Editing and Interpretation of Middle English Texts

These fifteen essays, all published here for the first time, explore issues related to the editing and interpretation of Middle English literature. These include the treatment of various types of evidence (variant readings; punctuation; capitalization; rubrication; physical layout), in relation to both manuscript transmission and the transition from manuscript to print. The editorial representation of these and other aspects constitutes an act of textual interpretation at the most fundamental level, which subsequently influences scholarly understanding.

Two major fields of writing - religious texts and chronicles - provide the focus of this volume. Major works that receive attention include Trevisa’s translation of the Polychronicon, the Middle English Brut, Piers Plowman, Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, and John Mirk’s Festial; a wide range of shorter devotional and historical texts, in both verse and prose, is also considered, as are aspects related to the translation of texts from Latin and French into Middle English. Almost all of the contributors are experienced editors of medieval texts. Several contribute further insights into texts they have edited, whilst others discuss or offer new editions of previously unpublished works. Collectively, these essays foreground the many and varied matters of interpretation that confront the editor of Middle English texts.