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Medieval Writers and Their Work: Middle English Literature 1100–1500
J. A. Burrow 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 provides a valuable introduction to the problems which a modern reader encounters when approaching Middle English writings for the first time.
156 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1982
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113 people want to read
About the author
J.A. Burrow
31 books3 followersJohn Anthony Burrow is Emeritus Professor of English, University of Bristol.
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January 24, 2025How do you write a Goodreads review? Sometimes I have a pretty good sense of what I will write. The paragraphs form up neatly in my mind, sentences evolve and flow towards each other, I'm ready to write. Unfortunately I then spoil it all by starting to read the next book and the unwritten review is broken apart like a cobweb. Which is where I find myself with Burrow's Medieval Writers and their Work.
As per the subtitle this is a book only concerned with people writing in Middle English, this is the language between old English/Anglo-Saxon and the modern English that emerged a bit before the time of Shakespeare or circa 1100 to 1500 as the book's subtitle has it. In many ways this is a curious topic. The period of Middle English was one in which French literature was dominant in England. Writers in English were influenced by models developed in other languages, they felt themselves inferior to what they knew of Latin literature. They frequently denied such originality as they had, originality was not what their audiences were interested in.
Middle English was used throughout much of England and parts of Scotland but writers were open to other traditions. Whether Chaucer who translated from Boccacio and Petrach or the author of Sir Orfeo who instead of his, now knighted, Orpheus descending into the underworld has him galloping off into the Celtic Twilight to rescue his beloved from the fairies.
An irony that emerges from Burrow's book is that the canon of Middle English, and so the canonical status of certain Middle English Writers, is a product of the printing press and what books the London based early printers were confident would sell. This ensured the central position of Chaucer, however, in his day Chaucer's international reputation was as a translator. The only English writer to have more than a purely insular reputation was Gower whose work was translated into Portuguese and Castilian. Other works survived because readers had uses for them. Piers Plowman because in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries some liked its criticisms of parts of the more materialistic aspects of the medieval church, Julian of Norwich because English Catholics continued to find comfort and value in her visions.
Burrow central argument is that the categories we use to discuss literature are completely unhelpful when looking at writing in Middle English. It is not simply a case of judging work by a set of alien criteria but that the basic framework of ideas of literariness don't apply. Poetry was frequently the default form and was generally intended to be read aloud to an audience , some poems were intended to be sung and danced to, an idea which Burrow illustrates with this verse:
Ich am of Irlaunde,
And of the holy londe
Of Irlande.
Gode sire, pray ich thee,
For of sainte charite,
Come and daunce wit me
In Irlaunde (pp667-68)
Writing here is a recorded version of a performance, and in places there is an explicit interaction with the audience for example in Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer invents the notion of love at first sight in English, but he anticipates that his audience will find his invention dubious:
Now myghte som envious jangle thus
'This was a sodeyn love; how myght it be
That she so lightly love Troilus,
Right for the first syghte, ye, parde?'
Now whoso seith so, mote he nevere ythe
Something that caught my eye was amplification and abbreviation, which according to Geoffrey of Vinsauf are the two approaches a writer can take, either skimming likely over a lot of material or dealing with it in great detail. This later approach Burrow argues appeals to a twentieth century audience because the end result is strongly visual and rather like reading an actor perform with their eyes (pp73-75) – Gawain, knowing that his host's wife has come into his bedroom, pretends to be still asleep for as long as he can, while she sits on his bed until:
Then he wakenede, and wroth, and to hir warde torned,
And unlouked his ye-lyddez, and let as hym wondered
Many of the features of Middle English and Middle English writing have been lost. Burrow began his book describing Middle English as a subordinate part of literature in England during the Medieval period in contrast to the worldwide scope of literary English today of which literature written by English people is just one small part. He ends with the thought that it would be surprising...if the tradition of Chaucer, Milton, and Tennyson were to suffer no challenge in an age where English is a world language and England no longer a world power. Perhaps...future readers will be able to look more dispassionately at Middle English literature, and future writers will discover kinships with predecessors now hardly known outside the universities.
