Product Description: A study of the four great Middle English poems, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Patience and Purity, which are in the same manuscript and are usually attributed to the same anonymous poet. After a general chapter devoted to the poet and his background, Mr Spearing turns to the poems, analysing each closely, paying particular attention to details of style, tone and approach, and commenting on what they have in common and the ways in which they diverge...read more

Product Description: A 1976 study of the medieval English dream-poem, set against the background of classical and medieval visionary and religious writings and the theory of dreams from classical times down to Freud and Jung. In this first general treatment of one of the most popular kinds of literature in the Middle Ages, Mr Spearing examines many specific poems in some detail and explores the nature of the visionary tradition in which medieval dream-poets felt themselves to be writing: he develops a theory of the dream-poem as a type of work in which medieval poets focused their own consciousness of the activity of creating imaginative fictions, variously and often ambiguously balanced between vision and fantasy...read more

This is a critical book to study in depth the transition from the 'medieval' to the 'Renaissance' periods in English literature. What exactly, in a literary context, do those terms designate? Mr Spearing argues that, far from being fixed determinants, they demand careful critical reappraisal. He rewrites the literary history of the period from Chaucer to the early Spenser in a way that puts emphasis on the importance of Chaucer's influence on a tradition which in many important respects began with him. Many literary and cultural qualities, normally considered 'Renaissance', can be seen to have their origins, so far as the English tradition is concerned, in Chaucer's contacts with Italian culture. This book shows how Chaucer can be regarded as a Renaissance poet whose work was medievalised by his admiring successors. Traditions other than the Chaucerian are examined in this light, and the author engages with the larger problems of literary history through the detailed analysis of specimen texts.

Readings in Medieval Poetry is a linked collection of essays on such poems as the Song of Roland, King Horn, Havelok, Sir Orfeo, Chaucer's Book of the Duchess, House of Fame and Troilus and Criseyde, the alliterative Morte Arthure, The Siege of Jerusalem, Purity, Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Piers Plowman. The connecting purpose is to open up a variety of kinds of medieval poetry to modern readers; and, while the methods used vary with the kinds of poetry being discussed, they frequently involve, along with historical treatments in terms of medieval practices and systems of ideas, the adoption and adaptation of theoretical frameworks borrowed from outside the medieval field.

Product Description: While love is private, and in medieval literature especially is seen as demanding secrecy, to tell stories about it is to make it public. Looking, often accompanied by listening, is the means by which love is brought into the public realm and by which legal evidence of adulterous love can be obtained...read more

Product Description: A well-established and respected series. Texts are in the original Middle English, and each has an introduction, detailed notes and a glossary. Selected titles are also available as CD recordings. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: A well-established and respected series. Texts are in the original Middle English, and each has an introduction, detailed notes and a glossary. Selected titles are also available as CD recordings.

Product Description: This book investigates how subjectivity is encoded in the texts of a wide variety of medieval narratives and lyrics--not how they express the subjectivity of individuals, but how subjectivity, escaping the bounds of individuality, is incorporated in the linguistic fabric of their texts...read more

Product Description: In Medieval Autographies, A. C. Spearing develops a new engagement of narrative theory with medieval English first-person writing, focusing on the roles and functions of the “I” as a shifting textual phenomenon, not to be defined either as autobiographical or as the label of a fictional speaker or narrator...read more

Product Description: The classic respected series in a stunning new design. This edition includes the full, complete text of The Reeve's Prologue and Tale and The Cook's Prologue and the Fragment of his Tale from the highly-respected Selected Tales series...read more

Product Description: The classic respected series in a stunning new design. This edition of The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale from the highly-respected Selected Tales series includes the full, complete text in the original Middle English, along with an in-depth introduction by A...read more

Product Description: The classic respected series in a stunning new design. This edition of The Franklin's Prologue and Tale from the highly-respected Selected Tales series includes the full, complete text in the original Middle English, along with an in-depth introduction by A...read more

Product Description: The classic respected series in a stunning new design. This edition of The Knight's Tale from the highly-respected Selected Tales series includes the full, complete text in the original Middle English, along with an in-depth introduction by A...read more