Modern readers can sometimes be unsure about the language and the literary conventions of medieval and Renaissance verse--lyrical works written at a time before poetry was assumed to be about personal expression. This readers' guide introduces to a 21st century audience some of the greatest masterpieces of English poetry spanning five centuries. Focusing on poems by Chaucer, Wyatt, Shakespeare, Milton and others, the author discusses the development of poetic technique, explains the rhetorical culture of earlier centuries and describes the various lyric forms--including lover's complaints, sonnets and elegies--that poets used to communicate with readers.

The author rejects C.S. Lewis's theory of a "Drab" and a “Golden” school as unhistorical, and establishes the presence of an eloquent or courtly tradition and of a plain or contemplative tradition. Originally published in 1967. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Contains over 180 poems, songs, and carols of medieval England in Middle English with extensive linguistic and critical notes.

This book develops interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to analyzing the cross-cultural travels of traditional Chinese fiction. It ties this genre to issues such as translation, world literature, digital humanities, book culture, and images of China. Each chapter offers a case study of the historical and cultural conditions under which traditional Chinese fiction has traveled to the English-speaking world, proposing a critical lens that can be used to explain these cross-cultural encounters. The book seeks to identify connections between traditional Chinese fiction and other cultures that create new meanings and add to the significance of reading, teaching, and studying these classical novels and stories in the English-speaking world. Scholars, students, and general readers who are interested in traditional Chinese fiction, translation studies, and comparative and world literature will find this book useful.

Medieval Lyric is a colourful collection of lyrical poems, carols, and traditional British ballads written between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, together with some twentieth-century American versions of them. A lively and engaging collection of lyrical poems, carols, and traditional British ballads written in between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, together with some twentieth-century American versions of them. Introduces readers to the rich variety of Middle English poetry. Presents poems of mourning and of celebration, poems dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and to Christ, poems inviting or disparaging love, poems about sex, and more. Reader-friendly - uses modernized letter forms, punctuation and capitalization, and side glosses explaining difficult words. Opens with a substantial introduction by the editor to the medieval lyric as a genre, and features short introductions to each section and poem. Also includes an annotated bibliography, glossary, index of first lines, and list of manuscripts cited.

This book, written by a team of experts from many countries, provides a comprehensive account of the ways in which translation has brought the major literature of the world into English-speaking culture. Part I discusses theoretical issues and gives an overview of the history of translation into English. Part II, the bulk of the work, arranged by language of origin, offers critical discussions, with bibliographies, of the translation history of specific texts (e.g. the Koran, the Kalevala), authors (e.g. Lucretius, Dostoevsky), genres (e.g. Chinese poetry, twentieth-century Italian prose) and national literatures (e.g. Hungarian, Afrikaans).

An anthology of 245 Middle English lyrics that includes modernized punctuation, capitalization, and obsolete letters, making the text easier to read and understand.