A ground-breaking collection of newly-commissioned essays on medieval literature and culture.

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• Encourages students to think beyond a narrowly defined canon and conventional disciplinary boundaries.
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• Reflects the erosion of the traditional, rigid boundary between medieval and early modern literature.
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• Stresses the importance of constructing contexts for reading literature.
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• Explores the extent to which medieval literature is in dialogue with other cultural products, including the literature of other countries, manuscripts and religion.
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• Includes close readings of frequently-studied texts, including texts by Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain poet, and Hoccleve.
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• Confronts some of the controversies that exercise students of medieval literature, such as those connected with literary theory, love, and chivalry and war.