Medieval Writers and their Work: Middle English Literature 1100-1500OUP Oxford, 2008 M02 8 - 176 pages In an updated edition of his hugely successful student introduction to English literature from 1100 to 1500, J. A. Burrow takes account of scholarly developments in the the field, most notably devoting a final chapter to the impact of historicism on medieval studies. Full of information and stimulating ideas, and a pleasure to read, Burrow's book deals with circumstances of composition and reception, the main genres, 'modes of meaning' (allegory etc.), and medieval literature's afterlife in modern times. It shows that the literature of authors such as Chaucer, Gower, and Langland is more readily accessible than usually imagined, and well worth reading too. By placing medieval writers in their historical context - the four centuries between the Norman Conquest and the Renaissance - Professor Burrow explains not only how they wrote, but why. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Writers audiences and readers | 25 |
3 Major genres | 59 |
4 Modes of meaning | 90 |
5 The afterlife of Middle English literature | 125 |
Notes | 139 |
Bibliography | 147 |
Index | 152 |
Other editions - View all
Medieval Writers and Their Work: Middle English Literature 1100-1500 J. A. Burrow Limited preview - 2008 |
Medieval Writers and their Work: Middle English Literature 1100-1500 J. A. Burrow Limited preview - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
A. C. Cawley allegory alliterative verse Ancrene Wisse Anglo-Saxon Arthur audience Boccaccio Brut Cambridge Canterbury Canterbury Tales chanson de femme Chapter character characteristic Chaucer Chaucer and Gower Chrétien de Troyes Christ Classical Comedy Confessio Amantis Conscience courtly criticism Dante distinction EETS England English literature English poetry example exempla exemplary exemplum fabliau fact fiction fictive formal French Friar Gawain-poet genre Green Knight Havelok Hoccleve imitation instance John John Gower kind King Langland language Latin LaZamon literary London manuscript Medieval English medieval writers Middle Ages Middle English Middle English literature Middle English period Middle English writers modern readers narrative Nightingale Old English Oxford passage Patience Pearl personification Piers Plowman poem poet poetic printing Prologue prose Religious Lyric represent rhyme romance says scribes sense Sir Gawain sort speaks story Tale texts Thomas tradition translation treatise Troilus truth twelfth century University Press vernacular words writing
Popular passages
Page 29 - For when thy labour doon al ys, And hast mad alle thy rekenynges, In stede of reste and newe thynges, Thou goost horn to thy hous anoon; And, also domb as any stoon, Thou sittest at another book Tyl fully daswed ys thy look, And lyvest thus as an heremyte, Although thyn abstynence ys lyte'.
Page 70 - Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
Page 65 - J may the beaute of hem not sustene, So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene. And but your word wol helen hastily My hertes wounde, whyl that hit is grene, Your yen two wol slee me sodenly, 1 may the beaute of hem not sustene.
Page 78 - To Troilus right wonder wel with alle Gan for to like hire mevynge and hire chere, Which somdel deignous was, for she let falle Hire look a lite aside in swich manere, 291 Ascaunces, "What ! may I nat stonden here?
Page 20 - It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an author makes a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of association...
Page 76 - The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen, That was the kyng Priamus sone of Troye, In lovynge, how his aventures fellen Fro wo to wele, and after out of joie, My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye.
Page 15 - Now, for the poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth. For, as I take it, to lie is to affirm that to be true which is false. So as the other artists, and especially the historian, affirming many things, can in the cloudy knowledge of mankind hardly escape from many lies. But the poet (as I said before) never affirmeth. The poet never maketh any circles about your imagination, to conjure you to believe for true what he writes.
Page 38 - Here is the ende of the hoole book of kyng Arthur and of his noble knyghtes of the Rounde Table, that whan they were hole togyders there was ever an hondred and forty.
Page 42 - Scogan, that knelest at the stremes hed Of grace, of alle honour and worthynesse In th'ende of which strem I am dul as ded, Forgete in solytarie wildernesse Yet, Scogan, thenke on Tullius kyndenesse; Mynne thy frend, there it may fructyfye!
Page 125 - English poetry, in 1589, says that in the latter end of Henry VIII.'s reign " sprang up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder, and Henry Earl of Surrey were the two chieftains ; who, having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and style of the Italian poesy...