Introduction

Course content

You should organise your course of study around both individual texts and topics.

Set texts

The following is a list of the set texts for this subject. In Sections A and B of the examination, specific questions will be set on a selection of these texts. As an absolute minimum, you will need to study five different texts and be prepared to answer questions on them. For information on editions, see the general subject reading below.

Fourteenth century

Fifteenth century

You are advised to read as widely as possible within this list, although it is not necessary to cover every text mentioned. In particular, I recommend that you include works from both the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in your selection in order to gain an understanding of the changes within the period.

Suggested topics

The following is a list of the kind of topics you might choose to investigate. You might prefer to come up with your own topics, based on comparisons and reflections across two or more texts.

Most important are the definitions and meanings of the following genres and literary terms:

Genre itself provides one kind of tradition. You will also need some understanding of other traditions within which the authors were writing:

Medieval writers drew on traditional topoi, ‘topics’ (i.e. conventional subjects) – one obvious topos that runs through many of the works in this subject is the seasons, especially the reverdie, the celebration of the return of spring; others include:

Other major topics might include:

As well as literary topics, you may wish to look at the broader historical context. You do not require extensive knowledge of factual information on historical subjects, nor do you need to look at all these areas in depth, though acquaintance with some of them is advised. I would, however, strongly advise you to develop a sense of the period by reading about the following areas and considering the ways in which they are reflected in the literature:

Using this subject guide

This subject guide will be organised around the structure of the examination paper. You will find examples of the kinds of question you can expect in the examination as you work through the guide.

This guide does not constitute the subject itself, but is an example of how you could construct an appropriate course of study and devise appropriate ways of studying the material you choose. It also indicates the range of material that is the minimum amount necessary to face the examination with confidence. Simple regurgitation in the examination of the illustrative material in this subject guide will be regarded as plagiarism and heavily penalised. You must adapt such material in ways appropriate to your own chosen syllabus of study. Examiners will always look unfavourably at examinations composed of answers that draw solely on the illustrative material provided in this subject guide.

Each chapter starts with a suggested reading list for the topic(s) to be covered. It is divided into essential reading and recommended secondary reading. The former sets out the text(s) discussed in the chapter. The latter list includes a number of books and articles that will enhance your knowledge and understanding of the topic.

In every chapter you will come across activities. These questions are designed to help you reflect on what you have just read. You will make most progress if you attempt to answer each of these questions as you come across them in the text. You should refer back to the reading and then write your answers down or discuss them with someone else.

A list of learning outcomes is included at the end of each chapter. Learning outcomes tell you what you should have learned from that chapter of the subject guide and the relevant reading. You should pay close attention to the learning outcomes and use them to check that you have fully understood the topic(s) under discussion.

You will also find sample examination questions at the end of all the chapters and a sample examination paper at the end of the guide. You should try planning and writing answers to these questions as part of your study and revision programme.

General reading

No single textbook will adequately cover the whole of the period. What follows is a highly selective bibliography that you should supplement with your own research. You will find it useful to consult the bibliographies at the back of the books listed here and books referred to by the authors in their notes and in their discussions. The Riverside Chaucer, for instance, has an enormous amount of secondary reading suggestions in its detailed notes. It conveniently surveys and summarises the range of critical perspectives over the last hundred years or so, enabling you to select particular articles and books relevant to your particular interests. There are many useful anthologies of criticism and collections of essays covering the medieval period, some of which are listed in the following bibliographies.

Do not be afraid to ‘strike out’ on your own. In fact, it will be extremely useful if you seek out further material and construct your own reading lists, covering topics of particular interest to you. You should consult the index of the libraries you have access to. Most libraries have computerised indexing which will cross-reference. So the entry ‘Thomas Malory’, for instance, should produce lists of editions of Malory’s Morte Darthur, but also bibliographies, critical readings, etc. Bear in mind the importance of using up-to-date material. If all the criticism you read on, say, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written in the 1960s you may have a limited idea of the range of critical responses to this text. At the same time, do not assume that criticism from an earlier date is necessarily redundant. Classic studies of 20 or 30 years ago may still contain some helpful information or analysis.

Recommended texts

Chaucer

*Benson, L.D. The Riverside Chaucer. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) [ISBN 0192821091]. Contains all Chaucer’s works, with excellent notes and bibliographies.

Sir Orfeo

The ideal edition, if you can get hold of it, is:

*Bliss, A.J. (ed.) Sir Orfeo. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966) second edition [ISBN 0198114818].

