English Medieval Literature

The English Medieval Literature group (previously Chaucer Group).

After completing our reading of Beowulf we’ve spent an interesting year expanding our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon poetry and Anglo-Saxon life in general with help from Kevin Crossley-Holland’s The Anglo-Saxon World. Readings have ranged from the Battle of Maldon, which ends frustratingly on a cliff-hanger (it turns out we lost) to the Dream of the Rood, a highly sophisticated blend of Christian and Pagan thought and from the Laws of Wihtred (including the gory details of Trial by Ordeal to the Passion of St Edmund).

In September we’ll be returning to the fourteenth century, embarking on Simon Armitage’s translation of Gawain and the Green Knight.

We are currently full, but please email the group leader to be added to the waiting list.