This series provides accessible yet provocative introductions to a wide range of literatures. The volumes will initiate and deepen the reader's understanding of key literary movements, periods and genres, and consider debates that inform the past, present and future of literary study. Resources such as glossaries of key terms and details of archives and internet sites are also provided, making each volume a comprehensive critical guide.

Medieval literature can be daunting. This critical guide is designed to help readers to relax in the company of diverting and entertaining voices from that `other country' that is the past.

Medieval Literature 1300--1500 offers close readings of Middle English texts placed within the culture with which they interact. Famous works, like The Canterbury Tales, are discussed alongside lesser-known poems, prose and plays, in five thematically organised chapters, accompanied by helpful critical apparatus. Reflecting the proliferation of user-friendly editions, many available on-line, this book extends the range of Middle English writing for which there is accessible up-to-date critical support, enabling the student, the general reader, the course designer, and the aspirant specialist to read widely and with enjoyment in the medieval period.