100: The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature 1100-1500

The 100th post and I have something else up my sleeve...

Yes, I'm reviewing textbooks now. 

I feel it necessary as I'm doing my dissertation to pick on some vital aspects of some crazy textbooks I've been reading and to share them with you in hopes that you too, may buy and idolise these textbooks for some time during the course of study. 

Now, I'm using this one for my dissertation and after much plodding and twaddling - I've managed to make it to the end. Also, I'm sorry - but seeing as this is textbooks, there will be some technical language (I'll try to keep it at minimum) and spurting out random comments if I really hated the book ad nauseam. 

I won't be reviewing textbooks like I review fiction - but instead I'll be including these three sections:

- most useful information to me

- most challenging section to read

- what could be improved or expanded?

So, here we go:

Most useful information:

Well, the most useful section of this textbook was on Medieval Romance. I feel that it was well explained with a very wide range of sources and gave information on everything from adapting stilnovoism to chansons de geste. 

Most challenging section to read: 

Oh God, the whole section on Chaucer. Everything about Chaucer is a challenging read to me. Chaucer's section was quite challenging to me - purely because what I remember of reading Chaucer was that it took me around 2 months to read The Canterbury Tales. 

What could be improved or expanded? 

I think that a section purely dedicated to mystery plays should be in there somewhere. Mystery plays only get a very small section in the book and well - it's a little underwhelming. I would think that because of the expansion of dramatics - mystery plays (and miracle plays) would require to be better focussed on. Maybe just a chapter dedicated to mystery plays should be in order. 

Verdict:

I give this textbook 7/9

In terms of usefulness, it is quite useful. 

But, in terms of covering mystery plays - maybe not so. 

In terms of covering Chaucer though - it's heavy. Watch out. 



Ref: Scanlon, L. (2009). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature from 1100-1500. UK: Cambridge University Press.