Overview

How to Read Middle English Poetry guides readers through poetry between 1150 and 1500, for study and pleasure. Chapters give down-to-earth advice on enjoying and analyzing each aspect of verse, from the choice of single words, through syntax, metre, rhyme, and stanza-design, up to the play of larger forms across whole poems. How to Read Middle English Poetry covers major figuresDLsuch as Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, and Robert HenrysonDLbut also delves into exciting anonymous lyrics, romances, and drama. It shows, too, how some modern poets have drawn on earlier poems, and how Middle English and early Scots provide crucial standpoints from which to think through present-day writing. Contextual sections discuss how poetry was heard aloud, introduce manuscripts and editing, and lay out Middle English poetry's ties to other tongues, including French, Welsh, and Latin. Critical terms are highlighted and explained both in the main text and in a full indexed glossary, while the uses of key tools such as the Middle English Dictionary are described and modeled. References to accessible editions and electronic resources mean that the book needs no accompanying anthology. At once thorough, wide-ranging, and practical, How to Read Middle English Poetry is indispensable for students exploring Middle English or early Scots, and for anyone curious about the heart of poetry's history.

Full Product Details

9780198895237

Table of Contents

Reviews

This is an excellent, comprehensive, and warmly approachable guide to the reading of Middle English poetry. I will recommend it to all my students, and would extend that recommendation to anyone interested in the poetry of any period. * Laura Ashe, English Studies * Daniel Sawyer's rigorous and instructive new book seeks to turn reading Middle English and Scots poetry into a learnable ""craft"" ... a hugely useful set of appendices and glossaries ... How to Read Middle English Poetry is accessible and welcoming, emphasizing throughout that we are all always learning how to read. * Anthony Bale, TLS * Sawyer has written a lively book on why and how we should read Middle English poetry that is also informative, extremely practical, and persuasive. At the heart of this work is the art, skill, and importance of close reading of poetry. Sawyer is an expert close reader of Middle English verse, and his skills are on full display and in a way that will further illuminate the works of literature for individual readers. The book is organized in a logical manner, such as why ""old"" poetry should be studied and why an author's word choice and phraseology are important to consider when digging into a poem. * A. L. Kaufman, CHOICE *

This is an excellent, comprehensive, and warmly approachable guide to the reading of Middle English poetry. I will recommend it to all my students, and would extend that recommendation to anyone interested in the poetry of any period. * Laura Ashe, English Studies * Daniel Sawyer's rigorous and instructive new book seeks to turn reading Middle English and Scots poetry into a learnable ""craft"" ... a hugely useful set of appendices and glossaries ... How to Read Middle English Poetry is accessible and welcoming, emphasizing throughout that we are all always learning how to read. * Anthony Bale, TLS *

This is an excellent, comprehensive, and warmly approachable guide to the reading of Middle English poetry. I will recommend it to all my students, and would extend that recommendation to anyone interested in the poetry of any period. * Laura Ashe, English Studies *

This is an excellent, comprehensive, and warmly approachable guide to the reading of Middle English poetry. I will recommend it to all my students, and would extend that recommendation to anyone interested in the poetry of any period. * Laura Ashe, English Studies * Daniel Sawyer's rigorous and instructive new book seeks to turn reading Middle English and Scots poetry into a learnable ""craft"" ... a hugely useful set of appendices and glossaries ... How to Read Middle English Poetry is accessible and welcoming, emphasizing throughout that we are all always learning how to read. * Anthony Bale, TLS * Sawyer has written a lively book on why and how we should read Middle English poetry that is also informative, extremely practical, and persuasive. At the heart of this work is the art, skill, and importance of close reading of poetry. Sawyer is an expert close reader of Middle English verse, and his skills are on full display and in a way that will further illuminate the works of literature for individual readers. The book is organized in a logical manner, such as why ""old"" poetry should be studied and why an author's word choice and phraseology are important to consider when digging into a poem. * A. L. Kaufman, CHOICE * It is my hope that those who do get their hands on How to Read Middle English Poetry can realise the profit and delight of the period's verse-they have an excellent guide in Sawyer. Emerging, as noted in the Acknowledgements, out of ""a national academic environment emphasizing research-driven publications,"" it is refreshing to see a new medieval studies title which is dedicated to the first elements of the discipline. Sawyer's book has the potential to become a standard teaching text. * Laurie Atkinson, Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature * It is my hope that those who do get their hands on How to Read Middle English Poetry can realise the profit and delight of the period's verse-they have an excellent guide in Sawyer. Emerging, as noted in the Acknowledgements, out of ""a national academic environment emphasizing research-driven publications,"" it is refreshing to see a new medieval studies title which is dedicated to the first elements of the discipline. Sawyer's book has the potential to become a standard teaching text. * Laurie Atkinson, Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature *

Author Information

Daniel Sawyer is Departmental Lecturer in English Literature and Manuscript Studies at the University of Oxford. He read English at Queen Mary, University of London, and studied for his MSt and DPhil in English at St Hilda's College, Oxford. He has held fellowships at the Huntington Library in California, and at Corpus Christi College, Merton College, and St Hilda's College, Oxford. He has spent more than a decade teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in Old and Middle English literature; his research interests range across early manuscripts, editing, and the history of poetry seen in long perspective.

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