Product Description

J. A. Burrow 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. This book provides a valuable introduction to the problems which a modern reader encounters when approaching Middle English writings for the first time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #337753 in Books
• Published on: 1982-05-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 158 pages

TLS
"an excellent book for drawing attention to and clarifying the special difficulties of Middle English literature"

Review
This book is the most effective introduction to Middle English literature that I know. It is everywhere alert to the ways that modern literary sensibilities need to be adjusted in order to appreciate the medieval norm, and Burrow combines astonishing learning with a pedagogical shrewdness that always picks out just the telling passage or focusing cultural fact. This second edition adds a great deal of new and equally important material to a work that had already become a classic in its own right. (Christopher Cannon, Girton College, Cambridge )

an excellent book for drawing attention to and clarifying the special difficulties of Middle English literature (TLS )

About the Author
J. A. Burrow is Winterstoke Professor of English at Bristol University and author of A Reading of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' (1965); Ricardian Poetry (1971); English Verse 1300-1500 (1977); The Ages of Man (1986); Langland's Fictions (1993) and Thomas Hoccleve (1994).