation, and prognosis. In the fifteenth-century it was translated into Middle English to accommodate a widening audience for learning and medical “secrets.” Faye Marie Getz provides a critical edition of the Middle English text, with an extensive introduction to the learned, practical, and social components of medieval medicine and a summary of the text in modern English. Getz also draws on both the Latin and Middle English texts to create an extensive glossary of little-known Middle English pharmaceutical and medical vocabulary.