Literary critic, poet and philologist as well as medievalist, with a particular interest in the powers and effects of poetic language, Marie Borroff brings the full range of her expertise to bear on problems of central importance in the poetry of Chaucer and his nameless contemporary, the Gawain--or Pearl--poet. This collection of essays, much of it previously unpublished, represents a major contribution to the study of late Middle English literature. Marie Borroff is Sterling Professor of English, Emeritus, at Yale University. Her verse-translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Pearl are well known, and she is the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Stylistic and Metrical Study, and a collection of poems, Stars and Other Signs, both published by Yale University Press.