San Antonio College Library

This collection of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century documents is designed for students of Chaucer and Middle English literature. It makes readily available accounts of key historical events and descriptions of pertinent cultural phenomena. - Brings together in one volume fourteenth- and fifteenth-century historical and cultural texts. - Documents shed light on the themes and styles that appear in Chaucer and other Middle English literature. - Contains...

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...

"The medieval period was one of extraordinary literary achievement sustained over centuries of great change, anchored by the Norman invasion and its aftermath, the re-emergence of English as the nation's leading literary language in the fourteenth century, and the advent of print in the fifteenth. This Companion maps out the flourishing field of medieval literary studies and points towards new directions and approaches."--Back cover.