Professor Blake shows how a knowledge of the English language of the medieval period helps us to understand the nature and type of literature written then. He takes as his starting point the typical attitudes that a modern reader brings to any literary work and shows how our unconscious linguistic assumptions can easily lead us to misread earlier literature. As well as indicating some of the adjustments we should make in order to read medieval literature with profit, he provides the essential literary and linguistic background for students of the period who lack the traditional training in philology...