The Literature of the Old English Period

Contents: Preface. 1. The literature of the old English period. 2. The literature of the middle English period to Piers Plowman: the romances. 3. Middle English literature the central period: medieval drama. 4. Judicial and political institutions. 5. Society and the art. 6. Surroundings. 7. The background of taste. Bibliography. Index.

"Within the framework of history, all English literature is either medieval or modern. To designate any part of it as medieval is to describe it, explicitly or implicitly, as belonging to the era that formed the great bridge over which the western world advanced from the confusion following the collapse of Rome to the complex modern world. This era of the middle ages, which endured, for approximately the millennium between the years 500 and 1500, represents man\'s efforts to develop a new system of life after the old system had gone down in the ruins of the classical world of Greece and Rome." (jacket)