A popular and highly readable account of the general culture of Chaucer's age, of how life looked and felt in the 14th century.

New research into medieval English literature, with a particular focus on manuscripts and writing. This acclaimed study of English medieval manuscripts and early printed books - many items from Professor Takamiya's own collection - quickly sold out in hardcover. The subjects range from Saint Jerome to Tolkien, with particular concentrations on Chaucer, Gower, Malory and religious and historical writings of the late middle ages. There are essays examining the work of early printers such as Caxton and de Worde, and of bibliophiles and antiquarians in modern times. Befitting a tribute to a bibliophile, this volume has been handsomely designed by Lida Kindersley of the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge, and is extensively illustrated. The volume as a whole constitutes a substantial body of research on medieval English literature, and early books and manuscripts. Contributors: Richard Barber, Nicolas Barker, Richard Beadle, N.F. Blake, Julia Boffey, Piero Boitani, Derek Brewer, Helen Cooper, A.I. Doyle, Martha W. Driver, A.S.G. Edwards, P.J.C. Field, Christopher de Hamel, Ralph Hanna, Lotte Hellinga, Kristian Jensen, Edward Donald Kennedy, Richard A. Linenthal, Jill Mann, Takami Matsuda, David McKitterick, Rosamond McKitterick, Linne R. Mooney, Ruth Morse, Daniel W. Mosser, Tsuyoshi Mukai, Paul Needham, M.B. Parkes, Derek Pearsall, Oliver Pickering, P.R. Robinson, Michael G. Sargent, John Scahill, Kathleen L. Scott, Jeremy J. Smith, Isamu Takahashi, John J. Thompson, Linda Ehrsam Voigts, Yoko Wada, Bonnie Wheeler, Patrick Zutshi.

This series gathers together a body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from important essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation. Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works, authors and subjects.

This series gathers together a body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from important essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation. Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works, authors and subjects.

The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read the material themselves.

The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read the material themselves.

Essays intended as a companion to a reading of the works of the Gawain poet: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience The essays collected here on the Gawain-Poet offer stimulating introductions to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience, providing both information and original analysis. Topics includetheories of authorship; the historical and social background to the poems, with individual sections on particularly important features within them; gender roles in the poems; the manuscript itself; the metre, vocabulary and dialect of the poems; and their sources. A section devoted to Sir Gawain investigates the ideas of courtesy and chivalry found within it, and explores some of its later adaptations from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Afull bibliography completes the volume. DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge; JONATHAN GIBSON has worked as a lecturer in the Universities of Exeter and Durham. Contributors: DEREK BREWER, MALCOLM ANDREW, A.C. SPEARING, JANE GILBERT, MICHAEL J. BENNETT, DAVID AERS, RALPH ELLIOTT, MICHAEL THOMPSON, FELICITY RIDDY, ANNE ROONEY, MICHAEL LACY, A.S.G. EDWARDS, H.N. DUGGAN, ELISABETH BREWER, RICHARD NEWHAUSER, HELEN COOPER, NICHOLAS WATSON, PRISCILLA MARTIN, NICK DAVIS, DEREK PEARSALL, GILLIAN ROGERS, BARRY WINDEATT, DAVID J. WILLIAMS

Medieval humour revealed in an anthology of 80 tales from England, France, Italy, Germany and Spain. During the middle ages, a common fund of comic tales circulated throughout Europe. Writers such as Boccaccio, Chaucer, Rabelais and Cervantes drew on this material, and used it for their own purposes, but the brilliant medieval versions also deserve to be known in their own right. They are of great cultural interest and considerable entertainment value, varying from humour to farce, from sophisticated literary parody to blunt crudeness. Piety jostles blasphemy, and sex and death are everywhere good for a joke. The tales presented here, translated into clear modern English by experts in their fields, are from French, Spanish, Dutch, German, medieval Latin, Italian and English. .Scholars and students and the general reader alike will find the book accessible, useful and enjoyable. The late DEREK BREWER was Professor Emeritus of English Literature, University of Cambridge.