Otherwise, any of the following are fine:

Rumble, T.C. The Breton Lays in Middle English. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1965) [ISBN 0814312659].

Sands, Donald Middle English Verse Romances. (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1986) [ISBN 085989228X].

Speed, Diane, (ed.) Medieval English Romances. (Durham: Durham Medieval Texts, 1993) third edition [ISBN 0952007800].

Lyrics

By far the best edition is:

*Silverstein, T. (ed.) English Lyrics Before 1500. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988) [ISBN 0810103540].

Otherwise, try:

Davies, R.T. (ed.) Medieval English Lyrics. (London: Faber, 1963)
[ISBN 0571055222].

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The best edition from the linguistic point of view is:

*Tolkien, J.R.R. and E.V. Gordon Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Revised by Norman Davis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968) second edition [ISBN 0198114869]. This encourages you to do the translation work, and uses thorns and yoghs (unfamiliar, runic letters of the alphabet in use in medieval manuscripts).

Alternatives are:

Barron, W.R.J. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998) revised edition [ISBN 0719055172]. This has
a facing-page modern English translation which is helpful, but no substitute for the original.

Cawley, A.C. and J.J. Anderson Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience. (London: Dent, 1996) [ISBN 0460875108].

Waldron, R. (ed.) Poems of the Pearl Manuscript. (Exeter: University of
Exeter Press, 1997) [ISBN 0859895149].

Langland’s Piers Plowman

Bennett, J.A.W. Piers Plowman: the Prologue and Passus I–VII of the B Text. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979) [ISBN 0198710909].

*Schmidt, A.V.C. The Vision of Piers Plowman: a Critical Edition of the B Text. (London: Everyman, 1995) second edition [ISBN 0460875094].

The Book of Margery Kempe

*Staley, Lynn The Book of Margery Kempe, TEAMS. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996) [ISBN 1879288729].

Windeatt, Barry (ed.) The Book of Margery Kempe: An Annotated Edition. (Cambridge: Brewer, 2004) [ISBN 1843840103].

Malory’s Morte Darthur

*Vinaver, Eugène The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) [ISBN 0192812173]. It is very important to note that other editions vary considerably. In particular, beware of editions that follow Caxton’s version (such as the Penguin and Norton editions) rather than that of the Winchester manuscript, which is quite different in terms of content and structure.

Also acceptable, although be warned that it is an abridged version with modernised spelling, is:

Cooper, Helen (ed.) Le Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) [ISBN 9780199537341].

Towneley and Chester Noah plays

Brown, John Russell The Complete Plays of the Wakefield Master. (London: Heinemann, 1983) [ISBN 0435231383]. This is the Towneley cycle.

Lumiansky, R.M. and David Mills (eds) The Chester Mystery Cycle, EETS SS 3. Two volumes. (London: Oxford University Press, 1974) [ISBN 0197224032].

Stevens, Martin and A.C. Cawley (eds) The Towneley Plays, EETS SS 13/14. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) [ISBN 0197224156].

The separate Noah plays are often anthologised; for example, both are in:

*Happé, Peter (ed.) English Mystery Plays. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975) [ISBN 0140430938].

The Towneley Noah play is in:

Sisam, Kenneth (ed.) Fourteenth-Century Verse and Prose. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, reprinted 1975) [ISBN 0198710933 pbk].

The Chester Noah play is in:

Cawley, A.C. and A. Rooney (eds) Everyman and the Medieval Miracle Plays. (London: Dent, reprinted 2000) [ISBN 046087280X].

Although these are out of print, they are worth looking for in libraries and secondhand bookshops.

Henryson’s Moral Fables

The best edition is:

*Fox, Denton (ed.) The Poems of Robert Henryson. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) [ISBN 0198123248].

Also good, if you can get them, are:

Elliott, Charles (ed.) Robert Henryson: Poems. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974) [ISBN 0198710925].

Wood, H. Harvey (ed.) Poems and Fables by Robert Henryson. (Edinburgh: Mercat Press, reprinted 1978) [ISBN 0901824534]. However, these are currently out of print. You might be able to find them in libraries, secondhand bookshops, etc.

These are anthologies containing all of Henryson’s poems, but there is also a handy edition of the Moral Fables:

Gopen, George D.(ed.) Robert Henryson: Moral Fables. (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987) [ISBN 0268013616]. This provides a parallel text (middle Scots on one page, English translation on the other), but the translation is not always accurate and stylistically is rather dead. Also it fails to provide a glossary. Try not to let the temptation to merely read the English rob you of the experience of reading Henryson’s distinctly colourful middle Scots. It really is worth getting to grips with the language of the original.

