Jesús Tronch Pérez [home]
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Jesús Tronch Pérez [home]
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Old English: Beowulf | The Wanderer | The Dream of the Rood
Middle English: Sir Gawain | The Canterbury Tales | Medieval Drama | Mystery plays | Moralities
Medieval society (from Norton Topics: Middle Ages: Medieval Estates and Orders)
BBC British History Middle Ages
See corresponding sections in "English literature", Encyclopaedia Brittanica.
British Library : Discovering Literature: Medieval
For definitions of literary terms, see my glossary . For verse see "A Basic Guide to English Prosody"
Abrams, M. H., gen. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Greenblatt, Stephen, gen. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012.
Briggs, Asa. A Social History of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
Daiches, D. A Critical History of English Literature. London: Ronald Press, 1968.
Scanion, Larry, ed.
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009
The Catholic Encyclopaedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910
Anglo-Saxon dictionary online (Bosworth Toller's)
Old English Poetry project: contain translation into present-day English
Text: present-day English translation by Seamus Heaney (see bibliography): audio with Heaney reading his own (incomplete) translation Part 1 – Part 2
Interlinear old-modern text: Trans. by F. Gummere (Univ. Toronto) (Audiobook mp3 )
Beowulf in Hypertext (McMaster University : uses Gummere's translation - "Characters", "History: Archeology & Culture", "History: Christian Coloring")
Optional
Translation by Lesslie Hall (Project Gutenberg)
Electronic Beowulf (Univ. Kentucky)
Links to audio readings in Old English (Univ. Virginia)
Audio Readings of fragments: WWNorton
- Beginning in Electronic Beowulf
J. Shapiro's review of Heaney's translation
Film trailer Beowulf and Grendel, dir. S. Gunnarsson, 2005
Film trailer Beowulf, dir. R. Zemeckis, Paramount, 2007
Video game trailer Beowulf, Ubisoft
READING QUESTIONS AND TASKS FOR BEOWULF
How would you define the structure of the poem? |
Take note of recurrent kennings.
Take note of Christian and non-Christian or pagan elements
How is Beowulf constructed as a hero? Pay attention to descriptions, to his own words and actions, motivations, concerns.
How are the antagonists (Grendel, Grendel's mother, dragon) constructed ? How are they described? Who describes them? What are their motivations?
How are female characters presented? Take note of the words and phrases used to describe or refer to them, of their roles in the fictional society, their relationship with male characters, and their concerns.
Take note of elements of material culture (rings) and associated values.
ACTIVITIES
Grendel and Grendel's mother in Gunnarsson’s 2005 film adaptation of Beowulf: pdf
Commentary on the ending of Beowulf : pdf
Alexander, Michael, ed. And trans. Beowulf. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.
Davis, N. Beowulf: A Facsimile with Facing Transcriptions. The Early Text Society. Oxford, 1966.
Dobbie, E. V. K., ed. Beowulf and Judith. Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 4. New York, 1953.
Donaldson, E. Talbot, trans. Beowulf: A Prose Translation: Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Nicholas Howe. New York: Norton, 2001.
Donoghue, Daniel, ed. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. Norton Critical Edition. 2002.
Gummere, Francis B., trans. Beowulf. Harvard Classics. Vol. 49. Collier, 1910
Klaeber, Friedrich, ed. Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. 3rd ed. Boston and London, 1951.
Heaney, Seamus, trans. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.. Reprint in Daniel Donoghue (ed.), Norton Critical Edition, 2002; and M. Abrams and S. Greenblatt (eds.), Norton Anthology of English Literature, (from 8th edition).
Tolkien, J. R. R., trans. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London and New York: Harper Collins / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.
Baker, Peter S., ed. The Beowulf Reader. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000.
Benson, Larry. "The Pagan Coloring of Beowulf." Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays. Ed. Robert P. Creed (Providence: Brown University Press, 1967. 193-213. Rpt. In Peter Baker, ed. The Beowuld Reader, 35-50.
Bjork, Robert E. and John Niles,eds., A Beowulf Hanbook (University of Nebraska Press, 1997) [Partly in GoogleBooks]
Blackburn, F.A. "The Christian Colouring in the Beowulf." An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. University of Notre Dame Press. 1963.
Chadwick, Nora “The Monsters and Beowulf.” The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of their History and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickens. Ed. Peter Clemoes. London: Bowes and Bowes, 1959. 171-203
Chambers, R. Beowulf and the Heroic Age
Damico, Helen. “The Valkyrie in Old English Literature.” Allegorica 5 (1980): 149-67.
Fulk, Robert D., ed. Interpretation of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Indiana University Press, 1994.
Goldsmith, Margaret. "The Christian Perspective in Beowulf." (1962). Rpt. in Fulk, Interpretation, 103-119.
Hill, Thomas D. “The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf.” Beowulf: A Verse Translation. Ed. Daniel Donoghue. Norton Critical Edition. 2002. 197-211. Rpt. from Companion to Old English Poetry, ed. H. Aertsen and R. H. Bremmer, Jr. (Amsterdam, 1994) 63-77.
