In addition to our textbook, handouts and pages for the various periods covered by our course may refer to the following works. I will add to the list as necessary.
I have grouped the list as follows:
The general section includes, for example, works of general reference as well as works with application broader than any one of the periods covered by our course. The other sections are self-explanatory.
Abrams, M. H., and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 8th ed. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005.
The Bible. Revised Standard Version.
Drabble, Margaret, ed. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1985. [A sixth edition of the OCEL was published in 2000.]
Eliot, T. S. Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot. Ed. Frank Kermode. New York: Harcourt, 1975.
Fryde, E. B., et al., eds. Handbook of British Chronology. 3rd ed., corr. Royal Historical Society Handbooks and Guides 2. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Frye, Northrop, et. al. The Harper Handbook to Literature. 2nd ed. New York: Longman, 1997.
Frye, Northrop. The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1976.
Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. Rev. ed. New York: Random, 1979.
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York: MLA, 2003.
Harmon, William, and Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006.
Harner, James L. Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies. 4th ed. New York: MLA, 2002.
Nims, John Frederick, ed. The Harper Anthology of Poetry. New York: Harper, 1981.
Preminger, Alex, Frank J. Warnke, and O. B. Hardison, Jr., eds. Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Enlarged ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1974.
Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. 2nd ed. 2001.
Sampson, George, and R. C. Churchill. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1972.
Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. New Haven: Yale UP, 1952.
Wallace, David, ed. The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.
Alexander, Michael. A History of Old English Literature. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2002.
Bede. A History of the English Church and People [Bedae Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum]. Trans. Leo Shirley-Price. Baltimore: Penguin, 1955.
Chickering, Howell D., Jr., Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition. New York: Anchor, 1977.
Godden, Malcolm, and Michael Lapidge, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.
Greenfield, Stanley B. A Readable Beowulf: The Old English Epic Newly Translated. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1982.
Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. London: Oxford UP, 1968.
Mitchell, Bruce. A Guide to Old English. 2nd ed. N.p.: Barnes, 1968.
Shippey, T. A., ed. and trans. Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English. Totowa, NJ: Rowman, 1976.
Swanton, Michael, ed. and trans. Beowulf. Manchester, Eng.: Manchester UP, 1978.
Tolkien, J. R. R. "The Hoard." The Tolkien Reader. New York: Ballantine, 1966. 240-43.
Tolkien, J. R. R. "Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of 'Beowulf.'" Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment. Trans. John R. Clark Hall. Rev. ed. London: Allen, 1958. ix-xliii.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Two Towers. In The Lord of the Rings. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1965.
Zupitza, Julius, and Norman Davis. Beowulf: Reproduced in Facsimile from the Unique Manuscript, British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellius A.xv. 2nd ed. Early English Text Society, OS 245. London: Oxford UP, 1967.
Andrew, Malcolm, and Ronald Waldron, eds. The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Berkeley: U of California P, 1979.
Baugh, Albert C., ed. Chaucer's Major Poetry. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice, 1963.
Benson, Larry D., ed. The Riverside Chaucer. Boston: Houghton, 1987. A revision of F. N. Robinson's venerable edition of Chaucer's works.
Borroff, Marie, trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. New York: Norton, 1967.
Cable, Thomas. The English Alliterative Tradition. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1991.
Child, Francis J., ed. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 4 vols. London, 1882–98; New York, 1965.
Fisher, John H., ed. The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer. 2nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 1989.
Gradon, Pamela. Form and Style in Early English Literature. London: Methuen, 1971.
Hanning, Robert, and Joan Ferrante, trans. The Lais of Marie de France. Durham, NC: Labyrinth, 1978.
Jespersen, Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. 9th ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1954.
Lewis, C. S. The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1964.
Malone, Kemp. "When Did Middle English Begin?" Curme Volume of Linguistic Studies. Ed. James T. Hatfield et al. Language Monograph No. 7, Linguistic Society of America, 1930. 110–17.
Kurath, Hans, et al., eds. Middle English Dictionary (MED). Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1954–2001.
Moore, Samuel, Sanford B. Meech, and Harold Whitehall, "Middle English Dialect Characteristics and Dialect Boundaries: Preliminary Report of an Investigation Based Exclusively on Localized Texts and Documents." University of Michigan Publications in Language and Literature 13 (1935): 1–60.
Mossé, Fernand. A Handbook of Middle English. Trans. James A. Walker. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1968.
Oakden, J. P. Alliterative Poetry in Middle English. 1930-35. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1968.
Robinson, F.N., ed. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. The New Cambridge Edition. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1957.
Severs, J. Burke, and Albert E. Hartung, gen. eds. A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500. New Haven: Connecticut Acad. of Arts and Sciences, 1967–.
Spearing, A. C. The Gawain-Poet: A Critical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970.
Tolkien, J. R. R., trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo. Boston: Houghton, 1978.
Tolkien, J. R. R., and E. V. Gordon, eds. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 2nd ed., rev. Norman Davis. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967.
Turville-Petre, Thorlac. The Alliterative Revival. Cambridge, Eng.: Brewer, 1977.
Wilson, R. M. Early Middle English Literature. London, 1939.
Wilson, R. M. "English and French after the Conquest." History 28 (1943): 37–60.
Eliot, T. S. See above in General Works.
Gilmore, Myron P. The World of Humanism, 1453–1517. New York: Harper, 1952.
Lewis, C. S. English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama. The Oxford History of English Literature 3. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1954.
Plumb, J. H., ed. Renaissance Profiles. New York: Harper, 1961.
Willey, Basil. The Seventeenth Century Background: Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion. London: Chatto, 1934.