Readings in Medieval Texts Interpreting Old and Middle English Literature

by Johnson, David F.; Treharne, Elaine

• ISBN13: 9780199261635
• ISBN10: 0199261636
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-21
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Readings in Medieval Texts offers a thorough and accessible introduction to the interpretation and criticism of a broad range of Old and Middle English texts from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. Bringing together twenty-four newly-commissioned chapters by leading international scholars, the volume outlines current debates and theories as well as the major themes and literary issues of texts such as Beowulf, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Juliana, The Owl and the Nightingale, Piers Plowman, Chaucer's Book of the Duchess, and the York Corpus Christi Play. Major aspects of methods of composition, authorial intent, reader-reception, and social and historical contextualization are foregrounded in this dynamic and path-breaking volume.

Author Biography

Elaine Treharne is Professor of Medieval Literature in the Department of English at the University of Leicester. She is currently Chair of the English Association, and member of its Fellowship and Higher Education Committees, and Second Vice-President of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists. David F. Johnson is Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in the Humanities at FSU, and Executive Director of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	x
List of contributors	xi
Introduction	1	(6)
David F. Johnson
Elaine Treharne
The context of medieval literature	7	(8)
Elaine Treharne
Old English religious poetry	15	(15)
Sarah Larratt Keefer
The Old English elegy: a historicization	30	(16)
Patrick W. Conner
`Tell me what I am': the Old English riddles	46	(14)
Jonathan Wilcox
Warring with words: Cynewulf's Juliana	60	(15)
Jill Frederick
Old English heroic literature	75	(16)
Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr.
Beowulf: monuments, memory, history	91	(18)
Roy M. Liuzza
History and memory in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle	109	(13)
Thomas A. Bredehoft
The persuasive power of Alfredian prose	122	(14)
Nicole Guenther Discenza
Old English religious prose: rhetorics of salvation and damnation	136	(13)
Thomas N. Hall
Centralizing feminism in Anglo-Saxon Literary Studies: Elene, motherhood, and history	149	(17)
Stacy S. Klein
Wise words: Old English sapiential poetry	166	(17)
Thomas D. Hill
Middle English didactic literature	183	(15)
James H. Morey
Middle English writings for women: Ancrene Wisse	198	(15)
Denis Renevey
The Middle English Brut chronicles	213	(16)
David F. Johnson
Earlier verse romance	229	(12)
Peter J. Lucas
Middle English debate literature	241	(16)
Alan J. Fletcher
Religious writing by women	257	(16)
Mary Swan
The Gawain-poet	273	(15)
Michael W. Twomey
Middle English prologues	288	(18)
Andrew Galloway
The Middle English lyrics	306	(17)
Anne Marie D'Arcy
Medieval dream visions: Chaucer's Book of the Duchess	323	(14)
William A. Quinn
Late romance: Malory and the Tale of Balin	337	(17)
Ad Putter
Scottish literature	354	(16)
Nicola Royan
Medieval drama: the Corpus Christi in York and Croxton	370	(17)
Greg Walker
Index	387