Hill, John, ed. The Heoric Age 5 Summer/Autumn (2001) Special Issue: Anthropoligical and Cultural Approaches to Beowulf. http://www.heroicage.org/issues/5/toc.html
Irving, E. B. “The Nature of Christianity in Beowulf,” Anglo-Saxon England 13 (1984) 7-21.
Kuhn, Sherman M. "Old English Aglaeca-Middle Irish Olach". In Linguistic Method: Essays in Honor of Herbert Penzl. Eds. Irmengard Rauch and Gerald F. Carr. The Hague, New York: Mouton Publishers, 1979. 213–30.
Leyerle, John. "The Interlace Structure of Beowulf." University of Toronto Quarterly 37 (1967): 3-9. Rpt. in Fulk, Interpretation, 146-167.
McNamee, Maurice B., S.J. "Beowulf - An Allegory of Salvation?" (1960). Rpt. in Fulk, Interpretation, 88-102
Nicholson, Lewis E., ed. An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963.
Niles, John D. "Rinc Composition and the Structure of Beowulf." PMLA 94.5 (1979): 924-935.
Nitzsche, Jane Chance. “The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel's Mother.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 22 (1980): 287-303.
Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey. "Women in Beowulf." Approaches to Teaching Beowulf. Ed. Jess B. Bessinger Jr. and Robert F. Yeager. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1984. 150-156.
Overing, Gillian. “The Women of Beowulf: A Context for Interpretation.” The Beowulf Reader. Ed. Peter S. Baker. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000. 219-260.
Renoir,. “Point of View and Design of Terror in Beowulf” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 63 (1962): 154-67. Rpt. in Donald K. Fry, The Beowulf Poet: A Collection of Critical Essays. 154-69.
Robinson, F. C. Beowulf and the Appositive Style Knoxville, TN: U of Tennessee P, 1985.
Robinson, Fred C. The Cambridge Companion to Beowulf, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Rogers, H. L. “Beowulf's Three Great Fights.” Review of English Studies 6 (1955): 339-55. Rpt. In Lewis E. Nicholson, An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. 233-56
Sklute, Larry M. “ Freoðuwebbe in Old English Poetry.“ Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 71 (1970): 534-41
Stanley, Eric. "Two Old English Poetic Phrases Insufficiently Understood for Literary Criticism: Þing Gehegan and Senoþ Gehegan". Old English Poetry: Essays on Style. Ed. Daniel G. Calder. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. 67–90.
Tolkien, J. K. K. "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." Rpt. in Fulk, Interpretation, 14-44.
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Electronic edition by Tim Romano
original and translation (Anglo-Saxons.net) (heorot.dk)
Original and translation Ed. M Rambaram-Olm | Anglo-Saxon dictionary online
Translation by Ezra Pound
a romance-chronicle by Layamon (or Lawamon), 12th century
Text: table Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse
Text: table Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse
Harvard's Geoffrey Chaucer Website
Selected topics:
Benson, L. "Courtly Love and Chivalry in the Later Middle Ages" Harvard's Geoffrey Chaucer Website
ca. 1330- 1408 :
Works: Mirour de l'Omme (Anglo-Norman, variety of French, c. 1374–78) , Vox Clamantis (Latin, c. 1385) , Confessio Amantis (English)
Note on Gower at Norton Topics Online
Confessio Amantis (pub. 1390) :
"A poem in eight books first completed in 1390, revised in the following year, and again revised in the 16th year of Richard II, June 1392-June 1393. Extant in about forty MSS. of the late 14th and the 15th centuries, and printed by Caxton in 1483. Confessio Amantis is a collection of over one hundred stories illustrative of the vices and virtues. The poet, as a lover, confesses his shortcomings to Genius, the priest of Venus, who absolves him and relates tales suitable to counteract each type of sin. The tale of Apollonius of Tyre is the principal tale of the final book. The play of Pericles, Prince of Tyre (partly by Shakespeare) is based principally on Gower's version, and Gower himself appears as the "presenter", or speaker of the prologues. " (Endicott, N. J. <https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/confessio-amantis-book-viii-tale-apollonius-tyre> )
Index to Tales and subjects (L. Benson )
Text of vol. 1 of Reinhold Pauli's 1857 edition (archive.org)
Text of Book VII (Apollonius of Tyre) at RPO Univ. Toronto
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Attributed to William Langland. Three versions associated with the author. More than 50 different manuscripts. PW Electronic Archive
"The poem consists of a series of allegorical visions which satirize the political and social abuses of the time" (Endicott, N. J. )
Text of modern translation (by Donald and Rachel Attwater. Everyman, 1951).
1381 Peasant's Revolt or Uprising of 1831: (Britannica) Norton Topics Online
Dream-vision poem : < French 13th-century dream-vision allegory, Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun (Britannica) (Norton Topics Online)
Poems in manuscript Cotton Nero A (British Library): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Saint Erkenwald
Interlinear Middle English - Modern prose text (RPO, Univ. Toronto)
Borroff, Marie, ed. and trans. The Gawain Poet: Complete Works. New York: Norton, 2011
Borroff, Marie, trans. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." The Norton Anthology of Literature. Ed. M. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1993.
