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Books : Literature & Fiction : World Literature : British : Poetry : Middle English
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Set against the epic backdrop of the battle of Troy, Troilus and Criseyde is an evocative story of love and loss. When Troilus, the son of Priam, falls in love with the beautiful Criseyde, he is able to win her heart with the help of his cunning uncle Pandarus, and the lovers experience a brief period of bliss together. But the pair are soon forced apart by the inexorable tide of war and - despite their oath to remain faithful - Troilus is ultimately betrayed. Regarded by many as the greatest love poem of the Middle Ages, Troilus and Criseyde skilfully combines elements of comedy and tragedy to form an exquisite meditation on the fragility of romantic love, and the fallibility of humanity.
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The epic poem of honor and bravery
Written by an anonymous fourteenth-century poet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is recognized as an equal to Chaucer’s masterworks and to the great Old English poems, Beowulf included. A green-skinned knight offers the Knights of the Round Table a simple but deadly challenge—a challenge taken on by the brave Sir Gawain. A challenge that will force him to choose between his honor and his life...
@GawainsWorld So listen here, some green man came to the hall and wants someone to cut his head off. Some sort of dare? Could be fun, right?
The deal is I cut off his head now, and he cuts off mine a year later. What a jester, doesn’t he know he’ll be dead?
This goblin fellow is totally dead.
All seemed fine until Ichabod Crane here fell to the floor, stood up, and picked up his head. His head, in his hands. In HIS HANDS!
From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less
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One of the greatest works of the Middle Ages, in a marvelous new verse translation
Composed in the fourteenth century, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is as beloved as it is venerable, combining the hallmarks of medieval romance—pageantry, chivalry, and courtly love—with the charm of fairy tales and heroic sagas.
When a mysterious green knight rides on horseback into King Arthur’s court, interrupting a New Year’s feast, he issues a challenge: if any of King Arthur’s men can behead him and he survives, then a year later he is entitled to return the strike. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge and decapitates the green knight, only to see him pick up his severed head and ride away, leaving Gawain to seek him out to fulfill their pact. Blending Celtic myth and Christian faith, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Middle English masterpiece of magic, chivalry, and seduction.
@GawainsWorld So listen here, some green man came to the hall and wants someone to cut his head off. Some sort of dare? Could be fun, right?
The deal is I cut off his head now, and he cuts off mine a year later. What a jester, doesn’t he know he’ll be dead?
This goblin fellow is totally dead.
All seemed fine until Ichabod Crane here fell to the floor, stood up, and picked up his head. His head, in his hands. In HIS HANDS!
From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less
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Beyond its importance as a literary work of unvarnished genius, Geoffrey Chaucer’s unfinished epic poem is also one of the most beloved works in the English language–and for good reason: It is lively, absorbing, perceptive, and outrageously funny. But despite the brilliance of Chaucer’s work, the continual evolution of our language has rendered his words unfamiliar to many of us. Esteemed poet, translator, and scholar Burton Raffel’s magnificent new unabridged translation brings Chaucer’s poetry back to life, ensuring that none of the original’s wit, wisdom, or humanity is lost to the modern reader. This Modern Library edition also features an Introduction by the widely influential medievalist and author John Miles Foley that discusses Chaucer’s work as well as his life and times.
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is probably the most skillfuly told story in the whole of the English Arthurian cycle. Originating from the north-west midlands of England, it is based on two ancient Celtic motifs--the Beheading and the Exchange of Winnings--brought together by the anonymous 14th century author. Acclaimed poet Keith Harrison's new translation uses a modern alliterative pattern which subtly echoes the music of the original at the same time it strives for fidelity. This is the most generously annotated edition available, complete with a detailed introduction which situates the work in the context of Arthurian Romance and analyzes its poetics and narrative structure.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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A spellbinding poetic translation of this six hundred year-old Arthurian story of beheading, romance, and the supernatural.
"Promises to drive the green force of the old poem through the Armitage fuse and set it a-buddin' and a-bloomin' for the new millennium."—Seamus Heaney, Nobel Laureate, best-selling translator of Beowulf Com posed in the late fourteenth century by an anonymous author in the English provinces, this remarkable epic has enchanted readers for generations. The work itself is an unparalleled masterpiece of alliteration and rhyme, beginning at Christmastime in Camelot, when the festivities of the Round Table are interrupted by the sudden appearance of a fearful stranger, green from head to foot. A young knight, Gawain, rises to the challenge. What follows is a test of nerve and heart as Gawain travels north to meet his destiny at the Green Chapel in a year's time. Following in the tradition of Seamus Heaney, Simon Armitage, one of England's leading poets, has produced a virtuoso new translation that resounds with both clarity and verve.
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A poetically faithful and compelling translation of Chaucer's classic.
