The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English
Edited by Greg Walker and Elaine Treharne
Abstract
The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in Englishcontains forty-four articles. The study of medieval literature has experienced a revolution, which has reinvigorated many parts of the discipline and changed the shape of the subject in relation to previous scholarship. ‘New’ texts (laws and penitentials, women's writing, drama records), innovative fields and objects of study (the history of the book, the study of space and the body, medieval masculinities), and original ways of studying them (the Sociology of the Text, performance studies) have emerged. This has brought fresh vigour and impetus to medieval studies, and has impacted significantly on cognate periods and areas. This book brings together the insights of these new fields and approaches with those of more familiar texts and methods of study, to provide a comprehensive overview of medieval literature. Topics covered range from the canonical genres of Saints' lives, sermons, romance, lyric poetry, and heroic poetry; major themes including monstrosity and marginality, patronage and literary politics, manuscript studies and vernacularity are investigated; and there are close readings of key texts, such as Beowulf, Wulf Eadwacer, and Ancrene Wisse and key authors from Ælfric to Geoffrey Chaucer, Langland, and the Gawain Poet.
Keywords:
law texts,
penitentials,
women's writing,
medieval masculinity,
performance studies,
Saints' lives,
sermons,
romance,
lyric poetry,
heroic poetry
Bibliographic Information
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Print Publication Date:
- Apr 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199229123
- Published online:
- Sep 2012
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199229123.001.0001
Editors
Greg Walker,
editor
Greg Walker is Masson Professor of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh.
Elaine Treharne,
editor
Elaine Treharne is Professor of Early English, and Courtesy Professor of History, at Florida State University.
