In The Art and Thought of the "Beowulf" Poet, Leonard Neidorf explores the relationship between Beowulf and the legendary tradition that existed prior to its composition. The Beowulf poet inherited an amoral heroic tradition, which focused principally on heroes compelled by circumstances to commit horrendous deeds: fathers kill sons, brothers kill brothers, and wives kill husbands. Medieval Germanic poets relished the depiction of a hero's unyielding response to a cruel fate, but the Beowulf poe...
Anglo-Saxon poetry is esteemed for its subtle artistry and for its wealth of insights into the artistic, social and spiritual preoccupations of the formative first centuries of English literature. This anthology of prose translations covers most of the poetry surviving in the four major codices and in various other manuscripts. A well-received feature is the grouping by codex to emphasize the great importance of manuscript context in interpreting the poems. The full contents of the Exeter Book a...
Sir Gawain And The Green Knight/Pearl/Cleanness/Patience
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT is one of the most important alliterative poems of Medieval literatureNow a major film THE GREEN KNIGHT starring Dev PatelFrom the north-west midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight dates from the second half of the 14th century. Gawain, a knight in Arthur's court, takes up the challenge of the Green Knight, and cuts off his head. The Knight informs Gawain he will have his revenge.Journeying to the Knight's abode to receive his lot Gawain takes the hospitality o...
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) (Classic William Blake)
by William Blake
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was created early in Blake's series of illuminated books, each of which was presented by him as an attractive work of art made entirely by his own hand. Written principally in prose, The Marriage represents Blake's first full-scale attempt to present his philosophic message. In it he expresses his extreme humanist views through a system in which Angels and Devils change places, Good becomes Evil, Heaven is Hell. The 27 colour plates are the work of Blake himse...
It is New Year at Camelot and a mysterious green knight appears at King Arthur’s court. Challenging the knights of the Round Table to a Christmas game, he offers his splendid axe as a prize to whoever is brave enough to behead him with just one strike. The condition is that his challenger must seek him out in a year and a day to have the deed returned. Sir Gawain accepts and decapitates the stranger, only to see him pick up his head, walk out of the hall and ride away on his horse. Now Gawain mu...
The classic epic poem portrays an allegorical journey through hell and purgatory to reach heaven.
Miracles de Notre-Dame Par Personnages, Tome I (Moyen Age En Traduction)
The Divine Comedy is an epic poem by Dante Alighieri, written between 1308 and 1321, and it's considered one of the greatest works of world literature. It contains the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise: the three levels which Dante must undergo on his way to meet God. Though it sounds like a seedy nightclub, Dante's Paradise is the third and final part of the Divine Comedy. It details Dante's journey through the rings of heaven. His tour guide is Beatrice, who was a childhood friend and unrequite...
This facsimile edition is a complete reproduction of the most reliable of the medieval manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales-the Hengwrt Manuscript (or Peniarth 392 D), now in the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire. Because it is to serve as the basic text of the Tales for the projected multivolume Variorum Edition of Chaucer's complete works, much deliberation was given to the choice of the Hengwrt Manuscript. Scribed in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, it is...
The Arundel Lyrics. The Poems of Hugh Primas (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library)
This volume presents two complementary medieval anthologies containing lyrics by two outstanding Latin poets of the second half of the twelfth century. The poet Peter of Blois was proclaimed by a contemporary of his to be a master composer of rhythmic verse. Peter's secular love-lyrics gathered in the Arundel manuscript give substance to that claim. Written with a technical virtuosity that rivals the metrical display of Horatian lyric, the poems give eloquent and learned expression to the cult o...
"Beowulf" and Other Old English Poems (The Middle Ages)
The best-known literary achievement of Anglo-Saxon England, Beowulf is a poem concerned with monsters and heroes, treasure and transience, feuds and fidelity. Composed sometime between 500 and 1000 C.E. and surviving in a single manuscript, it is at once immediately accessible and forever mysterious. And in Craig Williamson's splendid new version, this often translated work may well have found its most compelling modern English interpreter. Williamson's Beowulf appears alongside his translations...
The Poetic Edda (Oxford World's Classics Hardback Collection)
by Carolyne Larrington
She sees, coming up a second time, earth from the ocean, eternally green; the waterfalls plunge, an eagle soars above them, over the mountain hunting fish. After the terrible conflagration of Ragnarok, the earth rises serenely again from the ocean, and life is renewed. The Poetic Edda begins with The Seeress's Prophecy which recounts the creation of the world, and looks forward to its destruction and rebirth. In this great collection of Norse-Icelandic mythological and heroic poetry, the exploi...
The great work of Welsh literature, translated in full for the first time in over 100 years by two of its country's foremost poetsTennyson portrayed him, and wrote at least one poem under his name. Robert Graves was fascinated by what he saw as his work's connection to a lost world of deeply buried folkloric memory. He is a shapeshifter; a seer; a chronicler of battles fought, by sword and with magic, between the ancient kingdoms of the British Isles; a bridge between old Welsh mythologies and t...
The Knight's Tale (Selected Tales from Chaucer) (Poetry S.)
by Geoffrey Chaucer
A well-established and respected series. Texts are in the original Middle English, and each has an introduction, detailed notes and a glossary. Selected titles are also available as CD recordings.
The Robin Hood Garlands and Ballads
by William Hone, Edward Francis Rimbault, and Francis Douce