Recently reissued and still of use, if slightly dated, is:

Hart, Andrew (ed.) The Moral Fables of Robert Henryson (1832). (Montana: Kessinger, 2010) [ISBN 9781165590278].

Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid

As well as being in the collected works cited above for the Moral Fables, the Testament of Cresseid is regularly anthologised and can also be found in a separate, out-of-print edition:

*Fox, Denton (ed.) The Testament of Cresseid. (London: Nelson, 1968) [ISBN 0171731093].

* Especially recommended

Historical, cultural and intellectual background

Barber, Richard The Knight and Chivalry. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2000) [ISBN 0851156630].

Bennett, Judith ‘Medieval Women, Modern Women: Across the Great Divide’ in Aers, David (ed.) Culture and History 1350–1600. (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992) [ISBN 0745007899].

Blamires, Alcuin The Case for Women in Medieval Culture. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997) [ISBN 0198186304].

Bloch, D. English Gothic Literature. (London: Macmillan, 1983)
[ISBN 0333271394]. Looks at the general literary context and
includes material on romance, Malory, etc.

Bothwell, James, P.J.P. Goldberg et al. (eds) The Problem of Labour in Fourteenth-Century England. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2000) [ISBN 1903153042].

Brereton, G. Froissart: Chronicles. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978)
[ISBN 0140442006].

Brewer, D. The World of Chaucer. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2000) [ISBN 0859916073].

Brewer, Derek English Gothic Literature. (London: Macmillan, 1983)
[ISBN 0333271394].

Coleman, Janet English Literature in History 1350–1400: Medieval Readers and Writers. (London: Hutchinson, 1981) [ISBN 0091441005].

Ford, Boris (ed.) Medieval Britain. Cambridge Cultural History of Britain. Volume 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)
[ISBN 0521428823].

Keen, M.H. England in the Later Middle Ages: A Political History. (London: Routledge, 2003) [ISBN 0415272939].

Kretzmann N. et al. (eds) The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) [ISBN 0521369339].

*Ladurie, E. Le Roy Montaillou. Translated by Barbara Bray (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984) [ISBN 0140551751].

Leff, Gordon Medieval Thought: St Augustine to Ockham. (NJ: Humanities Press, 1983) [IBSN 0391029541].

*Leyser, Henrietta Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450–1500. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan and Nicolson, 1998)
[ISBN 0312212798].

Marenbon, John Later Medieval Philosophy: 1150–1350. (London: Routledge, 1991) [ISBN 041506807X].

Pollard, A.J. Late Medieval England 1399–1509. (Harlow: Longman, 2000) [ISBN 0582031354].

Shahar, Shulamith The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle
Ages
. Translated by Chaya Galai (London: Routledge, 2003)
[ISBN 0415308518].

*Tuchman, Barbara W. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century. (New York: Ballantine, 1996) [ISBN 0345910907].

Warner, Marina Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary. (London: Vintage, 2000) [ISBN 009284499].

Watts, V.E. Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999) [ISBN 0140447806]. Required reading for the Knight’s Tale, but Boethius was also enormously influential throughout the Middle Ages.

* Especially recommended

Critical works

General works of literary history

Aers, David (ed.) Chaucer, Langland and the Creative Imagination. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980) [ISBN 071000351X].

Aers, David Medieval Literature: Criticism, Ideology and History. (Brighton: Harvester, 1986) [ISBN 0710810210].

Aers, David Community, Gender and Individual Identity: English Writing 1360–1430. (London: Routledge, 1988) [ISBN 0415013798].

Aers, David and Lynn Staley The Powers of the Holy: Religion, Politics and Gender in Late Medieval Culture. (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996) [ISBN 027101542X].

Brewer, D. English Gothic Literature. (London: Macmillan, 1983)
[ISBN 0333271394].

Burnley, David (ed.) Courtliness and Literature in Medieval England. (London: Longman, 1997) [ISBN 0582292166].

*Evans, Ruth and Lesley Johnson Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature: the Wife of Bath and All Her Sect. (London: Routledge, 1994) [ISBN 0415058198].

Everett, Dorothy in Kean, P.M. (ed.) Essays on English Literature (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1978) [ISBN 031320117X].

*Maddern, Carole Medieval Literature: Texts, Contexts, Connections. (London: York Press, 2010) [ISBN 9781408204757].

Muscatine, Charles Poetry and Crisis in the Age of Chaucer. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1972) [ISBN 0268004595].

