Book Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Preface to the First Edition -- Contents -- Folk, State, and Speech -- Anglo-Latin Writings -- The Old Tradition: Poetic Form -- The Old Tradition: Popular Poetry -- The Old Tradition: Courtly Poetry -- Religious Poetry: Cædmon and His School -- Religious Poetry: Cynewulf and His School -- Religious Poetry: Poems on Various Themes -- Secular Poetry -- Literary Prose -- General Characteristics of the Period -- The Survival of the Native Tradition (1100-1250) -- The Ancrene Riwle -- Anglo-Norman Literature -- Early Latin Writers -- Wit and Wisdom -- For Their Soul's Need -- The Arthurian Legend to Layamon -- The Romance: I -- The Romance: II -- The Omnibus of Religion -- The Lyric -- Richard Rolle and Other Mystics -- The Alliterative Revival -- Piers Plowman and Other Alliterative Poems -- Chaucer: I -- Chaucer: II -- Other Contemporaries of Chaucer -- The Beginnings of the Drama -- Ebb Tide -- Looking Forward -- Bibliographical Supplement -- Index.