Companion to Medieval Poetry

Corinne Saunders is Professor in the Department of English Studies and Director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Durham. A specialist in medieval literature and the history of ideas, her recent publications include Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England (2001), A Companion to Romance (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004), Madness and Creativity in Literature and Culture (co-edited with Jane Macnaughton, 2005), Pearl (co-edited with David Fuller, 2005), A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), The Body and the Arts (co-edited with Ulrika Maude and Jane Macnaughton, 2009), and Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance (2010). She is the English editor of the international journal of Medieval Studies, Medium Ævum.

• List of Figures xNotes on Contributors xiAcknowledgements xviIntroduction 1Corinne SaundersPart I Old English Poetry 11Contexts 131 The World of Anglo-Saxon England 15Andy Orchard2 The Old English Language and the Alliterative Tradition 34Richard Dance3 Old English Manuscripts and Readers 51Rohini Jayatilaka4 Old English and Latin Poetic Traditions 65Andy OrchardGenres and Modes 835 Germanic Legend and Old English Heroic Poetry 85Hugh Magennis6 Old English Biblical and Devotional Poetry 101Daniel Anlezark7 Old English Wisdom Poetry 125David Ashurst8 Old English Epic Poetry: Beowulf141Daniel AnlezarkPart II Middle English Poetry 161Contexts 1639 The World of Medieval England: From the Norman Conquest to the Fourteenth Century 165Conor McCarthy10 Middle English Language and Poetry 181Simon Horobin11 Middle English Manuscripts and Readers 196Ralph HannaGenres and Modes 21712 Legendary History and Chronicle: Lazamon’s Brut and the Chronicle Tradition 219Lucy Perry13 Medieval Debate-Poetry and The Owl and the Nightingale 237Neil Cartlidge14 Lyrics, Sacred and Secular 258David Fuller15 Macaronic Poetry 277Elizabeth Archibald16 Popular Romance 289Nancy Mason Bradbury17 Arthurian and Courtly Romance 308Rosalind Field18 Alliterative Poetry: Religion and Morality 329John Scattergood19 Alliterative Poetry and Politics 349John ScattergoodPoets and Poems 36720 The Poet of Pearl, Cleanness and Patience 369A. V. C. Schmidt21 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 385Tony Davenport22 Langland’s Piers Plowman 401Lawrence Warner23 Chaucer’s Love Visions 414Helen Phillips24 Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde 435Alcuin Blamires25 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales 452Corinne Saunders26 The Poetry of John Gower 476R. F. YeagerPart III Post-Chaucerian and Fifteenth-Century Poetry 497Contexts 49927 England in the Long Fifteenth Century 501Matthew Woodcock28 Poetic Language in the Fifteenth Century 520A. S. G. Edwards29 Manuscript and Print: Books, Readers and Writers 538Julia BoffeyPoets and Poems 55530 Hoccleve and Lydgate 557Daniel Wakelin31 Women and Writing 575C. Annette Grisé32 Medieval Scottish Poetry 592Douglas Gray33 Courtiers and Courtly Poetry 608Barry Windeatt34 Drama: Sacred and Secular 626Pamela KingEpilogue: Afterlives of Medieval English Poetry 647Corinne SaundersIndex 661

“It is impossible within the confines of a review article to do justice to every – or, indeed, to any – chapter in this well-thought-out book. As a ‘companion’, it is to be revisited with enjoyment for its many new insights on familiar and well-loved material and its confident handling of new approaches to the study of medieval English poetry.”  (Parergon, 2012)"This is, however, a minor quibble; the essays in this book provide very useful introductions to the subjects they cover, and seem well placed to become standard basic reference works on medieval English poetry". (Medium Aevum, 2011)"This Blackwell Companion to Medieval Poetry is a very fine resource for students and teachers alike. It is particularly commendable for its wide scope, ranging from the earliest Old English texts to the poetry of late-medieval England (post-Chaucerian), as well as for its clear attention both to wider context, and to genre, modes and authors, and occasionally to individual texts, such as Chaucer's love visions, Troilus, or The Canterbury Tales (each of which receives its own chapter)." (Routledge ABES, 2011)