Salter, Elizabeth Fourteenth-Century English Poetry: Contexts and Readings. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983) [ISBN 0198711026].

Spearing, A.C. Medieval Dream-Poetry. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976) [ISBN 0521290694].

Studies of texts and authors

Chaucer

Andrew, Malcolm Critical Essays on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991) [ISBN 033509600X].

Blamires, Alcuin The Canterbury Tales. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987)
[ISBN 0333378644].

*Boitani, P. and Jill Mann (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) [ISBN 0521894670].

Brewer, Derek A New Introduction to Chaucer. (London: Longman, 1998) [ISBN 0582093481].

Brown, Peter (ed.) A Companion to Chaucer. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002)
[ISBN 0631235906].

Cooper, Helen Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) [ISBN 0198711557].

*Crane, Susan Gender and Romance in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994) [ISBN 0691015279].

Dor, Juliette A Wyf Ther Was. (Liege: University of Liege Press, 1992)
[ISBN 2872330046].

Ellis, Steve (ed.) Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. (London: Longman, 1998) [ISBN 0582248817].

*Knapp, Peggy Chaucer and the Social Contest. (New York: Routledge, 1990) [ISBN 0415901510].

Kolve, V.A. Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales. (London: Arnold, 1984) [ISBN 0713164123].

Mann, Jill Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire: The Literature of Social Classes and the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973) [ISBN 052112752].

Mann, Jill Geoffrey Chaucer. (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991)
[ISBN 0710810059].

*Martin, Priscilla Chaucer’s Women: Nuns, Wives and Amazons. (Basingstoke: Macmillan, reprinted 1996) [ISBN 0333641426].

Morse, R. and B. Windeatt (eds) Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)
[ISBN 0521352479].

Olson, Paul A. The Canterbury Tales and the Good Society. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986) [ISBN 0691066930].

Pearsall, Derek The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995) [ISBN 1557866651].

Weisl, Angela Jane Conquering the Reign of Femeny: Gender and Genre in Chaucer’s Romance. (Cambridge: Brewer, 1995) [ISBN 0859914607].

The Knight’s Tale

Sources

Havely, N.R. (ed. and trans.) Chaucer’s Boccaccio: Sources of Troilus
and the Knight and Franklin’s Tales. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Brewer, 1992)
[ISBN 085991349X].

Jefferson, B. Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. (New York: Gordian, 1967) [ISBN 0877520550].

Minnis, A.J. Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity. (Cambridge: Brewer, 1982)
[ISBN 0859910989].

General

A good place to start is Helen Cooper’s section on the Knight’s Tale in Oxford Guides to Chaucer: the Canterbury Tales. (See historical section, above.)

Diamond, A. and L.R. Edwards ‘Chaucer’s Women and Women’s Chaucer’ in The Authority of Experience: Essays in Feminist Criticism. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988) [ISBN 0870236229].

Hanning, Robert ‘“The Struggle between Noble Designs and Chaos”: the Literary Tradition of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale’, Literary Review (1980) 23, pp.519­–41. Important contribution to the debate about whether the tale endorses or subverts political rule and order.

Keen, Maurice ‘Chaucer’s Knight, the English Aristocracy and the Crusades’ in Scattergood, V. and J.W. Sherborne (eds) English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages. (London: Duckworth, 1983) [ISBN 0715616374].

Knapp, Peggy ‘Chivalry and Its Discontents’ in Chaucer and the Social Contest. (See Chaucer section, above.)

Kolve, V.A. ‘The Knight’s Tale and Its Settings’ in Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative. (See Chaucer section, above.)

Muscatine, C. ‘Form, Texture and Meaning in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale’, Proceedings of the Modern Language Association (1950) 65, pp.911–29.

Patterson, Lee ‘The Knight’s Tale and the Crisis of Chivalric Identity’ in Chaucer and the Subject of History. (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991) [ISBN 0299128342].

The Miller’s Tale and Reeve’s Tale

Beichner, Paul E. ‘Characterisation in the Miller’s Tale’ in Schoek, R.J. and J. Taylor Chaucer Criticism. Volume 1 (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1960) [ISBN 0268000360] pp.117–29.

Benson, C.D. Chaucer’s Drama of Style: Poetic Variety and Contrast in The Canterbury Tales. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986) [ISBN 0807816795] Chapter 4.

Bloomfield, Morton ‘The Miller’s Tale – an unBoethian Interpretation’ in Mandel, Jerome and Bruce A. Rosenberg (eds) Medieval Literature
and Folklore Studies.
(New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1970)
[ISBN 081350676X] pp.205–12.

