Since for an increasing majority of students linguis-
tic is a means, not an end, the emphasis is on literary
criticism; and this has been widened by suggestions
from the other medieval fine arts. Both text and
notes are included in a single index. Guidance to
details of information is thus both made convenient
for reference and kept from interrupting guidance
in the course of literary history. Though Anglo-
Saxon literature is surveyed briefly to show the
earlier, epic habit, and the fifteenth century to con-
clude romance and contrast the ways of ballad and of
medieval drama, the focus is on the high middle age,
the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries.

The book supersedes my Introduction to English
Medieval Literature, published in 1914 and now out
of print. Though it contains, of course, many items
in that work, and even some pages, it both omits and
adds far more and recasts the whole treatment. It is
not a revision; it is a new book. Medieval studies
and the apparatus for pursuing them have increased
so rapidly in the interim that I have readjusted my
guide-book to the present situation and outlook.

C. S. B.

BARNARD COLLEGE

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

October, 1931

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