Читать книгу A Book of Middle English - J. A. Burrow - Страница 8

This book is a companion to Mitchell and Robinson’s Guide to Old English. It contains representative pieces of English writing from the period c.1150–c.1400. We have included examples of romance, battle poetry, chronicle, biblical narrative, debate, dialogue, dream vision, religious and mystical prose, miracle story, fabliau, lyric poetry and drama. Although the choice of pieces has been determined by literary considerations, the general introduction concentrates on matters of language. We have attempted, in this introduction, to give readers only such information about the language as we consider essential for the proper understanding and appreciation of the texts. Since these texts exhibit many varieties of Middle English, from different periods and regions, our account is inevitably selective and somewhat simplified. For further reading on the language, and also on the history and literature of the period, the reader is referred to the Bibliography.

The headnote to each text provides a brief introduction, together with a short reading list. Annotations and Glossary are both quite full; but, for reasons of space, explanations given in notes at the foot of the page are not duplicated in the Glossary.

The fourth edition has been revised throughout. It includes a new Chapter 8, ‘Translating Middle English’, and a new text, Chapter 19 ‘Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love’.

Our debts to earlier editors will be evident throughout. We are particularly grateful to Ronald Waldron for allowing us to use his work on the Trevisa (text 12). Hanneke Wirtjes kindly read Part One and suggested improvements. We received advice from the Custodian of Berkeley Castle, Richard Beadle, Erin Connolly, Alison McHardy, Joanna Martin, Jeremy Smith, Michael Smith, Timothy Stinson and his students, Myra Stokes, and Anthony Tuck. For help with the etymological entries in the Glossary we owe a great debt to David A. H. Evans. We are also grateful to the libraries which granted us access to their manuscripts, to Aberdeen University Press for permission to reproduce the maps on p. 16, to the many colleagues who responded to the questionnaire originally sent out by the publishers, and to several reviewers and correspondents who suggested improvements. I dedicate this edition to the memory of J. A. Burrow.

T.T.‐P.