Brewer, Derek ‘The Poetry of Chaucer’s Fabliaux’ in Chaucer: the Poet as Storyteller. (London: Macmillan, 1984) [ISBN 0333284283] pp.107–19.

David, Alfred The Strumpet Muse: Art and Morals in Chaucer’s Poetry. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976) [ISBN 0253355176] Chapter 6.

Olson, Paul A. ‘The Reeve’s Tale: Chaucer’s Measure for Measure’, Studies in Philology (1962) 59, pp.1–17.

Troilus and Criseyde

*Benson, C.D. Critical Essays on Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and
His Major Early Poems
. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991)
[ISBN 0802069371].

Windeatt, Barry Oxford Guides to Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992) [ISBN 0198111940].

Sir Orfeo

Bristol, M.D. ‘The Structure of the Middle English Sir Orfeo’, Papers in Language and Literature (1970) 6, pp.337–47.

Friedman, J.B. Orpheus in the Middle Ages. (Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000) [ISBN 0815628250].

Knapp, J.K. ‘The Meaning of Sir Orfeo’, Modern Language Quarterly (1968) 29, pp.63–73.

Lucas, P.J. ‘An Interpretation of Sir Orfeo’, Leeds Studies in English (1972) 6,
pp.1–9.

Riddy, F. ‘The Uses of the Past in Sir Orfeo’, Yearbook of English Studies (1976) 6, pp.5–15.

The lyrics

Dronke, Peter The Medieval Lyric. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Brewer, 2002)
[ISBN 0859914844].

Gray, Douglas Themes and Images in the Medieval English Religious Lyric. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972) [ISBN 0710072538].

Jackson, W. The Interpretation of Medieval Lyric Poetry. (London: Macmillan, 1980) [ISBN 0333248163].

Woolf, Rosemary The English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) [ISBN 0198114877].

The Gawain poet

Barron, W.R.J. Trawthe and Treason: The Sin of Gawain Reconsidered: A Thematic Study of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1980) [ISBN 0719012945].

Benson, L.D. Art and Tradition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
(New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1965)
[ISBN 0813505011].

Brewer, Derek Studies in Medieval English Romances: Some New Approaches. (Bury St Edmunds: Brewer, 1988) [ISBN 0859912477].

Brewer, Derek and Jonathan Gibson (eds) A Companion to the Gawain-Poet. (Cambridge: Brewer, 2007) [ISBN 0859915298].

Clein, Wendy Concepts of Chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (Norman, Oklahoma: Pilgrim, 1987) [ISBN 0937664758].

Davenport, W.A. The Art of the Gawain-Poet. (London: Athlone Press, 1978) [ISBN 048512050X].

Fox, D. (ed.) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Collection of Critical Essays (20th Century Views). (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1968) [ISBN 0138105987].

Howard, D. and C. Zacher (eds) Critical Studies of Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight. (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 1968)
[ISBN 0681229713].

Putter, Ad An Introduction to The Gawain-Poet. (London: Longman, 1996) [ISBN 0582225744].

Wilson, E. The Gawain-Poet. (Leiden: Brill, 1997) [ISBN 9004047522].

Piers Plowman (B text)

Benson, C.D ‘The Function of Lady Mede in Piers Plowman’, English Studies (1980) 61, pp.193–205.

Davlin, Mary Clemente A game of heuene: Word-Play and the Meaning of Piers Plowman. (Cambridge: Brewer, 1989) [ISBN 0859912728].

du Boulay, F.R.H. The England of Piers Plowman: William Langland and his Vision of the Fourteenth Century. (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991)
[ISBN 0859913120].

Finke, Laurie A. ‘Truth’s Treasure: Allegory and Meaning in Piers Plowman’ in Finke, Laurie A. and Martin B. Schichtman Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers. (New York: Cornell University Press, 1987)
[ISBN 0801420035].

Murphy, Colette ‘Lady Holy Church and Meed the Maid: Re-envisioning Female Personifications in Piers Plowman’, in Evans, Ruth and Lesley Johnson (eds) Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature. (See Critical works section, above.)

Schmidt, A.V.C. The Clerkly Maker: Langland’s Poetic Art. (Cambridge: Brewer, 1987) [ISBN 0859912337].

*Simpson, James Piers Plowman: An Introduction to the B-Text. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2007) [ISBN 0859898032].

