The Oxford English Literary History is the new century's definitive account of a rich and diverse literary heritage that stretches back for a millennium and more. Each of these groundbreaking volumes offers a leading scholar's considered assessment of the authors, works, cultural traditions, events, and ideas that shaped the literary voices of their age. The series will enlighten and inspire not only everyone studying, teaching, and researching in English Literature, but all serious readers. Overstepping traditional period divisions, this volume in the new Oxford English Literary History runs from 1350 to the death of Henry VIII. It thus spans the extraordinary burst of English literary writing in the reign of Richard II; powerful phases of fifteenth-century literature; and the cultural revolution provoked by the split with Rome.
