Read more
Opening with extracts from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and closing with Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar," this concise collection introduces readers to some of the most influential poetry produced between the mid-fourteenth and late sixteenth centuries.
Provides a concise selection of the most important late medieval poetry.
Ideal for general readers, or for students needing a digest of the poetry of the period.
Introduces readers to the lives of the poets, their major works, and the historical context in which they were written.
List of contents
Series Editor's Preface. Introduction. 1. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400): From The Canterbury Tales: The General Prologue. The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale. 2. William Langland (fl.1375-80): The Vision of Piers Plowman (C-Text) (extracts). Prologue. Passus III. Passus V. Passus VI. 3. The Gawain-Poet (fl. 1390): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Fit 3. 4. Robert Henryson (c. 1430-c. 1505): The Testament of Cresseid. The Fables. The Fox and the Wolf. The Wolf and the Wether. 5. William Dunbar (c. 1456-c. 1515): Meditation in Winter. Christ in Triumph. The Golden Targe (extracts). The Treatise of the Two Married Women and the Widow (extracts). 'Timor Mortis Conturbat Me'. 6. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42): 'The longe love, that in my thought doeth harbor'. 'Who-so list to hunt, I knowe where is an hynde'. 'Farewell, Love, and all thy lawes for ever'. 'My galy charged with forgetfulnes'. 'Madame, withouten many wordes';. 'They fle from me that sometyme did me seke'. 'What no, perdy, ye may be sure!'. 'Marvaill no more all-tho'. 'Tho I cannot your crueltie constrain'. 'To wish and want and not obtain'. 'Some-tyme I fled the fyre that me brent'. 'The furyous gonne is his rajing yre'. 'My lute, awake! perfourme the last'. 'In eternum I was ons determed'. 'Hevyn and erth and all that here me plain'. 'To cause accord or to agre'. 'You that in love finde lucke and habundaunce'. 'What rage is this? what furour of what kynd?' 'Is it possible?' 'Forget not yet the tryde entent'. 'Blame not my lute for he must sownde'. 'What shulde I saye'. 'Spight hath no powre to make me sadde'. 'I abide and abide and better abide'. 'Stond who-so list upon the slipper toppe'. 'Throughout the world, if it wer sought'. 'In court to serve decked with freshe aray'. 7. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47): 'When raging love with extreme payne'. 'The soote season, that bud and blome furth bringes'. 'Set me wheras the sonne doth perche the grene'. 'Love, that doth raine and live within my thought'. 'Alas, so all thinges nowe do holde their peace'. 'Geve place, ye lovers, here before'. Epitaph for Wyatt. 8. Edmund Spenser (1552-99): From The Shepherd's Calender. January. Index of titles and first lines.
About the author
Derek Pearsall is the Gurney Professor of English at Harvard University and was Professor and Co-Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York, 1965-85.
Duncan Wu is a Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in English Literature.
Summary
A collection of poems produced between the mid-fourteenth and late sixteenth centuries.
