"A direct, clear, and user-friendly introduction to the sound of Chaucer's language, as well as to aspects of Chaucer's vocabulary and principal metrical form."--Back cover.

This essential Middle English textbook, now in its third edition, introduces students to the wide range of literature written in England between 1150 and 1400. New, thoroughly revised edition of this essential Middle English textbook. Introduces the language of the time, giving guidance on pronunciation, spelling, grammar, metre, vocabulary and regional dialects. Now includes extracts from 'Pearl' and Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde'. Bibliographic references have been updated throughout. Each text is accompanied by detailed notes.

The fourth edition of this essential Middle English textbook introduces students to the wide range of literature written in England between 1150 and 1400. Beginning with an extensive overview of middle English history, grammar, syntax, and pronunciation, the book goes on to examine key middle English texts — including a new extract from Julian of Norwich's Revelation of Divine Love — with helpful notes to direct students to key points within the text. Keeping in mind adopter feedback, this new edition includes a new model translation section with a student workbook and model exercise for classroom use. This new chapter will include sections on 'false friend' words, untranslatable idioms and notes on translating both poetry and prose. The text and references will be fully updated throughout and a foreword dedicated to the late J. A. Burrow will be included.

Provides teaching strategies, background, and suggested resources; reproducible student pages to use before, during, and after reading--Cover.

GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup('ISBN:9780748614813);An Introduction to Middle English is designed to provide undergraduate students of English historical linguistics with a concise description of the language during the period 1100-1500. Middle English, the language of Chaucer, is discussed in relation to both earlier and later stages in the history of English, and in relation to other languages with which it came into contact.Key Featurespresents the historical and geographical contexts of Middle Englishexamines the evidence for Middle English; introduces the principal features of Middle English spelling, pronunciation, grammar and vocabularyincludes an introduction to Middle English textual studies; selected Middle English texts, both literary and non-literary; notes, glossaries and annotated bibliographies; and questions for review.Most other introductory books on Middle English focus on literary rather than linguistic matters; this book is designed to redress the balance, by providing students of English language with an up-to-date, authoritative survey which takes account of recent trends in historical linguistics."e;

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was the subject of the first volume in the Approaches to Teaching series, published in 1980. But in the past thirty years, Chaucer scholarship has evolved dramatically, teaching styles have changed, and new technologies have created extraordinary opportunities for studying Chaucer. This second edition of Approaches to Teaching Chaucer's Canterbury Tales reflects the wide variety of contexts in which students encounter the poem and the diversity of perspectives and methods instructors bring to it. Perennial topics such as class, medieval marriage, genre, and tale order rub shoulders with considerations of violence, postcoloniality, masculinities, race, and food in the tales. The first section, "Materials," reviews available editions, scholarship, and audiovisual and electronic resources for studying The Canterbury Tales. In the second section, "Approaches," thirty-six essays discuss strategies for teaching Chaucer's language, for introducing theory in the classroom, for focusing on individual tales, and for using digital resources in the classroom. The multiplicity of approaches reflects the richness of Chaucer's work and the continuing excitement of each new generation's encounter with it.

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.

This volume builds on recent scholarship on contemporary poetry in relation to medieval literature, focusing on postmodern poets who work with the medieval in a variety of ways. Such recent projects invert or “queer” the usual transactional nature of engagements with older forms of literature, in which readers are asked to exchange some small measure of bewilderment at archaic language or forms for a sense of having experienced a medieval text. The poets under consideration in this volume demand that readers grapple with the ways in which we are still “medieval” – in other words, the ways in which the questions posed by their medieval source material still reverberate and hold relevance for today’s world. They do so by challenging the primacy of present over past, toppling the categories of old and new, and suggesting new interpretive frameworks for contemporary and medieval poetry alike.