Not quite a ringing call to rescue our reading from the limbo of libraries, yet for those who felt their to read lists are too short, Burrow has much more for you.
PS – apparently Everyman isn't a Middle English work but a translation of a Middle Dutch one! The things one learns through reading...
As per the subtitle this is a book only concerned with people writing in Middle English, this is the language between old English/Anglo-Saxon and the modern English that emerged a bit before the time of Shakespeare or circa 1100 to 1500 as the book's subtitle has it. In many ways this is a curious topic. The period of Middle English was one in which French literature was dominant in England. Writers in English were influenced by models developed in other languages, they felt themselves inferior to what they knew of Latin literature. They frequently denied such originality as they had, originality was not what their audiences were interested in.
Middle English was used throughout much of England and parts of Scotland but writers were open to other traditions. Whether Chaucer who translated from Boccacio and Petrach or the author of Sir Orfeo who instead of his, now knighted, Orpheus descending into the underworld has him galloping off into the Celtic Twilight to rescue his beloved from the fairies.
An irony that emerges from Burrow's book is that the canon of Middle English, and so the canonical status of certain Middle English Writers, is a product of the printing press and what books the London based early printers were confident would sell. This ensured the central position of Chaucer, however, in his day Chaucer's international reputation was as a translator. The only English writer to have more than a purely insular reputation was Gower whose work was translated into Portuguese and Castilian. Other works survived because readers had uses for them. Piers Plowman because in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries some liked its criticisms of parts of the more materialistic aspects of the medieval church, Julian of Norwich because English Catholics continued to find comfort and value in her visions.
Burrow central argument is that the categories we use to discuss literature are completely unhelpful when looking at writing in Middle English. It is not simply a case of judging work by a set of alien criteria but that the basic framework of ideas of literariness don't apply. Poetry was frequently the default form and was generally intended to be read aloud to an audience , some poems were intended to be sung and danced to, an idea which Burrow illustrates with this verse:
Ich am of Irlaunde,
And of the holy londe
Of Irlande.
Gode sire, pray ich thee,
For of sainte charite,
Come and daunce wit me
In Irlaunde (pp667-68)
Writing here is a recorded version of a performance, and in places there is an explicit interaction with the audience for example in Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer invents the notion of love at first sight in English, but he anticipates that his audience will find his invention dubious:
Now myghte som envious jangle thus
'This was a sodeyn love; how myght it be
That she so lightly love Troilus,
Right for the first syghte, ye, parde?'
Now whoso seith so, mote he nevere ythe
Something that caught my eye was amplification and abbreviation, which according to Geoffrey of Vinsauf are the two approaches a writer can take, either skimming likely over a lot of material or dealing with it in great detail. This later approach Burrow argues appeals to a twentieth century audience because the end result is strongly visual and rather like reading an actor perform with their eyes (pp73-75) – Gawain, knowing that his host's wife has come into his bedroom, pretends to be still asleep for as long as he can, while she sits on his bed until:
Then he wakenede, and wroth, and to hir warde torned,
And unlouked his ye-lyddez, and let as hym wondered
Many of the features of Middle English and Middle English writing have been lost. Burrow began his book describing Middle English as a subordinate part of literature in England during the Medieval period in contrast to the worldwide scope of literary English today of which literature written by English people is just one small part. He ends with the thought that it would be surprising...if the tradition of Chaucer, Milton, and Tennyson were to suffer no challenge in an age where English is a world language and England no longer a world power. Perhaps...future readers will be able to look more dispassionately at Middle English literature, and future writers will discover kinships with predecessors now hardly known outside the universities.
Not quite a ringing call to rescue our reading from the limbo of libraries, yet for those who felt their to read lists are too short, Burrow has much more for you.
PS – apparently Everyman isn't a Middle English work but a translation of a Middle Dutch one! The things one learns through reading...