The Book of Margery Kempe

Arnold, J.H. and K.J. Lewis (eds) A Companion to The Book of Margery Kempe. (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010) [ISBN 0843842149].

Beckwith, Sarah ‘A Very Material Mysticism’ in Aers, David Medieval Literature: Criticism, Ideology and History. (See General works of literary history section above.)

Hirsh, J.C. The Revelations of Margery Kempe: Paramystical Practices in Late Medieval England. (Leiden: Brill, 1989) [ISBN 9004089632].

Lochrie, Karma ‘The Book of Margery Kempe: the Marginal Woman’s Quest for Literary Authority’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies (1986)
16, pp.33–55.

Long, Julia ‘Mysticism and Hysteria: the Histories of Margery Kempe and Anna O.’, in Evans, Ruth, and Lesley Johnson (eds) Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature. (See Critical works section, above.)

Watkin, E.I. On Julian of Norwich and in Defence of Margery Kempe.
(Exeter: University of Exeter, 1979) [ISBN 0859890546].

Malory

Archibald, Elizabeth and A.S.G. Edwards (eds) A Companion to Malory. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Brewer, 2000) [ISBN 0859915205].

Dobyns, Ann The Voices of Romance: Studies in Dialogue and Character. (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989) [ISBN 0874133513].

Field, P.J.C. Malory: Texts and Sources. (Cambridge: Brewer, 1998)
[ISBN 0859915360].

Field, P.J.C. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Brewer, 1993) [ISBN 0859915662].

Greenwood, Maria ‘Women in Love, or Three Courtly Heroines in Chaucer and Malory: Elaine, Criseyde, and Guinevere’ in Dor, Juliette A Wyf Ther Was. (See Chaucer section, above.)

Kennedy, Beverly Knighthood in the Morte Darthur. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Brewer, 1992) [ISBN 0859913554].

*Lambert, Mark Malory: Style and Vision in Le Morte Darthur. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975) [ISBN 0300018355].

Lumiansky, R.M. Malory’s Originality. (New York: Arno Press, 1979)
[ISBN 0405106122].

*McCarthy, Terence An Introduction to Malory. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Brewer, 1991) [ISBN 0859913252].

Riddy, Felicity Sir Thomas Malory. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1987) [ISBN 9004083707].

Towneley and Chester Noah plays

*Beadle, R. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) [ISBN 0521682541].

Davenport, W.A. Fifteenth-Century English Drama. (Cambridge: Brewer, 1982) [ISBN 0859910911].

Evans, Ruth ‘The Towneley Uxor’ in Dor, Juliette A Wyf Ther Was. (See Chaucer section, above.)

Happé, Peter (ed.) Medieval English Drama: A Casebook. (London: Macmillan, 1984) [ISBN 0333340825].

Harris, John Wesley Medieval Theatre in Context. (London: Routledge, 1992) [ISBN 0415067820].

Harty, Kevin J. (ed.) The Chester Mystery Cycle: A Casebook. (New York: Garland, 1993) [ISBN 0815304978].

Jack, R.D.S. Patterns of Divine Comedy: A Study of Medieval English Drama. (Cambridge: Brewer, 1989) [ISBN 0859912817].

Simon, Eckehard (ed.) The Theatre of Medieval Europe: New Research and Early Drama. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
[ISBN 0521089203].

Taylor, Jerome and Alan H. Nelson Medieval English Drama: Essays
Critical and Contextual
. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1972)
[ISBN 0226791467].

Woolf, Rosemary The English Mystery Plays. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980) [ISBN 0520040813].

Henryson’s Moral Fables

Burrow, J.A. ‘Henryson: The Preaching of the Swallow’, Essays In Criticism (1975) 25, pp.25–37.

Clark, George ‘Henryson and Aesop: the Fable Transformed’, Essays in Literary History (1976) 43, pp.1–18.

Gray, Douglas Robert Henryson. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979) [ISBN 9004059172].

Jamieson, I.W.A. ‘The Beast Tale in Middle Scots: Some Thoughts on the History of a Genre’, Parergon (1972) 2, pp.26–35.

von Kreisler, Nicolai ‘Henryson’s Visionary Fable: Tradition and Craftsmanship in “The Lyoun and the Mous”’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language (1973) 1, pp.391–403.

MacQueen, John Robert Henryson: A Study of the Major Narrative Poems. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967) [ISBN 0198116426].

MacQueen, John Complete and Full with Numbers: The Narrative Poetry of Robert Henryson. (New York: Rodopi Press, 2006) [ISBN 904201749X].

