Text of English Literature of the Middle Ages

Text of English Literature of the Middle Ages

The most important details in this text are the ten recommendations for medieval literature. These include Dante's Divine Comedy, Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Margery Kempe's The Book of Margery Kempe, and William Shakespeare's The Two Noble Kinsmen. Dante's Divine Comedy is a trilogy of poems charting the poet's journey from hell to heaven. Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a magnum opus that contains 'God's plenty', and Margery Kempe's The Book of Margery Kempe is a great little beast fable featuring talking animals. Marco Polo's Travels and Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain are two important medieval books.

Polo's Travels is a fascinating account of a woman's life in medieval England, while Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain popularised the story of King Arthur. Polo's Travels was a bestseller 150 years before the invention of the first modern printing press. Geoffrey's account of the legendary king contains the first appearance of many of the iconic features of the Arthurian legend, including the Beowulf 2wizard Merlin. The Mabinogion is the first substantial prose work written in Britain, composed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by unknown Welsh monks. Beowulf is the greatest English poem of the medieval era, chronicling the hero's exploits, notably his slaying of the monster Grendel. This Norton Critical Edition includes Seamus Heaney's acclaimed translation along with background information and a selection of critical essays on the poem.