In an updated edition of his hugely successful student introduction to English literature from 1100 to 1500, J. A. Burrow takes account of scholarly developments in the the field, most notably devoting a final chapter to the impact of historicism on medieval studies. Full of information and stimulating ideas, and a pleasure to read, Burrow's book deals with circumstances of composition and reception, the main genres, 'modes of meaning' (allegory etc.), and medieval literature's afterlife in modern times. It shows that the literature of authors such as Chaucer, Gower, and Langland is more readily accessible than usually imagined, and well worth reading too. By placing medieval writers in their historical context - the four centuries between the Norman Conquest and the Renaissance - Professor Burrow explains not only how they wrote, but why.

"This book is the most effective introduction to Middle English literature that I know. It is everywhere alert to the ways that modern literary sensibilities need to be adjusted in order to appreciate the medieval norm, and Burrow combines astonishing learning with a pedagogical shrewdness that always picks out just the telling passage or focusing cultural fact. This second edition adds a great deal of new and equally important material to a work that had already become a classic in its own right." - Christopher Cannon, Girton College, Cambridge