Readings in Medieval Poetry is a linked collection of essays on such poems as the Song of Roland, King Horn, Havelok, Sir Orfeo, Chaucer's Book of the Duchess, House of Fame and Troilus and Criseyde, the alliterative Morte Arthure, The Siege of Jerusalem, Purity, Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Piers Plowman. The connecting purpose is to open up a variety of kinds of medieval poetry to modern readers; and, while the methods used vary with the kinds of poetry being discussed, they frequently involve, along with historical treatments in terms of medieval practices and systems of ideas, the adoption and adaptation of theoretical frameworks borrowed from outside the medieval field.

For pious Christians of every age, the question of ultimate concern has been salvation: What is necessary to ensure the soul's eternal bliss? During the Middle Ages, within the Church itself, the guidelines were clear: baptism, reception of the sacraments, an attempt to put into practice the teachings of Christ. But a theological debate arose on the possibility of salvation for those outside the Church, who fell into two basic categories: those who had been offered the Christian faith but had refused it, & those who, for reasons of chronology or geography, lacked the opportunity to join the Church but lived as virtuously as possible. Two categories of these "virtuous pagans" who received special attention were the classical poets & philosophers of Greece & Rome, & the Old Testament patriarchs. From the standpoint of human reason, it seemed especially unfortunate that these two groups should be damned eternally. This study discusses the theological background of this issue; the Virtuous Pagan in legend & in Dante; St. Erkenwald's Harrowing of Hell; & "Piers Plowman": Issues in Salvation & the Harrowing as Thematic Climax.

"Original, courageous, and exemplary. . . . This will prove to be one of the most significant and energizing works of recent decades."--David Wallace, editor of The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature "A thoroughly accomplished and groundbreaking piece of historicist medievalism, and a 'local' study that resonates in an extraordinarily sensitive and promising way with problems that are worrying and entrancing literary and cultural studies in general. . . . Justice's work powerfully addresses issues that have emerged in the controversies over essentialism and performativity in feminist and ethnicity and queer theory, over alteritism and intimacy in post-colonial theory, and over subversion and containment in new historicism. . . . If Writing and Rebellion were to do no more than recharge the practice of medieval scholarship, draw attention to the textuality of 1381, and establish the importance of 1381 to Ricardian culture as a whole, thereby guiding us to a new reading of that period, it would be a wonderful book; it does all these things, but its implications go even farther. I hope it will be read by many people in many fields thinking seriously about the making of social and literary change."--Louise O. Fradenburg, author of City, Marriage, Tournament: Arts of Rule in Late Medieval Scotland

Written in an engaging and accessible manner, English Literature in the Age of Chaucer serves as both a lucid introduction to Middle English literature for those coming fresh to the study of earlier English writing, and as a stimulating examination of the themes, traditions and the literary achievement of a number of particulary original and interesting authors. In addition to detailed and sensitive treatment of Chaucer's major works, the book includes chapters on his chief contemporaries, such as John Gower, William Langland and the Gawain-poet. It also examines the often underrated contribution to the English literary tradition of his successors John Lydgate and Thomas Hoccleve, as well as the interesting and original work of the Scottish poets, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas, who also claim Chaucer as their model. Apart from the narrative poetry of Chaucer and his followers, the book also contains chapters on the Middle English lyric; Middle English prose, including Mandeville's travels; the most original and imaginative writings of the Middle English mystics, in particular Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe; and Thomas Malory's impressive prose compilation of Arthurian stories.

This book surveys the appearances of righteous heathens or virtuous pagans in travel literature, chronicles, romances, and sermons, as well as in the work of Langland, Chaucer and Gower. Grady also illustrates the way these figures have been used to explore a variety of historical, cultural and formal literary issues.

Thomas Aquinas and William Langland inherited the dynamic metaphor of journeying as a fundamental concept of the Christian life and harnessed it to animate their magisterial texts: the Summa Theologiae and Piers Plowman. Christians' journey back to God consists in the way of charity, yet it is far from straightforward or sequential. Rather, it is impinged upon by epistemic ambiguity, our willful continued habits of resistance, and inherent limitations on our perfection. In sum, the virtues are divine gifts humanly received, treasure in earthen vessels. Together these authors show the complexity we ourselves will find along this life's journey, enable our understanding to appreciate that complexity, and in limited ways cultivate in us the virtues they describe.

This book uses the methodologies of cultural studies and the history of the book to show how editors and readers of the Sixteenth through the early Nineteenth century successively remade Piers Plowman and its author according to their own ideologies of the Middle Ages.

This Companion explores the Bible's role and influence on individual writers, whilst tracing the key developments of Biblical themes and literary theory through the ages. An ambitious overview of the Bible's impact on English literature – as arguably the most powerful work of literature in history – from the medieval period through to the twentieth-century Includes introductory sections to each period giving background information about the Bible as a source text in English literature, and placing writers in their historical context Draws on examples from medieval, early-modern, eighteenth-century and Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist literature Includes many 'secular' or 'anti-clerical' writers alongside their 'Christian' contemporaries, revealing how the Bible's text shifts and changes in the writing of each author who reads and studies it

Engaging with four English poems or groups of poems - the anonymous medieval Crucifixion lyrics; William Langland's Piers Plowman, John Donne's Divine Poems, and John Milton's Paradise Lost - this book examines the nature of poetic encounter with God. It constitutes an important contribution to our understanding of the relationship between literature and theology.