ABSTRACT
Middle English literature – the topic of this chapter – encompasses a wide variety of genres and styles. We begin by looking at an early work, The Owl and the Nightingale. One way in which this poem, and much else written during the ME period, differs from OE poetry is that it uses rhyme rather than alliteration as a major stylistic principle. But the alliterative tradition was far from being dead, and we look next at what is known as the ‘Alliterative Revival’. Then comes a section on the period’s most celebrated writer, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the chapter also contains one example of ME prose. But nowhere near all types of ME literature are covered, and for this reason there is more on the companion website for this chapter than for most others. It includes some activities, as well as additional information.
