Laura Ashe

The Oxford English Literary History is the new century's definitive account of a rich and diverse literary heritage that stretches back for a millennium and more. This volume explores the vast cultural, literary, social, and political transformations which characterized the period 1000-1350.

Conquest and Transformation

Ralph Hanna

New approaches to religious texts from the Middle Ages, highlighting their diversity and sophistication.

Essays Honouring Vincent Gillespie on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday

Medieval and Early Modern Religious Cultures

The century and a half following the Norman Conquest of 1066 saw an explosion in the writing of Latin and vernacular history in England, while the creation of the romance genre reinvented the fictional narrative. Where critics have seen these developments as part of a cross-Channel phenomenon, Laura Ashe argues that a genuinely distinctive character can be found in the writings of England during the period. Drawing on a wide range of historical, legal and cultural contexts, she discusses how writers addressed the Conquest and rebuilt their sense of identity as a new, united 'English' people, with their own national literature and culture, in a manner which was to influence all subsequent medieval English literature. This study opens up new ways of reading post-Conquest texts in relation to developments in political and legal history, and in terms of their place in the English Middle Ages as a whole.

Fiction and History in England, 1066-1200

'They secretly indulged all their desires, their joys and delights, whenever they could, day and night' In the twelfth century, fiction was reinvented in English literature. Stories of romance and adventure emerged which heralded new understandings of human experience, the relations between people and the significance of the individual. Above all, this fiction brought love into literary narrative, and the idea that the crowning goal of life is personal fulfilment. The pieces in this wide-ranging anthology, originally written in Latin, French or Middle English by authors such as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chaucer and Marie de France, are inspirations for some of the best-known later works in literature. They are newly translated into clear modern prose, with glosses provided for Middle English texts. Edited with introductions by Laura Ashe

From Geoffrey of Monmouth to Chaucer

Early Fiction in England

A startling, subversive novel about a teenage girl who has lost everything and will burn anything. Fourteen-year-old Lucia is a young narrator whose voice will long ring in your ears. She is angry with almost everyone, especially people who tell her what to do. She follows the one rule that makes any sense to her: Don't Do Things You Aren't Proud Of. Orphaned and living with her elderly aunt in poverty in the converted garage of a large mansion, Lucia makes her way through the world with only a book, a Zippo lighter, and a pocket full of stolen licorice. Expelled from school, again, Lucia spends her days riding the bus to visit her mother in The Home. When Lucia discovers a secret Arson Club, she will do anything to be a part of it. Her own arson manifesto is a marvellous anarchist pamphlet, written with biting wit and striking intelligence. The voice of teenaged Lucia is a tour de force: a brilliant, wrenching cry from the heart and mind of a super-smart, funny girl who can't help telling us the truth, a riveting chronicle of family, misguided friendship, and loss. How to Set a Fire and Whyis Jesse Ball's most accessible novel yet; after Silence Once Begunand A Cure for Suicide, the pyrotechnics on display here will dazzle. 'I was captivated from the first line...... Lucia belongs with all the great child truth tellers: David Copperfield, Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield...... I loved her and I loved the book, every page of it.' Peter Heller, author of The Dog Stars andThe Painter

A Brittle Glory (Penguin Monarchs)

Richard II

Philip Knox

David Lawton Wendy Scase

"An invigorating annual for those who are interested in medieval textual cultures and open to ways in which diverse post-modern methodologies may be applied to them." Alcuin Blamires, Review of English Studies

New Medieval Literatures 18

Judith Elizabeth Weiss

Ivana Djordjević

Important and wide-ranging studies of the ideological exploitations performed by and upon the medieval romance.

The Exploitations of Medieval Romance

Wendy Scase

Philip Knox Kellie Robertson

Cutting-edge and fresh new outlooks on medieval literature, emphasising the vibrancy of the field.

New Medieval Literatures 21

Kellie Robertson

Laura Ashe Philip Knox

New Medieval Literatures is an annual of work on medieval textual cultures, aiming to engage with intellectual and cultural pluralism in the Middle Ages and now. Its scope is inclusive of work across the theoretical, archival, philological, and historicist methodologies associated with medieval literary studies, and embraces the range of European cultures, capaciously defined. Essays in this volume investigate a range of writers from late antiquity to the fifteenth century. They explore encounters between humans and animals in French romance; reflect on what contemporary sound studies can offer to Anglo-French poetry; trace how the reception of Trojan history is influenced by late medieval military practices; attend to the complex multilingualism of a devotional poetry that tests the limits of both language and theology; analyse the ways in which Christ's sexuality upsets religious typology inlate medieval drama; document the lines of national and European affinities found in French poetic manuscripts; and argue for why we should study "ugly" manuscripts of practical instruction not only for what they teach us but alsofor their insights into medieval literacy. Texts discussed include romances such as Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain and Béroul's Tristan; the theologian John of Howden's adaptation of the Philomela legend in his Rossignos; Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde read alongside siege chronicles of the Hundred Years War; Bruder Hans's quadrilingual Ave Maria; the York Corpus Christi Plays; the poetry of Charles d'Orléans; and a group oflate medieval manuscripts which include herbals, account books, and medical treatises. KELLIE ROBERTSON is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland; WENDY SCASE is Geoffrey Shepherd Professor of Medieval English Literature at the University of Birmingham; LAURA ASHE is Professor of English at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor at Worcester College, Oxford; PHILIP KNOX Is University Lecturer inEnglish and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Contributors: Lukas Hadrian Ovrom, Terrence Cullen, Steven Rozenski, Tison Pugh, Rory G. Critten, Daniel Wakelin.

New Medieval Literatures 20

A brilliant new anthology that shows how fiction was reinvented in the twelfth century after an absence of hundreds of years. Essential for all students of medieval literature, Early Fiction in England includes extracts by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Marie de France, Chaucer and many others, in new translations and with illuminating introductions. Before the twelfth century, fiction had completely disappeared in Europe. In this important and provocative book, Laura Ashe shows how English writers brought it back, composing new tales about King Arthur, his knights and other heroes and heroines in Latin, French and English. Why did fiction disappear, and why did it come to life again to establish itself the dominant form of literature ever since? And what do we even mean by the term 'fiction'? Gathering extracts from the most important texts of the period by Wace, Marie de France, Chaucer and others, this volume offers an absorbing and surprising introduction to the earliest fiction in England. The anthology includes a general introduction by Laura Ashe, introductions to each extract, explanatory notes and other useful editorial materials. All French and Latin texts have been newly translated, while Middle English texts include helpful glosses. Laura Ashe is a University Lecturer in English and Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. Her first book Fiction and History in England, 1066-1200 (Cambridge University Press, 2007) has been followed by numerous articles and edited collections; she is now writing the newOxford English Literary History vol. 1: 1000-1350 (Oxford University Press).

Laura Ashe

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