1st Edition
The Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature
The Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature offers a new, inclusive, and comprehensive context to the study of medieval literature written in the English language from the Norman Conquest to the end of the Middle Ages. Utilising a Trans-European context, this volume includes essays from leading academics in the field across linguistic and geographic divides. Extending beyond the traditional scholarly discussions of insularity in relation to Middle English literature and ‘isolationism’, this volume:
- Oversees a variety of genres and topics, including cultural identity, insular borders, linguistic interactions, literary gateways, Middle English texts and traditions, and modern interpretations such as race, gender studies, ecocriticism, and postcolonialism.
- Draws on the combined extensive experience of teaching and research in medieval English and comparative literature within and outside of anglophone higher education and looks to the future of this fast-paced area of literary culture.
- Contains an indispensable section on theoretical approaches to the study of literary texts.
This Companion provides the reader with practical insights into the methods and approaches that can be applied to medieval literature and serves as an important reference work for upper-level students and researchers working on English literature.
General Introduction: Medieval English Literature in Trans-European and Global Contexts
Raluca Radulescu and Sif Rikhardsdottir
PART I: The Forms of Literature: Introduction
Raluca Radulescu and Sif Rikhardsdottir
- Orality, Vocality, and Textuality
- Vernacularity
- Books and Materiality
- Form and Genre
- Middle Welsh
- Irish
- Scots
- Multilingualism
- ‘Travel’ of the Mind via Study: translatio studii et imperii
- ‘Travel’ of the Soul via Religiosity: Imaginary and Actual Pilgrimages
- French-Speaking Courts and Literary Dominance in Europe
- The Norman Rule
- The Venetian Gateway: Commerce, Plague, Oriental Motifs
- Origination and Mediation: Sicily
- Islamic Pathways and Imaginary Borders
- Mercantile Networks
- Maps and the Medieval World at Large
- The Endurance of Early English Literary Traditions
- Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Chronicle Tradition
- Marie de France and Middle English Romance
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Alliterative Tradition
- Geoffrey Chaucer
- John Gower
-
William Langland: European Poet?
- Hoccleve and Lydgate: Transnationalism and Tradition
- Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, and Female Spirituality
-
The Middle English Lyrics in Their European Context
Christiania Whitehead - Medieval English Drama and Performance
- Thomas Malory
- Hagiography
- Emotion
- Race
- Gender/Queer Laura Saetveit Miles and Samantha Katz Seal
- Postcolonialism
- Ecocriticism
- Human/Animal
- Medievalism
Karl Reichl
Wendy Scase
J. R. Mattison and Alexandra Gillespie
Julie Orlemanski
PART II: Insular Borders, Linguistic Interactions: Introduction
Raluca Radulescu
Helen Fulton
Aisling Byrne
Caitlin Flynn
Ad Putter
PART III: Literary Gateways: Introduction
Sif Rikhardsdottir
Elizaveta Strakhov
Ryan Perry
Keith Busby
Laura Ashe
Sif Rikhardsdottir
David Wallace
Shirin Khanmohamadi
Craig E. Bertolet
Matthew Boyd Goldie
PART IV: Middle English Texts and Traditions: Introduction
Raluca Radulescu
Orietta Da Rold
Jaclyn Rajsic
Cory James Rushton
Lawrence Warner
Marion Turner
Siân Echard
Marco Nievergelt
Sebastian J. Langdell
Laura Kalas
Charlotte Steenbrugge
Raluca Radulescu
Karen A. Winstead
PART V: The Modern Middle Ages: Introduction
Sif Rikhardsdottir
Andrew Lynch
Wan-Chuan Kao
Patricia Clare Ingham and Abby Ang
Michael J. Warren
Karl Steel
David Matthews
Biography
Raluca Radulescu is Professor of Medieval English Literature and Director of the Centre for Arthurian Studies at Bangor University, Wales, UK. She is currently the elected Vice-President of the International Arthurian Society. Her research and publications focus on all aspects of medieval literature and studies, particularly on Arthurian and non-Arthurian romance, Thomas Malory, gentry studies, chronicles (including the Middle English Brut and genealogies) and manuscript culture. She has published two monographs (2003 and 2013) and eleven collections of co-edited essays, among them Insular Books: Vernacular Manuscript Miscellanies in Medieval Britain (2015), co-ed. with Margaret Connolly. She is currently writing a book on the Middle English Prose Brut and co-editing, with Andrew Lynch, the Cambridge History of Arthurian Literature and Culture (CHALC) in 2 volumes.
Sif Rikhardsdottir is Professor and Chair of Comparative Literature at the University of Iceland and Head of the Institute of Research in Literature and Visual Arts. She works on cross-cultural transmission and literary histories, comparative literary theory, gender, literary emotions, and voice in medieval European literature. Her publications include Medieval Translations and Cultural Discourse: The Movement of Texts in England, France and Scandinavia (2012); Emotion in Old Norse: Translations, Voices, Contexts (2017); and most recently the Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre (2019), co-edited with Carolyne Larrington and Massimiliano Bampi. Her co-edited volume Medieval Literary Voices: Embodiment, Materiality and Performance (with Louise D’Arcens) is forthcoming. She has held Visiting Fellowships or Professorships at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and St John’s College, University of Oxford.
