An Introduction to Medieval English Literature: 1300-1485

by Anna Baldwin

This is a comprehensive guide to a literary period characterized by great variety and imagination, and vividly alert to the social transformations overtaking society. Spanning almost two centuries, it introduces the reader to a diverse range of authors writing for a fast-developing readership of both men and women.

Each chapter focuses on a group of genres primarily associated with a particular social class – from the Drama and Saints' Lives accessible to the illiterate, to the sophisticated Romances of Love savoured by the aristocracy and the Court. Lively historical narratives place each group of texts in their social, political and cultural contexts. Significant or typical texts are given more detailed analysis that includes critical issues and questions to guide the reader's own approach, and each section is supported by a detailed bibliography of further reading.

296 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2015

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a clear, comprehensive, and readable guide which strikes a good balance between breadth - covering religious and secular drama, confessional literature and sermons, political advice and estates satire, story collections, mystical texts, saints' lives, popular and chivalric romances, religious and love lyrics, and dream poems, allegories, and love visions! - and depth, with plenty of information on a number of key texts. It is also very well organized by genre and audience, and supported with copious references for further reading. In contrast to some books of this kind, the use of interpolated text boxes of additional information is not intrusive; although it is hard to see why their content could not have been integrated into the text completely. Where Baldwin's Introduction does fall down slightly is in its decision to ask study questions to the reader - "Here the figure of Elaine is very interesting; do you think that she chooses death as an act of will in both texts, or only in the later one? (p. 250) - that can only be answered, or even considered, after having read the texts themselves. On many occasions, these questions are given in separate sections and can therefore easily be postponed or skipped altogether; but when they creep into the main text itself, the result is to muddle or confuse, rather than to guide. Nevertheless, this is - although not an especially exciting book - a very useful one.