Product Description

This essential Middle English textbook, now in its third edition, introduces students to the wide range of literature written in England between 1150 and 1400.

• New, thoroughly revised edition of this essential Middle English textbook.
  
• Introduces the language of the time, giving guidance on pronunciation, spelling, grammar, metre, vocabulary and regional dialects.
  
• Now includes extracts from ‘Pearl’ and Chaucer’s ‘Troilus and Criseyde’.
  
• Bibliographic references have been updated throughout.
  
• Each text is accompanied by detailed notes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #211972 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
"Classroom experience with this authoritative and accessible introduction to Middle English confirms that this is now our best available vademecum to the subject. The appearance of a third edition of Burrow and Turville–Petre′s Book of Middle English is good news to teachers and students of Middle English." Fred Robinson, Yale University

"Currently the most lucid and illuminating introduction to the language of Middle English, with an excellent selection of literary texts chosen and annotated to suggest the interest, sophistication, and variety of Middle English writing from the Peterborough Chronicle through the works of Chaucer and his contemporaries." Andrew Galloway, Cornell University

From the Back Cover
This authoritative textbook introduces readers to the wide range of literature written in England between 1150 and 1400.

The book opens with an introduction to the language of the time, designed to enable the reader to understand the representative pieces of Middle English literature that follow. The authors describe the language as it was used in different parts of the country, show how it evolved over this period, and offer guidance on pronunciation, grammar, metre and vocabulary.

Already a standard classroom text, A Book of Middle English has been extensively enhanced for the third edition. The authors have revised key works in light of new editions, updated bibliographic entries, and have added two substantial new extracts, from Pearl and from Chaucer′s Troilus and Criseyde.

About the Author
J.A. Burrow is Emeritus Professor at Bristol University. His many publications include Medieval Writers and their Work (1982) and Gestures and Looks in Medieval Narrative (2002).

Thorlac Turville–Petre is Professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of Nottingham. His previous publications include England the Nation (1996) and The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, Vol. 2: Trinity College, Cambridge, MS B.15.19 (CD–ROM, 2000).

Customer Reviews

A good textbook
This is a good selection of texts, accessibly presented with introductions to each text, footnotes for difficult passages and a glossary. Not so much a book for straight reading as for learning the essentials of reading Middle English literature from early texts such as "Ancrene Wisse" to later ones by Chaucer and other writers. My only complaint is that the glossary is a bit arbitrary - it seems that if the editors consider a word in a text is similar to a Modern English word, they don't include it in the glossary, even if they do include a word with the same spelling but a different meaning - this can cause difficulties in translating and understanding some sections of the texts. On the whole though, a good buy.

Studied text
I studied this text as the core for my module on middle english language as part of my degree, although turville-petre offers some good information about dialect and other linguistic aspects in his introduction, some of the selections of excerpts from texts are quite week and I felt it would have been better had he chosen more dynamic sections which exmplify the pieces rather than just the opening lines, especially with pieces such as Sir Gawain and The Green Knight