A New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century offers a new narrative of what happened to English language writing in the long twelfth century, the period that saw the end of the Old English tradition and the beginning of Middle English writing. It discusses numerous neglected or unknown texts, focusing particularly on documents, chronicles and sermons. To tell the story of this pivotal period, it adopts approaches from both literary criticism and historical linguistics, finding a synthesis for them in a twenty-first century philology. It develops new methodologies for addressing major questions about twelfth-century texts, including when they were written, how they were read and their relationship to earlier works. Essential reading for anyone interested in what happened to English after the Norman Conquest, this study lays the groundwork for the coming decade's work on transitional English.

Mark Faulkner offers a compelling new narrative of what happened to English-language writing after the Norman Conquest of 1066.

About the Author
Mark Faulkner is Ussher Assistant Professor in Medieval Literature at Trinity College Dublin, where he is Director of the M. Phil in Medieval Studies. He is the author of the entry on Medieval Manuscripts for Oxford Bibliographies Online, and the co-author of the chapter on English in the Oxford Handbook of Language Contact.

Reviews
'This book makes a field-changing contribution to scholarship and cannot be ignored by any-one working on the literary, cultural, social, or linguistic history of England's High Middle Ages. It is a formidable achievement.' Laura Ashe, The Review of English Studies



Book Information
ISBN 9781316516096
Author Mark Faulkner
Format Hardback
Page Count 290
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 600g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 158mm * 22mm