McDiarmid, Matthew Robert Henryson. (Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1982) [ISBN 9780707303062].

Murtagh, Daniel ‘Henryson’s Animals’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language (1972) 14, pp. 405–21.

Powell, Marianne Fabula Docet: Studies in the Background and Interpretation of Henryson’s Morall Fabillis. (Odense: Odense University Press, 1983) [ISBN 8774924087].

Wittig, Kurt The Scottish Tradition in Literature. (Edinburgh: Mercat, 1978) [ISBN 090182447X].

Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid

Gray, Douglas ‘What Became of Criseyde’, Chapter 5 in his Robert Henryson. (Leiden: Brill, 1979) [ISBN 9004059172].

Hanna III, Ralph ‘Cresseid’s Dream and Henryson’s Testament’ in Rowland, B. Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour of Russell Hope Robbins. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1974) [ISBN 0048210307].

MacDiarmid, Hugh The Testament of Cresseid. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1988) [ISBN 0141445072].

MacQueen, John Chapter 3 in his Robert Henryson: A Study of the Major Narrative Poems. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967)
[ISBN 019811642X].

*Especially recommended

Suggested study syllabus

The following is a sample 22-week outline to give you an idea of how a syllabus could be constructed for this subject.

Weeks 1–2

Background reading on medieval history and critical surveys of the period.

Topic study: the historical context (see Chapter 5 below).

Weeks 3–5

Author study: Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (the First Fragment). Practise Section A questions.

Weeks 6–8

Author study: other Canterbury Tales and/or Troilus and Criseyde.

Weeks 9–10

Topic study: medieval drama (Towneley and Chester Noah plays) (see Chapter 4 below).

Weeks 11–13

Topic study: women in the Middle Ages (The Book of Margery Kempe) (see Chapter 6 below).

Weeks 14–15

Topic study: Medieval lyrics. Practise Section A questions.

Weeks 16–17

Author study: Langland’s Piers Plowman (see Chapter 2 below).

Weeks 18–19

Author study: Henryson’s Moral Fables and/or Testament of Cresseid (see Chapter 3 below). Practise Section A questions.

Weeks 20–22

Revision. Practise one-hour timed questions to previous examination papers.

Recommended secondary reading for suggested study syllabus

Weeks 1–2

See Chapter 5 below.

Weeks 3–5

Boitani, P. and J. Mann The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) [ISBN 0521894670].

Weeks 6–8

Windeatt, B. Oxford Guides to Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992) [ISBN 0198111940].

Weeks 9–10

Beadle, R. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) [ISBN 0521682541].

Weeks 11–13

See Chapter 6 below.

Weeks 14–15

Woolf, R. The English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) [ISBN 0198114877].

Weeks 16–17

See Chapter 2 below.

Weeks 18–19

See Chapter 3 below.

Study questions for all set texts

Chaucer – the First Fragment of the Canterbury Tales

Troilus and Criseyde

Sir Orfeo

Lyrics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The Book of Margery Kempe

Malory’s Morte Darthur

Noah plays

Henryson: Testament of Cresseid

Online resources

Please note that additional study resources may be available to you for this course. A particularly important resource is the virtual learning environment (VLE) for the English programme, which you can access via the Student Portal – see your Student handbook for details of how to log in. Do check the VLE regularly as additional material may be added throughout the year.

Internet resources

These websites are excellent for Arthurian literature and legend:

www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/

www.netsurf.org/Arthuriana

This is excellent for both Chaucer and Arthuriana:

www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth

A fine site for Chaucer studies is Harvard University’s Chaucer pages:

www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer

For help with Middle English, try the Medieval English Dictionary Online:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med

For editions of the two Gawain analogues, The Marriage of Sir Gawain and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell:

www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htm

For medieval drama, see:

www.luminarium.org/medlit/playlink.htm

http://academics.vmi.edu/english/medrama.html

www.maine.edu/faculty/necastro/drama/index.asp

www.epas.utoronto.ca:8080/~medieval/www/pls/

For a wide range of resources devoted to medieval literature, see:

http://labyrinth.georgetown.edu

http://vos.ucsb.edu

Method of assessment

Important: the information and advice given here are based on the examination structure used at the time this guide was written. Please note that subject guides may be used for several years. Because of this we strongly advise you to always check both the current Regulations for relevant information about the examination, and the VLE where you should be advised of any forthcoming changes. You should also carefully check the rubric/instructions on the paper you actually sit and follow those instructions.

You will be assessed by one three-hour examination. The examination will be divided into three parts. You will be required to answer three questions, one question from each section.