In the tradition of Seamus Heaney's Beowulf and Marie Borroff's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sheila Fisher's The Selected Canterbury Tales is a vivid, lively, and readable translation of the most famous work of England's premier medieval poet. Preserving Chaucer's rhyme and meter and faithfully articulating his poetic voice, Fisher makes Chaucer's tales accessible to a contemporary ear while inviting readers to the Middle English original on facing pages.
Renowned for its astute character portraits (from the chivalrous Knight to the assertive Wife of Bath), timeless themes, realistic representations of fourteenth-century English life, and sheer energy of storytelling, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales should be available to everyone, in all the richness of its meaning and meter. Choosing fourteen tales that range from the high style of courtly romance to raunchy ramblings and examples of religious zeal gone astray, Fisher does justice to Chaucer's masterwork in a way sure to attract a new audience of modern readers.
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This is a new annotated translation of the B-text, Langland's own extensive revision of his original text. One of the greatest poems of the English Middle Ages, Piers Plowman remains of enduring interest for its vivid picture of the whole life of medieval society, its deeply imaginative religious vision, and its passionate concern to see justice and truth prevail in our world.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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Beyond all doubt the greatest work of English literature before Shakespeare, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales brings together an unforgettable group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, pilgrims who came from all ranks of society, from the crusading Knight and burly Miller to the worldly Monk and the famously lusty Wife of Bath. Their tales are as various as the tellers, including romance, bawdy comedy, beast fable, learned debate, parable, and Eastern adventure. The resulting collection gives us a set of characters so vivid that they have often been taken as portraits from real life, and a series of stories as hilarious in their comedy as they are affecting in their tragedy. Even after 600 years, their account of the human condition is fresh and true. David Wright's verse translation has long been admired for its brilliance and fidelity. This new edition adds representative passages from the important but overlooked prose tales, Melibee and the Parson's Tale, in new translations by Christopher Cannon, who also provides a new critical introduction and invaluable notes.
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In 1859, Edward FitzGerald translated into English the short, epigrammatic poems (or "rub�iy�t") of medieval Persian poet Omar Khayy�m. If not a true translation--his Omar seems to have read Shakespeare and the King James Bible--the poem nevertheless conveyed some of the most beautiful and haunting images in English poetry, and some of the sharpest-edged. By the end of the century, it was one of the best-known poems in the English language, admired by Swinburne and Ruskin. Daniel Karlin's richly annotated edition focuses on the poem as a work of Victorian literary art, doing justice to the scope and complexity of FitzGerald's lyrical meditation on "human death and fate." Karlin provides a fascinating critical introduction which documents the poem's treatment of its Persian sources, along with its multiple affiliations with English and Classical literature and to the Bible. A selection of contemporary reviews offers an insight into the poem's early reception, including the first attack on its status as a translation.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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Walter of Châtillon s Latin epic on the life of Alexander the Great was a twelfth- and thirteenth-century "best-seller:" scribes produced over two hundred manuscripts. The poem follows Alexander from his first successes in Asia Minor, through his conquest of Persia and India, to his progressive moral degeneration and his poisoning by a disaffected lieutenant. The Alexandreis exemplifies twelfth-century discourses of world domination and the exoticism of the East. But at the same time it calls such dreams of mastery into question, repeatedly undercutting as it does Alexander's claims to heroism and virtue and by extension, similar claims by the great men of Walter's own generation. This extraordinarily layered and subtle poem stands as a high-water mark of the medieval tradition of Latin narrative literature. Along with David Townsend's revised translation, this edition provides a rich selection of historical documents, including other writings by Walter of Châtillon, excerpts from other medieval Latin epics, and contemporary accounts of the foreign and "exotic."
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From Longman's new Cultural Editions Series, Beowulf, edited by Sarah Anderson and translated by Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy, includes the complete work and contextual materials on the early medieval age.
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This is part of a series of critical introductions to key literary and cultural topics from Old English to the late seventeenth century. Taking into account original research and content debate, the series is designed particularly to meet the needs of students, and will include studies of key authors, and works, genres, periods and contexts. The fabliau is one of the most entertaining genres in medieval literature. These comic and often extremely bawdy tales provide an essential context for Chaucer but they form an important body of writing in their own right, illuminating contemporary attitudes to gender and sexuality. John Hines's book provides the first major study of the genre for the student. Provides an essential context for understanding the Canterbury Tales, discussing five of the Tales in detail. A significant subject for students of medieval historical studies, and for students of women's and gender studies.
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One of the chief functions of poetry in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was to praise gods, people and things. Heroes and kings were glorified in many varieties of praise, and the arts of encomium and panegyric were codified by classical rhetoricians and later by writers on poetry. J. A. Burrow's study spans over two thousand years, from Pindar to Christopher Logue, but its main concern is with the English poetry of the Middle Ages, a period when praise poetry flourished. He argues that the 'decline of praise' in English literature since the seventeenth century, which has meant that modern readers and critics find it hard to appreciate this kind of poetry. This erudite but accessible account by a leading scholar of medieval literature shows why the poetry of praise was once so popular, and why it is still worth reading today.