"What meanys shall I use to lurne withoute betynge?", asks a pupil in a translation exercise compiled at Oxford in 1460s. One of the most conspicuous features of medieval education is its reliance on
The ballad genre, and its material, are frequently backward-looking in terms of subject and style: it is ideally suited to the reimagining of past events, both real and fictional. This volume addresse
One of the biggest attractions of George R.R. Martin's high fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, and by extension its HBO television adaptation, Game of Thrones, is its claim to historical realism.
Throughout the Middle Ages, many Francophone texts - chansons de geste, medieval romance, works by Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France - were widely translated in north-western Europe. In the
Discrimination has long played a part in medievalism studies, but it has rarely been weaponized as thoroughly and publicly as in recent exchanges. The essays in the first part of this volume respond t
The work of William Morris (1834-1896) was hugely influenced by the medieval sagas and poetry of Iceland; in particular, they inspired his long poems "The Lovers of Gudrun" and Sigurd the Volsung. Bet
Castles play an integral part in Malory's Morte Darthur; Camelot, Tintagel, Joyous Gard, and Dover, for example, are the crucial backdrop to the action and both host and shape the story as it moves th
The Scottish poet George Lauder began as a "university wit", by imitating anti-papal satires popular in the Italian Renaissance. He set off for London as a young man, looking for patronage, but instea
The hope of salvation and the fear of damnation were fundamental in the Middle Ages. Surprisingly, however, this topic, as reflected in Old Norse literature, has received limited critical attention.T
Medieval romances so insistently celebrate the triumphs of heroes and the discomfiture of villains that they discourage recognition of just how morally ambiguous, antisocial or even downright sinister
The debt owed by Shakespeare to Ovid is a major and important topic in scholarship. This book offers a fresh approach to the subject, in aiming to account for the Middle English literary lenses throug
The Book of the Duchess, Chaucer's first major poem, is foundational for our understanding of Chaucer's literary achievements in relation to late-medieval English textual production; yet in comparison
Within the large-scale historiography of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century warfare and the early modern military revolution there remain many unanswered questions about the individual soldier and the
Thomas Hoccleve, Margery Kempe, John Audelay and Charles d'Orléans present themselves as the makers not only of their texts, but also of the books that transmitted their writing. This new study a
From the time when the writer J.T. Knowles first adapted Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur for a juvenile audience in 1862, there has been a strong connection between children and the Arthurian legend. Be
Medieval Paris' paradigmatic poet, François Villon, has long captured the imaginations of creative writers. Attracted by his beguilingly pseudo-autobiographical literary persona and a body of wor
Romances were immensely popular with medieval readers, as evidenced by their ubiquity in manuscripts and early print. The essays collected here deal with the textual transmission of medieval romances
How was Alexander the Great - controversial king, conqueror, explorer, and pupil of Aristotle, the subject of histories, romances, epic poetry, satires, and sermons in most of the languages of Europe
The crusading movements provoked a vast and diverse mass of reactions in the medieval West. While Latin sources provide official versions of its preaching, organisation and events, the vernacular lyri
From the great age of pastoral expansion in the thirteenth century, to the revolutionary paroxysms of the English Reformation, England's religious writings, cultures, and practices defy easy analysis.
The library of Corpus Christi College is one of the most famous of all of those in Oxford and Cambridge. It is one of the few pre-1600 libraries to survive in something like its original form, and the
"New sources for Shakespeare do not turn up every day... This is a truly significant one that has not heretofore been studied or published. The list of passages now traced back to this source is impre
The study of English literature, language, culture and creative writing is an important and dynamic enterprise. English: Shared Futures celebrates the discipline's intellectual strength, diversity and
The essays here reconsider the protean nature of Middle English romance. The contributors examine both the cultural unity of romance and its many variations, reiterations and reimaginings, including i
Malory's Morte Darthur is a canonical and widely-taught text. Recent decades have seen a transformation and expansion of critical approaches in scholarship, as well as significant advances in understa
The interrelation of so-called "literary" and "historical" sources of the crusades, and the fluidity of these categorisations, are the central concerns of the essays collected here. They demonstrate w
John Skelton is a central literary figure and the leading poet during the first thirty years of Tudor rule. Nevertheless, he remains challenging and even contradictory for modern audiences. This book
New Medieval Literatures is an annual of work on medieval textual cultures, aiming to engage with intellectual and cultural pluralism in the Middle Ages and now. Its scope is inclusive of work across
New Medieval Literatures is an annual of work on medieval textual cultures, aiming to engage with intellectual and cultural pluralism in the Middle Ages and now. Its scope is inclusive of work across
Literary texts complicate our understanding of medieval emotions; they not only represent characters experiencing emotion and reaction emotionally to the behaviour of others within the text, but also
Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. It delivers fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical iss
The body of short Middle English poems conventionally known as lyrics is characterized by wonderful variety. Taking many different forms, and covering an enormous number of subjects, these poems have
The twenty-first century has witnessed the re-emergence of various kinds of literary formalism, and one project that characterizes most of these diverse formalisms is the effort to distinguish what is