You are free to consider the General Prologue or individual tales within the Canterbury Tales as a single work. You may also consider individual books within the Morte Darthur as single works, if you wish.

Section A consists only of Question 1 and this must be answered. It asks you to choose two from a series of sub-sections (labelled a, b, c, and so on through to f), asking you to comment on an extract, or to compare a couple of extracts, taken from the authors or set texts for this paper. You will be asked to choose two of these sub-sections, answering as directed. It is important to remember that you will need to go beyond plot summary and to analyse in terms of genre, form and historical context. You must be prepared to respond to the exact requirements of the question.

Section B offers individual questions on named authors or texts you have studied for this subject. There will be a choice of questions on each of the set areas covered: that is, Chaucer (the Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde); Sir Orfeo; the lyric; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Langland’s Piers Plowman; Malory’s Morte Darthur; the Noah plays; Henryson’s Moral Fables, The Testament of Cresseid. Questions on Malory specify that you may, if you wish, confine yourself to discussing Books VII and VIII.

Section C offers more general questions of a literary and historical nature. Some of these will be purely literary, while some will allow for the inclusion of background knowledge. Extensive knowledge of factual information on historical subjects will not be compulsory for answering these questions. Rather, they are designed to test your sense of the period. Most (not necessarily all) of these questions require reference to two or more works you have studied for this subject. Please note the information provided in the examination rubric as to what constitutes single works.

Remember, it is important to check the VLE for:

Examination technique

If you have followed the instructions offered in the subject guide, read as much of the suggested syllabus as possible and engaged with the topics under consideration, you should be well prepared for the examination. However, in order to do justice to yourself and the subject on the day of the examination, it is useful to think about your examination technique. Certain basic procedures should be followed.

These rules may seem obvious but are essential for a good examination performance in any subject. To further develop and improve your examination technique, you should read the Examiners’ report from the previous year(s) and consider the following additional points.

Choosing the question

One of the most important examination techniques is the ability to choose the kind of question that you are well equipped to answer, that will enable you to demonstrate the particular knowledge and skills you have acquired during your course of study. For instance, if a question asks you to discuss Piers Plowman in relation to prevailing religious, economic or social conditions, you will need a framework of historical knowledge to answer this question adequately. (To know for instance, something about the tensions in the Catholic church, medieval society, and the developing capitalist economy, etc.) It is also important to remember that texts need to be contextualised in relation to other texts from the period. It would be useful to consider comparable or contrasting representations by other medieval writers, such as Chaucer. Avoid making generalisations, and do not fall into the trap of ‘homogenising’ the entire medieval period. Specific conditions prevailing when Langland and Chaucer were writing would differ from those in which Malory and Henryson wrote.

Again, if you are interested in and have read some of the twentieth-century theoretical debates about contextualisation and historicity,
you should choose a question which allows you to bring these into your argument.

Reading the question

In order to answer questions effectively, it is important to understand what you are being asked to do, so look at the terms of the question (i.e. to ‘consider’, ‘compare’, ‘contrast’, ‘define’, ‘evaluate’ or ‘discuss’) and make sure you do what the question asks you to do. If you are asked, for example, to consider representations of Mary in medieval literature, it is not enough to list examples of instances where Mary appears. To describe or list is not to ‘consider’. With this question, you might look at the increasing importance of Mary in medieval culture, considering how later texts such as the Book of Margery Kempe show a much greater intimacy and familiarity than some of the earliest lyrics. You might consider what differences emerge when Mary is portrayed by a man or by a woman, by a cleric or by a secular writer. You could explore the different uses to which images of the Virgin were put. For instance, sometimes she is represented as an ideal to which ordinary women may aspire; at other times, conversely, as a superior being, whose perfection only underlines women’s generally inferior status. What are the points of contradiction or tension? There are lyrics and poems like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in which Mary is shown as an object for veneration, others where she functions as a speaking subject. What different effects result from such differing perspectives?

There are many ways of answering this question, depending on the texts you choose and the argument you wish to construct, but the important thing is to engage with the question asked and to develop an answer which is clearly and consistently relevant to the question.

When writing your answer, it is also helpful to begin with a (brief) definition of the key terms, stating what you understand by, for example, gender, romance, fabliau, etc. You should pay special attention to terms that are in quotation marks; this may signal that these terms require definition or discussion.

General matters: essays

In selecting topics on which to write practice essays, remember that your essays will be preparing you to answer examination questions, and therefore you should select essay topics that relate to each of the three sections of the final examination.