Medieval Literature, 1300-1500

Medieval literature can be daunting. This critical guide is designed to help readers to relax in the company of diverting and entertaining voices from that 'other country' that is the past. Medieval Literature 1300-1500 offers close readings of Middle English texts placed within the culture with which they interact. Famous works, like The Canterbury Tales, are discussed alongside lesser-known poems, prose, and plays, in five thematically-organised chapters, accompanied by helpful critical apparatus. Reflecting the proliferation of user-friendly editions, many available on-line, this book extends the range of Middle English writing for which there is accessible up-to-date critical support, enabling the student, the general reader, the course designer, and the aspirant specialist, to read widely and with enjoyment in the medieval period. Key Features * Offers succinct close-readings of well-known texts of the period * Provides cultural-historical background to England in the Middle Ages * Reflects on the construction of an English literary 'tradition' * Cross-references literary texts against historical events and other art forms

Pamela King is Professor and Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bristol. She has published widely on interdisciplinary aspects of late medieval culture, with a particular interest in religious theatre and European civic display. Her monograph on the York Mystery Cycle won the David Bevington and Beatrice White prizes. A graduate of Edinburgh and York, she taught in the Universities of Warwick, York, London and Cumbria, and has held the Chair of Medieval Studies in the University of Bristol since 2005.