`Provides an excellent one-volume guide to the works of the anonymous Gawain-poet.' CHOICE The essays collected here on the Gawain-Poet offer stimulating introductions to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness and Patience, providing both information and original analysis. Topics includetheories of authorship; the historical and social background to the poems, with individual sections on particularly important features within them; gender roles in the poems; the manuscript itself; the metre, vocabulary and dialect of the poems; and their sources. A section devoted to Sir Gawain investigates the ideas of courtesy and chivalry found within it, and explores some of its later adaptations from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Afull bibliography completes the volume. The late DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge; JONATHAN GIBSON has worked as a lecturer in the Universities of Exeter and Durham.

This volume of essays is aimed at advancing the appreciation of Malory, an author who has always been enjoyed by the common reader, but is still sometimes underestimated by the critics. Despite an increasing number of articles on Malory, there is a need for a general survey of recent research, whichl> Aspects of Malory /l>provides. The volume opens with a note by the late Professor Vinaver on Malory's prose, and three essays on Malory's Englishness and his English sources, including an essay by P. J. C. Field which argues for an English rather than a French origin for the l>Tale of Gareth/l>. This is followed by two essays on Malory's French sources, by Jill Mann and Mary Hynes-Berry. Therence McCarthy re-exasmines the sequence of the tales, and three further essays look at the scribal and textual tradition of Malory's work, in particular the relationship between the Winchester MS, Caxton's printed version, and the history of the MS. Finally, Richard R. Griffith reconsiders the authorship question, and proposes a long-forgotten Thomas Malory as the most likely candidate. There is a bibliography of recent research compiled by Professor Takamiya .Full of sound scholarship'. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENTVolume of essays aimed at advancing the appreciation of Malory and providing a general survey of critical research; topics covered include Malory's sources, both French and English, the scribal and texual tradition of his work, and the question of authorship.

Studies of the influence of the middle ages on aspects of European and American life and culture from 16c to the present day. The eleven essays in this volume are studies of specific instances of the influence and impact of the middle ages on Western life and culture from the sixteenth century to the present day. They cover a wide range of topics -literature, stylistics, lexicography, art, the cinema, philosophy, history and myth-making, oral traditions, feminist issues - and reflect the enduring influence of the middle ages on European art and life. Dr MARIE-FRANCOISE ALAMICHEL is lecturer in English at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne; the late DEREK BREWER was Emeritus Professor of English, University of Cambridge. Contributors: CLAIRE VIAL, DERICK S. THOMSON, KEES DEKKER, ERIC G. STANLEY, FLORENCE BOURGNE, RENATE HAAS, DEREK BREWER, LAURA KENDRICK, RENE GALLET, JAMES NOBLE, SANDRA GORGIEVSKI.

Subtle and illuminating life of Chaucer, drawn against the turbulent backdrop of 14th century England. `Brewer brings to his task a full scholarly knowledge of the sources of Chaucerian biography... Of obvious value to students reading Chaucer and to all who read him for pleasure; more advanced scholars will also find in it much toprovoke thought and advance understanding.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENTChaucer's tales, rich in comedy and pathos, have an immediate appeal; they draw freely and vividly from the romance and colour of the times in which he lived, and his world that of the second half of the 14th century is rich in cultural interest. It was a time of new exploration and new individualism, of peasant revolt and passionate religious dissent, and of a remarkable flowering of the arts. Chaucer lived at thevery centre of the action, and this book follows the stages of his career, illuminating with reference to the art and architecture of the time and through reference to his writings, the physicalenvironment and intellectual climate in which he lived. Reissue: first published 1978. DEREK BREWER was Professor of English Literature emeritus, University of Cambridge.

A wide range of new scholarship on Chaucer's poetry. This collection of essays makes available a wide range of new scholarship on Chaucer's poetry. Opening essays address the issues of "Chaucerian representation" and "Chaucerian poetics", arguing for the multiplicity and complexityof what Chaucer "represents" and for the importance of his dual Anglo-French background in enabling him to articulate that complexity. Chaucer's use of Ovidian and Ciceronian sources and ideas is examined, and his pursuit of simplicity and suspicion of "delicacy"; the potent issues of sexuality and spirituality, and money and death (with Chaucer's own ending and his thoughts on last things) complete the collection. Contributors: DEREK BREWER, HELEN COOPER, PAUL DOWER, JOHN V. FLEMING, JOHN HILL, TRAUGOTT LAWLER, CELIA LEWIS, R. BARTON PALMER, WILLIAM PROVOST, JOHN PLUMMER, WILLIAM ROGERS.

