"While we understand intuitively what is meant when we label modern literature "popular," what does this term signify when we apply it to Middle English literature? The essays in this stimulating new work offer the first attempt to address this intriguing question. For example, what sort of literature is popular and for what reasons? Can we isolate structural properties in the literature that allow us to define it as "popular"? Does the term help us classify those Middle English texts or genres that seem to resist scholarly explication? In addition to answering such questions, these essays survey a broad spectrum of Middle English and shed light, for example, on such matters as the composition of the audience for popular literature; the role of the church in initiating and disseminating such works; the relationship that exists between the folktale and the literary tale; the structure of the medieval comic tale and its presence in late medieval England; the implications of the essential orality of early fifteenth century English civic religious drama; the virulent antisemitism contained in the often beautiful "Planctus Mariae" lyrics; and the prominence of women in the vernacular memoirs of the mystical tradition"--Back cover.