Saturday, September 19, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
Middle English Romance and Travel
Middle English romance and wonder travel, including the alliterative revival and the imagined geography of medieval pilgrimage.
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Texts
Morte ArthureThe complete alliterative Morte Arthure from Robert Thornton's manuscript, Edmund Brock's EETS edition, reconstructed from HathiTrust OCR of two printings and cross-checked against the page scan — Arthur's Roman war, Fortune's wheel, and Mordred's treason.Pearl — with Boccaccio's OlympiaSir Israel Gollancz's 1921 edition of the Middle English dream-vision Pearl — his introduction, his facing modern verse rendering, and his edition of Boccaccio's Latin elegy Olympia, with translation.Sir OrfeoThe Middle English Breton lay of Orfeo and Heurodis, in Oscar Zielke's 1880 German critical edition, restored from HathiTrust OCR.St ErkenwaldThe alliterative Middle English poem of St. Paul's incorrupt pagan judge, edited from the sole Harleian manuscript by Henry L. Savage (Yale, 1926).The Travels of Sir John MandevilleThe fantastical travel narrative of Sir John Mandeville (c.1357) — one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages, describing a journey from England through Constantinople, the Holy Land, Egypt, India, and the realm of Prester John, to the very gates of Earthly Paradise. Cotton Manuscript version in modern spelling, from the 1900 Macmillan edition edited by A. W. Pollard.Works of Gawain PoetFour alliterative masterpieces from a single anonymous hand — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience.