Visions of the Other World in Middle English - Annotated Bibliographies of Old and Middle English Literature

Visions of Hell and Heaven, or, more usually, of Purgatory and the Earthly Paradise, were widely disseminated in the Middle Ages, and this volume offers an introduction to and a bibliography of the scholarly literature (mainly but not exclusively from the 20th century) on a range of Middle English texts, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, recounting visions in nineteen different versions. Dr Easting briefly discusses the genre; the relationship of visions to texts; the literary tradition and functions of such visions; and the development of the scholarly discussion of this material. Since there are Latin sources for the majority of the Middle English visions, and much work has been done on the Latin texts, the volume includes non-annotated, select bibliographies of recent work on the Latin vision tradition in addition to the chronologically-arranged annotated General Bibliography on the Middle English texts. The volume is completed with an Index of Manuscripts, an Index of Scholars and Critics, and a Subject Index. Dr ROBERT EASTINGteaches in the Department of English Language and Literature at the Victoria University of Wellington.