January 24, 2025
i’ll need future-me to return to this review in the future, but this book might have singlehandedly sparked my interest in a discipline i barely knew existed. i read this as something for the holidays - related to my current study of medieval history but not directly on the syllabus, but i will DEFINITELY be going out of my way to read more philological works in the future
in about 130 pages, burrow gives a base summary of the literature of the time (at least, whatever’s survived), and then tackles the nature of writing & reading in the middle ages, the ‘genres’ of such works, the role of meaning and middle english literature’s legacy (as well as problems facing our study of it today). it all very much felt like it brought the now-lost world he wrote about to life.
as said, burrow also doesn’t approach this with any sort of real scholarly arrogance. besides occasionally dissing some verse he considered lacking, he actively warns against making any kind of ‘canon’ & seems very inclusive in his coverage, and even rails quite a bit against attempts to ascribe modern assumptions/judgements. those tick a lot of boxes for me!!
the only major problems for this work, as others have pointed out, is the fairly limited guidance in understanding the works cited. while ‘quhome’ being ‘whom’ might make sense on reflection, you can’t expect someone who hasn’t read middle english before to know that!!!! i know this is now decades old, but if, as burrow says, he wants the full scope of middle english literature to “[break] out from the academic and antiquarian circles to which knowledge…has for so long been confined”, then i feel giving those readers some more help in bridging linguistic divides would go a long way!!
still, overall definitely worth the read, and it did a great job at letting appreciate the holistic diversity of those times. four stars - between a 7.5/10 and an 8/10 for me!
in about 130 pages, burrow gives a base summary of the literature of the time (at least, whatever’s survived), and then tackles the nature of writing & reading in the middle ages, the ‘genres’ of such works, the role of meaning and middle english literature’s legacy (as well as problems facing our study of it today). it all very much felt like it brought the now-lost world he wrote about to life.
as said, burrow also doesn’t approach this with any sort of real scholarly arrogance. besides occasionally dissing some verse he considered lacking, he actively warns against making any kind of ‘canon’ & seems very inclusive in his coverage, and even rails quite a bit against attempts to ascribe modern assumptions/judgements. those tick a lot of boxes for me!!
the only major problems for this work, as others have pointed out, is the fairly limited guidance in understanding the works cited. while ‘quhome’ being ‘whom’ might make sense on reflection, you can’t expect someone who hasn’t read middle english before to know that!!!! i know this is now decades old, but if, as burrow says, he wants the full scope of middle english literature to “[break] out from the academic and antiquarian circles to which knowledge…has for so long been confined”, then i feel giving those readers some more help in bridging linguistic divides would go a long way!!
still, overall definitely worth the read, and it did a great job at letting appreciate the holistic diversity of those times. four stars - between a 7.5/10 and an 8/10 for me!
October 12, 2022
Such a helpful and informative introduction and background to Middle English literature! I especially enjoyed how Burrow applied examples from Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain-poet, and others to his explanations of modes of meaning and genre. This will definitely be a useful text in my continued studies in medieval literature.
July 26, 2018
Rather dull but somewhat informative intro to Middle-English lit. Probably wouldn't recommend.
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April 9, 2022very good and comprehensive despite its length, but burrow assumes that anyone can read middle english so fails to provide translation which is not great of him
March 28, 2016
This book provides a great overview of medieval literature. The only issue I had with it is that it assumes a knowledge of Middle English and does not provide translations of passages in most places.
July 28, 2013
An accessible guide to Medieval Writers with excellent detail about the different contexts and meanings of writing of that era.
March 5, 2015
This book was of great value as an addition to our lectures on Middle English. The explanations are clear and to the point - the way a book for educational purposes should be.
October 24, 2014
Good, concise introduction. The Middle English quotations could have been glossed better, as most readers of this book will not have read a lot of Middle English previous to reading this book.
Want to read
December 11, 2017its very good book and i want to read this
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews