Readings in Medieval Texts

Elaine Treharne is Professor of Medieval Literature in the Department of English at the University of Leicester. She has published widely in the field of Medieval Literature and manuscript studies. She is currently Chair of the English Association, and member of its Fellowship and Higher Education Committees, and Second Vice-President of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists.David F. Johnson is Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in the Humanities at FSU, and Executive Director of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists. He specializes in Medieval English, Latin, and Germanic literatures and has published extensively in these areas.

Essays are intended for students undertaking beginning coursework in medieval literature and thus tend to offer general overviews of the topic at hand as well as models of close reading and textual analysis.

• Introduction ; 1. The context of medieval literature ; 2. Old English religious poetry ; 3. The Old English elegy: an historicization ; 4. 'Tell me what I am': the Old English riddles ; 5. Warring with words: Cynewulf's Juliana ; 6. Old English heroic literature ; 7. Beowulf: monuments, moments, history ; 8. History and memory in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ; 9. The persuasive power of Alfredian prose ; 10. Old English religious prose: rhetorics of salvation and damnation ; 11. Centralizing feminism in Anglo-Saxon Literary Studies: Elene, motherhood, and history ; 12. Wise words: Old English sapiental poetry ; 13. Middle English didactic literature ; 14. Middle English writings for women: Ancrene Wisse ; 15. The Middle English Brut chronicles ; 16. Earlier verse romance ; 17. Middle English debate literature ; 18. Religious writing by Women ; 19. The Gawain-poet ; 20. Middle English prologues ; 21. The Middle English lyrics ; 22. Medieval dream visions: Chaucer's Book of the Duchess ; 23. Late romance: Malory and the Tale of Balin ; 24. Scottish literature ; 25. Medieval drama: the Corpus Christi in York and Croxton