The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature

Description

Informed by multicultural, multidisciplinary perspectives, The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature offers a new exploration of the earliest writing in Britain and Ireland, from the end of the Roman Empire to the mid-twelfth century. Beginning with an account of writing itself, as well as of scripts and manuscript art, subsequent chapters examine the earliest texts from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the tremendous breadth of Anglo-Latin literature. Chapters on English learning and literature in the ninth century and the later formation of English poetry and prose also convey the profound cultural confidence of the period. Providing a discussion of essential texts, including Beowulf and the writings of Bede, this History captures the sheer inventiveness and vitality of early medieval literary culture through topics as diverse as the literature of English law, liturgical and devotional writing, the workings of science and the history of women's writing.

Clare A. Lees is Professor of Medieval Literature and History of the Language at King's College London, where she currently directs the Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies. She is known for her work on the earliest English literature, gender and the history of women's writing, religious writing and cultural studies, including issues of place and landscape, relations between textual and material culture, and re-workings of Anglo-Saxon literature by writers of modern, contemporary literature. She is the editor of Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages (1994) and co-editor of Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance (with Thelma Fenster, 2002) and A Place to Believe in: Locating Medieval Landscapes (with Gillian R. Overing, 2006). She is the author of Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England (1999) and co-author of Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (with Gillian R. Overing, 2001, 2009).

'This wide-ranging collection of essays surveys British and Irish literature of the early Middle Ages in all its linguistic variety and complexity ... The value of this volume lies not just in its inclusion of the expected viewed in new ways but also in giving space to what is too often left out ... Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, faculty.' D. W. Hayes, Choice 'The intention of The New Cambridge History of English Literature [series] is to offer 'a broad synthesis and contextual survey of the history of English literature' that couples 'fresh perspectives' and 'essential exposition' in an 'accessible narrative'. This volume succeeds admirably in combining those goals ... [It] offers a vision of an exciting and expansive literary culture of endless interpenetration, interlingual inventiveness, and ideological appropriation.' E. J. Christie, Speculum