Middle English Literature: A Guide to Criticism (Blackwell Guide to Criticism)

The guide brings together a cross-section of key critical work, in order to demonstrate how different schools of thought have treated major interpretative concerns, including authorship, textual form, genre, and literature and history. Extracts from some of the major authorities in the field introduce readers to such diverse approaches as New Criticism, textual criticism, genre criticism, historicism, feminism, psychoanalysis, and queer theory. These extracts treat a wide range of texts, from ‘The Owl and the NightingaleвЂTM and ChaucerвЂTMs ‘Canterbury TalesвЂTM, to MaloryвЂTMs ‘Morte dвЂTMArthurвЂTM and the Paston letters. Brief overviews from the editor place the pieces in context. By enabling readers to research the critical reception of key works, and to forge new connections between different approaches, this guide steers them through the rich critical terrain of Middle English studies. Middle English Literature: A Guide to Criticism......Page 5 Contents......Page 9 Contents Arranged by Middle English Author / Text......Page 12 Preface......Page 15 Acknowledgements......Page 17 1 Authorship......Page 21 The Critical Approach (1970)......Page 25 Literary Theory and Literary Practice (1984)......Page 34 Authority (1994)......Page 40 2 Textual Form......Page 49 The hoole book (1963)......Page 54 Division and Failure in Gower’s Confessio Amantis (1988)......Page 63 3 Genre......Page 75 Middle English Narrative Genres (1980)......Page 79 The Religious Tradition (1982)......Page 86 4 Language, Style, Rhetoric......Page 94 Early Medieval Narrative Style (1987)......Page 101 The Language of Service and Household Rhetoric (1993)......Page 110 Three Languages (1996)......Page 119 5 Allegory......Page 126 Patristic Criticism: The Opposition (1960)......Page 129 The Poets (1967)......Page 136 Intellectual and Religious Interpretations (1975)......Page 146 Allegorical Buildings in Mediaeval Literature (1994)......Page 151 6 Literature and History......Page 159 Economics (2001)......Page 167 Constructing Social Realities (2001)......Page 172 7 Gender......Page 184 Sexual Economics, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, and The Book of Margery Kempe (1983)......Page 186 Medieval Medical Views of Women and Female Spirituality (1993)......Page 198 Violence as Symbolic Capital in Malory’s Morte Darthur (1998)......Page 212 8 Identity......Page 223 Characterisation in the English Mystery Cycles (1983)......Page 224 Community, Virtue and Individual Identity in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1988)......Page 232 Troilus and Criseyde and the Subject of History (1991)......Page 241 Afterword......Page 252 Bibliography......Page 254 Index......Page 275 Middle English is a student guide to the most influential critical writing on Middle English literature. A student guide to the most influential critical writing on Middle English literature. Brings together extracts from some of the major authorities in the field. Introduces readers to different critical approaches to key Middle English texts. Treats a wide range of Middle English texts, including The Owl and the Nightingale, The Canterbury Tales and Morte d'Arthur. Organized around key critical concerns, such as authorship, genre, and textual form. Each critical concern can be used as the basis for one week's work in a semester-long course. Enables readers to forge new connections between different approaches. "The guide brings together a cross-section of key critical work, in order to demonstrate how different schools of thought have treated major interpretative concerns, including authorship, textual form, genre, and literature and history. Extracts from some of the major authories in the field introduce readers to such diverse approaches as New Criticism, textual criticism, genre criticism, historicism, feminism, psychoanalysis, and queer theory. By enabling readers to research the critical reception of key works, and to forge new connections between different approaches, this guide steers them through the critical terrain of Middle English studies."--Jacket We can gain an initial picture of the diversity and richness of Middle English literary criticism by considering some of the contrasting approaches taken to the question of authorship. Edited By Roger Dalrymple. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [234]-254) And Index.