W. W. Greg and Medieval English Literature

Abstract

Greg had a developed interest in medieval literature that can be seen in more than forty books, editions, articles, and reviews. These included writings on palaeography and codicology, the Middle English lyric, Chaucer, alliterative poetry, and medieval drama as well as on more general questions of editorial method. This body of material is a neglected aspect of his oeuvre. Given the extent of W. W. Greg’s achievements in the fields of Renaissance drama and textual criticism, it is perhaps understandable that relatively little attention has been paid to his work in other branches of scholarship. But the range of Greg’s interests extended more widely. And his work on medieval English literature was a preoccupation particularly in the earlier stages of his career. His examination of subjects in this area encompassed a number of different genres and topics in which he evidently had a serious interest. Since no adequate biography of Greg exists there is some value in trying to set this largely ignored aspect of his scholarly career in perspective. In his posthumously published Biographical Notes 1877–1947 Greg talks about his academic interests in the first decade of the twentieth century and observes that: