We're talking about a huge range of material here, from the deceptively simple "he came all so stille where his mother was, as aprille dew upon the grass" to the monumental 'Piers Ploughman', The Battle of the Trees and the Tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Somewhere along the line we want to look at The Battle of Maldon, The cry of the Wayfarer, and such works as the already translated Judith. Language itself was an adventure in a time and place when a poet might be writing in any one of a number of dialects, in Norman French, in Latin or, in English itself. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote more than one language and style, and his pithy observations and rude stories are great entertainment now, as they were then. 

The era has had enormous influence on many famous poets and schools of poetry, from the victorian gothic to the pre-Raphaelites, to modern fantasy writers and magical poets. So much so that it is difficult now to read the works which survive this period without some kind of emotional filter. It has been a deep source for people of imagination and intellect alike. It  almost too easy to dismiss the realities, and the ideals of the time, in favour of whichever wheelbarrow one is pushing.

This section is going to be very entertaining. It also has its problems. How far must we translate, how much do we need to? The answers will vary as we choose each poem.

 Permission is being sought to include the following sound file:

Wide Open Education with special thanks to Jessica Allen   The Amateur Academic’s Medieval Education