Includes bibliographical references and index.

World of Anglo-Saxon England / Andy Orchard -- Old English language and the alliterative tradition / Richard Dance -- Old English manuscripts and readers / Rohinin Jayatilaka -- Old English and Latin poetic traditions / Andy Orchard -- Germanic legend and Old English heroic poetry / Hugh Magennis -- Old English biblical and devotional poetry / Daniel Anlezark -- Old English western poetry / David Ashurst -- Old English epic poetry: Beowulf / Daniel Anlezark -- World of medieval England: from the Norman conquest to the fourteenth century / Conor McCarthy -- Middle English language and poetry / Simon Horobin -- Middle English manuscripts and readers / Ralph Hanna -- Legendary history and chronicle: Lazamons's "Brut" and the chronicle tradition / Lucy Perry -- Medieval debate-poetry and "The Owl and the Nightingale" / Neil Cartlidge -- Lyrics, sacred and secular / David Fuller -- Macaronic poetry / Elizabeth Archibald -- Popular romance / Nancy Mason Bradbury -- Arthurian and courtly romance / Rosalind Field -- Alliterative poetry: religion and morality / John Sacttergood -- Alliterative poetry and politics / John Scattergood -- Poet of pearl, cleanness and patience / A. V. C. Schmidt -- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight / Tony Davenport -- Langland's "Piers Plowman" / Lawrence Warner -- Chaucer's "Troilus" and "Criseyde" / Alcuin Blamires -- Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" / Corinne Saunders -- Poetry of John Gower / R. F. Yeager -- England in the long fifteenth century / Matthew Woodcock -- Poetic language in the fifteenth century / A. S. G. Edwards -- Manuscript and print: books, readers and writers / Julia Boffey -- Hoccleve and Lydgate / Daniel Wakelin -- Women and writing / C. Annette Grisé -- Medieval Scottish poetry / Douglas Gray -- Courtiers and courtly poetry / Barry Windeatt -- Drama: sacred and secular / Pamela King