This book is the most effective introduction to Middle English literature that I know. It is everywhere alert to the ways that modern literary sensibilities need to be adjusted in order to appreciate the medieval norm, and Burrow combines astonishing learning with a pedagogical shrewdness that always picks out just the telling passage or focusing cultural fact. This second edition adds a great deal of new and equally important material to a work that had already become a classic in its own right.

• 1. The period and the literature ; 2. Writers, audiences, and readers ; 3. Major genres ; 4. Modes of meaning ; 5. The afterlife of Middle English literature ; Notes ; Bibliography

This book is the most effective introduction to Middle English literature that I know. It is everywhere alert to the ways that modern literary sensibilities need to be adjusted in order to appreciate the medieval norm, and Burrow combines astonishing learning with a pedagogical shrewdness that always picks out just the telling passage or focusing cultural fact. This second edition adds a great deal of new and equally important material to a work that had already become a classic in its own right.

• 1. The period and the literature ; 2. Writers, audiences, and readers ; 3. Major genres ; 4. Modes of meaning ; 5. The afterlife of Middle English literature ; Notes ; Bibliography

This book is the most effective introduction to Middle English literature that I know. It is everywhere alert to the ways that modern literary sensibilities need to be adjusted in order to appreciate the medieval norm, and Burrow combines astonishing learning with a pedagogical shrewdness that always picks out just the telling passage or focusing cultural fact. This second edition adds a great deal of new and equally important material to a work that had already become a classic in its own right.

• 1. The period and the literature ; 2. Writers, audiences, and readers ; 3. Major genres ; 4. Modes of meaning ; 5. The afterlife of Middle English literature ; Notes ; Bibliography