Publisher's Synopsis
Back CoverLongman Medieval and Renaissance LibrarySeries Editors: Charlotte Brewer, Hertford College, Oxford, andN. H. Keeble, University of StirlingLongman Medieval and Renaissance Library is a major new series of critical introductions to key literary and cultural topics from Old English to the late seventeenth century. Volumes draw on original research and are sensitive to current critical concerns, but they are designed particularly to meet the needs of students and the general reader. The key feature is the breadth and variety of coverage, providing authoritative studies on a wide range of subjects from individual authors and works to genres, periods and contexts.Courtliness is an important feature of medieval literature. Ideals of social behaviour and personal refinement play an integral part in much of the literature and poetry of the period. Courtliness and Literature in Medieval England traces the development of courtliness from its emergence in the exclusive world of the aristocratic courts of the twelfth century to a bourgeois respectability in the fifteenth.;Using such literary examples as Chaucer and the 'Gawain' poet, David Burnley illustrates how the literature of the time reflected the framework of social and aesthetic ideals of medieval society, including the presentation of the hero and heroine of romance, the confrontation between courtly and religious values, and the conception of courtly psychology, courtly language and courtly literature. Above all, he reconsiders the question of 'courtly love'.This book is intended for a wide audience of those eager to understand medieval values, and will be of particular value to students of literature in English and French departments. It is a valuable introduction to the subject which challenges many of our preconceptions of medieval authors and of courtly values; it also provides an insight into the origins of many later attitudes to the hierarchy of society. Full translations are provided of all the texts cited.David Burnley is Head of the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sheffield.
