Corinne Saunders is Professor in the Department of English Studies and Director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Durham. A specialist in medieval literature and the history of ideas, her recent publications include Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England (2001), A Companion to Romance (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004), Madness and Creativity in Literature and Culture (co-edited with Jane Macnaughton, 2005), Pearl (co-edited with David Fuller, 2005), A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), The Body and the Arts (co-edited with Ulrika Maude and Jane Macnaughton, 2009), and Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance (2010). She is the English editor of the international journal of Medieval Studies, Medium Ævum.

List of Figures x
Notes on Contributors xi
Acknowledgements xvi
Introduction 1
Corinne Saunders
Part I Old English Poetry 11
Contexts 13
1 The World of Anglo-Saxon England 15
Andy Orchard
2 The Old English Language and the Alliterative Tradition 34
Richard Dance
3 Old English Manuscripts and Readers 51
Rohini Jayatilaka
4 Old English and Latin Poetic Traditions 65
Andy Orchard
Genres and Modes 83
5 Germanic Legend and Old English Heroic Poetry 85
Hugh Magennis
6 Old English Biblical and Devotional Poetry 101
Daniel Anlezark
7 Old English Wisdom Poetry 125
David Ashurst
8 Old English Epic Poetry: Beowulf141
Daniel Anlezark
Part II Middle English Poetry 161
Contexts 163
9 The World of Medieval England: From the Norman Conquest to the Fourteenth Century 165
Conor McCarthy
10 Middle English Language and Poetry 181
Simon Horobin
11 Middle English Manuscripts and Readers 196
Ralph Hanna
Genres and Modes 217
12 Legendary History and Chronicle: Lazamon's Brut and the Chronicle Tradition 219
Lucy Perry
13 Medieval Debate-Poetry and The Owl and the Nightingale 237
Neil Cartlidge
14 Lyrics, Sacred and Secular 258
David Fuller
15 Macaronic Poetry 277
Elizabeth Archibald
16 Popular Romance 289
Nancy Mason Bradbury
17 Arthurian and Courtly Romance 308
Rosalind Field
18 Alliterative Poetry: Religion and Morality 329
John Scattergood
19 Alliterative Poetry and Politics 349
John Scattergood
Poets and Poems 367
20 The Poet of Pearl, Cleanness and Patience 369
A. V. C. Schmidt
21 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 385
Tony Davenport
22 Langland's Piers Plowman 401
Lawrence Warner
23 Chaucer's Love Visions 414
Helen Phillips
24 Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde 435
Alcuin Blamires
25 Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales 452
Corinne Saunders
26 The Poetry of John Gower 476
R. F. Yeager
Part III Post-Chaucerian and Fifteenth-Century Poetry 497
Contexts 499
27 England in the Long Fifteenth Century 501
Matthew Woodcock
28 Poetic Language in the Fifteenth Century 520
A. S. G. Edwards
29 Manuscript and Print: Books, Readers and Writers 538
Julia Boffey
Poets and Poems 555
30 Hoccleve and Lydgate 557
Daniel Wakelin
31 Women and Writing 575
C. Annette Grisé
32 Medieval Scottish Poetry 592
Douglas Gray
33 Courtiers and Courtly Poetry 608
Barry Windeatt
34 Drama: Sacred and Secular 626
Pamela King
Epilogue: Afterlives of Medieval English Poetry 647
Corinne Saunders
Index 661

MEDIEVAL POETRY
In a series of original essays from leading literary scholars, this Companion offers a chronological sweep of medieval poetry from Old English to the great genres of romance, narrative, and alliterative poetry of the 15th century.
Beginning in the Anglo-Saxon period, the volume explores the Old English language and its alliterative tradition, before moving on to examine the genres of heroic, devotional, wisdom and epic poetry, culminating in a discussion of arguably the founding text of the English literary canon, the great epic Beowulf. In part two, the Companion moves on to discuss the linguistic and social changes brought about as a result of the Norman Conquest, exploring how this influenced the development of literary genres. Essays probe the shifts and continuities in genres such as lyric, chronicle and dream vision, and the emergence of new genres such as popular and courtly romance, and drama. A particular focus is the continuation of the alliterative tradition from the Anglo-Saxon period to the fifteenth century. A series of chapters on major authors, including Chaucer, Gower, and Langland, provide fresh approaches to reading and studying key texts, such as The Canterbury Tales, Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Finally, the collection examines cultural change at the close of the medieval period and the variety of literature produced in the 'long fifteenth century', including writing by and for women, Scots poetry, clerical and courtly works, and secular and sacred drama.