Customer Reviews

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1 A: The Middle Ages

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Volume 1A: The Middle Ages contains a lot of great selections. A good Beowulf translation, selections from The Canterbury Tales, an enjoyable translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Dream of the Rood, and selections from Morte D'Arthur, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe among them. But the anthology lacks depth and a real representation of the period it deals with. This first volume covers the period from around A.D. 700 to about 1450, by far the longest time frame in any of the six volumes of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, yet this also happens to be the shortest volume in the series. There is a very large corpus of Old English religous poetry and prose, almost all of which is ignored. There are no selections from Alfred, Aelfric, Alcuin, Cynewulf, Wulfstan, only the smallest amount of Bede; no idea is given of the amount of religous poetry, whether of saint's lives or alliterative poetic accounts of Biblical events. OE Religous poetry is represented solely by The Dream of the Rood, which is such a masterpiece it is impossible to ignore it. The same prejudice holds true for the Middle Ages, with religous lit being seen mostly in Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. These are very good selections, but it seems they were chosen because the writers were women, and not because they represented the literary milieu. In other words, this anthology is heavily biased against religous literature, even though religous literature was dominant throughout this time period. Thus I consider this a very limited anthology, since it by no means accurately represents the literature of the time. Regardless of modern prejudices against religous lit, the Middle Ages were a religous period and any anthology of this period should reflect how the people then thought and felt, not what people now feel.

This was great! And a lot cheaper then having to buy the giant version with everything in it. I have many different editions of the Norton Anthologies and this one is on par with all the rest. Definitely recommended! 5 Stars!! Great explanations and citations!

I had to get these for class a couple years ago and I regretted selling them back because I loved the material so much. Tons of great literature included.