Stone, Brian, ed. and trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.
Armitage, Simon, trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. London: Faber and Faber, 2007. Reprint in The Norton Anthology. Ed. S. Greenblatt. 9th edicion. New York: Norton,
Tolkien, J. R. R., trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Pearl; and Sir Orfeo. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1985.
Harrison, Keith, trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Jessie Weston's translations in Paul Deane's The Pearl Poet
Kirtlan, Ernet J. B, trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Rendered Literally into Modern English from the Alliterative Romance-Poem of A.D. 1360, from Cotton MS. Nero A x in British Museum. London: Charles H. Kelly, 1912. Interlinear text
J. Weston's translations in Paul Deane's The Pearl Poet
Heroism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:
Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Christianity in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Genre: romance : glossary
BBC Four Documentary Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with Simon Armitage
McGillivray's page on web resources for the study of the Gawain poet
A study of medieval commerce and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: R. Allen Shoaf's The Poem as Green Girdle (1984)
A. Jokinen's Luminarium page about essays on Chaucer
Canterbury Tales Interlinear Translation (L. D. Benson - Harvard) On textual tradition, see first endnote
Audio Readings of fragments: WWNorton
Pier Paolo Passolini's 1972 film I racconti di Canterbury:
General Prologue 00:02.55 (Wife of Bath 00:04:58) ; Miller's Tale 00:54:00, Wife of Bath's Prologue 01:08:53
youtube clips: in Italian with Italian subtitles; in Italian : "Merchant's Tale" in Italian ; "Cook's Tale" subt. Spanish ;
L. D. Benson's page on The General Prologue
Medieval Estates and Orders (from Norton Topics: Middle Ages: )
L. D. Benson's page on The Miller's Tale
Clip from Pier Paolo Pasolini's film adaptation (dubbed into Spanish)
Clip from The Canterbury Tales Animated (dir. Jonathan Myerson)
Text in L. D. Benson's Interlinear Translation
Aers, David. "Imagination, Order and Ideology: The Knight's Tale." Chaucer, Langland, and the Creative Imagination. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. 175-95.
Ashton, Gail. Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998.
Anderson, J. J., ed. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: A Casebook. Basingtoke: Macmillan, 1995. [HU 820-1M/001]
Beidler, Peter G., ed. The Wife of Bath. By Geoffrey Chaucer. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Boston and New York: Bedford Books, 1996. [HU D2.2/09834]
Bishop, Kathleen A., ed. The Canterbury Tales Revisited: 21st Century Interpretations. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. [HU 820-1M/034]
Cooper, Helen. The Canterbury Tales: Oxford Guides to Chaucer. Oxford UP, 1989 [HU M 820-1/33]
Cooper, Helen. The Canterbury Tales. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. [HU 820-1M/045]
Crane, Susan. "Medieval Romance and Feminine Difference in the Knight's Tale." Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990): 47-63.
Finke, Laurie. "'All is for to sell': Breeding Capital in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale." In Beidler, 171-88.
Hansen, Elaine Tuttle. "'Of his love daungerous to me': Liberation, Subversion, and Domestic Violence in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale". In Beidler, 273-289.
Mack, Peter and Chris Walton, eds. General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. Oxford UP, 1994. [HU 820-1F/CHA/5]
Mann, Jill. Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
Mann, Jill. Chaucer. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991.
O'Brien, Timothy D. "Seductive Violence and Three Chaucerian Women." College Literature, vol. 28, no. 2, 2001, p. 178-196.
Patterson, Lee, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury tales: A Casebook. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. [HU 820-1m/037]
Patterson, Lee. "'Experience woot well it is noght so': Marriage and the Pursuit of Happiness in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale." In Beidler, 133-154.
Treharne, Elaine. "The Stereotype Confirmed? Chaucer's Wife of Bath." Writing Gender and Genre in Medieval Literature Approaches to Old and Middle English Texts. Ed. Elaine Treharne. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2002. 93-115
Timeline of plays 950-1580
York cycle : Toronto 1998 performance (lists 47 plays, with links to texts)
- Compare pageants number 44 to 46 with the Elx mystery
Text of The Wakefield Second Shepherd’s Play (London: J. M. Dent, 1909) from Gutenberg Project
Simulation of York Chorpus Christi play
Text of Everyman from Gutenberg Project.
Modern edition: Bruster, Douglas and Eric Rasmussen, eds. Everyman and Mankind. Arden Early Modern Drama. London: Methuen (A & C Black), 2009.
Beadle, Richard, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre. Cambridge: CUP, 1994.
Bevington, David. Medieval drama. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1975
Styan, J. L. The English Stage: A History of Drama and Performance. Cambridge UP, 1996.
Trussler, Simon. The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre. Cambridge: CUP, 2000.
Marcus, Leah. “Dramatic Experiments: Tudor Drama, 1490-1567.” The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1500-1600. Ed. Arthur F. Kinney. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 132-152.
Wilson, F. P. English Drama 1485-1585. Vol. 5 of The Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.