Analysis of the structure of traditional stories and fairytales, bringing out their shared characteristics, and showing why they remain so powerful and resonant today. Many famous stories, from the Old Testament, medieval romance and folktale, to Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies and even some great novels, present apparent inconsistencies or absurdities when judged as plausible representations of 'reality'. Yet the experience of many generations of readers and listeners is that such stories take a powerful hold on the imagination and memory, and create a strong impression on coherent significance. Symbolic Stories shows why the structure of these tales is so significant, and why they are repeated, both in the original and with variations, down the ages. Professor Brewer reveals new aspects of the stories themselves by elucidating the implicit and symbolic meanings that lie below the literal narrative. The stories discussed are those that are especially concerned with the processes of growing up and coming to maturity. They are told from the point of view of the emerging individual as he or she passes through the rites de passage that allow disengagement from parents, self-realisation, the establishment of new relationships, and integration with society. The bookdemonstrates certain characteristic themes and structures in these traditional stories, but is far from reducing them to a single formula. One of the main purposes is to show how selected stories of great artistic value establishtheir own individual meanings within the general pattern. There are new interpretations of the famous romances, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Malory's Tale of Sir Gareth, and of other romances. Shakespeare'sremarkable portrayals throughout his career of various aspects of the family drama are discussed, and the essence of a new theory of tragedy and comedy is suggested. The extreme type of traditional story in Europe is seen as the fairy tale, which is analysed to show how fundamentally such narrative differs from the novel, but Mansfield Park and Great Expectations are explored in detail to show their equivocal relationships to the tradition. The book will appeal to all those who are interested in the structure of narrative, whether from the point of view of literature, psychology or folklore. The late Professor Derek Brewer was Master of Emmanuel College Cambridge and Reader in Medieval English Literature in the University of Cambridge. He published numerous books and articles, especially on Chaucer, but on all periods of English literature.

Henry James conceived the character of Hyacinth Robinson - his 'little presumptuous adventurer with his combination of intrinsic fineness and fortuitous adversity' - while walking the streets of London. Brought up in poverty, Hyacinth has nevertheless developed aesthetic tastes that heighten his awareness of the sordid misery around him. He is drawn into the secret world of revolutionary politics and, in a moment of fervour, makes a vow that he will assassinate a major political figure. Soon after this he meets the beautiful Princess Casamassima. Captivated by her world of wealth and nobility, art and beauty, Hyacinth loses faith in radicalism, 'the beastly cause'. But tormented by his belief in honour, he must face an agonizing, and ultimately tragic, dilemma. The Princess Casamassima is one of James's most personal novels and yet one of the most socially engaged.

The centuries between 1100 and 1500 were the crucible in which English language and literature, after the blow of the Norman Conquest, were reformed with results that affected all later times. The national language and literary culture were reconstructed influences. The medieval centuries present a fascinating success story of recovery, inventiveness and major achievement in all aspects of national life. In literature, lyric verse, narrative poetry, drama and discursive prose were all established in characteristic modes. In the present book many works are discussed, while such masterpieces as the works of Chaucer, Langland's Piers Plowman, the poems of the Gawain-poet and Malory's Morte Darthur are shown as the secular equivalent in words of the great medieval Gothic cathedrals. The forms of this varied body of literature had as characteristic a period style as contemporary Gothic art and architecture themselves. English literature may equally be described as Gothic, with assumptions and achievements which both lead to and contrast with later Neoclassical styles. Black and white photographic illustrations further the comparison and suggest some background. English Gothic literature derives from many interrelated social context - court, town, monastery and countryside. It was recorded in manuscripts that blend the qualities of popular speech and folktale with some of the more impersonal regular qualities of printing, that last of fundamental medieval inventions. In this new concept of the history of medieval literature, Derek Brewer illuminates the major literary works with detailed exposition to make them available to the reader coming fresh to them. At the same time he places them in the context of developing literacy and individualism, secular realism, romantic love, personal religion, etc., setting forth a coherent framework of cultural history which will challenge the interest of those who already know the period.